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Abraham Lincoln and China - Karen S. Campbell - 08-01-2012 01:14 PM
Since I'm interested in both Abraham Lincoln (since my childhood) and China (ever since I visited the Orient in 1971), I have developed an interest in Lincoln's foreign policy concerning China and Asia in general. Because of Britain's large presence in China in 1861, the Americans living in Shanghai felt threatened because Britain was seriously considering declaring war on the North, if the Civil War came. The American Civil War could have easily been extended to China and our ports in the Pacific if Great Britain entered the war. See great article: "A Little Trouble in Big China" by Stephen R. Platt ( N.Y. Times, "Opinionator," http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/a-little-trouble-in-big-china/)
The lives of Frederick Ward (a soldier of fortune who mettled in the Chinese civil war of that time) and Anson Burlingame are interesting in and of themselves! Anson Burlingame was appointed ambassador to China by Lincoln in 1861. It is interesting to note that Lincoln scholar, Michael Burlingame, is related to Anson. Anson Burlingame was a strong abolitionist and Republican. He helped to found the Republican Party. He established an excellent relationship with China due to his refusal to follow the standard imperialistic policies of the rest of the western powers inthere. Consequently, he was well liked and respected by the Chinese government. this led to the "Burlingame Treaty of 1868."
I want to read the commissions and the correspondence between Lincoln and Burlingame (located in the Lib. of Congress) to determine Lincoln's opinion and direction concerning Asian policies. Burlingame also corresponded with Sewart.
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Craig Hipkins - 08-01-2012 06:10 PM
Karen,
Excellent information on a topic that gets very little attention regarding Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's foreign policy is often overlooked due to the urgency of his domestic policy. It was, however, a very important part of his administration. If he had handled the Trent Affair with a little less tact he might have been fighting a war on two fronts. The Royal Navy would have destroyed American commerce and it is likely the Union would have gone down in flames.
Also, great Blog!
Craig
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Karen S. Campbell - 08-01-2012 11:19 PM
(08-01-2012 06:10 PM)Craig Hipkins Wrote: Karen,
Excellent information on a topic that gets very little attention regarding Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's foreign policy is often overlooked due to the urgency of his domestic policy. It was, however, a very important part of his administration. If he had handled the Trent Affair with a little less tact he might have been fighting a war on two fronts. The Royal Navy would have destroyed American commerce and it is likely the Union would have gone down in flames.
Also, great Blog!
Craig
Craig,
Thank you. I'm putting together a bibliography. So far plan to read "Imperialism and Idealism: American Diplomats in China, 1861-1898" by Daniel L. Anderson (1985) and ""Abraham Lincoln Deals with Foreign Affairs: A Diplomat in Carpet Slippers" by Jay Monaghan (1945). I also know that William Steward appointed his nephew George as consul to Shanghai in 1861. I'd like to find out how directly Lincoln was involved in the China policy, or, was this primarily Steward's bailiwick? It doesn't seem that Lincoln had any personal interest in Asia. He and Mary were hoping to travel to Europe and then to the Holy Land after his term in office, but, I don't believe they planned to go further east.
Seems to me that the U.S.foreign policy of the time was an extension of the "American System" of Henry Clay and the Whigs to issues oversees, especially aimed at constraining the commerce and aggressiveness of the British Empire. Consequently, Russian diplomacy is intrinsically linked with Chinese diplomacy. Maintaining good relations with Russia during the Civil War would discourage England from entering the war on the side of the South. The "American System" was also essentially anti-imperialistic and egalitarian.
There are a lot of issues to look into!
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Thomas Thorne - 08-02-2012 12:08 AM
Lincoln's most famous Oriental story is alas untrue. King Mongkut of Siam sent letters to President Buchanan offering to ship elephants to America for heavy lifting and transportation. The King's last letter on the subject was replied to by President Lincoln who pointed out that elephants were ill suited to the United States.
In "The King and I " King Mongkut's letter was altered to suggest that he wrote to Lincoln and offered to send war elephants to crush the rebellion. It would have been a wonderful sight to see Union war elephants unleashed to stop Pickett's charge.
I found the actual text of the Mongkut-Lincoln letters on the June 2011 newsletter of HistoryBuff.com.
Tom
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Karen S. Campbell - 08-02-2012 12:02 PM
(08-02-2012 12:08 AM)Thomas Thorne Wrote: Lincoln's most famous Oriental story is alas untrue. King Mongkut of Siam sent letters to President Buchanan offering to ship elephants to America for heavy lifting and transportation. The King's last letter on the subject was replied to by President Lincoln who pointed out that elephants were ill suited to the United States.
In "The King and I " King Mongkut's letter was altered to suggest that he wrote to Lincoln and offered to send war elephants to crush the rebellion. It would have been a wonderful sight to see Union war elephants unleashed to stop Pickett's charge.
I found the actual text of the Mongkut-Lincoln letters on the June 2011 newsletter of HistoryBuff.com.
Tom
Dear Tom,
Sadly there are so many things about "Anna and the Kings of Siam" and the "King and I" that aren't true. But, the book/movies have created an iconic unrequited-love story. It all goes back to Anna Leonowens herself who did everything in the world in her books and during her life to disguise the fact that she was Euroasian. King Mongkut was around 60 years old when she worked in Siam. Even so, I still love the "King and I" and I wept through "Anna and the King" with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat!
