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DATES  OF 

ESTABLISHMENT  OF   DIPLOMATIC    POSTS 

BY  UNITED  STATES 

•  Posts  established  between  1776  and  1815 

O  "  "  "        1816  and  1829                            — 

O  "  "  "        1830  and  1861 

O  "  "  "        1862  and  1891 

•  "  "  "___1892jamli;3U-- "^N 


Longitude       60°    East       from     90^      Greenwich      120° 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


GENERAL  EDITOR 

CHARLES  H.  HASKINS 

Pro/eaaor  of  History  in  Harvard  University 


Hmerican  l)istorical  Series 

Umder  the  Editorship  of  Cbaklxs   H.  Haskins,  Professor  of  History  in 

Harvard  University. 

A  series  of  text-books  intended,  like  the  American  Science 
Series,  to  be  comprehensive,  systematic,  and  authoritative. 

Ready 

Europe  Since  1815.  ' 

By  Cbailis  D.  Hazen,  Professor  in  Columbia  University. 

Modem  European  History. 

By  Chaxlbs  D.  Hazen. 
The  Expansion  of  Europe. 

By  Wilbur  C.  Abbot.  Professor  in  Yale  University. 

Historical  Atlas. 

By  William  R.  Shefhexd,  Professor  in  Columbia  University. 

Atlas  of  Ancient  History. 

By  William  R.  Shifhxkd. 

History  of  England. 

By  L.  M.  Labson.  Professor  in  the  University  of  Illinois, 

History  of  American  Diplomacy. 

By  Cabl  Russell  Fish,  Professor  in  the  University  of  Wisconsin. 
In  preparation 

Medieval  and  Modem  Europe. 

By  Chables  W.  Colby.  Professor  in  McGill  University. 

The  Reformation. 

By  Pbeserved  Smith. 

The  Renaissance. 

By  Ferdinand  Schevill.  Professor  in  the  University  of  Chicago. 

Europe  in  the  XVII.  and  XVIII.  Centuries. 

By  SiDNBY  B.  Fay.  Professor  in  Smith  College. 

History  of  Greece. 

By  Paul  Shorey,  Professor  in  the  University  of  Chicago, 

History  of  Germany. 

By  Guy  Stanton  Fobd.  Professor  in  the  University  of  Minnesota. 

History  of  the  United  States. 

By  Fbederice  J.  Tubneb.  Professor  in  Harvard  University. 


AMERICAN    DIPLOMACY 


BY 
CARL  RUSSELL  FISH 

FBOFESSOR  OF  BISTORT  IN  THE  TJNrVEBSITT 
OF  WISCONSIN 


WITH  SIXTEEN  MAP8 


THIRD  EDITION,  REVISED 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1919 


JX  14 


''  on 


COPTBIOHT,   1915 
8T 

BENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


TO  MY  MOTHER  AND  SISTER 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.arcli  ive.org/details/americandiplomacOOfisliiala 


PREFACE 

This  book  was  prepared  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Great 
War,  at  the  earnest  request  of  many  persons  who  felt  the 
need  of  a  brief  but  comprehensive  survey  of  the  field.  The 
basis  for  it  rested  on  a  course  of  lectures  given  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin  nearly  every  year  from  1901  to  the  present 
date.  In  its  preparation  advantage  was  taken  of  the  great 
number  of  monographic  studies  which  exist  on  many  special 
phases  and  topics. 

To  catch  the  spirit  and  changing  atmosphere  of  American 
diplomacy,  the  author  read  nearly  all  the  published  corre- 
spondence and  documents,  and  studied  various  critical 
periods  in  semina.  In  the  case  of  some  neglected  points, 
original  investigation  of  MSS.  was  undertaken  in  London  and 
Italy,  but  the  chief  aim  was  not  that  of  a  new  contribution 
to  knowledge,  but  of  a  comprehensive  and  balanced  account, 
and  an  attempt  at  interpretation. 

As  it  is  intended  to  present  ascertained  conclusions  drawn 
from  the  work  of  many  students,  the  footnotes  are,  for  the 
most  part,  designed  not  so  much  to  support  the  text  as  to 
suggest  to  the  reader  material  for  further  study,  either  in 
the  more  important  sources,  or  in  monographs. 

Since  the  pubUcation  of  the  book,  the  Great  War  has 
caused  so  many  inchoate  tendencies  to  take  form,  revealed 
the  significance  of  so  many  things  that  have  happened  in 
the  past,  and  opened  so  many  new  avenues  for  future  de- 
velopment, that  an  expansion  of  the  period  treated  has 
seemed  imperative,  even  though  the  handling  of  matters  so 
recent,  and  in  some  cases  so  controversial,  makes  impossible 
the  same  standard  of  accuracy  aimed  at  in  the  periods  that 


viii  PREFACE 

have  been  thrashed  out  in  their  details  by  the  scholars  of  the 
several  nations  involved. 

At  the  same  time  the  occasion  has  been  taken  to  revise 
the  whole  text  to  accord  with  further  study,  and  with  the 
suggestions  of  many  scholars  who  have,  either  in  reviews 
and  personal  letters,  suggested  reconsideration  of  certain 
points,  or  called  attention  to  inaccuracies  and  ambiguities. 
Special  thanks  are  due  to  the  Hon.  John  W.  Foster  and  to 
Professor  Albert  Bushnell  Hart. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

I.  Phases  and  Problems  op  American  Diplomacy    .         .  1 

II.  Pre-Revolutionary  Boundaries         ....  10 

III.  Recognition 21 

IV.  Spain  and  Holland 31 

V.  Peace 40 

VI.  Religion  and  Commerce 51 

VII.  The  West  .         .    , 63 

VIII.  Old  Problems  in  New  Hands 79 

IX.  The  Establishment  of  Neutrality     ....  94 

,           X.  The  Jay  Treaty 108 

XI.  War  and  Peace  with  France 126 

XII.  The  Louisiana  Purchase    ......  140 

XIII.  The  Embargo 152 

XIV.  War  with  England 163 

XV.  Peace 176 

XVT.  Commerce  and  Boundaries 188 

XVII.  The  Monroe  Doctrine 203, 

XVIII.  Reciprocity,    Claims,    Boundaries,    and    the   Slave 

Trade 220 

XIX.  Expansion 243 

XX.  Annexation 260 

XXI.  Diplomacy  and  Politics 280 

XXII.  The  Civil  War 304 

XXIII.  The  Civil  War  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine          .         .  324 

XXIV.  The  Aftermath  of  the  Civil  War       ....  386 
XXV.  Routine,  1861  to  1877 849 

XXVI.  Baiting  the  Lion,  1877-1897 370 

XXVII.  Blaine,  Olney  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine           .         .  384 

XXVIII.  Growth  of  American  Influence  in  the  Pacific  .         .  396 


CONTENTS 


Chapteb  Page 

XXIX.  The  Spanish  War 408 

XXX.  Imperialism  and  Great  Britain           ....  423 

XXXI.  Spanish  America 439 

XXXII.  The  Pacific 454 

XXXIII.  Routine  and  Arbitration 464 

XXXIV.  Mexico 480 

XXXV.  The  Great  War 491 

XXXVI.  Success  and  its  Causes 506 


MAPS 

IN  COLOR 

Establishment  of  Diplomatic  Posts  by  the  United  States,  1776-1914 

Inside  front  cover 

West  Indies,  1776  to  1898 20 

United  States,  1783  to  1790 70 

Changes  on  Southeast,  1760  to  final  establishment  of  United  States 

ownership  .........     218 

Possessions  and  Dependencies  of  the  United  States  and  other  great 

Powers  in  the  Pacific       .  .      •    .  .  .  .  .     460 

Development  of  United  States  Consular  Service,  1876-1891    Inside  back 

cover 

IN  TEXT 


Boundary  Discussions,  1763  to  1783 

Northeastern  Boundary  Controversies 

Northwestemmost  Head  of  Connecticut  River 

Rouse's  Point  Controversy    , 

Oregon  Boundary  Controversies 

Texan  Boundary  . 

Central  America,  1850  to  1860 

Alaska  Boundary  Controversy 

West  Indies,  1898  to  1916 

Territorial  Expansion  of  the  United  States 


47 
229 
231 
232 
268 
272 
294 
433 
445 
488 


AMERICAN    DIPLOMACY 


CHAPTER    I 

PHASES  AND  PROBLEMS  OF  AMERICAN 
DIPLOMACY 

Before  the  Spanish  war  most  Americans  regarded  diplo- 
macy as  a  foreign  luxury.  Some  thought  that  we  should 
import  a  little  of  it;  others  regarded  it  as  a 
deleterious  appendage  of  effete  civilizations  erican  diplo- 
which  we,  in  our  young  strength,  had  forever  J^g^/'  ^"'^^  *" 
cast  aside.  Not  that  this  had  always  been  our 
attitude.  During  the  Revolution  and  the  Confederation 
diplomacy  was  recognized  by  the  intelligent  to  be  as  essential 
to  the  establishment  of  our  national  existence  as  arms,  dip- 
lomats  were  as  carefully  chosen  as  generals;  the  news  of  the 
negotiations  of  Franklin,  Adams,  and  Jay  was  as  anxiously 
awaited  as  that  from  the  army,  and  their  successes  brought 
almost  as  great  a  reward  of  popular  acclaim  as  did  those  of 
commanders  in  the  field. 

By  1789  the  joint  efforts  of  our  soldiers,  diplomats,  and 

constitution-builders   had   assured   our   national   existence, 

but  the  broader  question  as  to  whether  we 

,j        .  1  ^       J         .  .•        1      Development 

could  gam  real  freedom  to  pursue  our  national     ©f  the  Mon- 

development  in  our  own  way  remained.    Euro-     iTgg^o'iaM* 

pean  statesmen  regarded  us  but  as  a  weight 

to  be  used  in  fixing  or  unfixing  the  balance  of  power.    The 

strong  wind  of  the  French  Revolution  swept  across  the 

Atlantic   and   divided   our  own   citizens.     Foreign   affairs 

absorbed  attention  that  was  needed  for  domestic  problems, 

the  fate  of  administrations  came  to  hang  upon  their  foreign 

1 


2  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

policy.  Dissertations  on  diplomatic  problems  created  polit- 
ical reputations.  Of  the  five  presidents  who  succeeded 
Washington  all  had  had  diplomatic  experience  and  four 
had  served  as  secretaries  of  state.  Practically  devoid  of  a 
permanent  army  or  navy,  we  relied  for  defence  upon  our 
diplomats  and  the  ocean.  The  Treaty  of  Ghent  in  1814, 
followed  by  the  peace  of  Europe  in  1815,  gave  us  real  free- 
dom, and  our  struggle  left  as  its  by-products  an  intelligent 
public  opinion,  and  a  staff  so  well  trained  that  the  period 
from  1815  to  1829  may  in  many  ways  be  regarded  as  the 
golden  age  of  American  diplomacy.  As  Marshall  was  during 
those  years  codifying  the  constitutional  practices  of  the 
past  in  form  to  serve  as  a  guide  for  a  considerable  future,  so 
John  Quincy  Adams  was  codifying  our  diplomatic  opinions. 
By  1829  we  had  not  only  shaken  ourselves  loose  from  the 
entanglements  of  European  international  politics,  but  we 
had  formulated  rules  of  conduct  designed  to  make  that 
separation  permanent. 

Our  isolation  achieved,  diplomacy  ceased  to  attract  our 
ablest  men  or  to  interest  the  public.    Of  seventeen  presidents 

between  1829  and  the  Spanish  war,  two  only. 
Subordination      ttt»  it>i  t-j  j'j'i 

of  diplomacy      Van  Buren  and  Buchanan,  had  served  m  dipio- 

i829°to*iM4  ^^^^^  P<*s*s-  Between  1829  and  1844  a  few 
episodes  gained  a  momentary  attention;  but 
not  many  persons  took  the  trouble  to  connect  them  with 
one  another  and  with  the  past,  or  to  free  their  vision  from 
the  blurring  mist  t>f  internal  politics.  Between  1844  and 
Expansion,  I860  a  consciousness  of  our  growing  strength 

1844  to  I860  ^jj^j  "manifest  destiny"  began  to  arouse  a 
new  interest  in  diplomacy  not  as  a  protective  art  but  as  a 
weapon  of  acquisition.  Fearless,  often  shameless,  and  with 
little  deference  for  the  feelings  or  conventions  of  others, 
our  diplomats  helped  to  extend  the  boundaries  of  the  re- 
public; but  they  were  unable  to  win  for  their  labors  much 
applause  from  a  people  absorbed  in  its  home  concerns  and 
the  coming  storm  of  civil  war. 


PHASES  AND  PROBLEMS  3 

By  the  war  the  work  of  diplomacy  was  once  more  rendered 
vital.  If  our  diplomatic  policy  had  failed  then,  the  country 
would  inevitably  have  been  divided,  and  the  _  a  v  . 
system  of  equipoise  which  causes  all  Europe  construction, 
to  vibrate  to  the  slightest  international  hap- 
pening, that  balance  of  power  to  which  we  had  by  such 
earnest  effort  avoided  becoming  a  party,  would  have  been 
established  in  America.  Again  we  were  successful;  but  the 
clang  of  battle  for  the  most  part  deafened  the  public  ear 
to  the  diplomatic  struggle,  while  the  political,  social,  and 
economic  reconstruction  of  the  next  few  years  gave  the 
public  time  for  only  an  occasional  glance  at  the  diplomatic 
reconstruction,  which  was  satisfactorily  completed  in  1872. 

The  period  from  Reconstruction  to  the  Spanish  war  marked 
the  lowest  point  in  the  quality  of  our  diplomacy  and  in  the 
amount   of   public   attention   devoted   to   it.     -.  ..      , 

With  no  fear  of  foreign  powers  and  with  no  diplomacy, 
definite  international  aspirations,  most  of  our 
leading  men  ignored  foreign  affairs.  Some  to  be  sure,  used 
them  to  add  ginger  to  their  public  speeches,  but  only  a  hand- 
ful devoted  any  gray  matter  to  their  management.  The 
situation,  however,  was  gradually  changing,  the  world  was 
growing  closer  together;  nations  were  actually  becoming 
more  intimate  than  English  counties  were  a  century  ago; 
isolation  was  no  longer  possible,  at  least  to  the  degree  in 
which  it  had  existed  when  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  an- 
nounced. During  the  nineties  there  was  a  growing  apprecia- 
tion that  our  national  life  must  become  less  secluded,  and 
in  1898  the  Spanish  war  brought  us  suddenly  tj  •*  a 

and  dramatically  upon  the  world  stage.  Our  States  a  world 
policies,  no  longer  those  of  the  anxious  pigmy  ^°^"' 
of  a  hundred  years  before,  but  of  a  great  power  seeking  in- 
fluence and  opportunity,  became  of  moment  to  the  world 
and  to  ourselves.  In  an  atmosphere  of  growing  intelligence, 
statesmen  with  a  broader  grasp  of  international  relations  than 
had  been  held  for  three-quarters  of  a  century  emerged  to 


4  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

undertake  the  readjustment,  with  the  result  that  the  United 
States  has  become  a  world  power  and  an  international  in- 
fluence, though  without  losing  its  tradition  of  living  mainly 
to  itself  and  letting  others  do  the  same.  Never  again  in  the 
future,  however,  can  we  ignore  our  international  relations 
as  we  did  from  1829  to  1898. 

