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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.