Ohio History Journal

LINCOLN'S MINISTER TO MEXICO

by J. JEFFERY AUER

Associate Professor of Speech, Oberlin College

Among the incongruities facing Abraham Lincoln in 1861

was the fact that his minister to Mexico would hold America's

most important diplomatic post.¹ Although France and England,

the chief consumers of southern cotton, were powerful nations,

possessed of great maritime strength, in the event of a Union

blockade of the South they could continue the cotton trade only

through the gateway of Mexico. The bitter memories of the

forties, when her northern provinces were lost to Yankee Manifest

Destiny, made it not inconceivable that Mexico would be willing

to aid the South by opening the gate. Confederate leaders were

alert to this possibility; they made the winning of Mexican

friendship a focal point of their diplomacy. If France could be

persuaded that the Civil War nullified the Monroe Doctrine, the

southerners reasoned, she might intervene in Mexico; then Con-

federate support for Napoleon III and his dreams of empire

might be traded for French recognition of the Confederate

States. If France recognized the South, the hope went, Great

Britain would surely follow. Thus a southern diplomatic triumph

in Europe might be born in Mexico.² It is not to be wondered,

then, that Lincoln believed the mission to Mexico "perhaps the

most interesting and important one within the whole circle of

our international relations.^"3

To this critical post President Lincoln appointed Thomas

Corwin, the colorful and popular "Wagon Boy of Ohio." From

his first election in 1821 to the Ohio legislature on an anti-

1 Carl Schurz to Mrs. Schurz, March 28, 1861, in Joseph Schafer, ed., Intimate

Letters of Carl Schurz, 1841-1869 (Vol. XXX, Collections of the State Historical

Society of Wisconsin, Madison, 1928), 252-253.

2 See Burton J. Hendrick, Statesmen of the Lost Cause: Jefferson Davis and

His Cabinet (New York, 1939), 109-117.

3 William H. Seward to Thomas Corwin, April 6, 1861, in Senate Executive

Documents, 37 cong., 2 sess., No. 1, I, 67.

115

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116 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

Federalist ticket, representing Warren County, Tom Corwin had

become one of the foremost national champions of the Whig

party. During the thirties, when the Whigs produced only

minority reports, he served five terms in congress; in the forties

he was elected for one term as governor of Ohio, and for another

as United States Senator. Through these years he served his

party well, barely second in leadership to Webster and Clay;

he crystallized and led the opposition to the Mexican War; and

he fought both the expansion of territory and the extension of

slavery in an effort to compromise the crisis question of his day.

In 1852, when the Whig party died of acute indecision, he was

secretary of the treasury in Fillmore's cabinet. Then he had

retired from politics and resumed his law practice in Lebanon

and Cincinnati with both forensic and financial success. But in

1858 he plunged again into "that turbid water, politics . . .

amongst the monsters, big and little, that swim in that sea of

troubles," to run for congress.4

To the tune of a special campaign song, "Old Tom Is in the

Field Again,"⁵ Corwin stumped through the seventh congressional

district to "bring the old Fillmore men to their senses," lent his

oratorical talents to Republicans in five other districts,⁶ and

made a tour through central Illinois, along with Chase, to aid

Lincoln in his contest with Douglas.⁷ Elected by an ample margin

in 1858, Corwin returned to the stump in the state election of

the following year for over fifty speeches,⁸ with side-trips for

addresses in Indiana9 and a dozen speeches in New York and

New Jersey.10 In 1860 he again served the new party, this time

with his friend Lincoln heading the national slate, and cam-

 

4 Corwin to E. T. Corwin, September 5, 1858, in Edward T. Corwin, The

Corwin Genealogy (2 vols., New York, 1872), I, vii.

5 By W. S. F., to the air of "Carry Me Back." Printed copy owned by the

Misses Gertrude and Mary Cropper, Lebanon, Ohio.

6 Corwin to J. S. Pike, September 24, 1858, in James S. Pike, First Blows of

the Civil War (New York, 1879), 427.

7 See the Cincinnati Commercial, October 19, 21, 24, 1858.

8 Western Star (Lebanon), October 13, 1858; Cincinnati Daily Gazette,

August 11, 23, October 1, 1859.