The  popular  interest  aroused  by  the  questions  of  policy 
of  the  last  fifteen  years  has  furnished  incentive  for  a  wide- 
Study  of  diplo-  spread  study  of  our  diplomatic  activity  in  the 
™**^^  past.      Monographs,    essays,    and    books    on 

diplomatic  history  and  international  law  have  been  rapidly 
multiplying,  and  it  is  upon  these  studies  that  this  book  is  in 
large  part  based.  It  is  hoped  that  its  brief  outline  will  be 
supplemented  by  the  intensive  works  to  which  reference  is 
made,  and  that  it  may  thus  serve  to  broaden  the  basis  of 
public  opinion  upon  which  the  usefulness  and  ultimate  safety 
of  the  United  States  must  depend. 

It  is,  of  course,  apparent  that  popular  interest  alone  has 
not  been  the  measure  of  our  diplomatic  activity.  At  no 
Continuity  of  time  have  we  lived  wholly  to  ourselves.  When- 
diplomacy  ^^^j.  ^^^  American  citizen  or  an  American  prod- 

uct crosses  a  neighbor's  border,  or  whenever  foreigners  and 
their  goods  cross  ours,  there  is  material  for  diplomacy.  Prob- 
lems, some  perennial,  some  transient,  have  at  all  times  con- 
fronted our  administrations,  however  ill-manned,  however 
feebly  supported. 

When  in  1783  we  won  recognition  of  our  independence, 
we  possessed  scarcely  one  undisputed  boundary  line,  and. 
Boundaries  even  had  every  contention  been  decided  in  our 
and  expansion  f^yor,  the  territory  enclosed  would  not  have 
sufficed  for  a  well-rounded  and  self-sufficient  national  growth. 
Our  boundaries  have  only  just  been  adjusted,  and  whether 
the  limits  of  our  national  expansion  have  been  reached  must 
still  be  regarded  as  an  open  question.  At  no  time  in  our  his- 
tory have  these  problems  been  absent,  and  at  no  time  have 
they  failed  to  influence  other  nations  in  their  attitude  toward 


PHASES  AND  PROBLEMS  S 

us;  in  some  periods  they  have  been  the  very  pivots  upon 
which  our  national  policy  has  turned. 

American  citizens  have  never  been  content  with  the  re- 
sources of  their  own  land;  to  protect  them,  therefore,  in  the 
pursuit  of  the  cod  and  mackerel  of  the  north-    E^tj,  t^^. 

east  coast,  of  the  seal  of  Behring  sea,  of  the    *°"*^  '•■    . 

.        f    .         sources    uia 
oceanic  whale,  and  of  the  guano  deposits  of  the    intematioMl 

islands  of  the  sea,  has  been  an  unending  task. 
Of  greater  difficulty,  however,  has  been  the  eflfort  to  free 
the  paths  of  intercourse.  For  many  years  the  products  of 
our  lower  Middle  West  were  bottled  up  by  Spain's  hold  on 
the  Mississippi,  till  the  nation  itself  was  in  peril  of  disruption 
on  that  account.  Then,  too,  many  of  our  northern  water  out- 
lets east  of  the  Rockies  run  through  Canada,  while  west  of 
the  mountains  the  Canadian  outlets  run  through  our  terri- 
tories; and,  further,  the  most  tempting  road  between  our 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  coast  lies  far  south  of  our  own  bound- 
aries. From  problems  such  as  these  we  have  never  been 
free,  and  with  regard  to  no  others  have  we  changed  our  mind 
so  often.  Generally  favoring  liberality,  we  have  done  much 
to  free  the  lanes  of  commerce  in  which  our  interest  is  only 
general,  such  as  the  international  rivers  of  South  America, 
the  Danish  straits,  the  Scheldt,  and  many  other  paths. 

More  impyortant  and  more  varied  have  been  the  problems  of 
our  trafficking.    The  direct  exchange  of  our  own  products  for 

those  of  other  countries  has  in  itself  occasioned    ^ 

...  '11  11  Commerce 

little  controversy  with  other  nations,  and  has 

been  steady  and  increasing;  but  whether  these  exchanges 
should  be  carried  in  our  own  vessels  or  in  those  of  other 
countries  has  always  been  a  matter  of  concern  and  difficulty. 
Mainly  a  question  of  diplomacy  in  the  beginning,  it  has 
become  more  and  more  one  of  economic  conditions  and  in- 
ternal policy.  In  the  matter  of  opening  up  the  colonies  of 
other  nations  to  our  ships  and  exports,  however,  diplomacy 
has  found  no  respite;  the  situation  in  the  foreign  spheres  of  in- 
fluence in  China  to-day  is  as  knotty  as  was  that  of  West 


6  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Indian  trade  in  the  early  years  of  the  last  century.  Our 
merchants,  moreover,  have  not  always  been  satisfied  with 
handling  our  own  business.  They  have  acted  as  carriers 
for  others,  sometimes  in  open  competition,  sometimes  by 
seeking  to  make  a  profit  from  our  neutrality. 

For  no  other  nation  has  neutrality  assumed  such  protean 
shapes  as  for  the  United  States.  For  more  than  half  of  our 
national  existence  we  have  been  either  a  neutral 
or  else  a  belligerent  interested  in  the  neutrality 
of  others.  After  independence  had  been  established  the  vital 
question  was  whether  we  could  remain  neutral  in  the  struggle 
that  divided  Europe,  From  our  effort  to  remain  so  grew  our 
positive  policy  of  isolation,  which,  designed  to  guard  our  weak- 
ness, still  governs  the  use  of  our  strength.  Coincident  with  this 
problem  was  that  of  the  protection  of  our  rights  as  a  neutral, 
in  behalf  of  which  we  were  in  1812  stirred  to  war.  As  soon 
as  the  general  peace  in  Europe  in  1815  assured  us  that  our 
earthen  jar  had  floated  safely  through  the  contest  of  the 
iron  pots,  we  became  concerned  in  the  problem  of  our  duty 
as  a  neutral  in  the  strife  of  weaker  neighbors,  and  from  that 
time  to  this  the  question  has  presented  itself  in  every  con- 
ceivable form, — in  the  struggle  of  Spain  with  her  colonies, 
in  which  the  latter  so  much  engaged  our  sympathies;  in  the 
later  struggle  between  Spain  and  the  Cubans,  where  desire 
was  added  to  sympathy;  in  revolutions  and  petty  wars  in 
which  our  only  interest  as  a  people  was  in  peace  but  into 
which  many  of  our  citizens  entered  on  one  or  the  other  or 
on  both  sides.  The  protection  of  lives  and  property  during 
these  conflicts,  the  securing  of  damages  for  the  loss  of  the 
one  or  the  other  after  peace  was  reestablished,  has  been  the 
unending  task  of  our  diplomats  and  foreign  oflBce.  Then  in 
the  Civil  War  we  were  violently  confronted  with  the  reverse 
side  of  the  proposition, — with  questions  as  to  the  duties 
which  neutral  nations  owed  to  us  as  belligerents.  The  ex- 
periences of  the  United  States  in  handling  neutrality  have 
been  uniquely  varied,  its  record  on  the  whole  is  honorable, 


PHASES  AND  PROBLEMS  7 

and  the  experience  of  the  past  has  been  a  growing  force  to 

guide  the  future. 

Our  experience  in  affording  protection  to  our  citizens  has 

been  unique  and  trying.    A  nation  made  up  of  emigrants,  we 

have  not  always  found  other  countries  as  willing    ^        ... 

,     .      ,   .  „      ,  Naturalization 

to  give  up  their  claims  to  allegiance  as  we  are  to      . 

welcome  the  newcomers.  Since  we  achieved  independence 
the  whole  question  of  naturalization  and  change  of  nationality 
has  been  completely  reviewed,  and,  largely  by  our  insistence, 
the  conclusions  of  international  and  municipal  law  have 
been  almost  directly  reversed.  New  phases  have  lately 
arisen,  however,  from  our  wish  to  discriminate  in  our  wel- 
come between  the  various  races;  hence,  while  the  problems 
of  emigration — that  is,  the  relationship  of  the  individual  to 
the  country  he  is  leaving — are  fairly  well  settled,  those  of 
the  immigrant  with  the  country  to  which  he  desires  to  shift, 
remain  uncertain. 

Besides  establishing  our  national  identity  and  making 
elbow  room  for  the  activities  of  our  citizens,  we  have  been 
obliged  to  assume  a  social  position  in  the  world,  international 
Since  the  rise  of  the  Spanish-American  nations  *ssociation 
our  policy  of  individualism  has  been  modified  by  a  feeling  of 
special  interest  in  their  welfare.  While  avoiding  entangling 
alliances  with  them,  as  with  others,  we.  have  always- desired 
a  close,  association  from  which  the  nation?  of  other  continents 
should  be  excluded;  and  over  the  states  that  lie  between,  us 
and  the  equator  we  have  increasingly  exhibited  a  tendency 
to  assume  a  modified  guardianship.  Moreover,  we  have 
never  been  able  to  avoid  connections  with  the  nations  out- 
side the  American  continents.  Deeply  concerned  in  the 
formulation  of  international  law,  we  have  been  forced  to 
recognize  the  weight  of  international  opinion,  and  have  con- 
tributed not  a  little  to  give  it  its  present  form.  At  first  a 
matter  of  separate  treaties  and  of  diplomatic  and  judicial 
precedents,  it  has  in  the  last  thirty  years  exhibited  a  striking 
tendency  to  codify  results  by  general  agreements  reached  by 


8  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

international  congresses.  From  these  developments  we  have 
not  stood  aloof,  and  we  have  shared  fully  in  the  still  more 
recent  establishment  of  an  international  judiciary.  Whether 
international  law  as  interpreted  by  the  Hague  court  will  ul- 
timately be  provided  with  a  police  to  carry  out  its  decisions, 
and  whether  we  will  cooperate  in  this  extension,  are  ques- 
tions that  will  inevitably  concern  us  in  the  future. 

The  diplomatic  problems  of  the  United  States  have  always 
had  more  than  an  intrinsic  interest  for  the  rest  of  the  world. 
The  method  of  their  handling  has  been  more 
unique  than  their  quality.  To  those  who, 
whether  with  approval  or  with  apprehension,  believe  that 
civilization  is  tending  more  and  more  toward  democracy,  the 
experience  of  this  country,  which  has  been  more  democratic 
than  any  other  in  the  control  of  its  diplomacy,  has  the  value 
of  an  experiment. 

To  the  casual  observer,  as  to  the  close  student,  it  is  obvious 
that  our  democracy  has  not  abolished  personality.  More 
than  in  any  other  branch  of  our  activity  has 
the  personal  element  counted  in  determining  our 
diplomatic  controversies.  Great  figures  like  Franklin,  John 
Quincy  Adams,  and  Hay  stand  out  by  their  achievements 
more  conspicuously  than  do  any  of  our  legislators  and  than  all 
but  a  few  of  our  administrators;  and  the  encounters  of  Madi- 
son and  Napoleon,  Adams  and  Canning,  Charles  Francis 
Adams  and  Russell,  Blaine,  Olney,  and  Lord  Salisbury  have 
all  the  fascination  of  the  days  of  the  tournament  and  the 
duel. 

Personality  has  perhaps  shone  all  the  more  conspicuously 
because  our  democracy  has  not  chosen  permanently  to  equip 
Diplomatic  itself  with  a   trained  staff.     In  selecting  our 

■***^  champions  we  have  been  governed  at  best  by 

opportunism.  When  great  crises  have  arisen  we  have  usually 
sent  great  men,  who  have  in  most  cases  outclassed  their  op- 
I)onents;  when  the  stake  has  been  or  has  seemed  to  be  of 
minor  importance,  we  have  allowed  the  exigencies  of  internal 


PHASES  AND  PROBLEMS  9 

politics  to  dictate  the  choice.  The  result  has  been  represent- 
ative perhaps,  but  representative  of  the  worst  as  well  as  of  the 
best  that  was  in  us.  Quite  as  disturbing  a  factor  as  the 
motley  composition  of  our  foreign  corps  has  been  the  unfor- 
tunate circumstance  that  our  foreign  minister,  the  secretary  of 
state,  is  expected,  under  the  President,  to  be  the  poUtical  head 
of  the  administration.  Insuring,  as  this  fact  does,  the  hand- 
ling of  foreign  affairs  by  a  man  of  abiUty  and  power,  it  does 
not  always  involve  special  fitness  for  the  task.  Although  some 
selections  have  been  ideal,  others  have  been  seriously  bad, — 
seriously,  but  not  impossibly  so,  for  the  permanent  force  of 
the  state  department  has  been  able  to  guide  the  willing  but 
untutored  secretary  and  to  modify  the  eccentricities  of  the 
obdurate. 

More  fundamental  than  differences  in  the  choice  of  the 
protagonists  has  been  the  difference  in  the  location  of  the 
power  that  has  determined  the  policies  upon  Control  by  the 
which  they  have  acted.  Has  the  broadening  P*op^® 
of  the  basis  upon  which  the  expression  of  the  national  will 
rests  meant  loss  or  increase  of  power,  fluctuation  or  steadi- 
ness of  purpose?  On  this  point  all  sorts  of  opinions  have 
been  held.  It  has  been  said  that  the  people,  without  ability 
to  acquire  the  information  necessary  to  form  intelligent 
opinions  on  questions  so  remote  from  their  daily  life,  would 
be  at  the  mercy  of  every  whiff  of  opinion  which  a  designing 
or  a  shifting  press  might  express;  that,  swept  away  by  sud- 
den passions,  they  would  rush  into  wars  from  which  the  sage 
reticence  of  experienced  men  of  affairs  had  previously  saved 
them;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  if  those  who  suffered  the 
pains  of  war  could  control  it,  there  would  come  an  era  of  peace 
on  earth  from  which  universal  good  will  might  ultimately 
flow.  At  all  events,  the  controlling  element  in  our  diplomacy 
has  been  the  people  at  large;  and  if  our  policy  has  on  the 
whole  secured  us  what  we  wanted,  and  done  so  without  un- 
necessary friction,  it  is  a  justification  of  our  democracy  and 
an  argument  in  favor  of  democracy  in  general. 


CHAPTER  II 
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  BOUNDARIES 

The  return  of  Columbus  in  1493  at  once  brought  his  dis- 
coveries before  the  forum  of  the  world's  diplomacy,  Rome; 
The  papal  for  the  first  thought  of  his  "Most  Catholic" 
^^*  sovereigns,   Ferdinand   and   Isabella,   was   to 

secure  a  title  to  these  new  lands  from  the  pope.  Alexander 
VI  was  a  Spaniard  by  birth  and  feeling,  and  at  the  instance 
of  the  royal  ambassadors  he  promptly  issued  two  bulls  giv- 
ing to  Spain  "all  and  singular  the  aforesaid  countries  and 
islands  thus  unknown  and  hitherto  discovered  by  your  en- 
voys and  to  be  discovered  hereafter,  providing  however 
they  at  no  time  have  been  in  the  actual  temporal  possession 
of  any  Christian  owner."  These  bulls  were  issued  almost  as 
a  matter  of  course,  as  the  confirmation  of  a  miner's  claim 
would  be  granted  by  the  United  States  government  to-day; 
but  they  were  unsatisfactory  to  Spain  in  that  they  did  not 
prohibit  discoveries  and  the  establishment  of  claims  by 
others.  To  meet  these  wishes  a  third  bull  was  accordingly 
issued.  May  4,  1493,  which  fibced  a  meridian  one  hundred 
leagues  westward  of  "any"  of  the  Azores  or  Cape  Verde 
islands  beyond  which  all  other  nations  were  prohibited  from 
voyaging  for  the  purposes  of  fishing  and  discovery.^ 

The  general  bearing  of  these  bulls  upon  American  diplo- 
macy seems  to  have  been  greatly  exaggerated.  They  did 
not  prevent  that  good  Catholic,  Henry  VII  of  England,  from 
Their  general  sending  out  John  Cabot  to  emulate  Colum- 
significance         ^^^g  j^  ^49^^  j^oj.  j^jg  "  ^^^^  Christian  "  Majesty, 

Francis  I  of  France,  from  attempting  to  found  a  French 
colonial  empire  thirty  years  later.      The  most  peremptory 

*  E.  H.  Blair  and  J.  A.  Robertson,  The  Philipjnne  Islands  (55  vols.,  Cleve- 
land, 1903-09),  i.  97-129. 

