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Francis Lieber was a German exile who became an important legal advisor to President Abraham Lincoln in 1861. A professor at Columbia University’s law school, he was one of the most eminent experts in the United States on international law and the laws of war. He wrote the code of conduct for United States soldiers in 1863 that was so influential that it was later incorporated into the Geneva Conventions on war.1
In 1864 Lieber was called upon by Lincoln not for his legal expertise, but for his help in winning the election that year. Lieber was not only a leader in the legal community, he was also a well-known and respected figure among German immigrants. Lieber agreed to help although he was amazed at the notion of the United States conducting an election in such troubled times. “If we come triumphantly out of this war, with a presidential election in the midst of it, I shall call it the greatest miracle in all the historic course of events,” he wrote in 1864.2
The Democratic Party was sharply divided between War Democrats like August Belmont and Peace Democrats. Geoge McClellan, a War Democrat, found that trying to appease both factions was like riding horses headed in different directions.
At their convention that summer the opposition Democratic Party nominated George B. McClellan as its candidate for president. He had been a popular, if only marginally successful, commander of the Army of the Potomac, the nation’s largest field command. Lincoln had removed him from his post as much for his opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation and his politicking as for his lackluster military performance. The former general was paired by the Democrats with an anti-war running mate and a controversial “Peace Plank” in the party’s platform that would have ended the war with slavery still intact.3
Poster for the McClellan campaign.
Lieber contributed a pamphlet that was published in English and German entitled Lincoln or McClellan: Appeal to the Germans in America. Tens of thousands of copies of the pamphlet were distributed, more than the daily circulations of most big city newspapers, and it was excerpted and reprinted in the German-language press across America.4
Lincoln had always seen the German immigrant voter as crucial for the anti-slavery cause. Few immigrants owned slaves, and the many German Liberals were ideologically opposed to slavery in any form. Lincoln had studied German so that he could give speeches in that language to German audiences and he had purchased a German newspaper to spread his message during the 1860 presidential campaign. The Republicans’ bilingual approach to politics during Lincoln’s ascendency would be unmatched for many years thereafter.5
The German version of Lieber’s pamphlet used German typeface.
In his eight page pamphlet, Francis Lieber wrote that immigrants lived in a country where the place of their birth did not deprive them of full citizenship rights. He reminded them that immigrants were often more civic minded than the native born because they “became citizens by the choice of our mature years, and not by the accident of birth.” Immigrants from the monarchies of Europe understood that the “entire political existence of this rests upon the free ballot; and he who has the right, has also the duty to vote.”6
Lieber was aware that the names of American political parties led to confusion among new immigrants. “The great majority of those who come from Germany to America are Democrats in the true sense,” he wrote, “and when they find in this country a large party, which for years has been called the Democratic Party, many allow themselves to be deceived by the mere name.” In fact, most Germans had been Democrats in the 1850s. They had only begun moving towards the Republicans with the rise of Lincoln.7
The very first reason Lieber gave for opposing the Democrats is that they were secretly aligned with the anti-immigrant Know Nothings. Lieber wrote to his fellow immigrants:
The assemblage which gathered at Chicago, and nominated General McClellan for the Presidency, …calls itself the Democratic party — and of what sort of people was this mixed-up convention composed? In the first place, a great proportion consisted of old “Know-nothings.” They openly proclaimed themselves such. Can you, Germans, vote on the same side with these men, whose only principle has been to shut in your faces the gates of this wide continent, to which their own fathers came from Europe, or else, as you are here already, to take from you the right of citizenship? Will you vote with those who, like their friends, the rebels, would load you with infamy, and who speak of you as the offscouring of the earth? The Know-nothings plot in secret. They have their lodges, and form a secret society. Is that, in a free country, democratic? Freedom, above all, rests on publicity.8
Although many modern historians mistakenly believe that the Know Nothings were more anti-Irish than anti-immigrant, the evidence from the time indicates a great fear of the xenophobic movement among Germans of all religious and political stripes. Germans had been attacked and killed by Nativist mobs. Accordingly, being branded as a Know Nothing was political death for those seeking the support of German voters. The fact that the Republican Party also included many Know Nothings was irrelevant to Lieber in his role as ethnic persuasionist.9
Following this appeal to immigrant fear of the Know Nothings, Lieber turned to German immigrant aspirations. “What are the ideas which most animate the German in Germany,” he asked. Germany at the time was a set of disunited minor principalities that was the victim of frequent invasions by the surrounding Great Powers of Europe. What Germans dreamt of, he said, “are the unity of Germany and civil freedom.”10
The Democrats in the United States stood for the opposite dream. “Shall,” Lieber asked, the German voter “give his vote for those who would see the country torn asunder in fragments while the cause of human slavery should triumph?” Disunion and slavery were the enemies of the German immigrant.
