Into the civil war in support of the confederacy. This is about 45 minutes. [applause] thank you. It is great to be back at the Lincoln Library. I did some of the research, spent many happy days down the hall scrolling through newspaper microfilm wheels and letters across the hall. It is doing research at the Lincoln Library which is a great and terrible thing. It is great because the people are absolutely amazing to more people like eileen you is an expert in Foreign Policy in her own right, people like dr. James cornelius, the curator of the lincoln connection who is a living, breathing, encyclopedia of all things lincoln. Those are the good things. The terrible thing is when you are here to research youre surrounded by the 15,000 books about Abraham Lincoln that have already been written. And so i think it is a stark reminder that anybody who comes here and asks you to put another book on that shelf really has some explaining to do right at the beginning. That is what i wanted to start out by doing because i came to lincoln in a kind of backwards way. My book is about his Foreign Policy, which is something that has been written about and frequently. And my background is in journalism, not academia. I was working as Foreign Correspondent for many years, mostly in the middle east reporting of the ground in places like syria, libya, yemen. So i was used to covering Foreign Affairs of the street level. Went through a time several years back where i really wanted to take a step back and look at some of the frameworks of american Foreign Policy, some of the traditions. And so i started reading. As started studying from the early days of the republic through postworld war two empire building. And i discovered the diplomatic history is surprisingly small an Academic Field of seven former pakistan a ambassador say, you know, americans of the only was it when they say that is history, they mean that is irrelevant. He had a point. There is some truth to that. When i guess that i felt like studying el americans acted historically in International Affairs would lead to a deeper understanding of the way we act now. So i kind of stumbled across this time, but i was sucked in right away first and foremost because the characters are absolutely amazing. They are like something out of a novel. You have cassius clay to mulligans minister to russia. John hague, like his personal secretary described clay as 0. 25 worth of yellow cover grummans. You have charles sumner. One journalist said that he works his adjectives so hard that if they ever got him alone he would murdered them. You have the british Prime Minister said that he could be longer little to history, but much more to fiction. You have the strongwilled strongly antiamerican french empress. The story is told is indicative of her character that she once stabbed herself and the arm with the dagger approved after she was. Then you have likened himself. And for all that has been written there has been very little about his Foreign Policy. There has not been a holistic he minicab in nearly 70 years to when that is before the papers were made public. There are a few reasons. We think of the civil war as a domestic conflict. There is an awful lot toyota now another reason is that lincoln had a very powerful and shrewd secretary of state. Lincoln delegated a lot of daytoday diplomacy. If you situate him in the center of his own Foreign Policy you end up with a a a year part of my approach is and how you slice it. A great length in biographer once said that if you compare him to teddy roosevelt, woodrow roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt he did not do all that much, but what he did do was important. My approach was to be selective in the kayfive key episodes. One of the reasons is is possible to do this is there has been a genuine and astonishing boom in lincoln scholarship, and they dont just mean the quantity, but the quality of books coming in right now. Of want to explain how scholars have done this. Because there been so many biographies of lincoln some of the greatest historians have written about him had become themselves figures of the importance. They leave their research materials, note cards to University Libraries are libraries of congress or other scholars who can flip through the end of cards. Yet to be careful, fact check, but is useful because historians can look for bids that ended up on the cutting room floor the an Old Newspaper clippings, net cards conditions of the primary sources admit that were to offer me of a project like this mary lincoln, and images for is a difficult person to lead a difficult life, three of her children died in her lifetime and sour as necessitated flow in many ways she was more cosmopolitan as did criminal been lexington. Harris didnt family, a did not appreciate. He likes to say when he was good enough for god, but not for the talks. When i dug into the research i found that she play a role. She tried to influence diplomacy. When you get to the papers the past historians i found contemporary newspaper clippings that i had not seen anywhere else the bid values the talked about her interfering in diplomatic matters, trying to get her candid its appointed to various posts. That was interesting to me and relevant, so i included it. One of the things that drew me to this time were some similarities between the mid19th century in our own time, and i dont want to overdo this because in one sense there is no comparison. Britain was the worlds economic superpower, but there are a number of other powerful players on the worlds stages. Still a major player even after the napoleonic wars. Russia was a rise in power. Spain was quickly becoming less