10 


PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  BOUNDARIES         11 

challenge  to  Spain's  claim,  moreover,  was  to  come  from  Prot- 
estants, to  whom  the  pope's  grant  was  rather  an  incitement 
than  a  restraint.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  bulls  were  not  much 
relied  upon  by  Spanish  diplomats  in  their  general  negotia- 
tions, although  they  may  have  contributed  to  the  feeling 
on  their  part,  remarked  in  1565  by  one  of  the  Venetian  am- 
bassadors, that  like  Israel  of  old,  the  Spaniards  were  a  people 
chosen  of  God  to  occupy  a  promised  land.^ 

In  determining  the  relations  between  the  two  great  oceanic 
powers  of  that  day,  Spain  and  Portugal,  however,  the  third 
bull  proved  to  have  a  great  and  lasting  influ-  Demarcation 
ence.  Accepting  its  principle,  the  two  countries  ^®  *"*  BrazU 
agreed  in  the  treaty  of  Tordesillas  in  1494  to  make  the  merid- 
ian fixed  by  the  pope,  or  rather  one  somewhat  to  the  west  of 
it,  the  dividing  line  between  their  "spheres  of  influence,"  each 
respecting  the  rights  of  the  other  to  the  exclusive  enjoyment 
of  everything  discovered  within  its  sphere,  Spain  taking 
what  lay  to  the  west,  Portugal  to  the  east.  As  the  drawing 
of  the  line  was  beyond  the  scientific  abilities  of  the  day,  its 
exact  location  was  never  determined.  Nevertheless,  to  the 
surprise  of  both  nations  it  soon  became  evident  that,  even 
allowing  the  most  easterly  position  possible  for  the  bound- 
ary, a  portion  of  South  America  projected  beyond  it  into  the 
Portuguese  sphere.  To  this  line  of  demarcation  laid  down 
by  Alexander  VI  in  1493  and  modified  by  the  treaty  of  Torde- 
sillas in  1494  the  existence  of  the  Portuguese  language  and  / 
civilization  in  Brazil  to-day  is  distinctly  traceable,  and  the 
first  event  in  American  diplomacy  is  thus  still  a  factor  in 
our  daily  life.^ 

When  Magellan  circumnavigated  the  world  and  made 
"east"  and  "west"  relative  terms,  it  was  at  once  realized 
that  if  the  demarcation  line  were  to  remain  useful  it  must 

^  C.  R.  Fish,  Guide  to  the  Materials  for  American  History  in  Roman  and 
other  Italian  Archives  (Washington,  1911),  239. 

*  Henry  Harrisse,  The  Diplomatic  History  of  America,  itt  first  Chapter, 
im-UH,  London,  1897. 


12  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

girdle  the  globe.    The  matter  was  one  of  great  scientific 

difficulty,  and  national  interests  did  not  leave  science  to 

_  ^  work  unfettered,  but  by   the  treaties  of  Vi- 

Demarcatton  .     .  \  rw  - 

line   and  the    toria  m  1524  and  Zaragoza  m  1529  the  bound- 

^'"^*  ary  was  reduced  to  terms.    In  point  of  fact  the 

Jine  was  incorrectly  drawn,  but,  as  is  often  the  case  when 
an  accident  occurs  in  times  of  flux  and  uncertainty,  the  error 
has  become  embedded  in  history.  The  Philippines,  properly 
Portuguese,  became  Spanish,  and,  being  Spanish,  ultimately 
became  American.  This  second  permanent  result  of  Pope 
Alexander's  demarcation  line  can,  of  course,  hardly  be  at- 
tributed to  its  influence  alone;  for  Spain  by  discovery  and 
occupation,  and  by  her  actual  power,  helped  produce  the 
error  in  location.  In  spite  of  inaccuracies,  however,  the 
existence  of  the  principle  of  a  dividing  line,  aided  in  the 
early  and  peaceful  settlement  of  the  question.^ 

In  America  the  effect  of  the  treaty  of  Tordesillas  was  to 
leave  Spain  a  free  hand  west  of  Brazil.  By  voyages  of  dis- 
Spanish  em-  covery,  followed  up  by  conquests  and  settle- 
P^*  ments,  she  speedily  established  a  firm  hold 

on  all  the  territory  as  far  north  as  Mexico  and  Florida,  and 
presently  came  to  regard  the  entire  continent  and  adjacent 
seas  as  hers  by  all  rights  divine  and  human.  In  1555  Charles 
V  on  relinquishing  his  authority  to  his  son  Phihp  II  drew 
up  a  set  of  instructions  to  guide  him  in  his  government,  in 
which,  among  the  problems  relating  to  the  various  portions 
of  his  vast  territories,  he  discussed  the  situation  in  the  Indies. 
In  1558  he  issued  another  instruction,  dealing  for  the  first 
time  with  the  subject  of  the  defence  of  the  Indies.^ 

We  may,  therefore,  believe  that  during  this  interval  the 
Spanish  government  first  became  seriously  alarmed  for  the 
safety  of  its  American  possessions.    Although  the  attacks 

1  Blair  and  Robertson,  Philippine  Islands,  i.  159-164,  222-SJ39;  Justin 
Winsor,  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America  (8  vols.,  Boston,  1834-89), 
ii.  441. 

'Fish,  Guide,  113. 


PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  BOUNDARIES         13 

upon  them  which  excited  the  apprehension  of  the  dying  states- 
man were  not  at  that  time  such  as  to  test  the  strength  of 
his  son's  empire,  yet  the  enormous  extent  of  Rise  of  the 
Spanish  dominions  rendered  defence  difficult,  P^**** 
and  its  riches  attracted  the  hardy  adventurer.  The  assail- 
ants, moreover, — Mohammedans  from  Barbary,  French 
Huguenots,  and,  a  little  later,  Dutch  and  English  Protest- 
ants,— were  in  a  position  to  give  to  their  plundering  expedi- 
tions the  sanction  of  religion.  But  although  they  rendered 
property  unsafe,  they  were  not  powerful  enough  to  cope 
with  the  organized  forces  of  Spain,  their  only  serious  attempt 
upon  the  integrity  of  the  empire  being  thwarted  in  the  awe- 
inspiring  massacre  of  the  French  Huguenots  on  the  river 
St.  John  in  1563. 

With  the  defeat  of  the  Spanish  Armada  by  England  in 
1588  the  situation  changed.    Fear  of  Spain  was  almost  for- 
gotten, and  information  spread  as  to  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  vast  areas  to  the  north  of    French,' and 
Spanish  settlement.     To  these  regions  Eng-    ^^^   ""'«- 
land,  France,  and  Holland  set  up  rival  claims, 
based  on  the  discoveries  of  the  Cabots,  Verrazzano  and 
Cartier,  and  Hendrik  Hudson  respectively;  and  each  country 
began  permanent  settlements.     By  1625  the  English  were  es- 
tablished in  Virginia  and  New  England,  the  French  in  Canada 
and  Acadia,  or  Nova  Scotia,  and  the  Dutch  on  the  Hudson; 
but  there  was  as  yet  no  mutual  recognition  of  each  other's 
rights,  and  no  recognition  of  any  alien  rights  by  Spain. 

The  next  treaty  of  importance  which  referred  to  America 
was  that  of  St.  Germain  in  1632,  according  to  the  terms 
of   which    England    restored    to    France   the    international 
post   of   Quebec   and   other   American   forts    reception  of 
taken  in  the  preceding  war,  and  which  may 
therefore  be  taken  as  a  recognition  by  each  country  that  the 
other  had  American  possessions.^     By  royal  patent  of  1645 

*  Thomas  Rymer,  Foedera,  etc.  (3d  ed.,  10  vols.,  The  Hague,  173&-45), 


14  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Spain  tacitly  acknowledged  the  presence  of  the  English  In 
America  by  permitting  them  to  import  into  Spain  certain 
products  peculiar  to  America;^  in  the  famous  treaty  of 
Munster,  in  1648,  she  recognized  the  American  possessions 
of  the  Dutch;  ^  and  by  the  treaty  of  Madrid  in  1670  she  form- 
ally acknowledged  the  existence  of  the  English  colonies.^  By 
1670,  therefore,  the  colonial  empires  of  these  four  rival 
countries  had  acquired  international  standing,  but  no  defi- 
nite boundary  line  in  North  America  had  international 
recognition. 

Of  these  rivals  the  Dutch  were  the  first  to  disappear.  Al- 
ready by  the  treaty  of  Breda  in  1667  Holland  had  ceded  to 
_  .  ^  ,  England  not  only  her  own  settlements  about 
Dutch  from  the  Hudson  but  also  those  of  the  Swedes  on 
the  Delaware  which  she  had  seized  in  1655.* 
Recaptured  by  the  Dutch  a  few  years  later,  these  were 
finally  ceded  by  the  treaty  of  Westminster,  in  1674,  to  remain 
united  forever  with  their  English  neighbors.^  Almost  more 
important  was  the  fusion  of  Dutch  and  English  interests 
in  1688  on  the  accession  of  the  stadtholder  of  Holland  to  the 
throne  of  England  as  William  III.  United  by  strict  treaties, 
by  which  the  Dutch  practically  conceded  naval  supremacy 
to  England  in  return  for  the  profits  to  be  derived  from  a 
liberal  grant  of  rights  to  their  neutral  vessels  when  England 
was  at  war,®  the  latter  rose  to  world  power,  while  Holland 
sank  into  a  desuetude  which  was  innocuous  to  all  except  her 
own  citizens. 

*  George  Chalmers,  A  Collection  of  Treaties  between  Great  Britain  and 
other  Powers  (2  vols.,  London,  1790),  ii.  27. 

*  P.  J.  Blok,  Geschiedenis  van  het  Nederlandsche  Volk  (8  vols.,  Groningen, 
etc.,  1892-1908),  iv.  444;  translated  by  O.  A.  Bierstadt,  History  of  the  People 
of  the  Netherlands  (5  vols..  New  York,  etc.,  1898-1912),  iv.  148. 

»  Cambridge  Modem  History  (1908),  v.  105. 

*  Comte  de  Garden,  Histoire  generate  des  traites  de  paix  (15  vols.,  Paris, 
1848-87),  ii.  52. 

*  Cambridge  Modem  History,  v.  161. 

'  Garden,  Traites  de  paix,  ii.  129,  iii,  9-10;  Charles  Jenkinaon,  CoUeetion 
of  .  .  .  Treaties  (3  vols.,  London,  1785),  i.  190,  279,  364. 


PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  BOUNDARIES         15 

Of  the  rivals  that  remained  Spain  was  on  the  defensive. 
To  the  effort  to  fortify  and  defend  that  which  she  had  already 
occupied  she  devoted  great  energy,  and,  with  Spanish  de- 
the  assistance  of  Rome,  was  in  the  miain  sue-  '*"*^* 
cessful  for  over  a  hundred  years.  It  was  not  so  easy  to  monop- 
olize the  commerce  of  her  possessions  in  the  face  of  the  per- 
sistent intrusions  of  Dutch  and  English  merchants;  but  by 
concentrating  it  in  certain  ports  and  confining  ocean  traflfic 
to  the  regular  passage  of  great  protected  fleets,  she  went 
far  toward  accomplishing  her  purpose. 

France  and  England  confronted  the  situation  in  a  dif- 
ferent spirit.  The  conspicuously  great  powers  of  the  day 
both  aimed  at  world  empire,  and  regarded  France  and 
America  as  a  field  for  contest  and  a  prize  ^°8l*"<^ 
for  the  victor.  Between  1688  and  1815  they  seven  times 
engaged  in  war,  and  for  sixty-three  years  out  of  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty-seven  they  were  in  open  conflict.  All 
these  wars  involved  America,  and  out  of  them  emerged 
American  boundaries,  American  foreign  policies,  and  to  a 
considerable  extent  the  spirit  of  American  nationality. 

The  first  two  of  these  wars  grew  out  of  European  causes,  and 

the  third  from  Spanish- American  trade;  but  in  each  case  the 

French  and  English  colonists  of  North  America    „  ,    ,  . 

•  1  n'  All  II         Colonial    wars 

were  drawn  mto  the  conflict.    Although  the 

two  groups  were  still  separated  by  hundreds  of  miles  of  wil- 
derness, the  Indians  constituted  a  medium  by  which  the 
shock  of  hostility  was  communicated:  the  burning  of  Schenec- 
tady in  1690  by  the  French  and  Indians  caused  a  first  thrill  of 
mutual  dependence  and  helpfulness  to  run  through  the  north- 
ern group  of  English  colonies.  The  point  of  closest  contact, 
however,  was  in  the  northeast,  where  ever  since  1613  the 
absence  of  a  boundary  between  the  French  and  English 
spheres  of  influence  had  given  rise  to  occasional  encoimters. 
In  particular  the  depredations  of  the  French  privateers,  first 
from  Port  Royal,  later  from  Louisburg,  made  the  possession 
of  those  ports  a  practical  question  to  the  New  England 


16  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

merchants,  who  in  each  war,  and  mainly  by  their  own 
efforts,  captured  the  offensive  seaport  but  were  foiled  in 
their  designs  on  the  seat  of  French  power,  Quebec. 

Peace  treaties,  or  more  properly  truce  agreements,  however, 
were  made  in  Europe  and  in  accordance  with  European 
European  trea-  conditions.  The  first,  that  of  Ryswick  in  1697, 
**•'  restored  Port  Royal  to  France.^    The  second, 

that  of  Utrecht  in  1713,  marked  a  defeat  for  France  as  well 
as  the  first  attempt  to  define  by  treaty  North  American 
boundaries.^  France  gave  up  all  claim  to  Newfoundland 
and  to  the  Hudson  Bay  country,  and  a  commission  was  ap- 
pointed to  draw  a  boundary  for  the  latter  region.  Of  more 
immediate  interest  was  the  cession  to  England  of  Acadia  or 
Nova  Scotia,  including  Port  Royal;  but  in  this  case  a  bound- 
ary controversy  resulted  instead  of  a  boundary,  for  the 
country  was  granted  "with  its  ancient  boundaries,"  which 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  existed.  In  1745  the  colonists 
captured  Louisburg,  the  French  substitute  for  Port  Royal, 
but  by  the  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  in  1748,  they  had  to 
return  it  to  France.^  The  disadvantages  of  their  European 
connection  were  beginning  to  unfold  themselves  to  the 
British  settlers. 

With  this  peace  a  new  condition  began  to  develop,  which 

resulted  in  the  first  American  war  fought  for  American 

_.  ^  ^  causes.  The  centre  of  interest  was  now  shifted 
The  contest 

£or  the  Ohio      to  the  Ohio  valley.     This  region  the  French 
*'  claimed  on  three  grounds, — because  by  their 

settlement  at  New  Orleans  they  held  the  mouth  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi which  drained  it,  because  in  1749  they  officially  ex- 
plored it  and  left  formal  evidences  of  their  claims,  and 
because  they  had  at  Vincennes  the  only  actual  white  settle- 
ment in  the  main  valley.    For  three  reasons,  too,  they  were 

1  William  MacDonald,  Select  Charters  (New  York,  1899),  223. 
« Ibid..  229-232. 

•  R.  G.  Thwaites,  "France  in  America"  {American  Nation,  vol.  viH.), 
122. 


PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  BOUNDARIES         17 

willing  to  fight  to  maintain  their  claims, — ^because  of  the 
value  of  the  fur  trade  of  the  region,  because  the  valley  was 
necessary  if  they  were  to  weld  Canada  and  Louisiana  into 
one  imperial  colony,  and  because  by  holding  it  they  would 
restrict  the  English  to  the  seacoast.  They  prepared,  there- 
fore, to  establish  a  chain  of  forts  from  the  lakes  to  the  gulf. 
The  English  colonists,  on  the  other  hand,  desired  the  valley 
in  order  to  thwart  the  plans  of  the  French,  and  because  the 
far-sighted  were  already  anticipating  that  the  westward 
push  of  American  settlement  would  at  no  distant  period 
turn  its  rich  lands  into  pioneer  farms.  Their  claims  they 
based  partly  upon  the  right  of  a  nation  occupying  a  coast 
to  possession  of  the  back  country, — a  view  of  international 
law  early  incorporated  into  the  colonial  charters, — ^partly 
upon  what  would  to-day  be  called  a  protectorate  over  the 
Iroquois  Indians,  whose  visionary  claims  extended  over 
nearly  all  the  Northwest,  and  partly  upon  their  trade  rela- 
tions with  the  valley  Indians. 

Not  by  such  arguments  but  by  arms  alone  could  so  great 
a  controversy  be  decided.  In  1754  the  French  secured  the 
strategic  point,  the  junction  at  which  the  An  American 
Monongahela  and  the  Allegheny  unite  to  ^" 
form  the  Ohio.  A  body  of  Virginia  militia  advanced  against 
them.  The  French  awaited  them  in  ambush  without  the 
fort.  Warned  by  an  Indian,  the  Virginians  surprised  the 
French,  and  the  first  battle  of  the  war  took  place.  As  Vol- 
taire said:  "A  torch  lighted  in  the  forests  of  America  set 
all  Europe  in  conflagration. "  How  essentially  this  was  an 
American  war  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that,  although  hos- 
tilities began  here  in  1754,  it  was  not  till  1756  that  France 
and  England  oflScially  broke  off  diplomatic  relations.  It  is 
not  without  significance  that  the  command  for  the  first  shot 
was  given  by  Major  George  Washington. 

In  William  Pitt,  the  great  English  war  minister,  the  colo- 
nists found  a  leader  who  brought  out  their  comparatively 
great  resources.     By  1760  Canada  was  conquered.    In  this 


18  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

emergency  France  called  upon  Spain  for  assistance.  These 
two  monarchies  had  since  1702  been  united  dynastically  by 
The  "  Fanuly  the  succession  of  a  French  prince  to  the  Spanish 
Alliance  throne,  and  in  1761  they  became  by  treaty 

diplomatically  bound  together  in  what  is  known  as  the 
Family  Compact.^  In  accordance  with  this  agreement  either 
country  might,  if  engaged  in  a  defensive  war,  call  for  the 
assistance  of  the  other.  It  was  directed  particularly  against 
the  maritime  powers,  and  chiefly  against  England.  This 
union,  though  unable  to  check  the  progress  of  English  arms, 
yet  brought  Spain  and  her  possessions  into  the  peace  negotia- 
tions and  caused  readjustments  of  fundamental  importance. 
The  war  resulted  in  four  documents  which  together  con- 
stituted the  basis  of  American  territorial  diplomacy  till  well 
The  cession  of  into  the  nineteenth  century.  First  came  the 
Canada  treaty  between  England   and  France,   made 

at  Paris  in  1763.^  For  a  long  time  the  English  government 
hung  in  uncertainty  as  to  whether  it  should  take  as  part  of 
the  spoils  of  war  the  rich  sugar  island  of  Guadaloupe  in  the 
West  Indies,  or  Canada.  Fortunately  for  the  colonies,  how- 
ever, they  were  at  this  crisis  represented  in  London  by  an 
agent  of  exceptional  force  and  adroitness,  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin of  Pennsylvania,  who  made  it  clear  that  they  would  be 
greatly  dissatisfied,  if  they  should  again  be  deprived  of  their 
conquests.  ..The  English  government  therefore  concluded. to 
hold  Canada,  but"  not  without  some  misgiving  that  it  might 
have  been  safer  to  face  discontented  colonists  than  to  free 
them  from  the  continual  menace  of  French  hostility,  a  point 
of  view  which  gave  some  consolation  to  the  French  states- 
men, who  confidently  predicted  that  England  could  not  long 
hold  colonies  to  whose  safety  she  was  not  necessary. 

*  Comte  de  Flassan,  Histoire  generale  et  raisonnee  de  la  diplomatie  fran^ 
Qaise  (2d  ed.,  7  vols.,  Paris,  1811),  vi.  314-320. 

'  From  this  point  all  treaties  mentioned  to  which  the  United  States  was 
not  a  party  may  be  found  in  G.  F.  de  Martens's  Recueil  de  traites  des  pui*' 
sances  et  etats  de  V Europe,  which  begins  with  1761  ^nd  is  continued  by  8up> 
plements  and  new  editions  to  19lS. 


^/ 


PRE-REVOLUTIONARY  BOUNDARIES         19 

In  addition  to  Canada,  France  ceded  all  her  claims  to  the 
Ohio  valley  and  all  of  the  province  of  Louisiana  east  of  the 
Mississippi  and  north  of  the  little  river  Iber- 
ville, which  ran  from  the  Mississippi  to  the    iana  and 
gulf,  retaining  to  the  east  of  the  Mississippi    ffo^d^ 
only  the  He  d'Orleans,  which  contained  the 
city  now  called  New  Orleans.     The  eastern  limit  of   this 
French  cession  was  not  defined  by  treaty,  but  by  custom  had 
been  established  at  the  river  Perdido,  halfway  between  the 
French  Mobile  and  the  Spanish  Pensacola.    This  boundary 
was  for  the  present,  however,  obliterated  by  the  second  docu- 
ment in  the  series,  the  treaty  between  Spain  and  England, 
by  which  the  former  ceded  to  England  all  of  Florida,  thus 
absorbing  also  the  boundary  disputes  between  that  province 
and  its  northern  neighbor,  Georgia. 

By  a  third  document  France  gave  to  Spain  what  remained 
of  Louisiana,  the  He  d'Orleans  and  an  undefined  territory 
west  of  the  Mississippi,  to  indemnify  her  for  Spanish 
the  loss  of  Florida.!  Thus  the  whole  mainland  Louisiana 
of  North  America  came  to  be  divided  between  Spain  and 
England  by  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Iberville. 
The  far-sighted,  however,  realized  that,  with  the  French 
navy  in  existence,  with  a  French  population  in  Canada  and 
Louisiana,  and  with  so  wide  a  difference  in  the  relative 
strength  of  Spain  and  France,  the  latter  was  not  yet  elimi- 
nated as  a  factor  in  American  development. 

The  fourth  document  was  an  English  royal  proclamation, 
issued  October  7,  1763,  dividing  the  new  conquests  into  ad- 
ministrative provinces.^     Florida  was  extended    The  English 
to  include  the  portion  of  French  Louisiana    ^lo"^*^ 
ceded  to  England,  and  was  divided  into  east  and  west  prov- 
inces by  the  Appalachicola  river,  Pensacola  thus  falling  to 

^  B.  A.  Hinsdale,  The  Establishment  of  the  First  Southern  Boundary  of  the 
United.  States,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1893,  pp.  329-366. 

*  William  MacDonald,  Documentary  Source  Book  of  American  History  (New 
York,  1908),  113-116,  see  also  C.  E.  Carter,  "Some  Aspects  of  British  Admin- 
istration in  West  Florida,"  Mississippi  Valley  Hist.  Review,  1914,  i.  364-375. 


«0  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  western  province.  The  boundary  between  East  Florida 
and  Georgia  was  fixed  as  it  stands  to-day;  the  northern  bound- 
ary of  West  Florida  was  set  at  the  thirty-first  parallel.  In 
1764  this  boundary  was  shifted  to  a  line  running  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Yazoo,  or  32'  28". 

To  the  north  the  province  of  Quebec  was  created,  with  a 
southern  boundary  extending  from  the  "South  end  of  lake 
Nipissing."  Thence  the  said  line,  crossing  the 
river  St.  Lawrence  and  the  lake  Champlain  in 
45  degrees  of  north  latitude,  passed  along  the  "High  Lands, 
which  divide  the  rivers  which  empty  themselves  into  the  river 
St.  Lawrence,  from  those  which  fall  into  the  sea,  and  also  along 
the  North  coast  of  the  Bayes  des  Chaleurs."  In  1774,  by 
the  Quebec  Act,  the  province  was  enlarged  by  the  inclusion  of 
the  region  north  of  the  Ohio  river.  The  area  between  Quebec 
and  Florida,  bounded  on  the  east  by  a  line  connecting  the 
head  waters  of  the  rivers  flowing  into  the  Atlantic,  was  left 
unorganized,  a  preserve  for  Indians  and  fur-bearing  animals.^ 

With  this  settlement  the  ground  plan  of  American  diplo- 
macy was  laid.  Indians,  English,  French,  and  Spanish  colo- 
Factois  and  nists,  as  well  as  the  mother  countries  with  their 
problems  rivalry  of  interests  and  traditions,  were  all 

alert  to  their  positions.  Nor  may  one  overlook  the  situation 
in  the  West  Indies,  so  much  more  important  at  that  day  than 
at  this,  and  so  much  more  closely  connected  with  the  con- 
tinent by  ties  of  business  and  of  government.  There  all  the 
rival  nations  had  footholds,  and  there  the  fate  of  European 
and  American  wars  was  sometimes  determined.  Under 
these  circumstances  were  to  be  settled  such  great  questions 
as  the  direction  of  English  and  Spanish-American  commerce, 
the  governmental  relationship  of  Europe  and  America,  and 
the  racial  ownership  of  the  Mississippi  valley  and  the  region 
of  the  great  lakes. 

*  C.  E.  Carter,  Great  Britain  and  the  Illinois  Country  (Washington,  1010), 
lS-«6. 


CHAPTER  III 
RECOGNITION » 

The  early  diplomatic  successes  of  the  Americans  are  often 
enhanced  by  the  commentary  that  the  first  representatives 
of  the  new  country  faced,  as  untrained  novices,    -..  .  - 

Europeans  who  were  masters  of  their  art.  international 
This  lack  of  preparation,  however,  extended 
only  to  lack  of  practice  in  the  formal  art  of  diplomatic  inter- 
course and  to  lack  of  acquaintance  with  international  law. 
Of  these  apparent  defects  the  first  was  a  distinct  advantage, 
for  the  diplomatic  code  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  be- 
come rigid  and  formal  to  the  point  of  breaking,  and  the 
directness  of  the  Americans  was  like  a  fresh  breeze  under 
which  it  began  to  totter  to  a  fall.  International  law,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  proportionately  more  a  matter  of  principle 
and  less  of  cases  than  it  is  to-day,  and  was  consequently 
easier  for  amateurs  to  grasp. 

Of  men  trained  in  the  more  essential  elements  of  diplomacy, 
the  colonies  had  a  greater  proportion  than  any  other  country 
of  the  time.  They  had  been  engaged  in  con-  colonial  ex- 
tinual  negotiations,  almost  independently  of  perience 
Great  Britain,  with  the  Indian  tribes,  and  frequently  with 
the  French  and  Spaniards.  Every  colony  had  had  semi- 
diplomatic  disputes  with  its  neighbors,  and  all  had  supported 
agents  in  England  whose  functions  included  virtually  all  the 
elements  of  a  diplomatic  mission.  Almost  continuously  from 
1758  to  1774  Benjamin  Franklin,  as  general  agent,  had 
occupied  a  post  in  England  essentially  equivalent  to  minister 

*  For  a  general  bibliography  of  American  diplomacy  to  1901,  see  A.  B. 
Hart,  Foundations  of  American  Foreign  Policy  (New  York,  1905),  241-293; 
also  Channing,  Hart,  and  Turner,  Guide  to  the  Study  of  American  Hiiiorjf 
(Boston,  etc,  1912),  which  has  special  sections  on  diplomacy  to  1912. 

21 


22  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

to  that  government.    Moreover,  the  whole  movement  toward 

union  between  the  colonies  was  diplomatic  in  its  character, 

and   constantly   involved   the   most   delicate  questions   of 

management. 

The  colonists  had  therefore  had  experience  with  alliances, 

with  treaties  of  peace,  of  boundary,  and  of  cession,  with  the 

conduct  of  joint  military  expeditions,  and  with 
Arbitration  ii>  'i  pi*/t*      ii>  i 

deahng  with  men  of  airiermg  habits  and  customs. 

They  were  thoroughly  at  home  with  the  great  American  ques- 
tions of  boundary,  fisheries,  Indians,  and  foreign  trade.  They 
were  accustomed  to  discuss  difficult  problems  with  able  men, 
and  to  recognize  the  necessity  of  compromise.  In  one  re- 
spect their  peculiar  experience  as  colonists  prepared  them 
to  take  the  lead  in  an  important  branch  of  international 
law, — the  science  of  international  arbitration.  Accustomed 
as  they  were  to  see  intercolonial  disputes  ultimately  settled  by 
judicial  process  in  England,  they  thought  of  arbitration  as  a 
natural  expedient.  Further,  having  no  trained  diplomatic 
stajff,  they  sent  over  their  ablest  men  of  affairs,  who  usually 
overmatched  in  ability  the  men  with  whom  they  had  to  deal. 
This  diplomatic  readiness  was  indeed  an  essential  resource, 
for  without  foreign  aid  the  cause  of  the  colonists  would  have 
Necessity  for  been  well-nigh  hopeless.  In  the  final  event 
foreign  aid  ^Y^e  French  army  was  a  decisive  factor  at  York- 

town;  but  the  French  army  was  less  significant  than  the 
French  navy,  which  rendered  the  situation  at  Yorktown  pos- 
sible.^ Still  more  important,  however,  was  the  fact  that  the 
colonies  were  not  self-sufficing  industrially,  and  so  could  not 
have  withstood  the  first  shock  of  war  without  the  supplies 
of  arms  and  other  manufactured  goods  which  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  conflict  found  their  way  into  the  country 
through  the  lax  neutrality  of  Holland,  Spain,  and  France.^ 

1  A.  T.  Mahan,  The  Infltience  of  Sea  Power  upon  History,  1660-1783  (Bos- 
ton, 1890),  382-400. 

*  J.  F.  Jameson,  "Saint  Eustatius  in  the  American  Revolution,"  Amer. 
Hist.  Review,  1903,  viii.  683-708. 


