Lincoln in the World

by Kevin Peraino

  69. Pease and Randall, eds., Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, v. 1, p. 515 (entry for Dec. 15, 1861); Warren, pp. 142–43 (Mrs. Slidell); Lincoln quoted in Monaghan, p. 187; Goodwin, p. 398 (“bulldog”).

  70. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 587, entry for Dec. 16, 1861; Jones, Union in Peril, p. 88 (“haggard and worn”); Howe, Life and Letters of George Bancroft, v. 2, pp. 147–48; Everett to Clay, Jan. 5, 1862, Clay Papers, Lincoln Memorial University. See also Warren, pp. 174–75. Norman Ferris reminds his readers that Bancroft “was an old political opponent of Seward’s” (Ferris, The Trent Affair, p. 244n25).

  71. John W. Forney reminiscence, in Progress, A Mirror for Men and Women, September 4, 1880. Michael Burlingame, in ALAL, v. 2, pp. 224–25, cites a slightly different version of this recollection from a transcribed copy in the Barbee Papers, Georgetown University.

  72. Burlingame points out that Lincoln “sought to influence public opinion through journalism written by his personal secretaries” (Burlingame, “Lincoln Spins the Press,” p. 65); Hay, Missouri Republican, Dec. 21, 1861, in Burlingame, ed., Lincoln’s Journalist, pp. 171–74; Hay, Missouri Republican, Dec. 20, 1861, in ibid., p. 167. See also ibid., p. xi.

  73. Weed to Seward, Dec. 7, 1861, Seward Papers, University of Rochester (“war footing”); Jenkins, v. 1, p. 222 (other letters); Weed to Seward, Dec. 10, 1861, Seward Papers, University of Rochester (“inevitable”).

  74. Weed to Seward, Dec. 10, 1861, Seward Papers, University of Rochester (“wholly misunderstood”); Weed to Seward, Dec. 25, 1861, in Seward at Washington, 1861–1872, p. 37 (“ransacking”); Weed to Seward, Dec. 7, 1861, Seward Papers, University of Rochester (dismissal). See also Donald, “We Are Lincoln Men,” p. 161 (Newcastle).

  75. Bright quoted in Ridley, Palmerston, p. 437 (“what a hoax!”); Cobden quoted in Jenkins, v. 1, p. 236 (“old dodger”); Bright quoted in Ausubel, John Bright, p. 125 (“hoary imposter”); Crook, The North, the South, and the Powers, p. 8 (bound Britain tightly); Palmerston to Cobden, Jan. 8, 1862, Palmerston Papers, British Library (“human nature”). See also Ridley, Palmerston, pp. 286, 495, 590.

  76. Cobden to Bright, Dec. 6, 1861, quoted in Jenkins, v. 1, p. 220 (“veto” and “courteous and conceding”); Bright to Sumner, quoted in Randall, Lincoln the Liberal Statesman, p. 143 (“At all hazards”); Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man, pp. 36–37 (met almost daily); Fillmore to Lincoln, Dec. 16, 1861, ALP, LOC; Sumner to Bright, Dec. 23, 1861, in RW, p. 433 (“no war”).

  77. Ferris, The Trent Affair, pp. 144–45 (“without instructions”), 148 (“We shall not have war”), 149 (“As to any Despatch”).

  78. Jones, Blue and Gray Diplomacy, pp. 34, 103 (physical description and CFA quote); Jenkins, v. 1, p. 82 (shocked some visitors); Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, v. 1, p. 407 (“croupier”); Warren, p. 216 (rumors of death); Martin, Life of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, v. 5, pp. 440–41 (Albert’s death), and 437 (“too awful”); Palmerston to [R?]osas, Jan. 5, 1862, Palmerston Papers, British Library (“deepest affliction”). See also Bell, v. 2, p. 281.

  79. Bell, v. 1, p. 325 (“exercise a religion”); Ridley, Palmerston, p. 529 (“ate like a vulture”); Clarendon to the Duchess of Manchester, Dec. 17, 1861, quoted in Maxwell, Life and Letters of George William Frederick, v. 2, pp. 253–54 (“very far”); Granville to Canning, Dec. 16, 1861, quoted in Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, v. 1, pp. 404–5 (“a little anxious”). See also Ferris, The Trent Affair, pp. 150–51.