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - RJNorton - 08-02-2012 02:46 PM
I do not know how accurate this is, but I had this in my files regarding the elephant offer (English translation - I am assuming the original letter was not in English?):
"If the President of the United States and Congress, who conjointly with him rule the country, see fit to approve, let them provide a large vessel loaded with hay and other food suitable for elephants on the voyage, with tanks holding a sufficiency of fresh water, and arranged with stalls so that the elephant can both stand and lie down in the ship. We, on our part, will procure young male and female elephants, and forward them, one or two pairs at a time. When the elephants are on board the ship, let a steamer take it in tow, that it may reach America as rapidly as possible, before they become wasted and diseased by the voyage. When they arrive in America, do not let them be taken to a cold climate out of the regions of the sun's declinations or torrid zone , but let them, with all haste, be turned out to run wild in some jungle suitable for them, not confining them any length of time. If these means can be done, we trust that the elephants will propagate their species hereafter in the continent of America. It is desirable that the President of the United States and Congress give us their views in reference to this matter at as early a date as possible."
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Laurie Verge - 08-02-2012 03:57 PM
Wow - and Jefferson Davis was going to bring over camels while he was still in the U.S. Cabinet in order to carry the mail to the West Coast.
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Karen S. Campbell - 08-03-2012 03:07 AM
I found the official response to the assassination of Lincoln from the Chinese government in the "Appendix to Diplomatic Correspondence of 1865: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, etc." (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1866), pp.41-42. Can read at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=sUxhMGkvjR4C&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=Abraham+Lincoln+and+China&source=bl&ots=OT65EB_pva&sig=O8JyXdq4IZBXCwz3Mok4kiU_vpQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GIEbULjmJ-2N0QGN7oDYAQ&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=Abraham%20Lincoln%20and%20China&f=false
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Karen S. Campbell - 08-04-2012 01:07 PM
I found a detailed article by Norman B. Ferris entitled "Lincoln and Seward in Civil War Diplomacy: Their Relationship at the Outset Reexamined," (The Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association," Vol. 12, Issue 1, 1991, http://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0012.105?rgn=main;view=fulltext. In this article and in his book "Desperate Diplomacy: William Henry Seward's Foreign Policy, 1861" (1976) Ferris argues that William Henry Seward did not invent a "foreign war panacea" in an effort to unite the North and the South when faced with a foreign war and possible invasion of the Western hemisphere by European powers. This idea was promoted by Seward's political enemies (i.e. Gideon Welles), even long after Lincoln was dead. Many 19th century scholars wanted to inflate Lincoln's role in forging foreign policy by presenting him controlling Steward and his foreign policy. Actually, Lincoln and Steward became great friends and worked well and collaboratively. Lincoln trusted Seward and he Lincoln. Lincoln himself said he was not terribly interested in foreign policy, only in light of its effect on domestic turmoil. Seward was most effective in resolving the Trent Affair. His over-all foreign policy was based in non-interventionist expansion primarily through trade (non-Imperialistic although ambitious). Seward said in 1846: "Our population is destined to roll its resistless waves to the icy barriers of the north, and to encounter oriental civilization on the shores of the Pacific." Seward encouraged the acquisition of Midway and our initial involvement in Hawaii. He is most famous for his "folly," Alaska.
American non-Imperialism approach was much appreciated by China, for example, in comparison to the Imperialism of Britain which had won the two disastrous Opium Wars forcing China to cede over Hong Kong and other ports in China. The foreign policy of the Lincoln administration emphasized non-intervention in sovereign nations and recognized China as such, officially in the "Burlingame Treaty of 1868."
The "sovereignty of nations" is a very important concept in political Confucianism, which was the official (and at that time, a rather rigid) political/philosophical theory and administrative structure of the Chinese Imperial government. England, and other European powers, were carving up China's sovereignty to its great embarrassment!
Even today, one of the key policies of the People's Republic of China is national sovereignty and its reluctance to interfere directly in other sovereign nations, i.e. any intervention in North Korea, even for humanitarian reasons, and its rejection of North Korean refugees escaping to China. Modern China diplomats point to Abraham Lincoln in admiration as an advocate of national sovereignty. He fought a horrible war to preserve the Union, the national sovereignty. The Chinese/oriental tendency, due to old Confucianism, is to value the nation above the individual.
Lincoln did fight a horrible war and American diplomats concerned with Chinese human rights violations should respond in return that Lincoln realized he could only preserve the national sovereignty by the destruction of American slavery (one of our terrible human rights violations).
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Thomas Thorne - 08-04-2012 02:38 PM
(08-02-2012 12:02 PM)Karen S. Campbell Wrote: Dear Tom,Dear Karen
Sadly there are so many things about "Anna and the Kings of Siam" and the "King and I" that aren't true. But, the book/movies have created an iconic unrequited-love story. It all goes back to Anna Leonowens herself who did everything in the world in her books and during her life to disguise the fact that she was Euroasian. King Mongkut was around 60 years old when she worked in Siam. Even so, I still love the "King and I" and I wept through "Anna and the King" with Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat!
I did not realize that Anna Leonownes was Eurasian. I have been told that Boris Karloff was her great nephew. He should have been in "Abraham Lincoln,Vampire Hunter."
Tom
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Craig Hipkins - 08-04-2012 05:03 PM
(08-02-2012 03:57 PM)Laurie Verge Wrote: Wow - and Jefferson Davis was going to bring over camels while he was still in the U.S. Cabinet in order to carry the mail to the West Coast.
If I recall, some of these camels were reportedly seen in the American southwest up until the early 1900s. Another thing that I remember reading about is that the camels could not be stabled with horses because apparently the horse did not like its smell!
Craig
RE: Abraham Lincoln and China - Karen S. Campbell - 08-08-2012 02:35 AM
Today I got a copy of Jay Monaghan's "Abraham Lincoln Deals With Foreign Affairs: A Diplomat in Carpet Slippers." There are some interesting tidbits in it about China. I"m going to start reading the book.