{"id":4277,"date":"2022-01-22T19:56:25","date_gmt":"2022-01-22T19:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/?page_id=4277"},"modified":"2026-02-12T15:20:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T15:20:26","slug":"lincolnian-diplomacy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-282pinsker\/course-syllabus\/lincolnian-diplomacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lincolnian Diplomacy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Who deserves more credit for the success of US foreign policy during the Civil War:\u00a0 Lincoln or Seward?<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

CHAPTER 6:\u00a0 “Last Best Hope”: The Union, the Confederacy, and Civil War Diplomacy, 1861-1877<\/strong><\/h3>\n

“The Civil War was part of a worldwide mid-nineteenth-century flowering of nation-building, a broader effort on the part of peoples across the globe to affirm, often through force of arms, their national identity.\u00a0 In Europe, Hungarians and Poles rose up in unsuccessful revolts against Austria and Russia.\u00a0 Modern nations took shape in Italy and Germany through military conquest.\u00a0 After a short war, the Swiss formed a federal union binding together cantons previously divided by religion.\u00a0 The Taiping ‘rebellion’ raged for years in China at gruesome cost; the 1868 Meiji Restoration converted Japan from a feudal entity into a modern nation-state.\u00a0 The quest for national identity extended to North America.\u00a0 With indirect U.S. support, Mexicans frustrated France’s attempts to reestablish an American empire.\u00a0 The threat of U.S. annexation during the Civil War forced Britain to shore up Canada’s vulnerability, leading in 1867 to creation of a united nation under a federal constitution with a centralized government.” (Herring, 224-25)<\/p>\n

–George C. Herring,\u00a0From Colony to Superpower:\u00a0 U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776<\/em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 224-25.<\/p>\n

\n

KEY PLAYERS<\/h3>\n

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1863)<\/h3>\n
\"Political<\/a>

From Punch magazine, October 24, 1863<\/p><\/div>\n

William Henry Seward (1801-1872)<\/h3>\n
\"Seward's<\/a>

Cartoon by Thomas Nast from Harper’s Weekly, April 20, 1867 (HarpWeek)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe architect of Union diplomatic strategy and the individual mainly responsible for its implementation was Secretary of State William Henry Seward. \u00a0Seward was in many ways a strange person: \u2018I am an enigma even to myself,\u2019 he once remarked. \u00a0A man of enormous energy, sloppy in appearance, he was also a genial host, a lover of fine cigars and brandy, a great raconteur, a person of such magnetism, Henry Adams once said, that he could \u2018charm a cow to statesmanship.\u2019 \u00a0A man of considerable vision and sophistication, he was also earthy and a total political animal. \u00a0He was brash, impulsive, and hot-tempered, given to bluster and threats. \u00a0But he was most dangerous, associates said, \u2018when he pretends to agree a good deal with you.’\u201d (Herring, chap. 6, p. 227<\/a>)<\/p>\n