Under Canisius’s leadership, Springfield Republicans assembled for a public meeting on May 14 to decry the “Two Year” threat. The press attended the event, but Lincoln himself did not. Unwilling to risk offending local Nativists, whose support he also coveted, he avoided the gathering though he did send his usual surrogate—William Herndon—who delivered a full-throated warning against “despotism,” which his senior colleague undoubtedly reviewed beforehand.90 Unable to maintain his own silence for long, Lincoln provided Canisius with a personal statement on the issue just three days later on May 17—as usual, delayed but effective.
Conceding that the Bay State was “sovereign and independent,” and that he lacked the “privilege . . . to scold her for what she does,” Lincoln offered a strong generic defense of immigration. As he ingeniously explained, in a manner designed to remind progressive readers of his record on another key issue, slavery: “Understanding the spirit of our institutions to aim at the elevation of men, I am opposed to whatever tends to degrade them. I have some little notoriety for commiserating the oppressed condition of the negro; and I should be strangely inconsistent if I could favor any project for curtailing the existing rights of white men, even though born in different lands, and speaking different languages from myself.”91
The declaration appeared the next day in the Illinois State Journal, complete with guest commentary by Canisius lauding Lincoln as “one of the gallant champions of our State.” The doctor hailed Lincoln’s message as fully “in accordance with the views of the whole German population, supporting the Republican party, and also with the views of the entire German Republican press.”92 With Canisius’s help, translations enjoyed further circulation in several German-language papers.93 For Lincoln, the episode marked another successful test of his political skills, public relations acumen, and moral commitments. For Canisius, it represented a professional triumph that surely increased his influence in town. The two men were soon to collaborate to advance each other’s interests further.
But first things went terribly wrong for the editor. With few readers and even less advertising, his successor at Alton had shuttered the Freie Presse only weeks earlier, and the doctor apparently ordered its idle presses and metal type shipped north to the state capital. Within days, however, no doubt drowning in debt from his Alton fiasco, he seems to have surrendered the precious publishing equipment to a Springfield creditor. To his rescue came Lincoln—who likely saw in Canisius’s desperation an opportunity not only to reward the editor for his political loyalty, but also to increase his own control of both the medium and the message among German readers whose support he would need for future success.
Negotiations for a bailout seem to have commenced even as Lincoln was considering his immigration statement, and might even have been discussed in tandem. At first, Lincoln hoped the Republican State Central Committee would provide the necessary cash infusion to help Canisius open a paper. But its chairman, his close friend and ally Norman Judd, proved cool to the idea. “I cannot presume to act in that matter of the newspaper without direction of the Committee,” Judd bluntly advised Lincoln on May 13, hinting that the proposed rescue was somewhat unsavory besides and might be closely scrutinized: “I am watched more than in other times and must be guarded about taking responsibility as this world is awfully jealous and given to slander and detraction.”
Judd had further reason to object to the rescue plan: he neither liked nor trusted Dr. Canisius, who had apparently asked for and received underwriting before. “I can only say in confidence,” he warned Lincoln darkly, “ . . . that Canisius is a leech. He sucked more blood from you at Springfield and from the Com[mittee]. than the whole establishment was worth. You can get no guarantee that if you make the first expenditure there will not be afterwards continued calls.” But the committee had apparently granted Lincoln some kind of unrestricted monetary “assessment” to allocate as he wished, and Judd was unable to persuade his friend to, as he put it, avoid the editor’s “premises.”94 Whether or not the needy doctor was a “leech,” Lincoln appreciated his political potential and determined to help him establish the new paper, even though he, too, was financially strapped at the time. He may have earmarked his precious “assessment” to Canisius. On the other hand, William Herndon hinted later that Lincoln simply appropriated a recent $500 legal fee and handed most of it to the doctor even though he customarily split such income with his partner. In “the coolest way,” Lincoln joked: “Herndon, I gave the Germans $250 of yours the other day.”95
Frustratingly, not a single issue of the newspaper Lincoln and Canisius cofounded survives.96 Their original contracts, however, for which, traditional admonitions notwithstanding, Lincoln served as both client and his own lawyer, endure intact. Under its terms, Lincoln agreed to rescue Canisius’s printing press and “german types” from the doctor’s Springfield creditor. Astonishingly, the funds would in a sense be laundered to disguise their origins. As Lincoln noted on his copy of the contract, dated May 30, 1859, Jacob Bunn—his personal banker—“bought the press, types, &c. . . . for me, and with my money.”97 Lincoln promised that after the 1860 presidential election, he would then hand the precious supplies back to “Canissius” without compensation.