  80. Wallace and Gillespie, eds., Journal of Benjamin Moran, v. 2, pp. 926–29, entries for Dec. 16, 19, 23, and 24, 1861 (London atmospherics); Adams, Education of Henry Adams, p. 119 (“glutton of gloom”).

  81. Wallace and Gillespie, eds., Journal of Benjamin Moran, v. 2, p. 930, entry for Dec. 26, 1861 (“unfit for his place”); Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams Jr., Nov. 30, 1861 (“greatest criminal”), and Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams Jr., Dec. 13, 1861, both in Ford, ed., Cycle of Adams Letters, v. 1, pp. 76 (“criminal”), 83 (“boots”).

  82. Marx to Engels, Dec. 19, 1861, in MAC, pp. 254–55.

  83. Palmerston to Granville, Dec. 26, 1861, Granville Papers, BNA (“Fool’s Paradise”); Morning Post (London), Dec. 30, 1861, quoted in Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, v. 1, p. 229; Russell to Palmerston, Jan. 7, 1862, quoted in Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, v. 1, p. 230 (“59 minutes”); Palmerston to Westbury, Dec. 31, 1861, Palmerston Papers, British Library. See also Ferris, The Trent Affair, pp. 150, 159–60.

  84. Pease and Randall, eds., Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, entry for Dec. 21, 1861, v. 1, pp. 516–17; Lincoln, “Draft of a Dispatch in Reply to Lord John Russell,” [Dec. 10? 1861,] in CWL, v. 5, pp. 62–64. See also ALAL, v. 2, p. 225; Ferris, The Trent Affair, pp. 175–77 (Bright’s influence, perils of arbitration), 242n19; and Crook, The North, the South, and the Powers, p. 158 (dangers of “procrastination”).

  85. Norman Ferris makes a compelling case for “the changed tone of certain newspapers,” and cites several of the examples I have noted in this paragraph. It seems unlikely, however, that Ferris would attribute this “changed tone” to Lincoln’s media savvy. See Ferris, The Trent Affair, p. 136.

  86. Ibid., p. 131 (“mere emotion”); Hay, Missouri Republican, Dec. 28, 1861, in Burlingame, ed., Lincoln’s Journalist, p. 178 (“bewildering flight”); Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 589, entry for Dec. 23, 1861 (“tremendous storm”).

  87. New York Tribune, Dec. 24, 1861; Crook, The North, the South, and the Powers, pp. 158–59.

  88. Pease and Randall, eds., Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, v. 1, p. 518 (weather and French minister’s letter); Beale, ed., Diary of Edward Bates, 1859–1866, pp. 213–16, entries for Dec. 25, 1861, and Jan. 1, 1862; Bright quoted in Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, v. 1, p. 232 (“make every concession”); Jenkins, v. 1, p. 227 (Chase’s view); Carroll, “Abraham Lincoln and the Minister of France,” pp. 148–49 (French letter). See also Goodwin, p. 399.

  89. Jones, Union in Peril, pp. 91–92; Goodwin, passim (a clever manager); Seward, Reminiscences, p. 189 (“compare the points”). David Donald suggests that in his handling of the Trent crisis, Lincoln “had maneuvered the Secretary of State into adopting the position that he had favored all along” (Donald, “We Are Lincoln Men,” p. 162).

  90. Pease and Randall, eds., Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, v. 1, p. 518 (“no war”); Porter, Campaigning with Grant, p. 408 (“loaded to the muzzle”); Seward, Reminiscences, p. 190 (“my own mind”); New York Times, Dec. 26, 1861; Ferris, The Trent Affair, p. 186.

  91. Pease and Randall, eds., Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, entry for Dec. 27, 1861, v. 1, p. 519; Fanny Seward Diary, entry for Dec. 27, 1861, Seward Papers, University of Rochester; Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man, pp. 38–39; Jones, Union in Peril, p. 92; Bancroft, v. 2, pp. 241–42 (“cheerfully liberated”).

  92. CG, 37th Cong., 2nd Sess., p. 177; Bancroft, v. 2, pp. 236 (“surrender”), 243–44 (New York Tribune, Dec. 30, 1861), 252 (“contraband”); Warren, p. 184 (“monument”). See also Jones, Abraham Lincoln, p. 62, and Jones, Union in Peril, p. 93.