At a time when many Germans were in the working class, Lieber warned that the Southern slave owners were a “would-be oligarchy” who were struggling not only to keep their black slaves, but also to deprive white workers of any control over the government.11
“The Southern slaveholders,” he wrote in a passage edged with class conflict, “are fighting for that which was for so long a time the prerogative of the owners of the soil, the privilege of using the working man, whether white or black, as the instrument of their power, their pleasure, and their arrogance.” Under slaveholder rule, he predicted, the “working man is to bear all the burdens of the state, but he is to have no rights in it. It is for him to obey, and for the rich man alone to rule.”12
Lieber ended his flyer by answering the question new citizens often ask, “If I am not entirely in agreement with either candidate, should I still vote?” Lieber wrote to the doubtful voter:
My friends, let us vote for Lincoln. Many of you doubtless say that he has done some things which you do not like, or that sometimes he has not acted with sufficient promptitude. But the simple question before the people now is, shall Lincoln or McClellan be the next President? No other man can be elected; and now is there a German who can hesitate, or one who can be so indifferent as not to vote for either. The one candidate is national, the other is not. The one is for freedom and for the removal of that which is the disgrace of this century — he is opposed to slavery, which has brought upon us the demon of civil war. The other would preserve slavery. The one is out-spoken and candid; is the other so? The one is for all the citizens of this great country, whether they were born here or not; the other owes his nomination in a great degree to the Know-Nothings.13
Lieber’s pamphlet played to German idealism and helped it triumph over German cynicism.
Video: Francis Lieber and Abraham Lincoln
Resource:
Francis Lieber’s Pamphlet Lincoln or McClellan
Sources:
1. The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber edited by Thomas Perry published by James R. Osgood and Company (1882); Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864); Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle For The 1864 Presidency by John Waugh published by DeCapo Press (2001); Abraham Lincoln: Volume 2 by Michael Burlingame published by Johns Hopkins Press; Lincoln by David Herbert Donald published by Simon and Schuster; 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History by Charles Bracelon Flood published by Simon and Schuster (2009); Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image by Joshua Zeitz (2014); Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History by John Fabian Witt (2012)
2. Abraham Lincoln: Volume 2 by Michael Burlingame published by Johns Hopkins Press p. 646.
3. The Battle For The 1864 Presidency by John Waugh published by DeCapo Press (2001)
4. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
5. Lincoln and the Power of the Press: The War for Public Opinion by Harold Holzer (2012)
6. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
7. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
8. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
9. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
10. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
11. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
12. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
13. Lincoln or McClellan: An Appeal to the Germans in America by Francis Lieber published by Loyal Publication Society (1864)
The Immigrants’ Civil War is a series that examines the role of immigrants in our bloodiest war. Articles will appear twice monthly between 2011 and 2017. Here are the articles we have published so far:
1. Immigrant America on the Eve of the Civil War – Take a swing around the United States and see where immigrants were coming from and where they were living in 1861.
2. 1848: The Year that Created Immigrant America – Revolutions in Europe, famine and oppression in Ireland, and the end of the Mexican War made 1848 a key year in American immigration history.
