Rediscovering the monologue as a stack of necessary contradictions and concepts in tension w one another and ambiguity that Lincoln took advantage of while also studying the Civil War from a military strategist’s perspective made me realize what a delicate complicated two-level game he was playing
It also makes you appreciate the delicate diplomatic situation Seward was in, and how the Emancipation Proclamation helped stave off the long feared threat of European recognition of the Confederacy, in large part due to Victoria, Albert, and Palmerston’s personal opposition to slavery.
