Lincoln is the Reason Why America Doesn’t Have Elephants
New American presidents routinely receive diplomatic congratulations and gifts. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln received an extraordinary overture: an offer from King Rama IV of Siam to populate America with wild Asian elephants. The offer came as part of a package that included huge elephant tusks, an expensive handmade sword, and photos of the Siamese monarch and his daughter.
The gifts, sent before the results of the 1860 US presidential election were known in Siam, were not meant for Lincoln per se, but were sent to “whomsoever the people have elected anew as chief ruler in place of President Buchanan“. Elephants were and remain valuable beasts of burden in Asia, and in a letter, the king offered them to America. He would send young male and female pachyderms, who could be turned loose to breed in America’s wilderness. As he put it:
“[A]fter a while they will increase till there be large herds as there are here on the continent of Asia until the inhabitants of America will be able to catch them and tame and use them as beasts of burden making them of benefit to the country“. Lincoln wrote back to politely decline the offer: “This Government would not hesitate to avail itself of so generous an offer if the object were one which could be made practically useful in the present condition of the United States. Our political jurisdiction, however, does not reach a latitude so low as to favor the multiplication of the elephant, and steam on land, as well as on water, has been our best and most efficient agent of transportation in internal commerce“. Imagine: but for that refusal, America today might have herds of wild elephants roaming free in its forests and wilderness.