9 Daily Journal (Lafayette, Ind.), July 6, 1859; Portsmouth Times, July 26,

1859.

10 Cincinnati Daily Gazette, October 27, November 3, 1859; New York Times,

November 3, 4, 1859; New York Tribune, November 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 1859.

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Lincoln's Minister to Mexico                  117

paigned across the country in at least ten states, winning fame

as one of the most active and popular Republican spokesmen.11

In sum, Tom Corwin had served his party well in these three

critical years.12 To those familiar with the system of political

rewards, Lincoln's appointment of Corwin as minister to Mexico

must have seemed entirely logical.

A large group of radicals within the Republican party had

little use for Tom Corwin, however, or any other "Fossil Whig,"

such as Thomas Ewing or John Bell, who might still be tainted

with Clayish notions of compromise; the radicals were determined

to prevent their admission to Lincoln's inner circle, where they

might but reestablish Whiggery.13 Since it was commonly as-

sumed that Chase would be a force in the new administration,

the radicals sent him  a flow of letters, warning him   against Cor-

win, and Ewing, Bell, Stanton, and Schenck as well.14 One cor-

respondent, doubting Lincoln's ability to resist "the old men,"

cried, "Oh for an hour of Old Hickory or Old Zach!"15

For a time it seemed that the fears of the radicals might

have foundation: Corwin was reported to have assumed the

role of Lincoln's spokesman in Washington, "freely telling the

'conservatives' how conservative Mr. Lincoln's administration

will be. He speaks 'as one having authority;' and his utterances

are evidently received, as second only to those of Mr. Lincoln

himself." On the basis of this a capital newspaperman assumed

that "Mr. Corwin himself will no doubt, be a controlling spirit

in the council, and will aim to arrest any and all efforts to in-

augurate any sectional or fanatical policy."¹⁶ Corwin re-

 

11 See James F. Rhodes, A History of the United States from the Compromise

of 1850 (8 vols., New York, 1892-1914), II, 484.

12 See Daryl Pendergraft, "Thomas Corwin and the Conservative Republican

Reaction, 1858-1861," Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, LVII

(1948), 1-23.

13 See David M. Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis (New

Haven, 1942), 36-37, 39; and Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln; The War Years

(4 vols., New York, 1939), I, 98.

14 See William E. Baringer, A House Dividing: Lincoln as President Elect

(Springfield, 1945), 63-64; and Potter, Lincoln and His Party, 38-39.

15 Fitz-Henry Warren to J. S. Pike, December 16, 1860, in Pike, First Blows,

526.

16 W. D. Cooke to John Sherman, November 15, 1860, and Missouri Republican

(St. Louis), November 15, 1860, quoted in Baringer, A House Dividing, 64.

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118   Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

moved himself from this false position, however, by announcing

that he was not speaking directly for Lincoln, but only basing

his statements concerning Lincoln's probable policies upon his

"speeches, votes, and acts."17

Nevertheless, the political prognosticators of Washington, a

thousand miles from the president-elect, generously appointed

Corwin to a position in the new cabinet, and the journalists

stationed in Springfield often did the same.18 A typical prediction

was that Corwin would be "the President's mouthpiece" in the

house, unless he entered the cabinet, "which he can do if he

will."¹⁹ A close student of this period of Lincoln's life, however,

has found no evidence that the president-elect seriously con-

sidered Corwin for a cabinet post.²⁰ The two men had been

friendly for some years, and Corwin had been of immeasurable

assistance in the 1860 campaign; though he would not enter the

cabinet, Lincoln would reward him. If Lincoln ever did think

of Corwin for his official family, it is entirely possible that the

radicals of his party may have dissuaded him; but if Lincoln's

feeling of friendship and obligation could not keep Corwin out

of the picture, at least he might be kept out of the country.

In Lincoln's own thinking, however, there were undoubtedly

the best of reasons for naming the Ohioan to the Mexican post.

