John Bigelow
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John Bigelow was "a gentleman of the highest
personal character; a Republican throughout the war and long
afterwards, and a man of spotless record," editorialized the New York
Tribune in 1876.1 Bigelow, once a Republican, was the Democratic
candidate for Secretary of State in that year. Bigelow's old paper, the
New York Evening Post, editorialized: "Mr. Bigelow's varied
accomplishments, his wide experience in public affairs, his high
personal character and his freedom from every sort of 'entangling
alliance' which so often hampers men of good reputation when they enter
into active political life, all mark him as preeminently fitted for the
service of the people in a place of great responsibility."2
Bigelow "was strong-willed, sometimes
opinionated. His judgment of men was strongly colored by his personal
relations with them. His judgment of institutions was occasionally
shadowed by his religious views, most markedly evident in his
intolerance of Catholicism. His dedication of himself to the cause of
democracy did not prevent him from being, personally, an aristocrat.
His shrewd ability to satisfy his modest wants blinded him to the
hardships of the less fortunate. Yet with all that, he was a man of
singularly balanced qualities of mind and spirit," wrote biographer
Margaret Clapp.3
John Bigelow "was a young man of rare
accomplishments," according to historian Allan Nevins. Bigelow was
well-travelled, well-read, and well-cultured, he had special entre
among England's and Frances' elite. For a dozen years before his
diplomatic appointment, Bigelow had served as co-owner and editor of
the New York Evening Post with a more famous colleague, poet William
Cullen Bryant. Before that, he had been an attorney of uncertain
prospects. But Bigelow was more pragmatic that the idealistic Bryant.
In 1858, he had defended Republican boss Thurlow Wood against what
Bigelow the "Anti-Republican conspiracy" of Weed opponents. "It was
John Bigelow who exposed this movement, with a slashing attack upon it
and a bold defense of Weed," wrote Weed biographer Glyndon Van Deusen.
"The assault upon Weed, said the Post's associate editor, was an
assault upon the very principles of freedom and Republicanism. It was
being carried on by men who were 'not worthy to unloose the latchets of
Weed's shoes.' Weed had his faults and had made mistakes, but in
Bigelow's opinion he still towered far about his assailants. 'We desire
no better fate for the Republican party,' declared Bigelow, than that
it may never have a less disinterested leader and guide, than the
editor of the Evening Journal."4
Unlike Bryant, Bigelow supported William H.
Seward for President. In March 1860, Bigelow warned Bryant that the
alternative to Seward was Missouri Whig Edward Bates — which he thought
would be a disaster for "the cause of freedom." Bigelow wrote: "Now if
you see any way to prevent such a catastrophe except the nomination of
Seward, you see a great deal farther than I can. My own conviction is
that Seward will be nominated. I do not see how ay other person can be;
and if not nominated, I do not see how any other person who can be can
be elected, for he has a very strong party of followers who would
resent the nomination of a Clay Whig, the worst kind of Whig known, and
one of a class with which for years Seward has had a relentless
enmity."5 Mr. Lincoln did not figure into Bigelow's presidential
calculations.
Over a year later, John Bigelow was appointed
Consul General to Paris by President Lincoln to direct Union propaganda
aimed at keeping France and England from aiding the South. The first
indication of Bigelow's appointment came in the form of a letter from
Assistant Secretary of State Frederick W. Seward: "Mr. Motley goes out
in the Europa, from Boston, August 21. Can you go at the same time?"6
Bigelow had been in Washington the previous month, nosing about for a
possible appointment. He later wrote in Retrospections of an Active
Life:
On the following day I left for Washington to
learn from President Lincoln and Secretary Seward why they were sending
me out of the country, as I had expressed to no one, nor experience,
any desire for public employment. Mr. Seward said that the Government
had selected me for the Paris consulate not primarily for the discharge
of consular duties, which were then rifling and every day diminishing,
but to look after the press in France. Our legations and consulates had
been filled largely, not to say exclusively, during the Administration
of President [James] Buchanan, with men of more or less doubtful
loyalty, and London and Paris were swarming with Confederate
emissaries. The officials and unofficials were all equally active in
propagating the impression that the insurgent States had been wronged
and oppressed by the Washington Government; that Confederates were
fighting only for their common-law rights, not for slavery; that
disunion was inevitable and imminent, and that neither the Washington
Government nor the people of the Loyal States in the impending quarrel
had any just claim to the sympathies or respect of any foreign power.