important. And so on the one hand it is the stage of nationalism, these competing powers in the end up with great, powerful, self interest to statesman. At the age of blood and iron its coming. Famous for saying britain had no internal friends, all the national interest. Napoleon the third. And that will read you this fantastic description. He said, napoleon is a man of middle height, cold, pale, slow, looks like he is not quite awake a steamed by women who want to become prostitutes and made you want to become prefects. That is what were dealing with. Now, many selfdescribed realist foreignpolicy thinkers think were headed in that direction again. Emerging markets rise. Instead of acting like the sole superpower the u. S. Will pursue its selfish interests, and in many ways we see that happening already. The other interesting thing is that it was also an information age. The world was shrinking. booktv to the telegraph, the steamship, this huge boom. At the same time these national complex it taking place other forces are bringing nations closest together. In a diplomatic world it meant nothing was private. The complaint diplomacy has so few secrets. 150 years ago. Karl marx was a contemporary, and he wrongly predicted the globalization will leave lead National Differences to disappear. He wrote for the new york tribune at this time, a paper with circulation of 200,000 in the United States which lincoln read. Threat 1850s to mess up riding. So lincoln had to deal with this globalizing world with all of the advantages and drawbacks. On the one hand he had the capability to speak directly to ordinary european newspaper readers, and he did. He viewed the emancipation proclamation barley is the tool of the International Relations. Eat that ordinary europeans might put pressure on their wrist to credit statesman to keep from intervening if the war he was partly right about that. Lincoln also had to deal with the downside, the lack of diplomatic privacy. I dont know if you remember this. Josie jussive. They called him the twitter mall he was tweeting of things about president obama and secretary carry and they finally uncovered this guy and fired him. Lincoln had his own version of twitter, this guy that really reminds me of joseph, a polish count to was working in the state department and published his diary at the height of the civil war and called lincoln pig had lincoln in said that his job was to keep steward for making a fool of himself. This guy had to be fired, just like joseph. So i think in the end he did a pretty good job of keeping his head among water amid these competing currents of 19th century right. His background was provincial. He was naturally diplomatic. But european diplomats tell of white lie, he would tell a story , a joke, and move off. Francis carpenter said his laugh was like that they have a wild horse. That was a useful tool in the diplomatic world. When you hit the broad material, that was impressive. Right at the beginning of lincolns term their road there is hardly a court in europe which has not had such a specimen of the american character in its worst form. Politicians read the diplomatic corps mostly as dumping ground, placed this send inconvenient radicals and abolitionists. In diplomatic posts were also considered extended vacations. We were talking about this. A great theme of Herman Melville strike trying to convince lincoln to appoint him to a council ship. You dont get to hone your diplomatic skills. You want a vacation. One of my favorite anecdotes about a group of men who come to ceiling in and try to get their candid it appointed as an envoy to the sandwich island, modernday hawaii. Then make their case on merit and then say, you know, our guide is sick. That climate and the islands would be really good for him. And he has this great line. Gentlemen, unfortunately i have eight other applicants for that job and theyre all more sick than your man. The irony is that lincolns friends tried to offer him come 1841, going through a bout of depression. His friends wrote to Danny Webster and said to me you know, he should send lincoln to colombia. Very depressed, not doing well. This would be good for him. And Daniel Webster not entirely surprisingly turned on them. But by the time we get to the civil war lincoln had put some diplomats since. A vein in volatile person. He would sometimes tipped his hat that he was also competence. His minister to britain was also a skilled diplomat, but he had to overcome his share of turkeys also. His minister in paris ended them dying in theyre tell room of what Carl Sandburg called the woman not his wife. John hagens serve that almost no one could actually speak french. So it is impressive that lincoln was able to do what he did the nature of power. Lincoln felt that foreign wars would diminish americas strength and even before the civil war. He posted the origins of the night Economic Growth was the legal was awake before he was a republican. He explained that the party did not believe an enlarging fields the keeping offenses where they are this is not the same as isolationism and he was a vigorous proponent of Economic Growth at home and abroad. The whigs were looking at asian export markets. So i think his basic conception of the nature of American Power was sound. And ultimately when you look wing kin was successful. The rest the european powers would intervene was a real possibility that lincoln ultimately avoided. A very real possibility. Ultimately the unification of the nation that lincoln resided over helps set the stage with the United States emergence as a world power later. They realize this. If you look at cartoon is in punch magazine, at the beginning of the war