The declaration of war is one such. We have already examined how it is extremely delayed, and how the British ultimatum was allowed to expire. But even on the simple topic of the legal declaration itself TFSmith makes more than a few mistakes.
The following is quoted as being from the address to Congess by Lincoln, in which he requests (and gets) a declaration of war against the United Kingdom. Including the short paragraph which establishes the context:
…the Battle of Rouse’s Point, as small as it was in comparison to the campaigns that followed, was a turning point; the British attack was the act that turned an internal conflict – which even in the spring of ’62 some thought could still be ended by compromise - into a crusade. As Lincoln said in his message to Congress, American blood had been spilled on what was undoubtedly American soil. To the Americans, at least, if not the British, there was a certainty about what the war had become:
“It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings – and queens.
It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, `You toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a monarch who seeks to bestride an entire nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
And what is tragic in this conflict is that a thoughtful, Christian people, a people who have loved liberty as much as our own, have worked to free the enslaved, have fallen – through the conceit and arrogance of a few of their so-called `lords’ - and so align themselves with the despots of the world. And yet - they have. I once said `one war at a time’ – but England has chosen to make war against us. So be it. They have sown the wind – let them reap the whirlwind.
I ask, therefore:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that war be and is hereby declared to exist between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their territories; and that the President of the United States is hereby authorized to use the whole land and naval force of the United States to carry the same into effect, and under the seal of the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the government of the said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the subjects thereof.
Said declaration has been requested by A. Lincoln, president and commander-in-chief of the United States. I ask approval of such by the Thirty-seventh United States Congress on this, the first day of April, 1862…”
Taking this as it is:
1) It is an odd thing that the US views this spilling of American blood on American soil as cause for a crusade, when by all accounts the British view the shelling of a British ship by an American captain engaged in an illegal act - and who is promoted for it - with indifference.
2) Much of this speech is lifted verbatim from the debate between Lincoln and Douglas, The join to TFSmith's new material is quite obvious once one actually looks at what is being said, as there is a sharp jolt between talking about "the divine right of kings" and talking about England being "a people who have loved liberty as much as our own".
3) The material taken from the Douglas debates is from a completely different context and several years old; when he said it Lincoln was a relative unknown, while here he is saying it as the President of the United States in early 1862, and it is sufficiently inflammatory as to lose the cooperation of the Border States at a stroke.
4) "So-called 'Lords'" is cartoonish, as indeed is the whole idea of Britain being subject to the Divine Right of Kings. This issue was had out in Britain in the 1600s, in the English Civil War and again in the Glorious Revolution (with Parliament winning in both cases).
5) Lincoln mentions his real statement of "one war at a time" but it is twisted out of all recognition. Lincoln meant "one war at a time because the Union is struggling with just one" - TFSmith presents it as "one war at a time but we could easily win both of them". In this way he takes Union prognostications of doom (based on knowledge of their own dire straits) and treats them ironically, while we have already seen that British expectations of failure (based on a misreading of Union intentions) are treated absolutely straight.
6) "Reap the whirlwind" is biblical, but the first famous use in a speech was Arthur Harris (British head of Bomber Command) in the 1940s. This is probably allowable.
7) The language of the declaration of war is wrong. It is mostly copied verbatim from the declaration against Great Britain in 1812:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That war be and is hereby declared to exist between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their territories; and that the President of the United States is hereby authorized to use the whole land and naval force of the United States to carry the same into effect, and to issue to private armed vessels of the United States commissions or letters of marque and general reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper, and under the seal of the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the government of the said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the subjects thereof.
TFSmith has removed the clause "and to issue to private armed vessels of the United States commissions or letters of marque and general reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper" to which "and under the seal of the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the government of the said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the subjects thereof" refers. By doing this he has turned the entire last section of the declaration of war into a non-sequitur.
8) Lincoln is saying the declaration of war out loud. This seems very strange - most of it is boilerplate and the rest is composed of bad grammar. The way things were actually done was that a President would make a speech to Congress about why a war should be declared, and then Congress would pass an act containing the legal language of the declaration of war itself.
We know what actual messages of this sort looked like, and even the procedures. For TFSmith to ignore these suggests that he simply did not do the research. It would not be hard for a meta-historical history book (which TFSmith uses here as a framing device) to show the speech and then the declaration below it.
If this were merely a matter of a lackluster speech, this would not be a problem - Lincoln is known in real history as a great orator, and it is not necessary for an author to measure up to him so long as the right tone is given. The problem, here, is that TFSmith displays a clumsy approach to history - mixing up speeches and declarations of war, using cut-and-paste to work in a dig at Britain by implying that the Divine Right of Kings is still how the British system works, and failing to hide the seams where this piece has been assembled from parts.
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