What other man in the United States would be half as acceptable

to the government of Mexico as Tom Corwin? There was none, and

Abraham Lincoln knew it. In the forties the great Colossus of the

North had taken over a third of all Mexico's territory; in the

fifties every American minister to that despoiled nation had

been a southerner, a slave owner, a Manifest Destiny man, all

suspected of wanting to slice off still more sections of Mexican

soil. Of all Yankees, the Mexicans knew one as a friend: the

man who had said in one of the most famous polemics in the

United States Senate, "If I were a Mexican I would tell you, 'Have

 

17 New York Tribune, November 15, 1860.

18 See the New York Times, November 30, 1860; the New York Herald,

November 29, December 15, 1860; also Cooke to Sherman, November 15, 1860, in

Baringer, A House Dividing, 64.

¹⁹ New York Herald, November 29, 1860.

20 Baringer, A House Dividing.

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Lincoln's Minister to Mexico               119

you not room in your own country to bury your dead men? If

you come into mine we will greet you with bloody hands, and

welcome you to hospitable graves.'"21 Though Lincoln had not

heard this speech, which spearheaded the Whig attack upon Polk

and the Mexican War, he remembered it, and knew that the

Mexicans must remember it, too.²² To make Tom Corwin minister

to Mexico would be more than payment of a political debt; it

would be a shrewd move toward stabilizing a potentially danger-

ous situation. The "diplomat in carpet slippers" would make

what has been called his "most iridescent appointment."²³

Near the end of the first week of his administration Lincoln

discussed the Mexican mission with Corwin, asking him to recom-

mend a candidate, but without suggesting that Corwin himself

might be under consideration. Three days later, however, Lincoln

nominated him.²⁴ While Secretary of State Seward frequently

took the initiative in suggesting possible nominees, Corwin's name

was on a list sent Seward by Lincoln just a week after his inau-

guration. "This is suggestion merely, and not dictation," Lincoln

carefully added.²⁵ Happily, Seward, who had known Corwin

well for many years, approved of the nomination, as did the

senate. The comments of Horace Greeley typified the public

recognition of Lincoln's strategic appointment and emphasized

its importance:

In the present crisis the mission to Mexico may well become the

most important of all our foreign relations, and it is fortunate that so able

and skillful a statesman as Mr. Corwin has been selected for the respon-

sible task of counteracting in that quarter the filibustering projects of

the Southern Confederacy. . . . It is well known that he has since 1847

given his attention specially to the subject of the Mexican policy of the

United States.26

 

21 Congressional Globe, 29 cong., 2 sess., Appendix, 211-218.

22 Congressman Lincoln had also taken part in the Whig effort to discredit

Polk by offering his "Spot Resolutions," designed to fix responsibility for starting

the war.

23 Jay Monaghan, Diplomat in Carpet Slippers: Abraham Lincoln Deals with

Foreign Affairs (Indianapolis, 1945), 69.

24 Western Star, March 21, 1861.

25 Lincoln to Seward, March 11, 1861, in Frederick W. Seward, Seward at

Washington . . . A Memoir of His Life, with Selections from His Letters, 1846-1861

(3 vols., New York, 1891), II, 524.

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120 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

Though Corwin spoke no Spanish, his brilliant personality

and even his swarthy complexion might count heavily in Mexico

City negotiations, and the congressmen laughed that "those eyes

will remind Mexican ladies of their hairless Chihuahua ter-

riers."²⁷ Among all the new diplomatic appointees, only Corwin

was urged to report to his post at once. He resigned his seat in

congress, made a hurried trip home to Lebanon, received his

official instructions from Seward on April 6, and sailed from

New York on the 11th. With him went his son William     as secre-

tary of the legation. For the third time in his sixty-seven years

Tom Corwin assumed an administrative position: as envoy ex-

traordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Mexico he would

not only represent his government at the capital but also super-

vise twenty-two American consuls throughout Mexico. His salary

--always a matter of moment with one so casual in financial

affairs as Corwin--was $12,000; as secretary William     received

$1,800.²⁸

Though the people of the United States and Mexico's Presi-

dent Benito Juarez might have been pleased with Corwin's ap-

pointment, the South was furious. All of the old anger of 1847

burned again: William   Burwell wondered if Lincoln hoped to

fight the main battle of secession south of the Rio Grande with

"a man who sided with Mexico in a war with his own country

for the free-soil cause."²⁹ To oppose Corwin in his efforts to

maintain friendly relations with the Juarez government, the

Confederacy sent Colonel John Pickett, soldier of fortune and

former consul at Vera Cruz, as envoy to Mexico. He was, wrote

Russell of the London Times, "a tall, good-looking man, of

pleasant manners, and well-educated. But this gentleman was a

professed buccaneer, a friend of Walker, the gray-eyed man of

 