  93. Porter, Campaigning with Grant, p. 408; ALAL, v. 2, p. 227. Gabor Boritt, analyzing Lincoln’s views on territorial expansion, notes that “[e]conomic development demanded peace. It also required England’s friendship, which was sorely threatened by America’s expansionist penchant.” (Boritt, Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream, p. 141.)

  94. Porter, Campaigning with Grant, pp. 408–9; ALAL, v. 2, p. 227.

  95. Francis B. Carpenter, “A Day with Governor Seward at Auburn,” July 1870, p. 55, Seward Papers, University of Rochester; Randall, Lincoln the President, v. 2, p. 50; Seward, Reminiscences, p. 190; Goodwin, pp. 400–401.

  96. Wallace and Gillespie, Journal of Benjamin Moran, v. 2, pp. 937–40 (entries for Jan. 2, 8, and 9, 1862).

  97. Warren, p. 216 (medicated); Granville to Canning, Dec. 19, 1861,
in Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, v. 1, p. 405 (“gout coming out”); Connell, Regina vs. Palmerston, pp. 359–60; Morning Post (London) quoted in Jenkins, v. 1, p. 239.

  98. Palmerston quoted in Ferris, The Trent Affair, p. 193 (“wary of the Yankees”); Palmerston to Russell, Jan. 19, 1862, Russell Papers, BNA; Bright quoted in Bigelow, Retrospections, v. 1, pp. 441–42, cited in Ferris, The Trent Affair, p. 153. See also Crook, Diplomacy, p. 157.

  99. ALAL, v. 2, p. 228 (New Year’s reception); Lincoln quoted in McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 368 (“out of the tub”).

  100. Blue, Salmon P. Chase, pp. 147–49 (Chase’s efforts, Belmont quote); Paludan, p. 109 (treasury broke, hoarding gold, etc).

  101. Paludan, p. 110; Boritt, Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream, pp. 206–7; Lamon, Recollections of Lincoln, pp. 215–19.

  102. Paludan, pp. 109–12. See also Bensel, Yankee Leviathan, pp. 2, 14, 18, 68–69, 152–53, 162–63, 236–37.

  103. For the Springfield tradition about Herndon seeking a diplomatic post, see Clinton Levering Conkling to A. P. Higley, Dec. 7, 1917; Clinton L. Conkling memo, Dec. 1917; Jesse W. Weik to Conkling, Feb. 11, 1917; all in Conkling Papers, ALPLM. For more on Herndon’s trip to Washington see Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, pp. 152–56, and Donald, “We Are Lincoln Men,” pp. 89–90. Donald dismisses the Springfield tradition and believes that Herndon’s trip was likely made on behalf of an acquaintance and “not in his own interest” (Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, p. 155). See also New York Evening Post, Jan. 21, 1862, typed copy in Barbee Papers, Georgetown University (“considerably careworn”); Milton Hay interview in the Illinois State Journal, Sept. 1, 1883, clipping in Ruth Randall Papers, LOC (“very sour”). Hay, for his part, later complained that he was misquoted by the reporter, acknowledging that Lincoln had offered his law partner a post that the younger man “had declined as unsuitable” but insisting that Herndon “felt no grievance” about the offer. (Milton Hay to the editor of the State Journal, in Wilson, Intimate Memories of Lincoln, p. 49.) For the joke about the old pair of pants, see Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes, pp. 294–95.

  104. Edward Lee Plumb to Thomas Corwin, Jan. 29, 1862, copy, Plumb Papers, LOC; Baltimore Sun, Jan. 30, 1862; Washington Evening Star, Jan. 29, 1862. See also The Lincoln Log, entry for Jan. 28, 1862.

  105. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 375–77 (date of launch, Times quote); Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, v. 1, p. 276 (Adams quote); Jones, Blue and Gray Diplomacy, p. 125; Charles Francis Adams diary, entry for Mar. 29, 1862, Adams Family Papers (Lady Palmerston’s reception).

  106. Clay to Seward, no. 17, Jan. 24, 1862; and Clay to Seward, no. 15, Jan. 7, 1862. Both dispatches in FRUS 1862, pp. 443–46.

  107. Lincoln to Queen Victoria, Feb. 1, 1862, in CWL, v. 5, p. 117.

  108. Baker, pp. 205–7; and Donald, Lincoln, pp. 335–36 (levee color); Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln, pp. 130 and 163–65 (chandeliers); Poore, Perley’s Reminiscences, v. 2, pp. 116–20.