RECOGNITION  23 

From  the  meeting  of  the  Continental  Congress,  Septem- 
ber 5,  1774,  until  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  July  4, 
1776,  the  position  of  the  colonists  was  extremely  Groping  for 
delicate.  Professing  loyalty  to  George  III,  ^^ 
they  realized  more  and  more  the  necessity  of  foreign  assist- 
ance, for  which,  however,  it  would  have  been  treason  to 
apply.  Groping  for  support.  Congress  on  October  21,  1774, 
sent  an  address  to  the  other  continental  British  colonies, 
on  June  3,  1775,  it  addressed  the  people  of  Ireland,  and  on 
June  16  it  appointed  a  committee  to  secure  the  friendship  of 
the  Indian  nations.  On  November  29,  1775,  though  veiling 
its  design  in  ambiguity  of  language,  it  took  a  more  decisive 
step  by  appointing  a  committee  of  five  to  correspond  with 
friends  of  the  colonies  in  Great  Britain,  Ireland,  "and  other 
parts  of  the  world";  and  finally,  in  the  spring  of  1776  it  sent 
Silas  Deane  as  agent  to  France,  his  mission,  however,  dis- 
guised under  a  pretence  of  private  business.^ 

Before  following  Deane  in  his  delicate  task  it  is  de- 
sirable to  have  some  understanding  of  the  general  conditions 
under  which  diplomatic  intercourse  was  con-  Diplomatic  or- 
ducted  during  the  Revolution.  In  general  the  s&oiz&tioa 
development  of  diplomatic  organization  resembled  that 
of  other  departments.  The  committee  of  correspondence 
lasted  till  April,  1777.  It  was  succeeded  by  a  committee  on 
foreign  affairs,  which  gave  way  in  October,  1781  to  a  secre- 
tary of  foreign  affairs,  Robert  Livingston.  Under  all  these 
successive  regimes,  however,  the  main  questions  were  de- 
bated in  Congress  itself,  which  received  foreign  ministers, 
and  whose  president  sometimes  acted  as  the  national  repre- 
sentati\^e  before  the  world.  Communication  Communica- 
between  the  directing  body  and  its  agents  *^°° 
abroad  was  slow  and  uncertain.  Even  in  summer  two 
months  was  considered  good  time  between  Philadelphia  and 

^  The  Revolutionary  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  United  States,  ed. 
Francis  Wharton,  6  vols.,  Washington,  1889;  also  Secret  Journals  of  Congress, 
1775-1788,  4  vols.,  Boston,  18581. 


24  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Paris,  and  in  winter  there  were  few  opportunities  lo  send 
letters;  moreover,  if  they  escaped  the  constant  peril  of  cap- 
ture by  the  English,  they  were  liable  to  be  read  by  the 
foreign  postal  authorities.  Months  often  passed  without 
the  successful  exchange  of  a  letter,  and  some  of  the  most 
imj)ortant  papers  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  Under 
such  circumstances  the  American  representatives  abroad 
were  to  a  remarkable  degree  thrown  upon  their  own  respon- 
sibility, and  might  well  feel  that  the  fate  of  a  nation  de- 
pended upon  their  wisdom.^ 

More  important  than  such  facts  was  the  attitude  in  which 
Deane  would  find  Europe  waiting.  Primarily  that  at- 
European  in-  titude  was  one  of  intense  interest.  From  the 
terest  gj,g^  moment  that  the  Revolution  took  form 

the  chancelleries  of  Europe  watched  with  minute  attention. 
The  press  of  Amsterdam  teemed  with  translations  of  Amer- 
ican pamphlets  and  original  discussions  of  the  American 
situation.  From  1774  half  the  bulk  of  the  Paris  and  London 
correspondence  of  every  court  of  Europe  consisted  of  Amer- 
ican news;  the  ministry  of  Naples  knew  in  detail  of  every 
happening  in  Philadelphia;  at  Rome  Mgr.  Lazzari  began  a 
diary  of  the  American  Revolution.  Never  since  then,  unless 
possibly  in  1900,  has  this  country  absorbed  so  much  of  the 
attention  of  continental  Europe.^ 

The  vogue  of  America  rested  largely  on  the  belief  that  in 
that  far-off  non-contagious  land  the  vision  of  Rousseau  was 
Sentimental  being  materialized.  The  American  leaders, 
sympathy  g^,]^  g^  Patrick  Henry  and  Samuel  Adams, 

were  picturesque  and  appealing  in  their  sentiments  and  elo- 
quence; in  one  section  of  French  society  liberalism  was 
fashionable;  if  one  may  judge  from  the  conduct  of  the  no- 
bility early  in  the  French  Revolution  it  was  more  than  fash- 
ionable. Even  to  those  to  whom  it  did  not  appeal,  the  liberal 
experiment  was  compelling  in  its  possibilities.     Sympathy 

'  See  page  23,  note  1. 

*  Fish,  Guide,  74,  75,  118,  233-235,  240-241,  246,  250. 


RECOGNITION  25 

hung  in  the  balance,  but  the  audience  was  on  tiptoe  follow- 
ing the  action.^ 

If  America  seemed  less  picturesque  to  the  men  of  affairs, 
it  seemed  also  less  remote.  For  a  hundred  years  every  war 
had  tended  to  become  a  general  war.  Since  Hatred  of 
1763  England  had  been  regarded  as  the  bully  England 
of  Europe,  and  the  strength  of  England  was  believed  to  lie 
in  her  commerce  and  her  colonies.  The  possible  disintegra- 
tion of  the  British  empire  was  a  subject  that  nearly  touched 
that  holy  of  holies  of  the  European  statesman,  the  balance 
of  power.  To  France  the  situation  came  not  entirely  as  a 
surprise.  Choiseul  had  predicted  it  in  1763,  France  had 
maintained  secret  agents  in  the  colonies  from  that  time,  and 
the  king  himself  had  attended  to  their  reports.  Toward 
France,  therefore,  the  eyes  of  the  nations  were  directed  as 
closely  as  toward  London  and  America. 

In  France  Louis  XVI,  "the  Good,"  had  succeeded  to  the 
throne  in  1774.  Neither  he  nor  the  prime  minister,  Maurepas, 
was  the  driving  force;  the  energy  of  the  govern-  Vergennes  and 
ment  lay  with  Turgot,  the  minister  of  finance,  '^'"'so* 
and  Vergennes,  the  minister  of  foreign  affairs.  Both  intent 
upon  revenge  on  England,  Turgot  wished  for  a  longer  period 
of  recuperation,  whereas  Vergennes  was  eager  to  take  advan- 
tage of  this  unique  opportunity.  In  two  papers  entitled 
"Reflexions"  and  "Considerations,"  the  latter  urged  his 
views.  The  colonists,  he  said,  must  be  supported.  If  they 
were  conquered,  England  would  turn  her  armies  in  America 
upon  the  French  and  Spanish  West  Indies.  It  was  more 
likely,  however,  that  the  war  would  cause  the  overthrow  of 
the  existing  British  ministry  and  the  recall  of  William  Pitt, 
now  earl  of  Chatham.  That  sinister  genius,  the  idol  of  the 
colonies,  would  probably  effect  a  reconciliation,  and,  with 

*  For  a  running  account,  see  J.  B.  Perkins,  France  in  the  American  Revotu- 
tion,  Boston,  etc.,  1911;  for  the  documents,  Henri  Doniol,  Histoire  de  la 
participation  de  la  France  d  V etahlissement  des  Etais  Unis  d^Amerique,  5  vols., 
Paris,  1886-92. 


26  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  combined  forces  of  England  and  America,  "une  ep^ 
nue  dans  les  mains  d'un  furieux,"  would  devastate  the 
world.  ^ 

France,  however,  could  not  well  act  openly  without  Spain. 
Their  fleets  together  might  hope  to  meet  that  of  England, 
Spain  delays  but  that  of  France  alone  could  not.  Spain, 
French  action  y^^j^y  Charles  III  and  his  minister  Florida 
Blanca,  was  somewhat  more  energetic  than  usual.  She  was 
still  united  with  France  in  the  Family  Alliance,  and  she  de- 
sired to  regain  Florida  and  Gibraltar.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  seemed  rash  for  the  greatest  colonial  power  to  encourage 
revolting  colonies;  besides,  she  was  not  fully  ready  for  war, 
and  again  the  habitual  Spanish  procrastination  stood  in  the 
way  of  prompt  action.  While  goading  Spain  into  activity, 
Vergennes  advised  Louis  XVI  to  await  her  decision  before 
going  to  war,  but  meantime  by  secret  succor  to  prevent  the 
colonies  from  falling  before  British  arms  or  promises. 

It  was  possibly  the  opening  of  this  middle  way,  rendering 
unnecessary  a  definite  decision,  from  which  Louis  XVI 
Tentative  as-  shrank  almost  as  nervously  as  did  Charles  III, 
sistance  ^^lat  secured  for  Vergennes  his  victory  over 

Turgot  and  the  direction  of  French  policy.  On  May  2,  1776, 
he  was  authorized  to  use  a  million  francs  for  the  colonies, 
to  which  Spain  soon  added  another  million.  To  employ 
these  sums  for  the  colonists,  without  the  knowledge,  or  at 
any  rate  without  the  proved  knowledge,  of  England,  Ver- 
gennes had  recourse  to  Pierre  de  Beaumarchais,  a  playwright 
and  litterateur,  who  escaped  being  a  charlatan  by  being  some- 
thing of  a  genius,  and  who  had  served  as  a  special  agent  for 
Vergennes  in  England.^ 

Beaumarchais  organized  a  commercial  company,  under 
the  name  of  Rodriguez  Hortalez  and  Company,  to  deal  in 
American  products.     Through  Dumas,  a  Dutch  friend  of 

^  Charlemagne  Tower,  The  Marquis  de  La  Fayette  (2  vols.,  Philadelphia, 
1895),  i.  74,  92-97,  108-113. 
'  C.  J.  Stille,  Beaumarchais  and  "  The  Lost  Million,"  (Philadelphia,  1886). 


RECOGNITION  27 

Franklin,  he  was  put  in  touch  with  Arthur  Lee,  an  Ameri- 
can just  then  in  Paris.  When,  therefore,  Deane  arrived  in 
France  he  found  everything  prepared  for  him.  Beaumarchais 
The  initiative  came  from  neither  side  alone,  but  *"^  Lafayette 
each  putting  forth  its  antennae  encountered  the  other.  Nor 
was  the  preparation  confined  to  that  of  the  government.  In 
that  military  age  war  anywhere  attracted  the  adventurous. 
Soldiers  of  fortune  looked  to  America  as  a  field  for  possible 
glory  and  emolument,  while  some  men,  like  the  young  Mar- 
quis de  Lafayette,  burned  to  baptize  their  swords  in  the  cause 
of  liberty.  Deane  was  overwhelmed  with  offers  of  assistance, 
as  well  as  with  requests  for  commissions  in  the  American 
army;  and  he  sent  home  not  only  a  number  of  oflScers,  good 
and  bad,  but,  what  was  still  more  necessary,  arms  from 
French  arsenals,  paid  for  by  the  French  and  Spanish  millions 
or  to  be  paid  for  by  cargoes  of  tobacco.  Beaumarchais  wrote 
to  Congress,  "Your  deputies,  gentlemen,  will  find  in  me  a 
sure  friend,  an  asylum  in  my  house,  money  in  my  coffers, 
and  every  means  of  prosecuting  their  operations  whether  of 
a  public  or  a  secret  nature." 

Meantime  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had  been  issued 
and  the  new  United  States  could  reveal  its  policy.  Its  repre- 
sentatives need  no  longer  be  inconspicuous;    „ 

!•      I      •     o  1        •  x^  .         Franklin 

accordmgiy,  in  September  it  sent  to  France  its 

most  illustrious  citizen,  Benjamin  Franklin.  From  his  arrival 
in  1776  till  his  departure  in  1785,  sometimes  as  one  of  several 
commissioners,  sometimes  as  sole  minister  to  France,  Frank- 
lin was  universally  thought  of  as  the  representative  of  the 
American  cause  in  Europe.  Arriving  in  Paris  at  the  age  of 
seventy,  and  preceded  by  his  reputation  as  a  statesman,  but 
still  better  known  as  the  author  of  Poor  Richard's  Almanac 
and  by  his  discoveries  in  electricity,  he  presented  to  the 
curious  gaze  of  those  who  thought  to  see  for  the  first  time  in 
the  flesh  one  of  those  Arcadians  who  were  becoming  the  sup- 
port of  conversation,  a  benignant  countenance  with  gray 
locks  "appearing  under  a  martin  fur  cap."    His  lack  of  ac- 


28  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

quaintance  with  French  court  etiquette  he  concealed  under 
a  cloak  of  agreeable  eccentricity,  which  he  knew  how  to 
render  interesting  and  not  too  strange,  just  as  he  kept  his 
costume  simple  but  not  too  simple.  Honesty  had  so  long 
been  his  policy  that  it  shone  from  his  face,  and  he  captured 
at  once,  and  contrived  to  deserve,  the  complete  confidence  of 
the  entire  diplomatic  corps.  Perhaps  only  those  who  had 
business  with  him  realized  that  his  disarming  ingenuousness 
of  appearance  was  not  unaccompanied  by  a  subtlety  based 
upon  a  knowledge  of  human  nature  more  comprehensive 
than  that  of  Lincoln,  though  not  so  profound.  All,  however, 
came  to  realize  that  the  intellect  under  the  fur  cap  was 
unique,  and  that  of  all  great  minds  produced  by  America 
his  was  the  most  nearly  akin  to  the  Gallic.  His  pregnant  wit 
passed  rapidly  from  mouth  to  mouth.  His  satiric  skits  were 
expressed  with  an  artistic  delicacy  as  pleasing  to  the  Parisian 
as  unusual  among  Americans.  Moreover,  his  artistic  sense 
for  language  seems  but  to  have  reflected  his  mastery  of  the 
art  of  living.  His  tact  and  sympathetic  consideration  won 
those  who  associated  intimately  with  him,  while  he  did  not 
disdain  to  employ  a  nicely  calculated  breadth  of  acting  which 
gained  the  remote  spectators  of  the  gallery.^ 

Franklin  took  Paris  by  storm.  His  piquant  sayings  and 
writings  caught  the  public  attention,  his  shoe  buckles  be- 
Frankiin  cap-  came  the  fashion,  his  pictures  were  everywhere 
tures  Pans  j^j.  ^^^e.  The  best  Latin  verse  since  the  Augus- 
tan age  was  forged  in  his  honor:  "Eripuit  caelo  fulmen, 
sceptrumque  tyrannis,"  "He  snatched  from  Heaven  the 
thunderbolt,  the  scepter  also  from  tyrants."  Hesitant  soci- 
ety swimg  to  the  American  side,  and  society  was  at  that 
period  the  public  in  France.  That  Franklin  enjoyed  himself 
is  clear,  and  that  he  liked  the  French,  who  liked  him,  was 
only  natural.    It  is  true  that  he  became  very  close  to  those 

^  E.  E.  Hale  and  E.  E.  Hale,  Jr.,  Franklin  in  France,  2  vols.,  Boston, 
1887-88;  and,  more  particularly,  Franklin's  Works  (ed.  John  Bigelow,  10 
vols.,  New  York,  1887-88),  vols,  vi.-ix. 


RECOGNITION  29 

in  authority,  but  that  the  glamor  blinded  in  any  way  his 
clear  view  of  American  interests  may  well  be  doubted.  In 
December,  1776,  it  was  said  of  him,  "That  popular  man  be- 
came more  powerful  than  power  itself;"  and  Jefferson  wrote 
later,  "He  possessed  the  confidence  of  that  government  in 
the  highest  degree,  insomuch  that  it  may  truly  be  said  that 
they  were  more  under  his  influence  than  he  under  theirs." 