The deal specified that the doctor would solely manage the new paper, assume all the costs of running it, and retain “all incomes and profits” that the enterprise generated. Lincoln tacked on some boilerplate requirements: the paper would publish at least weekly, and remain headquartered in Springfield. It was to appear “chiefly in the german language,” but could be supplemented by “occasional translations into English” at the editor’s “option.”98 (A savvy politician like Lincoln well knew that newspaper presses could be put to other uses, between editions, churning out political pamphlets, broadsides, preprinted election ballots, and other useful propaganda.)
Lincoln hardly expected Canisius to “cheat” like a Democrat, but the heavily invested silent partner did impose one ironclad clause stipulating the consequence of political disloyalty. Lincoln did not much care whether the paper earned or lost money, or even maintained a minimum circulation level. He did not even know how to spell his new partner’s family name—always adding one “s” too many. All he demanded was that “in political sentiment,” Canisius pledge “not to depart from the Philadelphia and Illinois Republican platforms”—that is, the most recent national and statewide declarations of party principle.99
Final page of the 1859 contract between Lincoln and Theodor Canisius (this is Canisius’s copy) for their secret partnership to publish a German-language Republican weekly in Springfield.
To make certain the editor remained faithful to Republican ideology, Lincoln crafted what today would be called a “drop-dead clause.” Should Canisius ever manifest in print any “material departure” from Republican dogma, or publish “any thing opposed to, or designed to injure the Republican party,” Lincoln could “at his option, at once take possession of said press, types &c, and deal with them as his own.” Plainly stated, if the weekly ever came out “against the Republican party,” Lincoln could essentially shut the operation down.100 On the other hand, if the new paper remained “conformable” until after the presidential election of 1860—a due date that suggests Lincoln’s already blossoming ambitions for the White House a full year before the nominating convention—then the enterprise would become Canisius’s sole property. Where Lincoln hoped he was going after 1860, he would have little use for a Springfield weekly in any language.
By July 1859 at the latest, the Illinois Staats-Anzeiger—German for “State Advertiser”—began appearing in Springfield every Saturday under its concealed new ownership, with individual copies priced at a hefty seventy-five cents.101 His penchant for secrecy notwithstanding, Lincoln quickly developed such pride in the product that he was unable to resist the temptation to promote it. He commenced sending what he called “specimen” copies “of the new german paper started here” to leading German-American
Republicans in nearby Illinois towns, urging them to order copies and to get friends to do likewise. “I think you could not do a more efficient service,” he cajoled one prospect, “than to get it a few subscribers, if possible.”102 Never in these sales pitches did he reveal that the Staats-Anzeiger actually belonged to him.103 Lincoln’s efforts were not calculated to help him recoup his financial investment. He expected his reward solely in political capital: loyal editorial support and reliable Election Day votes from Illinois Germans.
Once they signed their contract, Lincoln never again had to remind “his” editor about the political obligations it required. Less than a year after they struck their deal, Canisius would travel to Chicago to boost Lincoln’s candidacy for president at the Republican National Convention. In a city teeming with would-be kingmakers, Canisius labored hard to sway fellow Germans who initially resisted backing the Springfield dark horse. Soon enough, German-born delegates abandoned their early favorite and defected to Lincoln, who won the prize on the third ballot.
