Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War. By Howard Jones. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Pp. 1-191.)

            Among the countless tomes penned about Abraham Lincoln, Howard Jones found none adequately analyzed Lincoln’s role in foreign policy, prompting him to try to fill this gap with Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War. The effort to analyze Lincoln’s thought on slavery, Civil War foreign policy, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, and the internal political machinations of Britain and France results in a sometimes-muddled narrative. Multiple major themes run throughout the narrative. Lincoln came to see the Civil War as a path to an improved, slavery-free Union (a vision most fully presented in the Gettysburg Address). Self-interest guided France and Britain, meaning Confederate efforts to trumpet the righteousness of their cause were vain. The Emancipation Proclamation placed the Union on the right side of the slavery issue. Northern threats to make war on anyone who intervened carried great weight in Britain and France. The outcome of the war depended greatly on international diplomacy. Jones raises these points repeatedly.           

He emphasizes Lincoln’s pragmatism – while dedicated to liberty and Union, Lincoln acted within the constraints of what people would tolerate and what the Constitution permitted. To preserve and perfect the Union, Lincoln had to effect Southern defeat on the battlefield but also prevent European meddling. Jones argues that Lincoln himself always regarded slavery as a fundamental part of the war but, for domestic political reasons, initially denied that the war about slavery. This inadvertently gave European observers the impression that slavery was not a factor and left them free to regard the war purely in terms of their self-interests. Many Europeans, fixating only on Confederate successes in Virginia, deemed the Union cause hopeless and called for mediation to end the pointless bloodshed.

            While the British opposed slavery, they also feared the results of emancipation. They worried that if they pushed the Lincoln administration too far, some precipitate action by the desperate Lincoln administration would unleash a devastating slave insurrection and race war. Jones argues that the Confiscation Act, Lincoln’s call for gradual emancipation, and related actions fit into Lincoln’s growing emphasis on anti-slavery at home, but also aided diplomacy with Britain. Some Europeans saw the extreme bloodshed at Antietam as a compelling reason to mediate a peace. Nonetheless, the Union’s threats of war against any meddlers and the reality that any intervention would be a tacit boon to Southern slaveholders kept the British from acting.

The Emancipation Proclamation embodied Lincoln’s dual desires to preserve Union and end slavery. Jones deems it “the defining moment of the Civil War because it promoted the presidents central goal of preserving the Union and...further closed the door on foreign intervention” (146). However, it did not immediately end the possibility of European involvement. British leaders did not grasp the idea that emancipation could be a means to save the Union. Other foreigners, not recognizing the constitutional limitations under which Lincoln labored, disparaged the limited scope of the proclamation. Overall, though, the British people responded favorably to the proclamation.

The sense that the proclamation had resolved the slavery issue gave French interventionists a sense of license. With slavery officially on the path to extinction, Napoleon III felt free to pursue imperial intrigues with the Confederacy without the stigma of upholding slavery. Another French argument indicated Union promises of abolition meant nothing in light of Americans’ record of violating Indian rights. An alliance with the South would supposedly enable France to push for true reforms. Napoleon III dreamed of a New World empire and hoped for a Confederate buffer between his Mexican puppet regime and a weakened Union. The French considered recognizing the Confederacy when it seemed like a way to solidify the Mexico scheme, but backed away when they realized intervening would provoke Union backlash against the Mexican project. Jones argues that Napoleon III’s quixotic diplomacy gave the South false hope that may have prolonged the war.

            Irony fascinates Jones, and he repeatedly draws attention to actions whose results he finds ironic. A further irony, then, is that the complexity of Jones’s narrative sometimes hinders readers’ comprehension of a story he desired to make accessible. While his insights can be incisive, the number of themes he tries to address and the somewhat repetitious way he bounds among them do no favors to his work. His research seems extensive, and a very brief bibliographic essay lists notable literature regarding Lincoln, emancipation, and U.S. relations with Europe during the war, for scholars who wish to delve further. This work could be of utility to some specialists in the field.

