Abraham Lincoln and China

[Karen S. Campbell]

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...w=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).