  109. Monaghan, p. 219 (date); Keckley, Behind the Scenes, p. 103 (“hard, hard”); Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, pp. 132–33 (“my boy is gone”); Donald, Lincoln, pp. 336–38; ALAL, v. 2, p. 298; Baker, pp. 182 (Strickland), 216 (aping Victoria, bonnet, etc.); Mary Lincoln to Ruth Harris, [May 17, 1862,] in Turner and Turner, Mary Todd Lincoln, pp. 125–26.

  110. RW, p. 78 (“sweet communion” etc.); Baker, pp. 211, 219–20 (both Vic and Eugénie; Colchester and Brooks quote); Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln, pp. 186–87.

  111. Clay to Seward, Apr. 13, 1862, quoted in Monaghan, p. 214.

  112. Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, p. 117; Burlingame, Inner World, p. 23; Rice, ed., Reminiscences, p. 583. The most recent account of the Gordon episode is Soodalter, Hanging Captain Gordon (New York, 2006). See also Rowley, “Captain Nathaniel Gordon,” pp. 216–24.

  113. Milne, “Lyons-Seward Treaty of 1862,” pp. 511–14, 520. See also Crook, Diplomacy, pp. 68–69; Jones, Union in Peril, p. 118; Foreman, World on Fire, pp. 237–38.

  114. [Karl Marx,] “English Public Opinion,” New York Tribune, Feb. 1, 1862, in Marx, Dispatches for the “New York Tribune,” p. 305.

  CHAPTER FOUR: LINCOLN VS. MARX

  1. Franklin, Emancipation Proclamation, p. 94 (sunny, cool); Brooks, “How We Went aCalling on New Year’s Day,” Jan. 3, 1863, in Burlingame, ed., Lincoln Observed, p. 15 (“gold lace, feathers”); Fanny Seward diary, entry for Jan. 1, 1863, Seward Papers, University of Rochester (“full court dress” and lozenge trimming). See also Donald, Lincoln, p. 407; Goodwin, p. 498; Guelzo, Emancipation Proclamation, pp. 181–84; Foreman, World on Fire, p. 355.

  2. Scovel, “Personal Recollections of Abraham Lincoln,” p. 506 (exhausted); Brooks, “How the President Looks,” Dec. 4, 1862, in Burlingame, ed., Lincoln Observed, p. 13 (“hair is grizzled”); “Fredericksburg, Va., First Battle of,” in Faust, ed., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, p. 287; Pease and Randall, eds., Diary of Orville Hickman Browning, entry for Dec. 18, 1862, v. 1, p. 600 (“brink of destruction”). See also Goodwin, p. 498; Guelzo, Emancipation Proclamation, p. 181; ALAL, v. 2, pp. 468–69 (hadn’t slept); and Foreman, World on Fire, p. 355.

  3. Seward, Seward at Washington, 1861–1872, p. 151; Arnold, Life of Abraham Lincoln (Chicago, 1885), p. 266; ALAL, v. 2, pp. 468–69.

  4. Lincoln, “Protest in the Illinois Legislature on Slavery,” Mar. 3, 1837, in CWL, v. 1, p. 74 (“injustice and bad policy”); Lincoln, “Reply to Chicago Christians,” Sept. 13, 1862, in CWL, v. 5, p. 423 (“help us in Europe”); Guelzo, Emancipation Proclamation, p. 185 (copies shipped abroad).

  5. Holzer, Lincoln President-Elect, p. 33; Lincoln, “Speech at a Republican Banquet, Chicago,” Dec. 10, 1856, in CWL, v. 2, p. 385 (“Our government”); Lincoln, “Fragment: Notes for Speeches [Aug. 21, 1858],” in CWL, v. 2, pp. 552–53 (“In this age”); Herndon to Weik, Feb. 26, 1891, HW, LOC; Carwardine, Lincoln, p. 44 (Herndon quote); Nye, Soft Power, passim (“soft power”). See also Carwardine, Lincoln, pp. 47–48, 136, 184.

  6. Wheen, Karl Marx, p. 166 (British Museum); McLellan, Marx, p. 141 (Feuerbach); Marx quoted in Christman, ed., The American Journalism of Marx and Engels, p. xi (“The philosophers”); Marx, “A Criticism of American Affairs,” Die Presse (Vienna), Aug. 9, 1862, in MAC, p. 211; and Foner, British Labor and the American Civil War, pp. 11, 91 (“pressure from without”); Marx, Dispatches for the “New York Tribune,” p. xviii (largest in the world).