the characters depicted him as a group called. By the end of the war they had changed in showed a fierce to a powerful figure. It was clear from the imagery that lincoln and past a certain kind of test. It once said that democracies are decidedly inferior to other forms a government when it comes to handling International Relations. When you looked at todays headlines is sometimes feels like he was right i was reading a book by the father of containment. And even he, even he describes democracy as an international affair, a monster the size of this room with the brain the size of penn. That is what he said. This is an american command idea that is out there among experts in International Affairs lincolns experience proved it is possible for a democracy to thrive in the International Arena even amid acute crises that no. Dont want to go through every Foreign Policy crisis. What you to read it and buy it, but i want to talk about one in particular because i think it is a good representative. Toward the beginning of the war france debated mexico. By 1863 french troops conquered mexico city. By the following year napoleon the third had installed his puppet of the mexican thrown. In the middle of this domestic crisis lincoln had a major jealous of the monroe doctrine. You might say what could linkedin do. Is that really have a choice. He can and do anything about mexico, but he did have a choice Many Americans were urging him to take action, specifically to invade mexico. There were people who thought the union and Confederate Army should reconcile, in vague command drive the napoleonic troops out. In a peace conference the vicepresident made this case, members of the penny press, and some of lincolns advisers. At times he seemed to share that view. A visitor recalled in saying, and napoleon interfered in the war will be dandified of kid and million man march into mexico. He liked to talk tough. He resisted [laughter] and the guy looks at him and says, well, if those are my choices i will go through the will. Lincoln told the story a number of times, specifically when he was asked to intervene in foreign conflicts, which he was a couple of times. Asked to intervene in a dispute in the caribbean and later in the war in mexico which we already talked about. So he if the choice led right to hell and the other went right to damnation lincoln said that he would take to the would tend to stay at of it. The comparison is not exact because the United States is in a much better position today to act then me or in the 19th century, but the most of the time lincoln displayed pretty good judgment about these kinds of things. I dont want to leave you with the impression that i think he was perfect in International Relations. He was not. He made his share of mistakes. To give one example, he was a longtime advocate of colonization. Some Research Suggests that he favored colonization until the end of his life. If you want to start an argument talk to lincoln scholars about this subject, but it is obvious in hindsight that there are serious moral and practical implications, problems with that and even some of his contemporaries called mnemonic. Seward said, im always in favor of bringing men into this country, never for sending them out. That was an error in judgment on lincolns bar when it came to Foreign Affairs. It also risks antagonizing the colonial powers in europe which was the last thing the lincoln wanted to do in the middle of the war. Some of point is not that lincoln did everything right in International Affairs. He did not. And he probably would have a balance as much. When it comes to Foreign Affairs that in itself is important. The great observer of International Affairs likes to say that our greatest error in International Relations is the error of forgetting that we are men and thinking where guns. We are not. Lincoln was not either and need that in his bones. He could not forget it. And so now 150 years later when our ability to act in the International Arena seems limitless i hope we do not forget it. Thank you very much. [applause] i would be happy to take any questions. What did lincoln actually do, look at some examples, keep informed, the president , the embargo, course, but of the diplomatic things that he might have done. The most important thing that he did was recognizing what the true interest of the european powers really were the statement in places like britain and france what kind of well, there is a kind of gleeful this, they like to talk about the decision that is states of america. After bull run he called the yankees run. There is this kind of visceral excitement at seeing the that is states go, but it was not really in britains interest to intervene. They had problems at home and there were strong commercial and financial ties between the United States and britain. Britain was the u. S. Largest creditor at the time. France is even more interesting because france britain had been the historical enemy of france. The napoleonic wars were not that much earlier. France saw a united united space United States as a potential counterweight. It was not so much in frances interest are even though napoleon talked about it all the time. But i think linkedin was really good at recognizing what these interests really were then not doing something to mess it up. Reseeding crisis after crisis. We see it in his response to the mexican crisis, at the beginning of the war, and his caribbean policies. That was the biggest thing in my view. Right. The hopes of the south rested on king cotton and that after lincoln blockaded the coast the Manufacturing Districts and britain and france were hurting. There were not getting they were getting come