During the ensuing presidential campaign, the paper would remain unfailingly pro-Republican and lavish in its praise of the party’s nominee—who also happened to be its owner. Though copies of the Staats-Anzeiger have disappeared, in a surviving advertisement in Springfield’s English-language daily that June, Canisius unapologetically described the weekly as completely “devoted to the advancement of the Republican Party and its standard-bearer, Abraham Lincoln.”104 We can surmise that in the months to come, it lived up to this boast, since the publication survived the election and beyond; Lincoln never had a reason to close it down for political nonconformity, as the contract allowed. Although, true to tradition of the day, the candidate made not a single campaign speech that summer or fall, he faithfully kept the Staats-Anzeiger in print through Election Day—and beyond. Shortly after Lincoln’s triumph, the Illinois State Journal would acknowledge Canisius’s contribution to the result by declaring: “The Republicans of Sangamon [County] are greatly indebted for their victory to the gallantry of the service of the Anzeiger, the German Republican organ of this city.”105
Late in the presidential race, with Republican victory in the air and local supporters already jockeying for political rewards, Lincoln himself acknowledged his gratitude to Canisius with a potentially useful testimonial to his good character. He had yet to learn how to spell his partner’s name, but he no longer harbored any reservations about his fealty. As Lincoln put it: “The bearer of this, Dr. Theodore Canissius, is the editor and proprietor of the Republican newspaper, published in German here; and is a true and worthy man. Any kindness and attention shown him will be appreciated by me.” Still no mention was made of their business relationship.106
None ever was. A month after he won the election, however, Lincoln would live up to his side of the bargain he had so meticulously crafted the previous year. On December 6, 1860, the president-elect scribbled a brief addendum to Canisius’s copy of their original contract: “Dr. Theodore Canissius having faithfully published a newspaper according to the within, I now relinquish to him the press, types, &c. . . . without any further claim of ownership on my part.”107 Thus was their unsung deal finally and fully satisfied. Having served its purpose, the Staats-Anzeiger limped along for only a few months more, then ceased publication and vanished into history.
Lincoln’s “kindness and attention” to its editor, however, were only beginning—although the incoming chief executive initially seemed reluctant to lavish further recognition on him. Once he gained control of federal patronage, Lincoln conspicuously began handing other German Republicans coveted diplomatic posts abroad—they were among an ambitious group Henry Villard nicknamed the “Teutonic expectants”108—but to the annoyance of some of his closest allies, Lincoln at first neglected Canisius. When the president-elect named German-born editor Frederick Hassaurek of Ohio as minister to Ecuador, and St. Louis–based journalist Charles L. Bernays as consul to Zurich, one of the most prominent Illinois Germans of all, former lieutenant governor Gustave Koerner, could stand no more. After all, both Hassaurek and Bernays had originally supported Missourian Edward Bates, not Lincoln, for the nomination. Describing Canisius as “an original Republican” who “ . . . has worked hard in the cause,” Koerner pointedly reminded the president-elect that he had “been honestly at work for your success” while others “whom Doctor Canisius had to fight to the very death at Chicago, when they used every effort to defeat you,” had already received “high and distinguished offices.” Concluded Koerner: “Now this does seem strange, and it ought to be remedied. . . . May I not hope that Dr. Canisius will succeed?”109
Ultimately, Lincoln gave in and obliged—naming Canisius to a plum post after all: American consul to Vienna. “The place is but $1,000 [annual salary] and not much sought,” the president explained to Secretary of State William Seward in ordering the appointment in June 1861, “and I must relieve myself of the Dr. Illinoisan, tho, he be.”110
This bit of shorthand was perhaps intended to obfuscate the transaction, but it is decipherable to the historian. Evidently, the diplomatic corps was already bulging with an abundance of appointees hailing from the president’s home state of Illinois. Political operative Norman Judd, for example, who had so adamantly opposed Lincoln’s purchase of a German-language paper, had in a supreme irony won the job of U.S. minister to Berlin. Secretive about his newspaper experience to the end, Lincoln neglected to tell Seward in writing about his past involvement with Canisius’s publishing venture, or that the editor’s new post actually paid a third more than the president was willing to admit: a handsome $1,500.
