https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-31-2025
"On April 1, 1861, Secretary of State William Henry Seward wrote an astonishing
letter to President Abraham Lincoln. Less than a month after Lincoln had taken
office, Seward had little faith in the apparently uneducated president from the
raw West and was angry that the Cabinet had overruled him to provision South
Carolina’s Fort Sumter rather than evacuating it. Seward was convinced that he,
rather than Lincoln, should lead the administration.
Seward complained that Lincoln had not yet established “a policy either
domestic or foreign” and said he had figured out the solution to the nation’s
political crisis, in which seven states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas—had seceded from the Union in the weeks
after Lincoln was elected president but before he took office. “[W]e must,”
Seward wrote, “Change the question before the Public from one upon Slavery, or
about Slavery for a question upon Union or Disunion.”
The way to do that, he wrote, was to rally Americans around the flag. To do so,
he told Lincoln, “I would demand explanations from Spain and France,
categorically, at once. I would seek explanations from Great Britain and
Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico and Central America, to rouse a
vigorous continental spirit of independence on this continent against European
intervention. And if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and
France, Would convene Congress and declare war against them.”
Modestly, Seward concluded: “Either the President must do it himself…or Devolve
it upon some member of his Cabinet… It is not in my especial province. But I
neither seek to evade nor assume responsibility.”
In other words, Seward proposed taking charge of the U.S. government from the
elected president, and then bringing Americans together by starting a war with
Spain, France, Great Britain, or Russia—who was on the other side really didn’t
matter. A crisis could be created with any of them. The point was to quell
dissent at home by turning Americans against another country.
Lincoln spoke directly to Seward about his letter and then dropped the matter,
leaving the secretary of state’s preposterous suggestion on the floor like the
lead balloon it was. The two went on to forge a strong relationship, with
Lincoln as the head of the administration and without starting a war with
another country.
But Seward’s missive demonstrated a historical truism: when one country invades
another, it usually reflects the problems of the invader’s domestic politics,
no matter what the justification for the invasion is."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