Franklin's  success  rendered  the  triumph  of  Vergennes's 
policy  comparatively  easy.  American  merchant  ships,  priva- 
teers, and  war  vessels  found  harborage  in  Friendship  and 
French  ports;  and  finally,  after  the  news  of  the  "^^i*^*^® 
surrender  of  Burgoyne  reached  France,  early  in  1778,  the  king 
consented  to  act  without  waiting  upon  Spain.  On  February  6 
of  that  year  two  treaties  were  signed  between  France  and 
the  United  States, — one  of  amity  and  commerce,  and,  in 
case  England  should  resent  that,  one  of  alliance.  The 
treaty  of  amity  was  framed  upon  principles  of  free  mutual 
intercourse  which  were  somewhat  in  advance  of  the  time, 
and  incorporated  certain  rules  of  international  law,  as  that 
free  ships  make  free  goods,  long  laid  down  by  the  Dutch  audi 
French  writers  but  denied  by  the  English.  The  treaty  of 
alliance  guaranteed,  on  the  part  of  France,  the  independence 
of  the  United  States;  on  the  part  of  the  latter  the  existing 
possessions  of  France  in  America.  To  the  United  States 
it  gave  a  free  hand  in  the  conquest  of  British  continental! 
possessions  and  of  the  Bermudas;  to  France  it  granted  similar! 
rights  in  the  West  Indies.  "Neither  of  the  two  parties,"  it 
ran,  "  shall  conclude  either  truce  or  peace  with  Great  Britain 
without  the  formal  consent  of  the  other  first  obtained;  and 
they  mutually  engage  not  to  lay  down  their  arms  until  the 
independence  of  the  United  States  shall  have  been  formally 
or  tacitly  assured  by  the  treaty  or  treaties  that  shall  ter- 
minate the  war."  ^ 

1  For  these  and  all  subsequent  treaties  to  which  the  United  States  was  a 
party,  see  Treaties,  Conventions,  etc.,  ed.,  W.  M.  Malloy  and  Charles  Gar- 
field, 2  vols,  to  1909,  and  supplement  to  1913  (Senate  Doc.,  61  Con.  i  sess., 
No.  357). 


30  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

England,  on  hearing  of  the  recognition  of  American  inde- 
pendence by  France,  did  not  accept  the  view  of  Louis  XVI, 
France  enters  who  wrote  to  George  III  that  he  was  assured 
the  war  ^j^g^^  ^^le  latter  would  regard  it  as  one  more 

manifestation  of  his  friendly  disposition;  and  in  April  war 
between  France  and  England  began.  Thanks  largely  to  the 
tact  of  Franklin,  the  alliance  worked  smoothly.  The  French 
government  loaned  money  and  guaranteed  other  loans;  it 
sent  ships  and  troops  to  America.  As  the  chief  American 
authority  in  Europe,  Franklin  was  financial  and  purchasing 
agent  for  the  states;  he  directed  the  employment  of  the 
American  navy  under  Commodore  John  Paul  Jones;  and, 
through  his  friends,  the  Foxes  of  Falmouth,  he  looked  after 
the  welfare  of  the  American  prisoners  in  England.  American 
trade  was  legitimatized,  and  the  final  independence  of  the 
United  States  became  a  reasonable  certainty. 


CHAPTER   IV 
SPAIN  AND  HOLLAND 

Two  parties  arose  in  Congress.  One,  which  came  to  be 
known  as  the  Gallican,  or  French,  party,  favored  the  en- 
trusting of  American  interests  in  Europe  to  Diplomatic 
France,  advised  by  Franklin.  The  other,  skirmishing 
sometimes  known  as  the  party  of  the  Lees  and  Adamses, 
distrusted  French  sincerity  and  Franklin's  ability  and  wished 
to  preserve  an  independent  course.  The  friends  of  Franklin, 
who  in  domestic  affairs  were  also  in  general  the  supporters 
of  Washington,  succeeded  in  maintaining  him  at  Paris,  but 
their  rivals  obtained  the  appointment  of  a  swarm  of  agents 
commissioned  to  other  countries.  Silas  Deane  was  recalled 
in  1778,  and  in  1779  Franklin  was  appointed  sole  minister 
to  France;  but  from  time  to  time  Ralph  Izard  was  sent  to 
Tuscany,  Arthur  Lee  was  for  a  time  co-commissioner  to 
France  and  was  appointed  to  undertake  missions  to  Spain 
and  Prussia,  William  Lee  was  sent  to  Berlin  and  Vienna, 
Francis  Dana  to  Russia,  Henry  Laurens  to  the  Netherlands. 
None  of  these  were  received  at  their  posts,  but  at  Paris  and 
in  their  wanderings  about  Europe  they  now  and  again  touched 
wires  in  a  manner  disturbing  to  the  controlling  authorities.  It 
was,  however,  at  Paris,  and  by  Franklin  and  Vergennes,  that 
the  international  status  of  the  alliance  had  to  be  determined.^ 

The  first  essential  was  the  Spanish  fleet,  and  the  Spanish 
negotiation  at  once  became  the  central  point  of  diplomatic 
interest.  Charles  III  was  annoyed  at  the  in-  Spain  enters 
dependent  action  of  France;  the  Spanish  gov-  *^®  ^" 
ernment  was  irritated  at  the  persistent  attempts  of  Arthur 
Lee  to  gain  admission  to  the  Spanish  court,  and  vacillated 
with  the  success  or  the  failure  of  American  arms.  Spain 
^  Wharton,  Diplomatic  Correspondence,  introduction. 
SI 


32  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

was  still  unready;  she  asserted  that  France  was  the  offending 
party  and  that  the  Family  Alliance  did  not  compel  her  to 
assist  France  in  an  offensive  war.  Instead  she  offered  media- 
tion, in  return  for  which  she  was  to  receive  the  cession  of  the 
Floridas  and  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  territory  be- 
tween the  Floridas  and  the  Ohio,  a  proposal  which  was  vir- 
tually an  offer  to  accept  a  bribe  from  England  for  her  inac- 
tivity. The  offer  was  refused,  but  European  opinion  still 
believed  that  she  would  remain  at  peace,  when  rather  un- 
expectedly, in  1779,  she  declared  war  on  Great  Britain. 

Thus  united,  the  French  and  Spanish  fleets  for  some  years 
neutralized  British  naval  supremacy.  Since  Spain,  however, 
though  allied  with  France,  had  not  as  yet  even 
recognized  the  United  States,  in  the  autumn  of 
1779  Congress  sent  John  Jay  to  treat  with  her.  Jay  was 
thirty-four  years  old,  a  man  of  decided  talent  and  great 
energy.  Although  a  gentleman  in  the  conventional  sense 
and  descended  from  French  Huguenots,  he  was  provincial 
in  experience  and  point  of  view  and  retained  no  spark  of 
appreciation  for  French  civilization.  Given  to  self-confidence, 
he  was  alert  to  American  interests  up  to  the  point  of  being 
suspicious  of  all  who  opposed  his  view  of  them.  He  was  in- 
structed to  offer  Spain  permission  to  take  the  Floridas  from 
Great  Britain  and  to  hold  them;  but  in  return  he  was  to 
insist  on  the  right  of  the  Americans  to  navigate  the  Missis- 
sippi to  the  sea, — a  right  in  respect  to  which  he  declared  in 
1780,  "The  Americans,  almost  to  a  man,  believed  that  God 
Almighty  had  made  that  river  a  highway  for  the  people  of 
the  upper  country  to  go  to  the  sea  by," — and  he  was  to  re- 
quest permission  to  use  similarly  the  rivers  flowing  into  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  to  the  eastward.  In  1781  under  the  pressure 
of  accumulated  woes.  Congress  released  him  from  that  part 
of  his  instructions  relating  to  the  Mississippi;  but  he  disre- 
garded the  modification.^ 

^  John  Jay,  Correspondence  and  Public  Papers  (ed.  H.  P.  Johnston,  4  vols.. 
New  York,  1890-93),  i.  5848-461,  ii.  1-296. 


SPAIN  AND  HOLLAND  S3 

Jay  was  not  oflBcially  received  in  Spain,  but  he  was  put 
in  touch  with  Don  Diego  de  Gardoqui,  a  Spanish  merchant 
versed  in  American  affairs,  who  represented  Spanish 
the  Spanish  government.  It  soon  appeared  P°^"** 
that  Spain  was  as  insistent  on  closing  the  Mississippi  as  Jay 
was  on  opening  it.  One  great  boon  which  she  expected  to 
obtain  from  the  war  was  the  banishment  of  all  foreign  com- 
merce from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Ever  timid  as  to  her  Amer- 
ican possessions,  she  wished  to  hold  all  neighbors  at  arm's 
length.  Indeed,  she  was  not  satisfied  with  the  narrow  fringe 
of  coast  afforded  by  the  Floridas;  but  in  the  project  of  a 
treaty  presented  in  her  behalf  to  Congress  by  Luzerne,  the 
French  minister  at  Philadelphia,  she  renewed  the  suggestion 
contained  in  her  mediating  offer  to  England,  that  she  receive 
a  portion  of  the  region  between  the  Floridas  and  the  Ohio.^ 
Money  she  was  willing  to  offer;  vital  concession  she  would 
not  make. 

Fully  cognizant  of  Spanish  views,  and  with  his  suspicions 
excited  by  an  outside  view  of  a  negotiation  with  England 
which  took  place  at  Madrid  during  his  stay,     g     •  ^ 
Jay,  having  obtained  nothing  but  some  slight    tiation   in 
pecuniarj'^   aid,   returned   to   Paris,   where  in 
1782  he  renewed  negotiations  with  the  Spanish  minister  at 
that  capital,  Count  d'Aranda.    To  assist  in  these  negotia- 
tions  Vergennes   delegated   his   secretary   Rayneval,    who 
seemed  to  Jay  to  support  the  Spanish  contentions. 

Meantime  the  question  was  not  left  to  diplomatic  con- 
troversy alone.  In  1778  and  1779,  the  American,  George 
Rogers  Clark  had  captured  Kaskaskia  on  the  war  in  the 
Mississippi  and  Vincennes  on  the  Wabash,  ^*^* 
within  the  territory  added  to  Quebec  by  the  act  of  1774. 
Between  1779  and  1781  Spain  captured  the  British  forts 
in  West  Florida.  At  Natchez  on  the  Mississippi  between 
the  parallels  of  31'  and  32'  28",  in  or  out  of  West  Florida  as 
one  might  view  it,  the  Spaniards  and  Americans  almost 
*  Secret  Journals  qf  Congress,  ii.  310,  etc 


34  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

came  to  blows.  In  the  winter  of  1781  a  Spanish  expedition 
from  St.  Louis  penetrated  to  the  British  fort  of  St.  Joseph 
in  Michigan  and  burned  it.^  Jay  wrote  to  Livingston,  "  When 
you  consider  the  ostensible  object  of  this  expedition,  the 
distance  of  it,  the  formalities  with  which  the  place,  the  coun- 
try, and  the  rivers  were  taken  possession  of  in  the  name  of 
His  Catholic  Majesty,  I  am  persuaded  it  will  not  be  neces- 
sary for  me  to  swell  this  letter  with  remarks  that  would  oc- 
cur to  a  reader  of  far  less  penetration  than  yourself." 

By  1782  Jay  was,  therefore,  thoroughly  convinced  that 
Spain  wished  no  good  to  the  United  States,  but  rather  that 
Jay's  conclu-  she  would  curtail  it  within  the  narrowest 
^*°°^  limits.      He   believed   also   that   France   was 

co-operating  with  Spain  and  was  moved  by  similar  desires. 
John  Adams  writing  in  November  of  that  year  confided  to 
his  diary :  "  Mr.  Jay  likes  Frenchmen  as  little  as  Mr.  Lee  and 
Mr.  Izard  did.  He  says  they  are  not  a  moral  people;  they 
know  not  what  it  is;  he  don't  like  any  Frenchman;  the 
Marquis  de  Lafayette  is  clever,  but  he  is  a  Frenchman. 
Our  allies  don't  play  fair,  he  told  me."  Adams's  reference  to 
allies  is  a  little  ambiguous;  but  he  must  have  referred  to  the 
French  alone,  for  by  the  close  of  1782  there  was  still  no 
agreement  between  Spain  and  the  United  States.  France 
was  the  ally  of  each,  but  they  were  not  allies  of  each 
other. 

While  Jay  was  negotiating  with  Spain,  the  centre  of  interest 
had  shifted  to  the  Netherlands.  With  the  only  comparatively 
free  press  on  the  continent,  that  country,  and 
particularly  Amsterdam,  was  a  centre  for  the 
publication  of  polemical  literature;  and  as  the  chief  money- 
lender of  Europe,  the  Dutch  bourse  reflected  all  shades  of  all 
the  diplomatic  changes  of  the  world.  The  interest  of  the 
Dutch  in  America,  and  of  the  Americans  in  the  Dutch,  how- 
ever, was  far  from  being  wholly  platonic.    Until  our  treaty 

*  Justin  Winsor,  The  Westward  Movement  (Boston,  etc.,  1897),  116-202; 
Doniol,  La  participation  de  la  France,  iv.  101. 


SPAIN  AND  HOLLAND  35 

with  France,  Dutch  neutrality  was  the  chief  foreign  asset 
of  the  colonies. 

Dutch  smugglers  had  always  been  the  bane  of  honest  Eng- 
lish oflficials  in  the  colonies ;  the  smuggling  question  had,  indeed, 

been  one  of  the  causes  of  irritation  that  produced    „    „ 

, .    ,  ,  St.  Eustatius 

the  Revolution.     In  the  event  of  mdependence, 

the  Dutch  seemed  most  likely  to  inherit  the  American  trade. 
When  communication  between  England  and  America  was 
cut  off  and  British  war  vessels  began  to  patrol  the  American 
coast,  the  safest  expedient  was  to  drop  with  the  generally 
favoring  winds  into  the  maze  of  West  Indian  islands  to  seek 
a  market  for  sale  and  purchase;  and  the  Dutch  merchants 
took  care  that  the  Americans  should  find  what  they  came 
for.  European  goods  could  be  safely  shipped  from  Holland 
to  some  Dutch  island,  and  in  particular  the  little  island  of 
St.  Eustatius  became  from  1776  to  1779  the  entrep6t  of 
American  trade.  Lying  in  close  juxtaposition  to  St.  Chris- 
topher, which  was  British,  St,  Bartholomew,  which  was 
French,  St.  Croix,  which  was  Danish,  and  Spanish  Porto 
Rico,  and  enjoying  the  privileges  of  a  free  port,  it  was  a 
natural  depot  of  exchange.  Through  St.  Eustatius,  Amster- 
dam took  the  place  of  London  as  the  market  for  American 
tobacco  and  indigo;  she  exported  to  London  instead  of  re- 
ceiving from  her.  Through  St,  Eustatius,  also,  cloth  and 
iron  and  war  material  from  Europe,  and  even  from  England 
herself,  reached  the  colonies.  In  thirteen  months  of  the  years 
1778-79,  3182  vessels  sailed  from  the  island,  and  through 
its  ports  was  carried  on  most  of  the  American  correspondence 
with  Europe.^ 

England  was  naturally  exasperated  at  this  situation,  which 
was  enriching  her  most  important  rival  in  merchant  tonnage 
and  at  the  same  time  rendering  her  task  in  America  the 
more  diflScult.     Particularly  irritating  was  the  fact  that  the 

^Jameson,  "Saint  Eustatius,"  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1903,  viii.  683-708; 
also  Hansard,  Parliamentary  Debates,  xxii.  218-262,  May  14,  1781  (discus- 
sion by  Burke). 