With this final and substantial recompense, Abraham Lincoln’s brief, largely ignored career as a newspaper entrepreneur concluded with a lucrative political bonus that, however surprising to the modern reader, would have surprised few of “Honest Abe’s” contemporaries. In the age of Lincoln, the blatant exchange of editorial support for political reward was routine, traditional, broadly accepted, and unlike his quietly transacted arrangement with Canisius, practiced with almost defiant transparency. In what represented the final footnote in this chapter of Lincoln’s brief life as a press führer, the Republican-dominated Illinois state legislature that gaveled into session in Springfield in the early weeks of 1861 found it perfectly appropriate to reward one particularly loyal editor as a way of expressing solidarity with its neighbor on the eve of his departure for Washington and the presidency: it voted to subscribe en masse to Theodore Canisius’s German-language newspaper.
Perhaps Lincoln’s recently dissolved ownership interest with the Staats-Anzeiger had finally come to light. Possibly Lincoln or his intermediaries had directly requested an additional prize for its loyal editor. For whatever reason, between January 7 and February 22, 1861, the Illinois State Senate and General Assembly purchased more than five hundred copies of the weekly newspaper the president-elect had owned until just a few weeks earlier. For these “official” subscriptions, the once bankrupt Theodore Canisius collected more than $504 from the state treasury—surpassing by four dollars Lincoln’s original investment in the publication the year before. Precisely what English-speaking legislators were to do with the foreign-language weeklies was never explained, though they may have been expected to mail the editions to their own German constituents. At the same time, Republican and Democratic legislators voted funds to create bound copies of the Journal and Register—evidently as souvenir keepsakes from the 1860 campaign year. One thing was clear: the new infusion of funds from the legislature would surely help finance Canisius’s relocation to Vienna.111
• • •
Earlier, one of Lincoln’s oldest and most steadfast press supporters had decided to relocate as well. Not even Lincoln had been able to protect Simeon Francis and his successors at the Illinois State Journal from new local competition—not Canisius’s German weekly but an upstart daily called the Springfield Republican.
Loyal to the Journal, Lincoln had viewed the establishme
nt of yet another party organ in Springfield as “unfortunate,” but was careful “to throw no obstacle in its way.” His wife demonstrated far less sympathy for the “obstacle” that its arrival soon created on her front porch. When the maiden issue landed on her doorstep, an annoyed Mary reprimanded Lincoln: “Now are you going to take another worthless little paper?” Lincoln replied to her “evasively,” as he later admitted to the new paper’s editor, John E. Rosette, saying only that he told his wife: “I have not directed the paper to be left.” Next time it was delivered, Lincoln was away, and Mary apparently used sharp language to shoo the news carrier away. The dustup inspired an embarrassing “little paragraph” in the new Springfield Republican, compelling Lincoln to excuse the whole incident as a “mistake.” William Herndon, who loathed Mary, interpreted his law partner’s defensive letter to editor Rosette “as a specimen of the perplexities” that frequently beset him “when his wife came in contact with others.”112 But it also shows that, despite his longtime loyalty to the Journal, Lincoln was more than willing to see friendly new Republican journals prosper in Springfield. They could only, he reasoned, widen his appeal.
For his part, Simeon Francis forever after believed that Lincoln should have done more to protect his former paper (and its new owners) from such competition, but Lincoln, in turn, thought Francis had made a mistake in selling the Journal to William Bailhache and Edward Baker. “You say this was an error,” the former editor wrote morosely. “It may be so—it probably was so. . . . My life has probably been an error. I have thought too much of others—little for myself.”113
Lincoln and the Power of the Press The War for Public Opinion Page 27