Jonathan T. Engel

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Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom: The Union and Slavery in the Diplomacy of the Civil War. By Howard Jones. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 236.)

Howard Jones argues that the outcome of the Civil War depended as much on international diplomacy as it did on battles.  Lincoln sought victory over the Confederacy on the battlefield, but also worked to prevent European intervention that would have assisted the South.  Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom reveals that Lincoln’s evolving views on slavery, emancipation, and the Union itself influenced debates in Europe—mainly in Britain and France—over intervention on the South’s behalf.  Jones makes a noteworthy contribution to existing scholarship on Lincoln and Civil War diplomacy with this volume, especially in his use of European sources.

            Jones begins with a chapter on Lincoln’s pre-war views on slavery and emancipation.  Although he did not like slavery, Lincoln believed that the existence of the institution was a political-constitutional issue rather than a moral one.  Recognizing slavery as a constitutional right, Lincoln throughout the 1850s sought indirect remedies for stopping the spread of slavery.  He also promoted colonization of freed blacks.  Lincoln believed that slavery would die out once it stopped spreading, and was therefore alarmed by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed for the expansion of slavery.  Although he spoke more and more adamantly against slavery—even stressing that it was an immoral institution—Lincoln held rather moderate views on the slavery question until well into the Civil War.  It was only the growing magnitude of the war that “dislodged him from this restrained position” (20).  By the time he delivered the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Lincoln had come to believe that the destruction of slavery was essential to the preservation of the Union and the existence of liberty.  He also recognized, according to Jones, that a declaration of emancipation was the only way to block European intervention

            European nations watched as Lincoln’s views and policies regarding slavery evolved.  As Jones shows, slavery was a central issue in the debate over whether or not Britain and France would attempt to mediate or extend recognition to the Confederate States.  Initially, both the North and the South asserted that slavery was not a central issue in the war and Europe took this claim at face value.  With the moral issue of slavery downplayed, Britain and France were able to analyze the problem from an economic and—in the case of France—imperialist perspective.  But the leaders and citizens of both countries could not justify the defense of the South while slavery still existed.  Jones reveals that many associated the image of the North with that of freedom while they perceived the South as the bastion of slavery (57). 

            The existence of slavery in the South was a constant problem for Europeans who wanted to intervene on behalf of the Confederacy.  Advocates of mediation identified many reasons why it was in their interest to intervene and secure southern independence.  All of Europe would benefit economically from a quick resolution to the conflict and a return of southern cotton to world markets.  Many Europeans believed that southern independence was a fait accompli and that intervening would help bring the war to an end.  Stopping the fighting was of particular concern for humanitarians, who observed the bloodshed of 1862—particularly the battle at Antietam—with horror.  Neither side appeared to have a clear advantage in the war and, to many Europeans, this meant that a long, bloody, and costly war would endure without their intervention. 

            Lincoln’s talk of emancipation initially prompted Britain and France to continue talks of intervention.  Many European leaders believed that Lincoln’s plan for emancipation was a disingenuous ploy meant to incite slave insurrections in the South and ignite a race war.  The fall of 1862, after Lincoln delivered his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, was a time of crises for European nations as they debated intervention.  Only in the early months of 1863, when the Proclamation went into effect without widespread slave insurrections, did Britain realize Lincoln’s genuine hope to end slavery; the British ceased all talk of intervening.  France, however, took the end of slavery as a justification for getting involved in the Americas.  Napoleon III was motivated by imperialist aims in the western hemisphere (centered on Mexico) and with the moral issue of slavery gone he thought he could freely defend the South.  Ultimately, however, the fear of war with the Union ended French plans for intervention.  Even though European interventionists stayed active through 1864, by the fall of 1863, all official talk of European intervention stopped.

Jones succeeds in proving that international diplomacy was an important element in the Civil War.  Until 1863, European intervention remained a constant danger for the Union and a continual ray of hope to the Confederacy (120).

Jensen Branscombe                                                                           Texas Christian University