36  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

treaties  made  in  the  time  of  William  III  when  the  relative 
position  of  the  two  powers  was  quite  different,  gave  the 
England  and  Dutch  ships  special  advantages  by  allowing 
the  Dutch  ^.j^g  principle  of  free  ships,  free  goods,  and  by 

confining  contraband  within  narrow  bounds.  In  terms 
Holland  and  England  were  practically  allies,  but  the  Dutch 
refused  to  carry  out  the  agreement  by  lending  England 
troops,  which  the  latter  had  the  treaty  right  to  require.  The 
Dutch  government  did  indeed  send  out  instructions  calling 
for  the  strict  enforcement  of  neutrality  on  the  part  of  its 
colonial  officers;  yet  one  governor  of  St.  Eustatius  ordered  a 
salute  to  an  American  vessel,  and  of  his  successor  the  Amer- 
ican agent.  Van  Bibber,  wrote  in  1776,  "We  are  as  well  fixed 
with  him  now  as  we  were  with  the  former."  During  1777 
the  British  naval  vessels  off  St.  Eustatius  were  ordered  to 
search  for  contraband  all  vessels  entering  and  leaving  the 
island,  and  to  send  those  found  with  it  to  an  admiralty  court 
for  adjudication.  In  1779,  a  further  cause  for  complaint  was 
given  by  the  refuge  afforded  to  John  Paul  Jones  in  the  Texel 
after  his  raid  in  English  waters.  In  1780,  therefore,  England, 
after  due  notice,  announced  the  suspension  of  the  Dutch 
treaties  and  began  to  seize  and  confiscate  Dutch  vessels 
carrying  American  goods  or  any  kind  of  war  material. 

Meantime  the  Netherlands  drifted,  anxious  to  secure  the 
last  dollar  from  the  neutral  trade,  and  unable  to  determine 

^  which  side  to  take  up  when  neutrality  ceased  to 

Dutch  parties  . 

be  possible.     The  stadholder  was  pro-English, 

but  was  without  energy  or  power.     Of  the  people,  a  very 

strong  party,  sedulously  encouraged  by  the  skilful  diplomacy 

of  Vergennes,  had  for  many  years  been  coming  to  favor  France; 

and  this  faction  was  now  supported  by  an  emotional  body  of 

"patriots"  who  felt  a  sentimental  sympathy  with  American 

republicanism.     In  1778,  during  this  deadlock,  the  city  of 

Amsterdam,  on  the  responsibility  of  its  burgomaster.  Van 

Berkel,  had  the  draft  of  a  treaty  with  the  United  States 

drawn  up  by  a  M.  de  Neufville,  who  secretly  at  Frankfort 


SPAIN  AND  HOLLAND  87 

met  William  Lee,  who  acted  on  his  own  responsibility.  This 
draft,  utterly  without  standing  in  diplomacy,  was  sent  to 
repose  in  the  archives  of  Amsterdam  and  the  United  States; 
but  it  did  not  sleep,^ 

While  affairs  were  in  this  state,  Catharine  of  Russia  sud- 
denly entered  the  lists.  England  had  at  first  counted  upon 
Russian  support,  and  had  sent  her  ablest  dip-  Catharine  of 
lomat,  Sir  James  Harris,  afterwards  earl  of  ^'"^ 
Malmesbury,  to  cajole  the  capricious  empress.  When,  how- 
ever, George  III  in  an  autograph  note  asked  for  Russian 
mercenaries,  Catharine,  who  posed  as  a  ruler  of  advanced 
ideas,  replied  that  she  was  not  in  that  business.  Moreover, 
since  France  was  also  ably  represented  at  the  court,  Harris 
was  not  able  to  efface  the  ill  effect  created  by  the  English 
treatment  of  the  vessels  of  the  northern  neutral  p)owers, 
Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Russia,  a  subject  especially  aggra- 
vating to  Catharine  because  among  her  many  aspirations 
was  that  of  making  Russia  a  great  mercantile  power.  This 
difficulty,  however,  arose  chiefly  after  the  entrance  of  France 
and  Spain  into  the  war,  as  ships  of  these  northern  countries 
seldom  reached  America. 

Under  these  circumstances  Catharine  resolved  upon  a 
dramatic  stroke  which  should  at  once  enhance  both  her  power 
and  her  prestige  as  a  leader  of  liberal  thought.     The  Armed 
On  March  10,  1780,  she  announced  to  the  world    We«f  *«ty 
the  following  principles  of  international  law:  that  neutral, 
vessels  may  engage  in  the  coast  trade  of  a  belligerent  country  \ 
so  long  as  the  ports  are  unblockaded;  that  enemies'  goods 
in  neutral  vessels  are  free  from  seizure;  that  contraband  isi 
limited  to  goods  directly  used  in  war;  and  that  a  blockade  i 
must  be  maintained  off  the  port  blockaded.    To  enforce  the 
observance  of  these  views  by  the  belligerent  powers  she  pre- 
pared a  strong  fleet,  and  united  with  Denmark  and  Sweden 
in* what  is  known  as  the  Armed  Neutrality.^ 

»  H.  W.  van  Loon,  The  Fall  of  the  Dutch  Republic,  London,  1913. 

*  Francis  Wharton,  Digest  of  the  International  Law  of  the  United  States  (S 


38  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

France  and  Spain  joyfully  accepted  this  declaration  which 
would  open  their  ports  to  neutral  vessels,  and  Frederick  the 
Great  approved.  England,  though  protesting,  could  observe 
the  rules  with  little  hurt  so  far  as  the  signatory  powers  were 
concerned;  but,  should  the  Dutch  come  under  them,  trade 
with  the  United  States  would  become  a  pastime  for  the  traf- 
ficker, and  the  policy  of  attrition  which  she  had  been  at- 
tempting since  1779  would  be  nothing  but  a  dead  letter. 
War  with  Holland  without  offence  to  the  northern  powers 
was  the  necessity  of  English  diplomacy,  and,  while  the  slow 
wheels  of  Dutch  governmental  machinery  were  rolling  toward 
incorporation  in  the  alliance,  luck  threw  in  England's  hands 
an  instrument  which  secured  her  first  diplomatic  victory 
since  hostilities  began. 

In  1779  Henry  Laurens  had  been  elected  minister  to  the 
Netherlands.  With  his  papers  he  naturally  carried  the  draft 
VT      u  *^         ^^  the  treaty  which  William  Lee  had  made. 

WflT      DCtWCCn  111* 

England  and  Captured  on  the  ocean,  he  threw  his  papers 
overboard,  but  they  were  rescued  by  the 
British,  the  draft  among  them.  This  was  sent  to  Holland, 
November  11, 1780,  with  a  demand  for  an  explanation.  The 
Dutch  were  not  able  to  satisfy  the  British  minister,  York,  who 
was  accordingly  withdrawn  on  December  16.  On  the  19th, 
Holland  acceded  to  the  alliance,  but  it  was  too  late.  St. 
Eustatius  received  the  first  news  of  war  from  the  British  ad- 
miral, Rodney,  who  demanded  its  surrender;  and  the  Dutch, 
in  ceasing  to  be  neutrals,  ceased  forever  to  carry  American 
trade. 

The  task  of  establishing  relations  between  the  United  States 
and  England's  new  enemy  fell  to  John  Adams.     A  substantial 

,  .     . ,  lawyer  of  forty -five,  he  had  been  in  France  for 

John  Adams  *'.  .    /.  .     . 

a  brief  period  m  1778  as  co-commissioner,  and 

had  now  returned  as  commissioner  to  secure  the  peace  with 

England  which  as  yet  was  only  a  hope.    On  April  6,  1781, 

vols.,  Washington,  1886),  iii.  26Sd-264;  Paul  Fauchille,  La  diphmatie  fran- 
gaite  et  la  ligue  dea  neutres  de  1780,  Paris,  1893. 


SPAIN  AND  HOLLAND  39 

he  received  a  further  commission  to  treat  with  Holland.  Of 
Puritan  breeding  and  ideas,  he  was  American  to  the  back- 
bone. With  a  fund  of  solid  information  and  a  penetration 
and  sound  judgment  which  marked  him  out  among  his  con- 
temporaries, he  was  also  conceited,  obstinate,  and  disagree- 
able. His  disapproval  of  the  frivolities  of  Philadelphia  when 
he  attended  Congress  there  foreshadowed  his  opinion  of 
Paris,  and  indeed  of  Franklin.  Referring  to  the  latter,  he 
wrote,  "Congress  will  not  be  put  to  any  expense  for  my 
family,  for  my  coaches  and  retinues  of  servants."  July  13, 
1780,  he  wrote  to  Vergennes,  "The  United  States  are  a  great 
and  powerful  people,  whatever  European  statesmen  may 
think."  On  August  9,  1780,  Franklin  wrote  to  the  president 
of  Congress,  "M.  de  Vergennes,  who  appears  much  offended, 
told  me  yesterday  that  he  would  enter  into  no  further  dis- 
cussions with  Mr.  Adams." 

Happy  in  the  thought  that  an  understanding  with  Holland 
might  render  the  United  States  "less  dependent  on  France," 
Adams  was  also  happy  in  the  quieter  atmos-  Treaty  with 
phere  of  the  Dutch  capital  and  the  substantial  ^o^and 
methods  of  her  statesmen,  who  on  their  part  appreciated  his 
qualities.  On  October  8, 1782,  therefore,  an  admirable  treaty 
of  amity  and  commerce  was  signed,  and  an  American  loan 
was  floated  on  the  Dutch  market.  In  his  diary  he  records 
the  remark  made  to  him,  "Sir,  you  have  struck  the  greatest 
blow  in  the  American  cause,  and  the  most  decisive."  ^  , 

^  John  Adams,  Works  (ed.  C.  F.  Adams,  10  vols.,  Boston,  1850-56),  iii. 
94-304. 


CHAPTER  V 
PEACE 

During  the  spring  of  1779  Congress  devoted  much  of  its 
time  to  a  consideration  of  the  terms  upon  which  it  would 
American  de-  consent  to  make  peace.  It  decided  that  the 
*"""  recognition  of  independence  must  precede  ne- 

gotiation and  not  form  part  of  the  treaty.  On  the  subject 
of  boundaries  it  determined  to  make  the  cession  of  the  un- 
organized Indian  country  between  the  Floridas,  the  moun- 
tains, the  Ohio,  and  the  Mississippi  an  ultimatum.  To  the 
north  it  wanted  the  1763  boundary  of  Quebec,  that  is,  Lake 
Nipissing  to  the  point  where  the  forty-fifth  parallel  crosses 
the  St.  Lawrence,  then  along  that  parallel  to  the  highlands, 
and  then  along  the  highlands,  giving  us  the  country  from 
Lake  Nipissing  westward  to  the  source  of  the  Mississippi;  but 
the  whole  portion  of  the  line  west  of  the  St.  Lawrence  it  was 
willing  to  leave  subject  to  negotiation.  To  the  northeast,  the 
line  was  to  descend  from  the  highlands  along  the  river  St. 
John,  but  some  more  western  river  might  be  chosen  if  thereby 
the  war  could  be  shortened.  Congress  expressed  its  readiness 
to  take  Nova  Scotia  and  the  Bermudas,  and  made  other  in- 
teresting suggestions  which  were,  however,  not  to  be  insisted 
upon.^ 

In  the  discussions  two  points  of  dispute  arose.  New  Eng- 
land could  not  conceive  of  happiness  without  the  Newfound- 
Fisheries  and  land  fisheries.  Her  representatives  demanded 
the  Mississippi  ^Yie  right  to  fish  on  the  "  Banks,"  and  in  addi-  ^ 
tion  the  privilege  of  landing  on  unoccupied  coasts  to  dry  fish 
and  for  other  purposes.    The  southern  states,  on  the  con- 

^  Secret  Journals  of  Congress,  ii.  132-261 ;  Diplomatic  Correspondence  qf 
the  United  States,  from  1783  to  1789,  3  vols.,  Washington,  1837. 

40 


PEACE  41 

trary,  were  unwilling  to  prolong  the  war  for  such  ends,  but 
demanded  on  their  part  that  the  free  navigation  of  the  V 
Mississippi  be  an  ultimatum,  a  grant  for  which  the  New 
Englanders  were  not  prepared  to  fight.  When  Congress 
voted  to  include  in  the  ultimatum  merely  the  common  right 
of  fishing  on  the  "Banks"  without  the  in-shore  privileges, 
Samuel  Adams  was  heard  to  say  that  one  saw  more  and  more 
that  the  separation  of  the  East  and  the  South  was  in- 
evitable.^ 

The  French  minister,  Gerard,  not  unnaturally  urged  that 
the  fixed  points  in  the  instructions  be  as  few  as  possible,  and 
the  final  draft,  August  14,  1779,  left  out  both  Final  instrac- 
fisheries  and  Mississippi.  Two  years  more  of  *'*'°* 
war,  with  the  disasters  in  the  South,  still  further  broke  the 
spirit  of  Congress,  and  June  15,  1781,  the  commissioners 
were  informed  that,  although  the  desires  of  Congress  re- 
mained the  same  they  were  not  to  be  insisted  upon.  "We 
think  it  unsafe  at  this  distance,"  ran  the  instructions,  "to 
tie  you  up  by  absolute  and  peremptory  directions  upon  any 
other  subject  than  the  two  essential  articles  [independence 
and  the  observance  of  the  French  treaties].  .  .  .  You  are 
therefore  at  liberty  to  secure  the  interest  of  the  United  States 
in  such  manner  as  circumstances  may  direct,  and  as  the  state 
of  the  belligerent  and  disposition  of  the  mediating  powers 
[Russia  and  Austria  were  offering  their  mediation]  may 
require.  For  this  purpose,  you  are  to  make  the  most  candid 
and  confidential  communications,  upon  all  subjects,  to  the 
ministers  of  our  generous  ally  the  king  of  France;  to  under- 
take nothing  in  the  negotiations  for  peace  or  truce,  without 
their  knowledge  and  concurrence;  and  ultimately  to  govern 
yourself  by  their  advice  and  opinion."  ^  John  Adams  was  in 
1779  appointed  to  carry  out  the  negotiations,  and  in  1781  four 
other  commissioners  were  added, — Franklin,  Jay,  Laurens, 
and  Thomas  Jefferson.    Of  these  Jefferson  did  not  cross  the 

*  Doniol,  La  participation  de  la  France,  iv.  105-107. 

*  Secret  Journals  of  Congress,  ii.  424-439. 