3. Carl Schurz: From German Radical to American Abolitionist– A teenaged revolutionary of 1848, Carl Schurz brought his passion for equality with him to America.
4. Immigrant Leader Carl Schurz Tells Lincoln to Stand Firm Against Slavery.
5. …And the War Came to Immigrant America -The impact of the firing on Fort Sumter on America’s immigrants
6. The Rabbi Who Seceded From the South
7. The Fighting 69th-Irish New York Declares War
8. The Germans Save St. Louis for the Union
9. New York’s Irish Rush to Save Washington
10. Immigrant Day Laborers Help Build the First Fort to Protect Washington-The Fighting 69th use their construction skills.
11. Carl Schurz Meets With Lincoln To Arm the Germans
12. Immigrants Rush to Join the Union Army-Why?– The reasons immigrants gave for enlisting early in the war.
13. Why the Germans Fought for the Union?
14. Why Did the Irish Fight When They Were So Despised?
15. The “Sons of Garibaldi” Join the Union Army
16. The Irish Tigers From Louisiana
17. Immigrant Regiments on Opposite Banks of Bull Run -The Fighting 69th and the Louisiana Tigers
18. The St. Louis Germans Set Out To Free Missouri
19. Wilson’s Creek Drowns Immigrant Dream of Free Missouri
20. English-Only in 1861: No Germans Need Apply
21. After Bull Run: Mutineers, Scapegoats, and the Dead
22. St. Louis Germans Revived by Missouri Emancipation Proclamation
23. Jews Fight the Ban on Rabbis as Chaplains
24. Lincoln Dashes German Immigrants Hopes for Emancipation
25. When Hatred of Immigrants Stopped the Washington Monument from Being Built
26. Inside the Mind of a Know Nothing
27. The Evolution of the Know Nothings
28. The Know Nothings Launch a Civil War Against Immigrant America
29. The Know Nothings: From Triumph to Collapse
30. The Lasting Impact of the Know Nothings on Immigrant America.
31. Lincoln, the Know Nothings, and Immigrant America.
32. Irish Green and Black America: Race on the Edge of Civil War.
33. The Democratic Party and the Racial Consciousness of Irish Immigrants Before the Civil War
34. The Confederates Move Against Latino New Mexico
35. Nuevomexicanos Rally As Confederates Move Towards Santa Fe—But For Which Side?
36. The Confederate Army in New Mexico Strikes at Valverde
37. The Swedish Immigrant Who Saved the U.S. Navy
38. The Confederates Capture Santa Fe and Plot Extermination
39. A German Regiment Fights for “Freedom and Justice” at Shiloh-The 32nd Indiana under Col. August Willich.
40. The Know Nothing Colonel and the Irish Soldier Confronting slavery and bigotry.
41. Did Immigrants Hand New Orleans Over to the Union Army?
42. Did New Orleans’ Immigrants See Union Soldiers As Occupiers or Liberators?
43. Union Leader Ben Butler Seeks Support in New Orleans-When General Ben Butler took command in New Orleans in 1862, it was a Union outpost surrounded by Confederates. Butler drew on his experience as a pro-immigrant politician to win over the city’s Irish and Germans.
44. Union General Ben Butler Leverages Immigrant Politics in New Orleans
45. Thomas Meager: The Man Who Created the Irish Brigade
46. Thomas Meagher: The Irish Rebel Joins the Union Army
47. Recruiting the Irish Brigade-Creating the Irish American
48. Cross Keys: A German Regiment’s Annihilation in the Shenandoah Valley
49. The Irish Brigade Moves Towards Richmond-The Irish brigade in the Peninsula Campaign from March 17 to June 2, 1862.
50. Peninsula Emancipation: Irish Soldiers Take Steps on the Road to Freedom-The Irish Brigade and Irish soldiers from Boston free slaves along the march to Richmond.