  7. McLellan, Karl Marx, p. 288 (“highly valued”); Mott, American Journalism, p. 271 (Great Moral Organ); Lincoln to Greeley, June 27, 1848, in CWL, v. 1, p. 493; Lincoln to Lyman Trumbull, Dec. 28, 1857, in CWL, v. 2, p. 430 (pored over the Tribune); Guelzo, Emancipation Proclamation, pp. 132–33 (mail slot); Harper, Lincoln and the Press, p. 101 (readers); Nevins, American Press Opinion, v. 1, pp. 112–13 (“great as any statesman’s”); Croffut, “Lincoln’s Washington,” p. 58, in RW, p. 123 (“about a ton”).

  8. Marx to Frederick Engels, Aug. 14, 1851, in MAC, p. xvi (“impudent”); Christman, ed., The American Journalism of Marx and Engels, p. xviii (“industrial bourgeoisie”); MAC, p. xv (“foremost”); Carpenter, Inner Life, p. 152; Marx quoted in Jones, Union in Peril, p. 156 (“As the American War of Independence”).

  9. Kissinger, Diplomacy, pp. 94 (Crimean War shatters Concert of Europe), 95, 102–3 (post-Crimean order), 106 (“days of principles”), 127 (Darwin, etc.). See also Herring, pp. 266–67, 271; Gabriel, locs. 2902, 6202; and Carwardine, Lincoln, pp. 190, 228.

  10. Gabriel is good on the creative spirit of the Romantic era; see locs. 1187–90, 1198. See also “Genius,” Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Simpson and Weiner, eds., v. 6 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 444.

  11. Blackburn, Unfinished Revolution, pp. 1–2; Marx, Capital, v. 1, part 3, ch. 10, sec. 7, in MAC, p. 20; Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, p. 16, cites the observation of an “Iowa Republican” to illustrate the party line. Lincoln would almost certainly have concurred with this s
entiment. See also Foner, Fiery Trial, p. 117. Gabor Boritt’s study of Lincoln’s economic vision skillfully analyzes the sixteenth president’s views on money and markets (Boritt, Lincoln and the Economics of the American Dream, passim).

  12. Marx, “A Criticism of American Affairs,” Die Presse, Aug. 9, 1862, in MAC, pp. 210–12; Whitney, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, p. 374.

  13. Marx, “On Events in North America,” Die Presse, Oct. 12, 1862, in MAC, p. 222 (“without intellectual brilliance”); Marx, “The Dismissal of Fremont,” Die Presse, Nov. 26, 1861, in ibid., pp. 109–10 (“mediocrities” and “aversion for all originality”); Marx, “A Criticism of American Affairs,” Die Presse, Aug. 9, 1862, in ibid., p. 211.

  14. “Shiloh, Battle of,” Encyclopaedia Britannica (Micropaedia), v. 10, pp. 739–40; John McClintock sermon, Apr. 16, 1865, in RW, p. 314 (“educated up to it”); McDougall, Throes of Democracy, pp. 429–30 (seven times Bull Run, “Romanticism expired”). The literature on Lincoln, public opinion, and slavery is vast, but especially insightful is Richard Carwardine’s Lincoln (New York, 2006), pp. 45–90, 190, 313. Lincoln’s “attentive but not subservient engagement with public sentiment,” Carwardine writes, provided “the essential basis … of his power” (Carwardine, Lincoln, p. 136). In a separate essay on Lincoln and the press, Carwardine points out that “[t]he Civil War marked a new phase in the history of American journalism” (Carwardine, “Abraham Lincoln and the Fourth Estate,” p. 2). Eric Foner’s Fiery Trial (New York, 2010) also includes a fascinating discussion of Lincoln and slavery in the context of evolving popular views. See Foner, Fiery Trial, p. xix. On Lincoln and public opinion, see also Holzer, “If I Had Another Face, Do You Think I’d Wear This One?” p. 57; Burlingame, “Lincoln Spins the Press,” p. 65; and Donald, Lincoln, p. 416. Richard Carwardine and Jay Sexton, in an engaging recent collection of essays, note how the nineteenth-century information age helped to shape Lincoln’s image abroad (Carwardine and Sexton, eds., The Global Lincoln, pp. 16–17, 21).