from other sources but there were not getting the raw material that they were once getting from the self. So the above seven states mend that the power of king cotton would cause to intervene on the side of the confederacy. It did not happen for a variety of reasons. They did manage to get caught, the british and french did manage to get come from other sources. Another reason was ordinary european workers tended to moral appeal to them. Lincoln viewed the emancipation proclamation as a tool of International Relations reid can speak directly across the atlantic to the european workers and tried to get into appeal to their sense of justice and try to get into apply pressure on the aristocratic statement. He was not totally right. That is a limited power, as we know. We call it soft. Soft power has its role, but it is not always as powerful as we would like to think that it is. But it did work in the long run. There were enormous monster meetings workers rallied the union cause. In the short term, the latest scholarship shows that in the short term it actually, the emancipation proclamation, spurred intervention of the half of the british because of the british statesman. The disorder of the slave revolt. They live to revolts in india in the late 1850s. So that was one of the most dangerous moments of the war, and lincoln was wrong about that he thought that an emancipation proclamation would immediately lead to universal support in europe. He was out exactly right, but in the long run he was right about that. [inaudible question] if you would address that trend of fair and the interplay between lincoln in seward and polymer. I would like to hear you address that issue a little bit more. It came in and sell 1861. A union naval captain intercepted the british mail package in the caribbean into a couple of confederate diplomats of the ship, sent them to a prison of the east coast and said the ship on its way. And there is this really interesting dynamic going on. Im the one hand is that the telegraph in north america and you can flash bulletins from place to place in north america and get your news instantaneously. On the other hand, the transatlantic telegraph is still not yet working. So it took a week, 10 days or longer to get news across the atlantic. This had a couple of upside than downside. The downside was a week or 10 days in a diplomatic crisis a lot of time for misunderstanding. The upside is that a week or 10 days is a lot of time for passion to cool. That is ultimately what happened in the trenton crisis. But that kind of scholarly debate about the trade crisis is who is friday. Its kind of parlor game among historians. The seward with advocating most of the evidence suggested seward with advocating to release the man relatively early on. Most of the evidence linking kind of was making a show towards keeping the diplomats until the end when seward convinced him to release. That sort of version of the story misses the point a little bit. First of all, there is some evidence that lincoln was talking tough, but actually preparing the ground to movies to diplomats. Theres a reminiscence from a newspaper man in washington at the time remembers lincoln coming to him and say that what you to start preparing your readers. We have to release these guys, but i cant get too ahead. Start writing articles to let people know. The other thing is i think it kind of misses the point of how president ial decisionmaking is made. Its not a static thing. You dont say one person says dont release them, the other person says release them. Opinions change as new pieces of information come in. Look at the cuban missile crisis. In the early days, kennedy says lets bomb cuba. Later on he says dell. Cooler heads realized the blockade is a better solution. President ial decisionmaking involves. What is important in the situation is lincoln in the end made the right decision. He listened to the voice of reason and he made the right decision and more was supported. Are you aware of any circuit dances in which advances the Nail Technology he and strategy had a big impact on the world of international diplomacy, specifically naval assets of the work . You know, i dont get into it. Theres some great monographs about this issue. But i dont get into any great detail in the book because a lot of the naval staff is not enough that lincoln was intimately involved in. Dont get me wrong. Lincoln as the famous quote. He says i dont know much about the navy. I dont know much about money come in diplomacy. That is lincolns character. He had a patent on a device for raising naval vessels and, you know, he saw a early designs of ironclads in certain things. Its not something that i go into in great detail in the book aside from the trenton chapter. Speenine gavin, do you want to tell us about your next book . No. Not yet. Ask me in x months. I am not i was going to ask during the course of the war, the confederacy was seeking to attain weapons from abroad with private vessels being built abroad. How did lincoln and his administration react to that to put pressure on these countries to not eat the confederacy . Yeah, this is another topic that i dont get into in great detail. Its a really important topic in the diplomacy of the civil war. The issue of privateering is the treaty of paris that theres all kinds of back and forth. Its a really important issue in the first year of the civil war. I dont get into in great detail because i didnt get the sense that he was sent into lincoln was deeply involved in. It was something that seward was involved in. He did this; is to look at those things that lincoln was involved in. There definitely books to be written. Maybe its in your next