51. Slaves Immigrate from the Confederacy to the United States During the Peninsula Campaign
52. The Irish 9th Massachusetts Cut Off During the Seven Days Battles
53. Union Defeat and an Irish Medal of Honor at the End of the Seven Days
54. Making Immigrant Soldiers into Citizens-Congress changed the immigration laws to meet the needs of a nation at war.
55. Carl Schurz: To Win the Civil War End Slavery
56. Carl Schurz: From Civilian to General in One Day
57. Did Anti-German Bigotry Help Cause Second Bull Run Defeat?
58. Immigrant Soldiers Chasing Lee Into Maryland
59. Scottish Highlanders Battle at South Mountain
60. Emancipation 150: “All men are created equal, black and white”– A German immigrant reacts to the Emancipation Proclamation
61. The Irish Brigade at Antietam
62. Private Peter Welsh Joins the Irish Brigade
63. Preliminaries to Emancipation: Race, the Irish, and Lincoln
64. The Politics of Emancipation: Lincoln Suffers Defeat
65. Carl Schurz Blames Lincoln for Defeat
66. The Irish Brigade and Virginia’s Civilians Black and White
67. The Irish Brigade and the Firing of General McClellan
68. General Grant Expells the Jews
69. The Irish Brigade Moves Towards Its Destruction At Fredericksburg.
70. Fredericksburg: The Worst Day in the Young Life of Private McCarter of the Irish Brigade
71. Forever Free: Emancipation New Year Day 1863
72. Private William McCarter of the Irish Brigade Hospitalized After Fredericksburg
73. The Immigrant Women That Nursed Private McCarter After Fredericksburg
74. Nursing Nuns of the Civil War
75. The Biases Behind Grant’s Order Expelling the Jews
76. The Jewish Community Reacts to Grant’s Expulsion Order
77. Lincoln Overturns Grant’s Order Against the Jews
78. Irish Families Learn of the Slaughter at Fredericksburg
79. Requiem for the Irish Brigade
80. St. Patrick’s Day in the Irish Brigade
81. Student Asks: Why Don’t We Learn More About Immigrants in the Civil War?
82. Missouri’s German Unionists: From Defeat to Uncertain Victory
83. Missouri Germans Contest Leadership of Unionist Cause
84. German Leader Franz Sigel’s Victory Earns a Powerful Enemy
85. Immigrant Unionists Marching Towards Pea Ridge
86. German Immigrants at the Battle of Pea Ridge: Opening Moves
87. Pea Ridge: The German Unionists Outflanked
88. German Immigrants at the Battle of Pea Ridge
89. The Organization of the “German” XI Corps
90. The Irish Brigade on the Road to Chancellorsville
91. The “German” XI Corps on the Eve of Chancellorsville
92. The “Germans Run Away” at Chancellorsville
93. The New York Times, the Germans, and the Anatomy of a Scapegoat at Chancellorsville
94. An Irish Soldier Between Chancellorsville and Gettysburg
95. Lee’s Army Moves Towards Gettysburg: Black Refugees Flee
96. Iron Brigade Immigrants Arrive at Gettysburg
97. Iron Brigade Immigrants Go Into Battle the First Day at Gettysburg
98. The “German” XI Corps at Gettysburg July 1, 1863
99. An Irish Colonel and the Defense of Little Round Top on the Second Day at Gettysburg
100. A Prayer Before Death for the Irish Brigade at Gettysburg: July 2, 1863
101. The Irish Regiment that Ended “Pickett’s Charge”: July 3, 1863
102. Five Points on the Edge of the Draft Riots
103. Before the Draft Riots: The Cultivation of Division
104. The New York Draft Riots Begin
105. Convulsion of Violence: The First Day of the New York Draft Riots
106. The Draft Riots End in a Sea of Blood-July 14-15, 1863.
107. Pat Cleburne: The Irish Confederate and the Know Nothings
108. Killing Pat Cleburne: Know Nothing Violence
109. Pat Cleburne: Arresting a General, Becoming a General
