Migrating to the United States used to be as easy as buying a boat ticket. Getting settled was the hard part, and it became far more daunting when the United States was torn asunder by Civil War in 1861. As more and more northerners were conscripted into the Union Army, Lincoln realized a friendlier immigration policy might be the key to sustaining economic and military strength through the long years of war.
Harold Holzer, director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York City and Chairman of the Lincoln Forum, discusses his new book Brought Forth on this Continent Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration, which delves into the role immigration played in killing the Whig party, building the republican party, and how Lincoln's views toward immigration changed during through his career and into the Civil War, when he attempted one of the first major overhauls of the American immigration system in U.S. history.