Mr. Seward said it was important to dispel these impressions without
delay. For this purpose he was anxious that the official
representatives of the new Administration should hasten to their posts,
and he relied upon me to see that the people of France were enlightened
as speedily as possible in regard to the nature and extent of our
domestic troubles."7
The day after he received the telegram from
Washington, Bigelow — accompanied by Secretary of State William H.
Seward and New York Senator Preston King — met Mr. Lincoln for the
first and last time in Bigelow's life. President Lincoln "received us
in his private room at an early hour of the morning; another gentleman
was with him at the time, a member of the Senate, I believe. We were
with him from a half to three-quarters of an hour. The conversation, in
which I took little or not part turned upon the operations in the
field. I observed no sign of weakness in anything the President said,
neither did I hear anything that particularly impressed me, which,
under the circumstances, was not surprising. What did impress me,
however, was what I can only describe as a certain lack of sovereignty.
He seemed to me, nor was it in the least strange that he did, like a
man utterly unconscious of the space which the President of the United
States occupied that day in the history of the human race, and of the
vast power for the exercise of which he had become personally
responsible. This impression was strengthened by Mr. Lincoln's modest
habit of disclaiming knowledge of affairs and familiarity with duties,
and frequent avowals of ignorance, which, even where it exists, it is
as well for a captain as far as possible to conceal from the public.
The authority of an executive officer largely consists in what his
constituents think it is. Up to that time Mr. Lincoln had had few
opportunities of showing the nation the qualities which won all hearts
and made him one of the most conspicuous and enduring historic
characters of the century."8
The fog which surrounded the appointment may
have suggested the competition for the post. According to Harry J.
Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin in Lincoln and The Patronage, "The Paris
consulate was eagerly sought after. John Bigelow, late part owner of
the New York Evening Post, was a candidate for the place. For a time
Seward and Thurlow Weed backed their journalistic ally, Henry J.
Raymond, editor of the New York Times. Bigelow, in Washington,
consulted with Weed, and the latter then informed him that
'Seward...had intended it [the Paris consulship] for Raymond but the
Times had behaved so it was impossible. Some one sent the Prest.
[President] an article containing a savage attack on him. He read it,
called Seward's attention to it and made a remark which put it out of
S's power to mention Raymond's name for anything to the Prest.' Seward
and Weed were partial to Bigelow, who, unlike the other partners of the
Evening Post, Bryant and Parke Godwin, had supported Seward for the
Republican presidential nomination in 1860 and had published a letter
urging Seward for the Cabinet when the Chase men were trying to exclude
him."9
Bigelow's position was particularly important
because the new U.S. Minister William Dayton lacked the needed
linguistic facility in French. Although President Lincoln appointed
many Republican journalists to patronage positions at home and abroad,
Bigelow was the most prominent New York journalist to be named to a
diplomatic post and the most successful such appointment that Mr.
Lincoln made. Ironically, the appointment was made by Secretary of
State William H. Seward, a frequent editorial target of William Cullen
Bryant. In his memoirs, Bigelow wrote that "with rather exceptional
advantages for judging, I can think of no statesman then regarded as
available for a Cabinet office in so many ways adapted for the conduct
of our foreign affairs during the crises then impending as Mr.
Seward."10
Before the appointment Bigelow had already
shifted his gears from journalism to other pursuits — selling his
interest in the Evening Post in January 1861. "In the twelve years of
John Bigelow's connection with the Evening Post, beginning when he was
a moneyless lawyer of thirty-one, he had become a man of considerably
affluence. He owned a one-third interest in a property valued at
$175,000 and had an annual income of about $25,000. With the paper
increasing its advertising and circulation, he could look forward to
becoming a wealthy man. But more important than the money had been his
enjoyment of journalism. He never regretted taking the chance, when it
was offered him of quitting the law to become a part owner of the
Evening Post," wrote Bryant Biographer Charles H. Brown.11 Publicly,
Bigelow indicated he intended to pursue writing projects. Privately, he
hoped for an appointment though he was circumspect in seeking it. He
had not been an enthusiastic supporter of candidate Lincoln, according
to biographer Margaret Clapp:
In 1860 Bigelow could find no better reason
for supporting him for the President [than party loyalty]....the
ridiculous figure he cut, according to all accounts, his lack of
background and the bawdy stories he told apparently without any
awareness of the significance of the times or of his position, scarcely
seemed to justify his election for the Presidency. However, Bigelow
comforted himself, the candidate was probably unimportant; in the
success of the party the stranglehold of slavery would be broken.12
Bigelow owed his appointment to Secretary of
State William H. Seward and Seward's political ally Thurlow Weed. and
did not even meet Mr. Lincoln until after he learned of his
appointment. After hearing from several sources — including an article
in the New York Herald — that he was under consideration for Paris
post, Bigelow went to Washington for several weeks in late June and
early July 1861, but according to biographer Margaret Clapp, "he heard
nothing more of the consulate. He met President Lincoln and was not
impressed. He accepted [with] indifference the coolness of the Blairs
and [Salmon P.] Chase, the result of his vigorous letter to the Post
defending Seward's conciliatory program and proclaiming the nation's
need of him as Secretary of State. He breakfasted and dined and drove
with Seward. But no one except Weed mentioned a niche for him.
