Fruits of Propaganda in the Tyler Administration (review)

354CIVIL WAR HISTORY it has not always been acquiesced in by others. On several occasions, Presidents, congressmen, and scholars have insisted that responsibility for interpreting the Constitution rested with each of the coordinate parts of the federal government. In the 1850's there were those who believed that state governments shared this responsibility equally with the federal government. Wells' contention that Douglas' strong political support along major midwestem rivers was owing in part to his championship of river improvement projects overlooks strong opposition in these same areas to financing such improvements with a tonnage tax. Believing Douglas was primarily a political being bent on political advancement, Wells gives slight attention to the "Little Giant's" positive legislative accomplishments. Consequently, the view of Douglas' final years is not as complete as it might otherwise have been. Douglas emerges as an anchronistic leader of a party "hell-bent" on self-destruction. His economic nationalism and amoral attitude toward slavery were insufficient in an age of politicians appealing to moral absolutes. Throughout the 1850's an ever increasing number of northerners found slavery incompatible with republican institutions. Simultaneously , growing numbers of southerners believed slavery necessary, not only to their economy, but also to maintain control of an allegedly inferior race. Consequently, his pragmatism and his conservatism were out of step with the times—not far enough for the South, too far for the North. This thoroughly researched, well-written monograph should find a prominent place on the shelf of all interested in the events leading to the attempted dissolution of the Union. Roger D. Bridges Illinois State Historical Library Fruits of Propaganda in the Tyler Administration. By Frederick Merk. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. Pp. x, 259. $9.00.) It is always tempting to read the present into the past, and Frederick Merk's awkward but revealing title, "Fruits of Propaganda in the Tyler Administration," offers a variety of temptations to the reader. Governmental secrecy, Presidential manipulation of the press, the Secretary of State's hidden funds are all exposed in Tyler's handling of the delicate relations with Great Britain and with Texas. But when has it ever been otherwise in the practice of diplomacy? The major distinctions between statecraft in the Old and New Worlds have been that underhanded dealings in the latter are both more susceptible to disclosure and more open to rebuke from moralizing constituencies. Except when Professor Merk briefly comments on the morality of desirable ends emerging from questionable means he ignores the applicability of the methods of Tyler's time to his own. Merk had other purposes in mind in piecing together this book. His essays fit easily into the pattern of his studies on Manifest Destiny which he has book reviews 355 developed over the past generation. In the first of the two principal chapters which comprise the body of his work he shows how a relatively obscure lawyer and politician, Francis O. J. Smith, prevailed upon the Maine legislature to accept a boundary settlement that public opinion had opposed vigorously for decades. In the second, he analyzes the paradox wherein a well-known political propagandist, Robert J. Walker, preached convincingly to northern antislavery audiences that the admission of Texas to the Union as a slave state was a vital step toward removing slavery from the United States. Merk observes that Tyler enjoyed striking success with his techniques and his policies in both Maine and Texas. Not that propaganda was a new tool in American politics; its use, along with the secret distribution of funds, go back to the beginning of the nation. What distinguished Tyler's activities from his predecessors' was both the intermixture of foreign and domestic issues—local Maine politics and high diplomacy with Whitehall—and the President's skill in addressing different audiences with conflicting messages. Southerners would be urged to support Texas annexation to protect slavery interests, while northerners were told that by accepting Texas they would be assuring the eventual emancipation of slaves in the United States. In light of such artful persuasion Tyler's reputation should be higher than it is. Merk's implicit explanation for the neglect is that he suffered from repudiation at the hands of both...