With President Trump’s first 100 days in office nearing, Washington is indulging in its favorite game of make-believe: rating a brand-new administration’s standing at this somehow magical moment.
Some observers grade Trump’s performance as choppy. Others are less kind. Either way, a little historical context is in order, because Trump is having a picnic compared to the worst first presidential year ever.
Things don’t get more dire than your country falling part. Which is what President Abraham Lincoln faced in early 1861. Seven southern states had left the Union; six more were teetering. And Confederate forces had guns pointed at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Outgoing President James Buchanan was running out the clock, hoping to dump the mess into Lincoln’s lap on Inauguration Day.
Just how bad was it? Heading to Washington, Lincoln’s train passed through Maryland, where pro-secessionists threatened to kill him. Departing from his public schedule and safely arriving at sunrise, Lincoln wore a muffler to hide his face and a soft hat, which cartoonists turned into a Scottish tam as a disguise. Slinking into town was deeply humiliating.
When the war began, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers. That drove Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas out of the Union and sent tens of thousands of men from Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland into Confederate ranks.
Next came a major diplomatic misstep. Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Blockade Against Southern Ports. Under international law, a sovereign nation can only conduct a blockade against an independent country. Britain pounced on the gaffe, granting the Confederacy belligerent status and enabling it to buy guns, ammunition and warships. (President John F. Kennedy didn’t repeat that mistake a century later during the Cuban Missile Crisis; he ordered a naval “quarantine” instead.)
In the war’s first major battle that July outside Manassas, Va., Lincoln’s army wasn’t just defeated — soldiers threw down their muskets and ran.
It quickly became obvious that Secretary of War Simon Cameron (equivalent of today’s Defense Secretary) was taking bribes. One congressman implied Cameron was so corrupt he’d even steal a “red-hot stove.” Lincoln eventually eased him out of the Cabinet by making him ambassador to Russia, putting him as far away from trouble as possible.
When Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus (the basis for our civil rights), Secretary of State William Seward inflamed the situation. He supposedly told Britain’s ambassador, “I can touch a bell on my right hand and order the arrest of a citizen in Ohio. I can touch the bell again, and order the arrest of a citizen in New York. Can the Queen of England … do as much?” Historians doubt Seward actually said those words, but he seems to have said something controversial; the story spread so fast Mary Boykin Chestnut noted in her famous Diary from Dixie, “Seward’s little bell reigns supreme.” Lincoln was stuck doing serious damage control.
Just when things couldn’t get worse, they did.
The Confederacy appointed ambassadors to Britain and France. Sailing to Europe on the RMS Trent, an American warship stopped her on the high seas and removed the diplomats at gunpoint. (In 21st-century terms, imagine Russian MiGs making an American jetliner land and then forcibly remove private citizens.)
Lincoln faced a serious crisis. Northerners were thrilled by the display of moxie. But Britain was furious. Queen Victoria demanded the diplomats immediate release, then sent 11,000 troops to Nova Scotia as a powerful reminder of whom Washington was dealing with.
If Lincoln released the men, his support would nosedive. If he refused, he risked fighting England. He reluctantly said, “One war at a time is enough,” and freed the southerners.
Lincoln entered 1862 looking weak and indecisive, like someone in way over his head. Yet, 155 years later, his face is on the penny and five-dollar bill, carved onto Mount Rushmore, and enshrined in that big memorial on the National Mall.
A story’s beginning isn’t important; what counts is how it ends. People who are pushing Trump’s first 100 days ratings would do well to remember that.
J. Mark Powell (@JMarkPowell) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a former broadcast journalist and government communicator. His weekly offbeat look at our forgotten past, “Holy Cow! History,” can be read at jmarkpowell.com.
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