26 New York Tribune, March 13, 1861. Also see approving editorials in the

Ohio State Journal (Columbus), the Western Star, and the Cincinnati Daily Gazette,

March 15-21, 1861.

27 Addison P. Russell, Thomas Corwin, A Sketch (Cincinnati, 1882), 26;

Monaghan, Diplomat in Carpet Slippers, 64.

28 Monaghan, Diplomat in Carpet Slippers, 70; Register of Officers and Agents

. . . in the Service of the United States, 1861 (Washington, 1862), 9-10.

29 William M. Burwell to Robert Toombs, March 14, 1861, quoted in Hendrick,

Statesmen of the Lost Cause, 120.

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Lincoln's Minister to Mexico              121

destiny--his comrade in his most dangerous razzie. He was a

newspaper writer, a soldier, a filibusterer."³⁰ Pickett was then

thirty-eight, a relatively dashing youngster compared with sixty-

seven year old Tom Corwin. Corwin, however, had his own at-

tractions; Sara Yorke, romantic enough at seventeen when she

knew Corwin in Mexico City, remembered him pleasantly:

His was an interesting personality. Tall, stout, and somewhat awk-

ward in his gait, his double chin was lost between the exaggerated points

of the stiff white collar so characteristic of our American statesmen at that

time. His kindly smile and natural charm of voice and manner, however,

soon attracted and held those who at first found him unengaging.31

Thus the contrast in the two men who faced each other in

Mexico City, Pickett in his headquarters at the Hotel Iturbide,

across the street from Corwin in the United States Legation. They

would not like each other. Pickett must have known of Corwin's

attacks upon the filibusterers during the 1860 campaign; and he

knew too, perhaps, of the official welcome that Corwin had received

en route to Mexico when his ship put in at Havana, Cuba--on

soil long coveted by the southern filibusterers.³² Pickett liked

even less Corwin's views as a representative of the United States

government; his own concept of Mexico made it a field for

southern expansion:

I do not deem it necessary to do more than allude . . . to the im-

mense advantages to accrue to the Confederate States in the future from

the boundless agricultural and mineral resources of Mexico-as well as

the possession of the invaluable interoceanic transit of the Isthmus of

Tehuantepec. Southward is our destiny and we may not look with in-

difference upon the very potent designs of our enemies in that quarter.

Our people must have an outlet to the Pacific. Ten thousand men in

Monterey would control the entire Northern part of this Republic. Com-

merce-not the sword--would soon finish the work.

The part for the Confederate States to play at this crisis is clear in

my mind. Our revolution has emasculated the "Monroe doctrine" in so

 

30 William H. Russell, My Diary North and South (2 vols., Boston, 1863),

I, 65.

31 Sara Yorke Stevenson, Maximilian in Mexico (New York, 1897), 147.

32 See the New York Tribune, November 4, 1859; and the Western Star,

May 2, 1861.

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122 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

far as we are concerned. The Spaniards are now become our natural

allies, and jointly with them we may own the Gulf of Mexico and effect

the partition of this magnificent country.³³

Corwin's instructions from Seward, on the other hand, made

the United States minister definitely a man of peace and a good

neighbor, though naturally he was to be concerned lest Mexico

ally herself with the Confederacy, and was to secure for the

Union such Mexican aid and good will as could be had. There

were rumors of European intervention in Mexico and of Con-

federate plans for dismembering that country: "You will not fail

to assure the government of Mexico that the President neither

has, nor can ever have, any sympathy with such designs." It

was important to "be watchful . . . and . . . use the most effective

means in your power to counteract any recognition" of the Con-

federacy, and to assure Mexico that "the existing political or-

ganization" in the United States is her "surest guaranty [of] in-

tegrity, union, and independence."

