As the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward formed a most unlikely, but exceedingly successful foreign policy partnership. While functioning as the senior partner, Lincoln instituted a one-war policy as the cornerstone of US diplomacy, brilliantly articulated the international importance of preserving the nation’s republican experiment, linked freeing the slaves to the Union’s survival, and oversaw the North’s military efforts. By threatening war with any nation that intervened in the American conflict, Seward practiced a purposeful brinkmanshi ... More

As the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward formed a most unlikely, but exceedingly successful foreign policy partnership. While functioning as the senior partner, Lincoln instituted a one-war policy as the cornerstone of US diplomacy, brilliantly articulated the international importance of preserving the nation’s republican experiment, linked freeing the slaves to the Union’s survival, and oversaw the North’s military efforts. By threatening war with any nation that intervened in the American conflict, Seward practiced a purposeful brinkmanship that was essential to precluding potentially decisive European aid to the Confederacy. The secretary of state combined these ongoing threats with timely compromises at crucial junctures, such as the Trent affair; joined Lincoln in the skillful use of public diplomacy aimed at both domestic and foreign audiences; and adeptly responded to Napoleon III’s intervention in Mexico. The US victory advanced the cause of republicanism and nationalism in the western world; it also enabled the United States to resume its imperial growth toward great power status. Seward played a formative role in that imperial growth. Following Lincoln’s assassination, he remained secretary of state during the Andrew Johnson administration. Over those four years, Seward purchased Alaska and outlined an elaborate agenda for US commercial and territorial expansion, an agenda that forecast with remarkable specificity US actions at the turn of the twentieth century.