The North, the South, and the Powers, 1861-1865 (review)

178CIVIL WAR HISTORY With the Democracy suffering from a leadership vacuum, the Republicans , led by former Democrat Simon Cameron, could combine leadership and popular principles into the best of Emerson's worlds. The author's most significant contribution, in the opinion of this reviewer, is his analysis of the 1856 presidential election. While too readily accepting the legality of all the votes cast, and therefore their validity as indicating public sentiment, he does show that Buchanan ran significantly ahead of the party's 1852 vote and, contrary to traditional explanations, decisively defeated Fremont and Fillmore, individually and collectively. Eschewing both the theories and methodologies of the "new" history, the author has contributed a traditional treatment of the antebellum era to a series, begun in the 1950's and containing volumes by S. W. Higginbotham, P. S. Klein, and E. S. Bradley, which traces the political events in the Keystone state since pre-Revolutionary times. David E. Meerse State University College, Fredonia, New York The North, the South, and the Powers, 1861-1865. By D. P. Crook. (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1974, Pp. x, 405.) The concepts of a balance of power between competing empires on both sides of the Atlantic, and the interdependency of the Atlantic world surviving both the Civil War and Napoleon's Mexican diplomacy , are major themes in this work. In addition to justifiably placing the United States within these contexts, the author, an Australian historian at Queensland University, has also taken issue with the "rhetoric of historians" such as E. D. Adams, who wrote during the developing rapprochment with Britain, and with "the wishful thinking of apostles of Atlantic unity since." The work is, basically, a narrative account and the "powers" of the title are mainly England and France, with little attention paid to other European nations. The opening survey, on the international setting of the war, defines the United States as an imperial power struggling to realise a mission that was diverted, but not halted, by the war, and was endangered, though not thwarted, by having to operate in an international setting that bound the nation to the Atlantic economy with economic, cultural and ideological ties and balance of power diplomacy. Against this background the author then discusses the familiar spectrum of Civil War diplomacy from Seward's early brinksmanship through the blockade, the Trent affair and the failure of interventionist moves to such peripheral issues as the Polish Boundary Question, Canadian Raids, Napoleon's Mexican imbroglio and the military events that dictated the denouement. The narrative synthesizes material from secondary sources in diplomatic , biographical and periodical literature with the author's own BOOK REVIEWS179 previous research into English newspaper opinion and adds some British Museum manuscripts on Palmerston and Russell. However, apart from Hansard, some consular materials from Havana and information based on American, including a few Confederate, newspapers , there is little evidence of work in primary manuscript sources. Unfortunately, the work reflects the weaknesses of studies of American history by writers limited in time and distance to European , particularly British, research locations. The author appears to have accepted the opinions (even quoting them if need be) of several of his secondary accounts a little too easily. One reads of Napoleon III as presented by Case and Spencer and of Seward through a condensation of Van Deusen's biography. This reviewer also finds it strange that the author should admit that he was unable to consult a dissertation on the Trent affair microfilmed and available since 1969 (p. 106). The book lacks balance on at least two planes. Less attention is paid to Confederate relations with the two principal powers, mainly, it would seem, because of the location of available sources rather than as a result of any deliberate desire to over-emphasize British and Northern relations. The Confederacy thus gets short shrift with some newspaper accounts but very little on Benjamin or the Davis cabinet's analysis of foreign policy. Why the Confederate stance was taken on matters such as the cotton embargo or overseas loans still remains a mystery at the end of this work. Neither does French policy receive the heavy emphasis that is accorded to a study of British policy...