The President trusts that your mission [wrote Seward] will reassure

the government of Mexico of his best disposition to favor their commerce

and their internal improvements. He hopes, indeed, that your mission,

assuming a spirit more elevated than one of merely commerce and con-

ventional amity, a spirit disinterested and unambitious, earnestly Amer-

ican in the continental sense of the word, and fraternal in no affected

or mere diplomatic meaning of the term, while it shall secure the con-

fidence and good will of the government of Mexico, will mark the

inauguration of a new condition of things directly conducive to the

prosperity and happiness of both nations, and ultimately auspicious to

all other republican States throughout the world.34

By May, Corwin could report that the Mexicans seemed

friendly to the North, though obviously "unwilling to enter into

any engagement which might produce war with the south, unless

protected by promise of aid from the United States." And a

month later Seward heard more about Mexico's attitude of friend-

ship, accompanied by Corwin's comment, "That this should be

 

33 Pickett to John Forsyth, March 13, 1861; Pickett to Toombs, October 29,

1861; Pickett's Despatch No. 13, November 29, 1861; quoted in J. Fred Rippy, The

United States and Mexico (New York, 1931), 231, 233.

34 Seward to Corwin, April 6, 1861, in Senate Executive Documents, 37 cong.,

2 sess., No. 1, I, 65-69.

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Lincoln's Minister to Mexico            123

so is somewhat remarkable, when we regard the deep prejudices

engendered in the general Mexican mind by the loss of Texas,

which they attribute to our citizens, and the compulsory cession

of territory which was a consequence of our war with them."³⁵

Mexico's friendship, in part at least, resulted from the

greater personal effectiveness of Tom Corwin; he was, at heart,

in sympathy with the Liberal party headed by Juarez, though in

his old Whig mind he no doubt preferred to think of the party

by its other name, "Constitutionalist." The "outs," the Con-

servative party, clerical and propertied, were the favorites of

Confederate Pickett, though he was careful not to say so publicly.

But what he said privately, in diplomatic dispatches to Con-

federate Secretary of State Toombs--"Mexicans are a race of

degenerate monkeys . . . robbers, assassins, blackguards and

lepers"--was not as covert as he thought. Corwin had thought-

fully arranged with a Mexican through whose hands Pickett's

mail passed to turn the confidential Confederate dispatches over

to President Juarez; when he finished reading them they came

to Corwin, and he forwarded them on to Washington!³⁶ Lest

similar ideas of intrigue might occur to Pickett, Corwin for-

warded his dispatches to Seward by a series of different couriers

and took the additional precaution of sending duplicates.37

Tom Corwin did not have to wait long for an opportunity

to carry out Lincoln's hopes for more than "conventional amity."

The Juarez government was under severe financial strain and its

position somewhat tenuous in 1861 when the Mexican congress

voted to suspend interest payments on foreign-held bonds. In

October the governments of Great Britain, France, and Spain

agreed to a joint intervention in Mexico to protect the rights of

their nationals and to enforce the fulfillment of Mexico's obliga-

tions. By December an allied expedition landed at Vera Cruz,

took over some customhouses, and began collecting duties.

Britain and Spain carried on separate negotiations with Mexico

35 Corwin to Seward, May 29, June 29, 1861, in Senate Executive Documents,

37 cong., 2 sess., No. 1, I, 69-70.

36 Hendrick, Statesmen of the Lost Cause, 129-131.

37 See Corwin's reports, House Executive Documents, 37 cong., 3 sess., No. 1,

and 38 cong., 1 sess., No. 1. Also see Blair Niles, Passengers to Mexico (New York,

1943), 15-16, 77.

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124 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

and withdrew, satisfied, in April 1862. This left the troops of

Napoleon III, whose secret ambitions extended far beyond the

mere collection of an old debt.

