"Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom" traces the events surrounding Lincoln's fight to keep the European Powers from intervening on the side of the Confederacy. Without help from abroad the Confederate cause was virtually doomed; the leadership in Richmond compared their fight with that of the Revolutionary War of 1776-81 and the importance then of the active intervention of France. The stumbling block for the leaders of Britain and France in 1862 was slavery in the Southern states. While the upper classes who led these European nations were sympathetic to the South, the middle and working classes were against slavery and thus for the North.
What makes this book interesting is that it goes beyond high school level history and shows the complexities of British politics and French imperial ambitions. What happened was neither straightforward nor obvious. The twists and turns of diplomacy are shown along with the mistakes of ambitious leaders and politicians in stark contrast with the stubborn, steadfast policy of Lincoln himself.
The book has flaws, luckily, not many. The most notable one is the style of the writing. I suspect that Howard Jones, a history professor, is used to writing for his professional colleagues rather than the general public. The result is a bit turgid and does not read easily.
Abraham Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong but legally protected by the Constitution. This initial stance never changed. He had said in his speeches that a nation half slave and half free cannot endure. He had considered the option of paying for slaves in the South. He had considered moving slaves to another country, as did James Monroe, to Liberia. He said that he would accept some slaves as free and others not - whatever it took to keep the union intact. He believed that slavery would die by stopping its expansion.
Expansion had been stopped by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, but the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repealed it, and the Dred Scott decision, which declared it unconstitutional, meant that slavery would grow. Lincoln knew that only by ending slavery would the nation endure.
The Emancipation Proclamation, though considered by some to be effete because it did not free all the slaves, placated the western states and urged the slaves to desert the South to join the fight. Some 50,000 did. England now realized that the destruction of slavery was the main issue and recognition of the Confederacy was no longer viable. Without England as an ally, the ambitions of France were doomed.
Historian Allan Nevins said, "No battle, not Gettysburg, not the Wilderness, was more important in the contest waged in the diplomatic arena and the form of public opinion. It is hardly too much to say that the future of the world as we know it was at stake."
Had Great Britain and France recognized the South, the rest of the world would have followed. Fortunately for the Union, the Anglo-Franco rivalry stopped intervention. While both nations claimed to be anti-slavery, their true intentions were nefarious. For Great Britain, a Confederate nation to the south of the United States and Canada to the north would have left the United States between two non-friendlies and no threat to Great Britain. Napoleon still had designs on Mexico and even the western United States in the establishment of a dictatorship friendly to him in the form of Maximilian. England's Palmerston and France's Napoleon were "...self-appointed keepers old world order...."Only Russia among the larger nations was in accord with the Union (sound familiar) because of the Czar's tenuous hold.
In Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth Of Freedom, historian Howard Jones focuses intensely on Abraham Lincoln's strong belief that slavery was immoral and must be destroyed for this nation to find "a new birth of freedom" as expressed in the one nation theme of the "Gettysburg Address" and the unfulfilled promise of the Declaration of Independence. This theme repeats throughout the book's 192 pages of text and illustrations (the remainder of book is notes and index) as though Jones were lecturing with pedagogical "foot-stompers". If one comes away with a different idea of Lincoln's beliefs, he or she has missed the point.
In a sense, Jones stretches the theme of diplomacy since it could be stated in a few hundred words. In fact, the entire book could easily be condensed into a standard magazine article or monograph.
That being said, Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom is a book that I have heavily underscored, read deliberately, and will keep for re-reading and reference in my library. If one does not have time for the entire book, I suggest they buy it for reference and its pregnant prologue and epilogue.
Mark WittParrish, Florida