Confederate Propaganda in Europe, 1861-1865 (review)

book reviews189 party affiliations, and other personal information beyond that found in the census schedules. It was not possible to assemble names of all local officeholders for every state, but an extensive inclusiveness provides firm foundation for the tabulations and analyses. With some exceptions the men studied are those in office at about the time of the two federal censuses used, 1850 and I860. The manner of selecting state and local officers in each state is traced through state constitutional developments, and the extent of popular election, progress toward universal suffrage for white men, and implications of apportionment arrangements are perceptively discussed. Ten summary tables located in the text sustain analytical passages, and forty-three pages of appendix materials expand in table form the collective biography by state for legislators and county governing boards. Southern officeholders were commonly middle-aged, southern born, and holders of substantial amounts of real and personal property. They were "predominantly agrarian in their sympathies and outlook." Both planters and plain people were well represented, but the proportion of planters and slaveholders was larger in 1860 than in 1850. No Southwide pattern of personal characteristics distinguished Democrats from their opponents. The author offers these and other interpretations of the significance or implications of his composite picture without being concerned primarily with applying his findings to issues on which his data may be brought to bear. The work is chiefly a meticulous frame of reference and a massive effort in descriptive statistics. Only a few tables are provided in percentaged form so that it is usually difficult to perceive at a glance the thrust of the data. Nevertheless, with the exception of a few of the tables used in the text, the decision to publish raw numbers probably provides the most convenient format for those who use the information in their own research. This volume must take its place on the growing shelf of collective biography that has become a necessity for many forms of investigating political history. Perhaps before the passage of many more years the full files of individual data so painstakingly and intelligently assembled by such scholars as Professor Wooster can be made generally available as computerized data banks take their proper place among depositories of historical materials. Thomas B. Alexander University of Missouri—Columbia Confederate Propaganda in Europe, 1861-1865. By Charles P. Cullop. (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1969. Pp. 160. $6.95.) Confederate diplomacy was developed initially in a state of serene assurance . The basis of this confidence was King Cotton, whose power was so great that it was expected to overcome the antislavery bias in England, the appeal of northern democracy to the European masses, and the im- 190civil war history proved relations between England and the United States in the 1850's. So self-assured were the Confederate leaders that they felt that events rather than vigorous diplomacy would decide the recognition issue. Additionally , Jefferson Davis was too busy organizing his administration and mobilizing the resources of the Confederacy to worry about such secondary items as effective diplomacy and the tangential action of organized propaganda. Despite the general ineptness of the early Confederate commissioners, those diplomats lamented to their state department about the northern monopoly in the supplying of news overseas. Their pleas went unheeded until Henry Hotze, a journalist from Mobile, Alabama, promoted a planned propaganda effort. Hotze learned of the dire need for advancing the southern viewpoint while on an official mission to Europe to check on arms shipments. Fortunately, Hotze advanced his plan at the same time when the Confederate government had realized the failure of its first diplomatic mission and was in the process of despatching Mason and Slidell to undertake a more active diplomatic role. Late in 1861, Hotze was commissioned to go to Europe to emphasize the South's ability to win, the tyranny of the Lincoln government, and to dangle the prospect of lucrative trade between an independent South and Great Britain. Because France would not intervene without England , the major propaganda effort was to be in Britain. To support the Confederate diplomatic efforts to obtain recognition, Hotze founded a newspaper called the Index, set up his own news service, trained...