Minister Corwin had long since anticipated the allied in-

tervention, and as early as August 1861, had urged that the

United States fend it off by loaning the Juarez government enough

money to pay the interest on its foreign debt.38 In an executive

session, however, the senate adopted a resolution discouraging

either a loan or a guaranty for Mexico's obligations; Seward

and Corwin still hoped, nevertheless, to find some acceptable

plan of assistance for Juarez.³⁹ In the minister's explorations with

the Mexican government, a plan for pledging public lands against

an American loan was considered. This proposal Seward adopted,

instructing Corwin to negotiate a treaty providing for the assump-

tion by the United States of the interest upon Mexico's funded

debt. His instructions further read:

[The Mexican] government will pledge to the United States its faith

for the reimbursement . . . with six per cent. interest thereon, to be

secured by a specific lien upon all the public lands and mineral rights in

the several Mexican States of Lower California, Chihuahua, Sonora, and

Sinaloa, the property so pledged to become absolute in the United States

at the expiration of the term of six years from the time when the treaty

shall go into effect, if such reimbursement shall not have been made

before that time.40

Upon this basis Corwin negotiated a treaty with Juarez, in-

cluding an agreement to place custody of the funds and the

public lands in the hands of a joint commission until the loan

was repaid. Though the terms were not easy, the Mexicans gladly

ratified the convention, for they now faced not only the prospect

of foreign intervention but also armed revolution at home by

dissident Conservatives, clerics, and monarchists. A discreet in-

quiry from the state department, however, disclosed that the pro-

posed treaty arrangement would not meet with the approval of

France and Britain. Indeed, this was not surprising, since the

 

38 Monaghan, Diplomat in Carpet Slippers, 151.

39 Seward, Seward at Washington, III, 79.

40 Seward to Corwin, September 2, 1861, in House Executive Documents, 37

cong., 3 sess., No. 100, p. 22.

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Lincoln's Minister to Mexico            125

three European powers had so sealed their intentions for hostili-

ties against Mexico as to draw up a convention for this purpose,

and had even invited the United States to join in it!41

Seward nevertheless submitted Corwin's treaty to the senate.

With it went Corwin's arguments for speedy ratification. When

he avowed that Americans were "the only safe guardians of

the independence and true civilization of this continent," some of

his old Whig friends of Mexican War days may have suspected

his conversion to the Manifest Destiny faith. But Corwin's pur-

poses were clear: only by the nine-million-dollar loan would

Juarez be able to buy off some of his creditors and fight off the

rest. Even though Mexico might fail to meet her new obligations

and the United States be forced to foreclose on its mortgage,

there would be mutual advantages: "All hope of extending the

dominion of a separate southern republic in this quarter or in

Central America would be extinguished, and any further attempt

in all time to come to establish European power on this continent

would cease." And, he urged, if a rumored Confederate expedition

into northern Mexico should materialize, the United States would

be in a better position to meet it on Mexican soil and throw the

rebels out.⁴²

Though the proposed treaty received some favorable sup-

port in the senate,⁴³ it was ultimately decided to reject it, partly

because of the sagging credit of the United States and the further

strain that a loan would put upon it, and partly because of a

desire to avoid further involvements with the European powers

when the war at home was going badly. After all, said Seward,

taking the long view, "the Government and the country are in-

tently occupied with military events, which may decide the fate

of an attempted revolution, pregnant with confusion, anarchy,

and ruin to the whole continent."⁴⁴ Tom Corwin was discouraged

by the senate's unwillingness to act and continued to urge that

 

41 Seward, Seward at Washington, III, 22.

42 Corwin to Seward, September 2, October 21, 1861, in House Executive

Documents, 37 cong., 3 sess., No. 100, pp. 22, 31-32.

43 See Theodore C. Pease and James G. Randall, eds., The Diary of Orville

Hickman Browning (2 vols., Springfield, Ill., 1927-33), I, 516.

44 Seward, Seward at Washington, III, 80.

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126 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

American aid was "an imperative necessity to Mexico" and that

it would "also insure the United States against incalculable

future danger."⁴⁵ In the months to come he made efforts to ne-

gotiate a new form of treaty and to find other ways of assisting

the Juarez government. While all of this diplomacy yielded

no tangible results to Mexico, it was of considerable significance

to the United States; so long as Corwin held out any hope of

American assistance, Juarez was not inclined to listen to the im-

portunities of the agents of the Confederacy.

