Abraham Lincoln, Englishman?

I am still working on a post (or two) about the Abraham Lincoln statue in Lytle Park in Cincinnati and came across this article. It certainly provides information to help my story, but goes far beyond what I need and delves into an interesting view on British memory and perception of Abraham Lincoln during the  era of the World Wars.

This story is really interesting. I have learned about the concept of historical memory in the lad few years since joining the blogosphere, but seeing English views on an American President was new, and quite fascinating, for me. It describes the "cult" of Abraham Lincoln in England, and how some people, in politics and popular culture, tried to use his family history and beliefs as well as English political tradition to portray him as a product of Englandand to create a common bond between the two nations in the first half of the twentieth century., especially during the war years.

It is definitely worth a read.

Some foreign coverage of the Crisis

Another interesting note from the Covington Journal, portraying positive news (or at least opinions) for the Confederacy from foreign countries.

The Havana papers publish in detail the news from the United States and comment voluminously on it. The Prensa says:

The confusion which must reign in the United States, with the calling out of the militia and the preparations for war, can scarcely be conceived. The general dissatisfaction, however, manifests itself in a thousand different ways; because the people will understand that the result of all these sacrifices will be that the drama will end where it ought to have begun, with the recognition of the independence and nationality of the two section into which the old republic is already divided,and the conclusion of treaties of amity and commerce. But, in the mean time, disaster is to succeed disaster without the possibility of remedy. What blindness on the part of the Republican party and President Lincoln!


This newspaper also carried this tidbit: The London Times, the most influential newspaper in the world, evidently sympathizes with the Confederate States.

Optimistic Report: France and England Swinging Towards the South

From the Covington Journal, April 27, 1861 comes this overly optimistic article.

There can be no longer any doubt that France, England, and all the leading European powers will promptly acknowledge the independence of the Southern Confederacy. In addition to the utterances of Le Pays, the Moniteur, Napoleon's chief organ, has come out in an article that looks boldly to that end, and says plainly that the interests of France, under the two tariffs are with the Southern States. We have always predicted that England, notwithstanding her Abolitionism, would be compelled by her interest to take the same position; but certainly we had not anticipated that, at this early period, we should see leading English journals catering with ardor into the defense of the Southern character, and criticizing with bitter scorn and irony Mr. Lincoln's inaugural. Thus, for example, the London Athenaeum, the great critic king of the English world of letters, which, a few years ago pitched into Prof. Bledsoe's great article on slavery with such ferocity, has a long review of American affairs, from which we make the following extracts:

"And nothing is more likely to goad the South into an obstinate perseverance, in their present position, than a mere reiteration of the charge that they are mere wordy braggarts. A more foolish calumny than this was never uttered in the heat of political warfare. That which is grandest in the history of the American Confederacy is to be found in the biographies of Southern men. The South has her faults; but cowardice and trickery are not amongst them. The author of "A Memoir of Abraham Lincoln" whose scanty and barren pages have no strength save that of acrimonious partizanship (sic), sneers at the 'bluster' of the hot-blooded South. He may be assured that the English, to whom he especially addresses himself, by no means attribute a preponderance of trans-Atlantic 'bluster' to the South."

And who would ever have expected to find in a London journal such an intelligent and conclusive criticism as that of the Athenaeum upon Lincoln's anti-secession speech at Indianapolis. In fact, we have scarcely seen anywhere a clearer, more concise and comprehensive statement: 


"We must express our astonishment at the use of such language by a lawyer. The American Union is a combination of independent States, leagued for the accomplishment of definite objects, and free to retire on the condition of their Union being violated. What right can a State have to secede? Why, the same right the colonies had to revolt, and a much stronger right - that enjoyed by every partner in a joint stock company. What, asks the President of the United States, is the difference between a State and a county?  Surely no one who needs to be informed ought to be in Mr. Lincoln's place. - What is the difference between the relations of a State to the Union, and that of a county to a State? Why just this - a county has no existence apart from the State. The State was the primary institution, and the county acquired from it only a conditional individuality; whereas, the Union, instead of giving birth to the States was their creation. Far from being the parent power, it is their offspring. Apart from them it ceases to be;whereas apart from it the States continue to be separate communities with distinct constitutions, as they were long before they created that impersonal power - the Union. Indeed, the analogy breaks down at every point. "


The world moves! But yesterday the South had not a hearing in all Europe. Already the leading journals in France and England are vieing with each other in vindicating  her character and principles.

"The Beginning of Slavery's End": A poem

These verses were apparently published in London's Punch Magazine shortly after Abraham Lincoln's election as President of the United States. I don't know if any Northerner who favored the abolition of slavery could have summed up their thoughts and beliefs in verse much better than this.

I found it republished on page 133 of Abraham Lincoln: The Year of His Election, A Cartoon History by Albert Shaw (The Review of Reviews Corporation, 1929).  Unfortunately, as I did some brief research on it, I found a link to Google books that showed that the version I found was missing a few verses, only printing what this link showed to be the first, second, fifth and final verses. I have transcribed the entire poem from this link.

Thus far shall Slavery go, no farther;

That tide must ebb from this time forth.

So many righteous Yankees are there, 

Who Good and Truth hold something worth, 

That they outnumber the immoral

Throughout the States, on that old quarrel

That stands between the South and North.

The great Republic is not rotten

So much as half; the rest is sound.

Most of her sons have not forgotten

Her own foundation; holy ground!

The better party is the stronger,

And by the worse will now no longer

Bear to be bullied, ruled and bound.

The nobler people of the nation

The baser sort no more will stand,

Nor cringe to truculent dictation

Enforced with strength of murderous hand,

By ruffians, for example, brawling

To back slave-soil against free land.

Their higher-minded fellow creatures

Of all these brutes are tired, and sick

Of slavery's blaspheming preachers,

That snuffle texts with nasal trick

To justify the abomination

That's cherished by their congregation

Whose feet these canting parsons lick. 

Enough of frantic stump-haranguing,

Invectives of a rabid Press,

Tarring and feathering, flogging, hanging,

To stop free mouths; the mad excess

Of human-fleshmongers tyrannic

Who rant and revel in Satanic

Enthusiasm of wickedness!

This is America's decision.

Awakening, she begins to see

How justly she incurs derision

Of tyrants, while she shames us free;

Republican, yet more slaves owning

Than any under Empire groaning,

Or ground beneath the Papacy

Come, South, accept the situation; 

The change will grow by safe degrees.

If any talk of separation,

Hang all such traitors if you please.

Break up the Union? Brothers, never!

No; the United States for ever, 

Pure Freedom's home beyond the seas!