Disgruntled, yet aware that a whole list of offices had to be settled,
he went home..."13 During the 1860 campaign, Bigelow wrote an English
friend:
Mr. Lincoln whom we have nominated for the
Presidency is not precisely the sort of man who would be regarded as
entirely a la mode at your splendid European courts, nor indeed is his
general style and appearance beyond the reach of criticism in our
Atlantic drawing rooms. He is essentially a Western man, he has passed
most of his life beyond the Alleghenies, and owes few of the honors
which his countrymen have conferred upon him, to the advantages of
early education or of cultivated and refined associations. He is
essentially a self made man and of a type to which Europe is as much a
stranger as it is to the Mastodon. With great simplicity of manners and
perhaps ignorance of the trans Atlantic world, he has a clear and
eminently logical mind, a nice sense of truth and justice & a
capacity of statement which extorted from Mr. Bryant the declaration
that the address he delivered in this city last winter was the best
political speech he ever heard in his life. I anticipate great
advantages to the country from his election and by reflection I think
that his administration will serve the cause of popular sovereignty
throughout the world for I have no doubt that he will give it credit.14
Bigelow himself gave his government credit in
his new post. Jay Monaghan wrote in Diplomat in Carpet Slippers: "A man
with John Bigelow's standing in the party might be expected to use his
own discretion in carrying out orders from a chief whom he had bent to
his own will. Soon people were saying that Bigelow's appointment marked
a change in the United States Government's policy abroad. Diplomats
never could be sure whether the guiding hand belonged to Lincoln,
Seward or John Bigelow."15
Bigelow had good connections in England and
France. He "had traveled widely, read French fluently, and combined
enterprise and insight with gracious manners. With [Edouard] Laboulaye
in particular, he formed an alliance of great benefit to the North,"
wrote Nevins.16 Laboulaye was a Sorbonne scholar who had read widely on
American politics and culture — and later become one of the subjects of
Bryant's biographical works. Although Laboulaye was out of favor with
Emperor Napoleon III, he was a valuable ally in the publicity wars
which Bigelow waged in Paris. While still consul in 1863, Bigelow wrote
Les Etats-Unis de'Amérique en 1863 to shift French public
opinion toward the Union. After the Civil War, he chronicled France and
the Confederate Navy.