The second phase of Corwin's mission to Mexico opened

when the British and Spanish forces withdrew, leaving only the

French. The story of the events of the next two years has often

been told; while it unfolded Corwin could do little but observe

and send reports to Seward. Napoleon III had hoped, all along,

to found an overseas empire. Now he threw additional troops

into the battle with Juarez, finally capturing Mexico City. That

accomplished, an assembly of compliant "Notables," clerics,

monarchists, and large landholders, "offered" the imperial throne

of Mexico to the Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Though the

Monroe Doctrine was thus clearly violated, the situation in the

United States was such that Seward could do no more than lodge

a vigorous protest. Following the surrender of the Confederacy,

however, Napoleon realized that the situation was untenable,

withdrew his troops, and suffered Maximilian to be overthrown by

the Mexicans and executed.

When the Juarez government fled from the Mexican capital

in the face of the French army, Minister Corwin did not consider

it expedient to follow, yet in every possible way he made obvious

the non-recognition by the United States of the new empire. On

the occasion of a birthday celebration for Napoleon III, for

example, he pointedly stayed away, and he refused all com-

munication with the French forces. In Washington, at the same

time, Lincoln adopted a similar attitude, made clear by receiving

Senor Romero, envoy of the Mexican Republic, and continuing

to recognize the Juarez government.

 

45 Corwin to Seward, April 22, 1862, in House Executive Documents, 37 cong.,

3 sess., No. 1, p. 740.

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Lincoln's Minister to Mexico             127

At length Corwin's position in Mexico became an anomaly,

and he requested a leave of absence. Lincoln and Seward agreed,

putting the time of his departure up to Corwin's discretion.46 The

following spring seemed to Corwin the appropriate time to de-

part; the arrival of Maximilian and his empress was but a few

weeks away, and the absence of the United States minister at

that time would unmistakably emphasize the attitude of his gov-

ernment toward the new regime.⁴⁷ The archives of the legation

were turned over to William   Corwin, who was left as charge

d'affaires, and Tom Corwin sailed for home in May 1864. Some-

where at sea the ship carrying the United States minister to

Mexico passed the Novara on her way to Vera Cruz, with

Maximilian and Carlota aboard.⁴⁸

Corwin's was a job well done. Under the most adverse of

circumstances, Seward wrote in his final instructions, Corwin had

performed "great and unwearied labors." In addition to his ef-

forts to aid the Juarez government in its defense against the in-

tervention of the European allies, he had negotiated certain basic

agreements, such as a postal convention and an extradition

treaty,⁴⁹ and he had handled the matter of American claims

against Mexican nationals in a manner calculated to build har-

mony and confidence. But most important of all, at a time when

the friendship of Mexico was essential to the Union cause, he

had won the diplomatic duel with the Confederacy's John Pickett.

This victory was a matter of bitter complaint for the southern

leaders; in voicing it they gave eloquent testimony to the success

of Tom Corwin's mission to Mexico:

Through the influence of Mr. Corwin . . . the tone of the Juarez

Government . . . has been hostile to our cause, and at his dictation various

measures have been initiated calculated to annoy and injure us. . . . they

have finally decreed martial law on their frontiers, forbid the export

or import of any article whatever from Texas, and closed their custom-

houses, &c.50

 

46 Seward to Corwin, August 1863, in House Executive Documents, 38 cong.,

1 sess., No. 1, p. 1256.

47 Stevenson, Maximilian in Mexico, 147.

48 Niles, Passengers to Mexico, 124-125.

49 Cleveland Leader, August 6, 1861; Seward, Seward at Washington, III, 79.

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128 Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

If, as Carl Sandburg has suggested, it was with quixotic humor

that Lincoln sent Corwin on his Mexican mission,51 he must have

felt well repaid.

50 Brigadier General H. P. Bee, C. S. A., to Lieut. Col. S. S. Anderson, C. S. A.,

November 30, 1862, in The War of the Rebellion: ... Official Records of the Union

and Confederate Armies (Washington, 1886), Series I, Vol. XV, 881-883.

51 Sandburg, Lincoln, I, 159.

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