Lincoln and the Russians - Albert A. Woldman

The idea behind the book seems to be that it was a strange situation where the United States' closest ally in the middle of the 1800s was the thoroughly autocratic Russia. All the more strange when Abraham Lincoln was elected President, after having spoken out against Russia's interference in Hungary's attempt to break free from the Austro-Hungarian Empire while still a congressman. But, they both didn't like Great Britain at that point time, so necessity makes strange bedfellows.

However, the focus is primarily on Russia's perspectives and attitudes towards the United States during the Civil War. Most of which, Woldman provides through the papers of Edouard de Stoeckl, the Russian Charge de'Affairs to Washington DC for 25 years. Unfortunately, Woldman does this by at times simply pasting 3 or 4 pages worth of Stoeckl's correspondence into the book. He does that often enough I started to wonder why he even bothered to write a book, rather than just publishing Stoeckl's papers on their own.

Stoeckl's papers are themselves, slanted, since he's pretty much of the opinion democracy is a big mistake, anyway. He's certain the United States can't be put back together, and that's just fine, as that will teach all those anarchists and liberals in Europe that they should abandon ideas of democracy, and you know, just be happy being crushed under some the capricious decisions of some dipshit product of generations of inbreeding. Then again, that's pretty much what democracy has gifted us with at the moment, sooooooo, wherever you go, it's shit.

Beyond that, I'm not sure how much use Stoeckl's observations of Lincoln are, because he seems much closer to William Seward than to Lincoln. Is he right in his opinions that Lincoln is entirely controlled by the "radical Republicans", or is that just his limited view of things? It could be his perspective is skewed by his acceptance of autocracy as hunky-dory (although he was extremely impressed the U.S. held an election during a civil war.)

The parts about the opinions and actions of the various European powers was the most interesting part to me. I don't remember us going into that much in American history.

'Stoeckl was appalled by "the demagoguery, confusion, and corruption" which he believed were undermining the very foundations of the government. He placed much of the blame for the deplorable state of affairs on the Constitution itself, and he predicted that the United States could not long continue unless the American people made some drastic changes in their Constitution.'