Bigelow's acquaintance with Britain and France
was extensive. "He had been presented to Queen Victoria, knew the
British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, and the Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, Lord John Russell. Bigelow was on friendly terms with such
parliamentarians as [William F.] Gladstone, [Richard] Cobden and [John]
Bright. Among English literary lights Bigelow was a welcome guest. He
knew the latest gossip about Dickens' love affairs and Mrs. Dickens'
jealousy. He had seen Thackeray in his cups, and was an old friend of
war correspondent [William H.] Russell. Through the latter, Bigelow had
met J. T. Delane, editor of the London Times. In addition to these
qualifications, Bigelow was what might be called 'a gentleman' — very
important to England in a war alleged to be between red republicanism
and the older order of civilization."17
Bigelow worked hard to move French newspapers
toward more favorable attitudes regarding Union policies, but he had
one blind policy spot. "Strenuously as Bigelow labored, however, he
could not affect the course of the journals under government patronage
and control," wrote historian Nevins. "All of these semi-official
sheets — the Constitutionel, Patrie, Pays — were advocating recognition
throughout the spring of 1862. They harped upon the rigors of the
blockade. To Bigelow, the blockade was a mistake. He did not believe it
would do much if anything to end the war, feared that it might force
cotton-hungry nations to intervene, and believed that as a matter of
world policy, all blockades ought in the long run to be abolished. Had
his wishes been met, one of the greatest weapons of the United States
in gaining its victory over the Confederacy, and of the Allies in
defeating Germany in 1918, would have been struck out of their hands."18
Although Bigelow's mentor, William Cullen
Bryant, was a leader of the anti-Seward/anti-Weed faction of New York
Republicans, Bigelow corresponded frequently with fellow journalist
Thurlow Weed. At one point in eary1862, Bigelow wrote Weed, who was in
London: "General [Winfield] Scott leaves for the United States
to-morrow in the Arago. Every effort has been made to keep the
departure a secret, and this will doubtless be the first notice you
will have of it. The General was alarmed by the leading paragraph in
the 'Constitutionnel' this evening, purporting to give an account of a
meeting held in Washington the 22nd [of December 1861] at which many
members of Congress assisted. They are reported to have resolved that
Mason and Slidell were lawful prizes, and that England has no claims
for satisfaction. I told the General that that meeting signified
nothing; that the whole tone of the American press gave no indication
of a disposition to brave England in this matter; that no one defended
the seizure in contemplation of its involving trouble with any foreign
nation, and the fact that everybody argued the question at home was
proof that there it was seen to have two sides, which was a tolerable
security against any rash course of procedure. But the General was not
in a humor to be convinced."19 Later in the year, Bigelow was out of
humor and pointedly inquired of Weed: "Why doesn't Lincoln shoot
somebody?"20
Although ensconced in Paris, Bigelow took an
active interest in New York affairs. After the Republican Party's 1862
defeat at the polls, he wrote that it was "the most fortunate event
that has happened during the war, except the proclamation [of
emancipation]....It will make the President and his advisers feel more
than they have felt hitherto, the necessity of doing something (witness
already McClellan's decapitation) and it will give the Govt. a strong
and watchful opposition for the want of which during the last two years
the country has greatly suffered."21 Bigelow wrote Senator Edwin D.
Morgan after Morgan had been offered the position of Secretary of the
Treasury in March 1865: "as your friend I am glad you declined it. The
country is not yet ready to enter upon a systematic reform and
reorganization of our financial policy. And until then woe is the man
who, like Judas, carried the bag for Uncle Sam."22
After the death of William Dayton in December
1864, Bigelow was appointed Minister to France, a job that he had
already performed in all but name. However, certain complications had
to be overcome. On December 21, Navy Secretary Gideon Welles wrote in
his diary: "A numerous progeny has arisen at once to succeed him. John
Bigelow, consul at Paris, has been appointed Chargé, and I doubt
if any other person will be selected who is more fit. Raymond of the
Times wants it, but Bigelow is infinitely his superior."23
Former New York Senator Preston King wrote
President Lincoln from Paris: "John Bigelow is our Counsul [sic] there
— I know him well. He possesses the highest order of ability and all
the best accomplishments of a gentleman[.] He has great learning as a
Scholar and great common sense as a man He knows and understands our
Country at home. He has experience & knowledge of our affairs and
relations in Europe and of public affairs and interests there — He
possesses wisdom goodness and energy and I think him the best qualified
man of our Country to fill the public place made vacant by the death of
Mr Dayton[.] I earnestly recommend him to you and urge his appointment
as minister to France."24
The Minister's job had been held out during
the fall 1965campaign as a potential plum for New York Herald editor
James Gordon Bennett, whose support President Lincoln desired in the
1864 election. Fortunately for France and the United States, Bennett
rejected the job in March 1865. As Minister, Bigelow supervised the
former secretaries of President Lincoln, John G. Nicolay and John Hay.
Bigelow himself was replaced by another New Yorker, General John A. Dix.
Upon his return to the New York, Bigelow spent
most of his time writing books. However, he served as New York
Secretary of State from 1876 to 1877 and became friendly with
Democratic presidential aspirant Samuel J. Tilden. Had Tilden been
inaugurated President in 1876, Bigelow probably would have named
Bigelow as his Secretary of State. Instead, Bigelow was editor of the
Tilden's collected works Bigelow's special concentration, however, was
the autobiography and writings of Benjamin Franklin, which he
researched, edited and published. He also wrote a biography of his
colleague, William Cullen Bryant, and his own memoirs, Retrospections
of an Active Life. Bigelow's interests extended to the building of the
New York Public Library and the construction of the Panama Canal — both
of which he actively promoted.
