In “Wrong in
principle” I recalled how, beginning in the 1830s and ’40s the arrival in
Illinois of Germans, who spoke an incomprehensible language, and Irish, who
obeyed an incomprehensible church, stirred the natives to use the power of
government of the people and for the people against these people. I also
recalled how Stephen A. Douglas used anti-immigrant fears against Abraham
Lincoln in their 1858 race for the U.S. Senate, and wondered aloud whether
nativist votes didn’t help elect enough sympathetic legislators that Stephen A.
Douglas went to Washington that year instead of Abraham Lincoln.
While Douglas exploited
anti-immigrant sentiment, Lincoln embraced his new countrymen, who
reciprocated. For example, he enjoyed the backing of anti-slavery German
citizens, and in 1860 purchased a press used to print German-language newspaper
backing his views.
I was interested therefore to read
this week that Southern Illinois University Press has brought out what is
describes as the first full-length study of Lincoln’s views on immigration. Lincoln
and the Immigrant is the work of Jason H. Silverman, the Ellison Capers
Palmer Jr. Professor of History at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South
Carolina.
The author notes that during
Lincoln’s political coming of age, between 1840 and 1860, America received more
than four and a half million people as permanent residents from countries in,
northern and western Europe plus Mexico and China. Sayeth the blurbers at SUIP,
“While some Americans sought to make immigration more difficult and to
curtail the rights afforded to immigrants, Abraham Lincoln advocated for the
rights of all classes of citizens. . . . . Silverman reveals how immigrants
affected not only Lincoln’s day-to-day life but also his presidential policies
and details Lincoln’s opposition to the Know Nothing Party and the anti-foreign
attitudes in his own Republican Party, his reliance on German support for his
1860 presidential victory,” among other issues.
I’ve not yet read it, but plan to.
This article appears in Oct 15-21, 2015.