110. The Immigrant Story Behind “Twelve Years a Slave”
111. A German Immigrant Woman’s Gettysburg Address
112. Pat Cleburne: The Irish Confederate’s Emancipation Proclamation
113. Pat Cleburne: The South Can’t Use Black Soldiers Without Ending Slavery
114. The Suppression of Pat Cleburne’s Emancipation Proposal
115. An Irish Immigrant Colonel’s Warnings Ignored at Chickamauga
116. An Immigrant Colonel’s Fighting Retreat at Chickamauga
117. August Willich: German Socialist at Chickamauga
118. Hans Heg:at Chickamauga: Norwegian Commander on the Eve of Battle
119. Ivan and Nadine Turchin: Russian Revolutionary Aristocrats at Chickamauga
120. German Immigrants Pinned Down at Chickamauga
121. Hans Heg: To Die for His Adopted Country at Chickamauga
122. Patrick Guiney: An Irish Colonel on the Edge of the Wilderness
123. Immigrants March Out of The Wilderness and Into a Wicked Hail of Gunfire
124. Peter Welsh in the Irish Brigade’s Purgatory at Spotsylvania
125. Peter Welsh: What Sacrifice Must the Immigrant Make for His Adopted Land?
126. A Second Irish Brigade’s Catastrophe at a Forgotten Fight Near Fredericksburg
127. An Irish Man and a French Woman Between Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor
128. Two Irish Brigades Swept Away by a Hurricane from Hell at Cold Harbor
129. Petersburg: The Start of a Ten Month Siege that Devoured Men and Disabled the Irish Brigade
130. A Volcano in Virginia: The Battle of the Crater
131. 1864 Election: The Immigrant Voter & Abraham Lincoln
132. August Belmont: The German Jewish Immigrant Who Led the Opposition to Lincoln’s 1864 Reelection
133. Lincoln and the Superiority of the “Negro” over the Irish
134. Lincoln’s Germans and the Election of 1864
135. Lincoln’s German Lawyer Comes Out Swinging in the Election of 1864
136. Lincoln Wins the Election of 1864 With Immigrant Votes
Cultural
Painting of the Return of the 69th from Bull Run Unearthed
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The Real Story Behind The Immigrants’ Civil War Photo
Why I’m Writing The Immigrants’ Civil War
The Five Meanings of “The Immigrants’ Civil War”
The Fallout from No Irish Need Apply Article Spreads Worldwide
No Irish Need Apply Professor Gets into a Fight With Our Blogger Pat Young Over Louisa May Alcott
Books for Learning More About The Immigrants’ Civil War
Free Yale Course with David Blight on the Civil War
Cinco de Mayo Holiday Dates Back to the American Civil War
New Immigrants Try to Come to Terms with America’s Civil War
Important Citizenship Site to be Preserved-Fortress Monroe
Should Lincoln Have Lost His Citizenship?
The First Casualties of the War Were Irish-Was that a Coincidence?
Civil War Anniversaries-History, Marketing, and Human Rights
Memorial Day’s Origins at the End of the Civil War
Germans Re-enact the Civil War-But Why Are They Dressed in Gray?
Leading Historians Discuss 1863 New York City Draft Riots
The Upstate New York Town that Joined the Confederacy
Civil War Blogs I Read Every Week
First Annual The Immigrants’ Civil War Award Goes to Joe Reinhart
Damian Shiels Wins Second Annual The Immigrants’ Civil War Award
Mother Jones: Civil War Era Immigrant and Labor Leader
Immigration Vacation -Civil War Sites
Fort Schuyler-Picnic where the Irish Brigade trained
The Fallout from No Irish Need Apply Article Spreads Worldwide
No Irish Need Apply Professor Gets into a Fight With Our Blogger Pat Young Over Louisa May Alcott
Books for Learning More About The Immigrants’ Civil War
Free Yale Course with David Blight on the Civil War
Cinco de Mayo Holiday Dates Back to the American Civil War