book about the spy wars going on because there was an awful lot of this spirit spying encounters fine, confederate ship programs in europe and trying to prevent the ships being built in britain and leaving britain and escaping and being outfitted elsewhere for war with the huge spying operation on the union power to try to locate these and prevent this from happening. Some of these things were resolved until long after the civil war, the alabama claims come if youre familiar with that. It was a lasting and important issue, but in my view im not sure how much looking at it tells us about the care they are. It tells us something about diplomacy at the time, but not so sure about lincoln. Youve mentioned stewart on several occasions, helping out tremendously in lincolns Foreign Policy. What made him unique for this job . On a basic level, he was better traveled than lincoln was. He had been to europe a couple of times. He had gone as a young man in 1833 and he went to and just you for the civil war in 1859. And so come the u. S. In more cosmopolitan, more worldly than lincoln once. He was better read in International Law and some of the kind of nuanced his of diplomacy. But he had his flaws. He was staying and he was hot tempered and hotheaded. At the beginning of the war, the episode people talk about most often is the april fools memo if youre familiar with it. April 1st 1861, seward wrote lincoln mmo. The backdrop to this is the french have reannex Santo Domingo and the caribbean. Stewart writes to lincoln says we should demand they withdraw. If they dont, we should declare war on spain and also maybe france. And also if nobody else is somebody needs to take over this job, i can do it. Lincoln writes back and he accepted some recommendation, although not the foreignborn recommendation and he made clear that if anybody was going to take charge of that, he would. So that was a moment for linking kind of title that a little bit. By the end of the war, they essentially locked in lockstep on a lot of important issues. They were essentially in lockstep on that. He described as each other sober second thought. It was almost like a husbandandwife relationship or sometimes lincoln was right. That kind of argue with each other and together decisions that would move them in the right direction. Thank you for the issue [inaudible] we cant hear you. Can you talk more we can hear you. [laughter] i was just being at the forefront, take him for talking about mexico in the issue they are with mexico. But i wanted to also address, if you do when the book, dealing with canada and the omission of the africanamericans that where they are and what was the diplomatic part or the diplomacy that was going on with lincoln. Was it any influence to what he did with the emancipation . I dont go into great detail about canada, it plays into what we were talking about a little bit before some of the reasons why the United States and britain specifically did not go to war. The commercial and trade ties. It was vulnerable to attack. It was one of those reasons why one of those multitude of fact is why it wasnt necessarily in british or american entries to get into a conflict. There are other books that treat this in the canadian issues specifically in greater detail, mostly because you dont have a whole lot of scenes or moments of lincoln saying heres what i want to do about canada. It was part of the factor. It wasnt one of the central pivotal moments in my view in its Foreign Policy thinking. Driving under the war, the United States is borrowing heavily to cover the cost of the war inventing a new kind she. Did lincoln play did he consider that to be a Foreign Relations issue . Or did he leave that all to the secretary of the treasury . He left a lot of it tcm and chase. There was a lot of hopes of securing financing, especially earlier in the war. After the trent affair, there is a lot of complaints about how difficult that have become at the beginning of 1862. But i think more than coming in now, a bigger Financial Economic factor is worth looking at during this period are some of the innovations that lincoln not just lincoln, but the congress at this time made in financing. Those are more important in terms of the United States immersion says the world power later in the century. Things like the issuance of greenbacks, which took ways for the first time in 1862 i began to knit the United States together in a monetary union. Things that the First National income tax, which allowed the government to extract the measure of resources from the country at large. Some of those domestic financial innovations, those arent on lincoln, by the way. They mostly came from congress in passing congress. But i think those things are more useful thing to look at in terms of the United States emergence as a world power. The United States private heavily throughout the period leading up to the civil war. This was one of the kind of week conundrums that the party at the time. On one hand there is this kind of historical animosity with britain after the revolution, after the war of 1812. On the other hand, we depended heavily on european money to finance internal improvements and to build roads and canals in all these things that were also reports a night you in creating the nation that would later become a world power. So it was some thing that people are always thinking about talking about, even before the civil war. Thank you very much. [applause] for the 30th annual Miami Book Fair international on the campus of miami dade college, congresswoman Debbie Wasserman schultz discusses her book, for the next generation a wakeup call to solving our nations problems. This is about 45 minutes