In his Retrospections, Bigelow wrote:
"Lincoln's greatness must be sought for in the constituents of his
moral nature. He was so modest by nature that he was perfectly content
to walk behind any man who wished to walk before him. I do not know
what history has made a record of the attainment of any corresponding
eminence by any other man who so habitually, so constitutionally, did
to others as he would have them do to him. Without any pretensions to
religious excellence, from the time he first was brought under the
observation of the nation, he seemed like Milton, to have walked 'as
ever in his great Taskmasters's eye.'"25
Bigelow concluded: "Looking back upon the
Administration and upon all the blunders which, from a worldly point of
view, Lincoln and his immediate advisers seemed to have made, and then
pausing to consider the results of that Administration, so far
exceeding in value and importance for the country anything which the
most foresighted statesman had expected or conceived, we realize that
we had what above all things we most needed, a President who walked by
faith and not by sight; who did not rely upon his own compass, but
followed a cloud by day and a fire by night, which he had learned to
trust implicitly."26
Footnotes:
Margaret Clapp, Forgotten First
Citizen: John Bigelow, p. 281 (New York Tribune).
Margaret Clapp, Forgotten First
Citizen: John Bigelow, p. 281 (New York Evening Post).
Margaret Clapp, Forgotten First
Citizen: John Bigelow, p. 341.
Glyndon Van Deusen, Thurlow Weed: Wizard of the Lobby, p. 236
(NewGlyndon Van Deusen, Thurlow Weed: Wizard of the Lobby, p. 236 (New
York Evening Post, July 20, 1858).
Frederic Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward, Volume I, p. 530
(Letter from John Bigelow to William Cullen Bryant, March 20, 1860).
John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Volume I, p. 364.
John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Volume I, p. 365.
John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Volume I, p. 366-367.
Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin, Lincoln and the Patronage, p.
101-102.
John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Volume I, p. 290.
Charles H. Brown, William Cullen Bryant, p. 426.
Margaret Clapp, Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow, p. 134.
Margaret Clapp, Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow, p. 146-147.
Margaret Clapp, Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow, p. 136-137
(Letter from John Bigelow to William Hargreaves, July 30, 1860).
Jay Monaghan, Diplomat in Carpet Slippers, p. 142-143.
Allan Nevins, The War for the Union: War Becomes Revolution, 1862-1863,
p. 260.
Allan Nevins, The War for the Union: War Becomes Revolution, 1862-1863,
.
Allan Nevins, The War for the Union: War Becomes Revolution, 1862-1863,
p. 261-262.
Thurlow Weed Barnes, editor, Memoir of Thurlow Weed, Volume II, p. 366
(Letter from John Bigelow to Thurlow Weed, February 1862).
Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, The War Years, Volume I, p. 590.
Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, The War Years, Volume I, p. 609.
Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, The War Years, Volume IV, p. 107.
Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Volume II, p. 205 (December 21,
1864).
Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Transcribed and
Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg,
Illinois. (Letter from Preston King to Abraham Lincoln, December 21,
1864).
John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Volume I, p. 367.
John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Volume I, p. 368.
Visit
James Gordon Bennett
William Cullen Bryant
John Hay (Mr. Lincoln and Friends)
John Hay (Mr. Lincoln's White House)
Preston King
Edwin D. Morgan
Edwin D. Morgan (Mr. Lincoln and Friends)
Edwin D. Morgan (Mr. Lincoln's White House)
John G. Nicolay (Mr. Lincoln and Friends)
John G. Nicolay (Mr. Lincoln's White House)
Henry J. Raymond
Henry J. Raymond (Mr. Lincoln and Friends)
William H. Seward
William H. Seward (Mr. Lincoln and Friends)
William H. Seward (Mr. Lincoln's White House)
Thurlow Weed
Thurlow Weed (Mr. Lincoln and Friends)
Thurlow Weed (Mr. Lincoln's White House)
Gideon Welles (Mr. Lincoln's White House)
Rod Bigelow
Box 13 Chazy Lake
Dannemora, N.Y. 12929
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
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