Lincoln the President (March 4, 1861 to May 3, 1865)

Seitenzahl:

194

Gewicht:

290 g

Erschienen bei:

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Kurzbeschreibung

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III FOREIGN AFFAIRS There is an ancient story, which was a favorite with Lincoln, of a hunter who at a critical juncture in a fight with a bear prayed: " O Lord, be on my side if you will, but if you won't, don't help the bear! " At the same time that the President was endeavoring to win Maryland, Kentucky, and' Missouri to the Union cause, and, failing in this, to prevent their joining the Confederacy, he was exerting every available influence of his Administration to maintain cordial relations with European governments and to block the strenuous efforts which the Confederacy was making tossecure from them recognition as a nation. He chose most admirable men for his foreign ministers. For the two most important countries, Great Britain and France, his choice was particularly happy. Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, who was accredited to the Court of St. James, was the grandson of one President, and the son of another, both brave and brilliant men, and he had inherited their qualities. William L. Dayton, of New Jersey, who went to the French court, was a man whom Lincoln revered for his higfi character, and whom he had been anxious to honor from the day when hisown elevation to dignity and power was assured. That the illegitimate, but then powerful government of Louis Napoleon, and likewise the aristocracy or ruling power of Great Britain, would deeply sympathize with, and aid any movement to enfeeble, humiliate, or destroy our Government was nowise in doubt. And it also was assumed that England must, at all hazards, secure the cotton crops of the South, and to this end would accede to any reasonable commercial treaty which would enforce the autonomy of a government composed chiefly of the Cotton States. In fact, had it not been for this belief, the S...

Mehr über...

Mehr von: 

Mehr von:  Henry Clay Whitney, Cambridge Scholars Publishing