4^  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ocean,  and  Laurens  was  in  the  Tower  of  London  until  just 

before  the  signing  of  the  preliminary  articles. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  war  till  the  end  of  1778  Great 

Britain  was  continually  and  increasingly  anxious  to  negotiate 

o     *   T.  •*  •      with  the  colonies  on  some  basis  less  than  that 
Great    Britain 

opens  negotia-  of  independence.  These  attempts  were  a  con- 
stant source  of  anxiety  to  France,  and  were  in 
fact  given  by  Louis  XVI  to  Charles  III  as  his  excuse  for  recog- 
nizing our  independence  without  waiting  for  action  by  Spain. 
The  attempt  of  1778  was  earnestly  undertaken  but  was  un- 
successful, and  after  that  date  such  negotiations  were  not 
seriously  renewed.  The  surrender  of  Cornwallis  at  York- 
town,  October  14,  1781,  brought  England  to  the  point  of 
acknowledging  independence.  On  March  20,  1782,  Lord 
North  resigned,  and  was  succeeded  by  the  marquis  of  Rock- 
ingham, whose  program  was  peace.  The  new  ministry,  how- 
ever, was  divided  as  to  method.  Lord  Shelburne,  secretary 
of  state  for  the  colonies,  held  that  the  Americans  were  still 
colonists,  that  independence  should  be  granted  as  a  valuable 
concession,  and  that  the  negotiations  should  be  conducted  by 
his  department.  Charles  James  Fox,  secretary  of  foreign  af- 
fairs, the  friend  of  the  colonists  and  the  avowed  enemy  of  Shel- 
burne, wished  to  recognize  independence  at  once,  to  make  the 
terms  so  generous  as  to  reconcile  America  to  England  and  alien- 
ate her  from  France,  and  desired  to  conduct  the  negotiation 
himself.  In  this  deadlock,  in  the  spring  of  1 782,  Thomas  Gren- 
ville  appeared  in  France  from  the  English  foreign  office  being 
known  as  Mr.  Fox's  minister,  and  Richard  Oswald  from  the 
colonial  office  being  known  as  Lord  Shelburne's  minister.^ 

^  For  negotiations  in  the  field,  see  Washington's  Works  (ed.  W.  C.  Ford, 
14  vols.,  New  York,  etc.,  1889-93),  iii.  77,  79,  90,  248.  282.  For  peace  ne- 
gotiations with  Howe,  see  ibid.,  iv.  249,  263,  309;  Wharton's  Diplomatic 
Correspondence,  ii.  98,  103;  Franklin's  Works  (ed.  Bigelow),  vi.  28;  Secret 
Journals  of  Congress.  For  negotiations  of  1778,  see  Secret  Journals,  vol.  ii. 
13;  Franklin's  Works,  vi.  124-238, 

*  Winsor,  America,  vii.  89-184;  Lord  Fitzmaurice,  Life  of  William  Earl  of 
Shelburne  (2d  ed.,  2  vols.,  London,  1912),  ii,  111-223. 


PEACE  48 

The  central  figure  in  the  diplomatic  situation  was  the 
Count  de  Vergennes.  The  pivot  of  European  affairs  from 
1776  to  1783,  leader  of  France  in  her  only  sue-  The  objects  of 
cessful  war  with  England  during  the  long  Vergennes 
struggle  between  1688  and  1815,  master  of  a  distinctly  noble 
style  of  correspondence,  active,  and  successful  in  the  choice  of 
agents,  he  has  failed  to  impress  history  as  has  Necker,  who 
was  less  able,  or  Turgot,  who  was  less  powerful.  Possibly 
his  failure  in  half  of  his  main  conception  has  blurred  his  im- 
press on  our  memory:  in  separating  the  American  colonies 
from  England  he  succeeded,  in  binding  them  to  France  he 
failed.  To  accomplish  the  latter  purpose  he  counted  on  a 
gratitude  that  was  not  forthcoming,  on  a  trade  that  did  not 
develop,  on  a  dependent  weakness  that  was  avoided.^ 

Certainly  his  position  in  1782  must  command  our  sym- 
pathy. The  ally  of  Spain  and  of  the  United  States,  who  were 
not  on  terms  with  each  other  and  who  had  dif-  Vergennes's 
ferent  and  conflicting  purposes,  he  felt  also  p^s^*™ 
responsibility  for  the  Netherlands,  whom  he  had  incited 
to  enter  the  war.  On  the  side  of  the  United  States  he  was 
bound  to  conclude  no  treaty  without  her  consent,  to  obtain 
independence  "formally  or  tacitly,"  and  also  to  secure  her 
possessions  and  conquests;  moreover,  the  United  States 
would  not  be  content  with  the  territory  actually  occupied 
nor  without  further  stipulations,  such  as  those  concerning 
the  Mississippi  and  the  fisheries.  On  the  side  of  Spain  he 
was  bound  to  conclude  a  simultaneous  treaty,  and  Spain 
would  not  be  satisfied  without  Gibraltar,  which  the  allies 
had  been  for  years  besieging,  and  the  Floridas.  His  policy 
was  to  compel  England  to  offer  terms.  To  Oswald  he  wrote: 
"There  are  four  nations  engaged  in  the  war  against  you,  who 
cannot,  till  they  have  consulted  and  know  each  other's  minds, 
be  ready  to  make  propositions.  Your  court  being  without 
allies  and  alone,  knowing  its  own  mind,  can  express  it  im- 
mediately; it  is,  therefore,  more  natural  to  expect  the  first 
1  For  Franklin's  opinion  of  Vergennes,  see  his  Works,  viii.  305-307. 


44  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

proposition  from  you."  To  Franklin  he  wrote,  May  28: 
"  You  will  treat  for  yourselves  and  every  one  of  the  powers 
at  war  with  England  will  make  its  own  treaty.  All  that  is 
necessary  for  our  common  security  is  that  the  treaties  go 
hand  in  hand,  and  be  signed  all  on  the  same  day."  As  to 
the  necessity  of  standing  together  Franklin  agreed  with  him. 
He  wrote  Congress,  "The  firm  united  resolution  of  France, 
Spain  and  Holland,  joined  with  ours,  not  to  treat  of  a  par- 
ticular, but  a  general  peace,  notwithstanding  the  separate 
tempting  offers  to  each,  will  in  the  end  give  us  command  of 
peace."  The  first  commission  to  Grenville  having  been  to 
France  alone,  Vergennes  refused  to  treat  with  him;  where- 
upon, June  15,  Grenville  was  invested  with  additional  power 
to  treat  with  any  other  prince  or  state  that  might  be  con- 
cerned. This  seemed  sufficient  to  Vergennes,  and  the  final 
negotiations  appeared  about  to  begin. ^ 

Kaleidoscopically  the  situation  changed.  On  June  23 
Jay  arrived  from  Spain,  and  at  about  the  same  time  Franklin 
Jay's  suspi-  became  to  a  considerable  degree  incapacitated 
"""^  by   an  attack  of  gout.     Jay's   suspicions  of 

France,  already  aroused,  were  rapidly  augmented.  He  in- 
sisted that  Grenville's  new  commission  was  still  unsatisfac- 
tory, that  it  must  acknowledge  the  independence  of  the 
United  States,  but  Vergennes  argued  that  this  was  not  neces- 
sary. Early  in  September  the  same  Rayneval  who  was  de- 
fending the  views  of  Spain  in  the  negotiation  between  Jay 
and  d'Aranda  was  despatched  on  a  secret  mission  to  Eng- 
land. Actually  sent  over  to  test  the  English  views  about 
Gibraltar,  he  refused  to  discuss  the  affairs  of  the  United 
States;  ^  but  Jay  not  unnaturally  suspected  that  he  was  sent 
to  bargain  for  a  peace  on  the  terms  of  dividing  the  West 
between  England  and  Spain.  At  about  the  same  time  Jay 
received  from  British  sources  the  translation  of  a  memo'lre 

^  For  the  opening  negotiations,  see  particularly  Franklin's  Works,  riiL 
1-119. 
*  Doniol,  La  pariieipation  de  la  France,  v.  132-183,  255-256,  605-626. 


PEACE  45 

of  Barbe  Marbois,  French  secretary  of  legation  at  Philadel- 
phia, which,  like  the  Dutch  treaty,  had  been  rescued  from 
the  waves  into  which  it  had  been  thrown  from  a  captured 
ship,  and  which  presented  an  argument  against  the  American 
claim  to  share  in  the  Newfoundland  fisheries.  Jay  concluded 
that  France  was  planning  to  buy  a  peace  from  England 
favorable  to  Spain  and  at  the  expense  of  the  United  States. 
He  believed  that  his  country  must  depend  upon  itself  alone, 
and  that,  in  the  illness  and  pro-French  weakness  of  Franklin, 
the  responsibility  rested  on  him.  Accordingly,  on  Septem- 
ber 11,  without  consulting  Franklin,  he  sent  Vaughan,  one 
of  the  English  agents  in  Paris,  on  a  secret  mission  to  the 
English  government.  The  cooperation  between  France  and 
the  United  States  was  no  longer  complete.^ 

In  England,  also,  the  situation  had  changed.  The  death 
of  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham  in  June  left  no  Whig  leader 
who  could  manage  Fox  and  Shelburne  together,  shelbume 
Fox  retired,  and  the  control  of  the  ministry  treats  with  Jay 
fell  to  Shelbume  on  July  2.  Grenville  was  recalled  from 
France  and  AUeyne  Fitzherbert  was  sent  in  his  place.  A 
master  of  finesse,  Shelburne,  who  had  been  seeking  an  oppor- 
tunity to  separate  England's  enemies,  welcomed  the  news 
brought  by  Vaughan,  and  accepted  the  suggestion  of  Jay. 
Independence  was  recognized  in  a  new  commission  to  Oswald, 
and  instructions  were  given  as  to  terms  which  seemed  to  in- 
sure success.  The  negotiation  was  to  be  secret  from  France. 
Shelburne  told  Oswald,  September  23,  "We  have  put  the 
greatest  confidence,  I  believe,  ever  placed  in  man  in  the 
American  commissioners.  It  is  now  to  be  seen  how  far  they 
or  America  are  to  be  depended  upon.  ...  I  hope  the  public 
will  be  the  gainer,  else  our  heads  must  answer  for  it,  and  de- 
servedly." 

On  September  27  Vaughan  returned  to  Paris,  and  the 
American  commissioners  had  to  decide  whether  to  accept  the 
o£fer.    To  do  so  involved  the  breaking  of  their  instructions 
^  Jay,  Papers,  ii.  366-452. 


46  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

from  Congress,  which  authorized  them  to  treat  only  with 
the  full  knowledge  of  the  French  ministers  and  to  govern 
themselves  by  their  advice.  The  very  form  of 
gotiate  sepa-  these  instructions  seemed  to  Jay  to  confirm  his 
F«mce*'°™  suspicions  of  a  malign  and  pervasive  French  in- 
fluence in  Congress  itself,  and  he  hesitated  not 
a  moment.  On  October  26  John  Adams  arrived  from  his 
successful  mission  in  Holland,  and  proved  to  be,  as  Jay  wrote, 
"a  very  able  and  agreeable  coadjutor."  He  sided  with  Jay, 
and  together  they  outvoted  Franklin.  The  negotiations 
therefore  began,  their  progress  being  kept  secret  from  Ver- 
gennes.^ 

In  the  conduct  of  the  negotiations  the  American  had  the 
advantage  over  the  British  representatives  both  in  ability  and 
in  local  knowledge.  They  might  have  obtained 
even  better  terms  than  they  did,  had  not  the 
British  government  from  time  to  time  braced  the  backbone  of 
its  commissioners.  The  boundaries  agreed  upon  were  almost 
identical  with  those  described  by  Congress.  On  the  north- 
east the  St.  Croix  was  substituted  for  the  St.  John,  a  change 
that  somewhat  curtailed  the  limits  of  Massachusetts.  West 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  it  was  agreed  to  compromise  between  the 
1763  and  1774  boundaries  of  Quebec.  The  American  com- 
missioners offered  to  accept  either  the  extension  of  the  forty- 
fifth  parallel  to  the  Mississippi,  or  a  line  through  lakes  On- 
tario, Erie,  Huron,  Superior,  and  the  Lake  of  the  Woods, 
to  the  northwestern  point  of  the  latter,  and  thence  due  west- 
ward to  the  Mississippi.  Fortunately  the  British  chose  the 
latter,  a  selection  which  ultimately  proved  even  more  ad- 
vantageous to  the  United  States  than  the  line  from  Lake 
Nipissing  would  have  been.  The  western  boundary  was  the 
Mississippi,  the  southern  was  the  northern  boundaries  of  the 
Floridas,  that  of  West  Florida  being  considered  as  the  thirty- 
first  parallel.  By  a  secret  article,  however,  it  was  agreed 
that,  should  Great  Britain  retain  West  Florida,  the  northern 
1  John  Adams,  Works,  iii.  300-887. 


PEACE 


47 


48  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

boundary  of  that  province  should  run  eastward  from  the 

mouth  of  the  Yazoo,  or  m  other  words  along  the  parallel  of 

32'  28". 

The  question  of  the  fisheries  fell  to  the  lot  of  John  Adams, 

who  had  special  instructions  on  that  subject  from  the  legisla- 

_.  .    .  ture  of  Massachusetts.    Master  of  the  facts,  he 

Fishenes,  ,    ,    .      .  .         . 

debts,  and         succeeded  m  mcorporatmg  into  the  treaty  a 

recognition  of  American  rights  to  fish  on  the 
"Banks,"  and  sufficient  in-shore  privileges  to  make  fishing 
profitable.  The  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  was  also  ob- 
tained. Adams  also  induced  the  American  commissioners  to 
agree  that  creditors  on  either  side  should  "meet  with  no 
lawful  impediment  to  the  recovery  of  the  full  value  in  sterling 
money  of  all  bona  fide  debts  heretofore  contracted,"  a  pro- 
vision which  had  special  reference  to  debts  due  by  Americans 
to  British  merchants  when  hostilities  began.  The  most 
troublesome  question  was  that  concerning  the  loyalists, 
whose  property  had  been  confiscated  and  who  had  been  sub- 
jected to  various  persecutions.  Naturally,  the  British  govern- 
ment felt  a  proper  regard  for  their  interests;  but,  since  the 
laws  against  them  had  been  made  by  the  states.  Congress 
could  not  promise  restitution.  A  compromise  was  finally 
reached  by  the  agreement  that  Congress  would  "earnestly 
recommend"  restitution  and  the  repeal  of  all  laws  not  in 
harmony  with  "that  spirit  of  conciliation  which,  on  the 
return  of  the  blessings  of  peace,  should  universally  prevail." 
With  a  provision  for  the  mutual  restoration  of  property  the 
preliminary  articles  were  concluded  and  signed,  November  30, 
1782. 

Triumphant  in  their  negotiations  with  England,  the  com- 
missioners had  now  to  face  France.  Although  they  had 
Eff  t  fth  broken  their  instructions  from  Congress,  they 
treaty  on  had  not  violated  the  letter  of  the  French  com- 

pact, for  they  had  not  signed  a  definitive 
treaty.  In  spirit  and  in  effect,  however,  they  had  done  so. 
When  the  news  of  the  articles  reached  London,  the  British 


PEACE  49 

cabinet  was  on  the  point  of  exchanging  Gibraltar  for  Guada- 
loupe,  a  transfer  ardently  desired  by  Spain,  and  by  France 
in  behalf  of  Spain.  ^  From  this  proposal  it  immediately 
withdrew  and  gave  orders  for  an  amnesty  with  the  United 
States  in  order  that  the  British  troops  there  might  be  em- 
ployed in  the  West  Indies. 

Upon  Franklin,  who  disagreed  with  his  colleagues  as  to  the 
sinister  designs  of  the  French,  and  who  believed  that  by 
cooperation  with  Vergennes  he  could  have  Franklin  and 
obtained  terms  equally  good,  fell  the  burden  Vergennes 
of  reconciliation.  When  the  question  of  forwarding  the 
articles  to  America  came  up,  the  commissioners  again  acted 
with  secrecy,  hastening  to  send  the  good  news  although 
Vergennes  wished  delay.  The  latter  wrote  to  Franklin  in 
terms  of  surprise  and  of  dignified  reproach.  The  letter  of 
Franklin  in  reply,  December  17,  was  a  masterpiece  of  diplo- 
matic art,  even  to  the  adoption  of  a  certain  touch  of  pathos 
in  its  slightly  rambling  quality,  natural  to  his  age  but  not 
characteristic  of  his  writing  even  later.  "  But,"  he  explained, 
"as  this  was  not  from  want  of  respect  for  the  king,  whom  we 
all  love  and  honor,  we  hope  it  will  be  excused,  and  that  the 
great  work,  which  has  hitherto  been  so  happily  conducted, 
is  so  nearly  brought  to  perfection,  and  is  so  glorious  to  his 
reign,  will  not  be  ruined  by  a  single  indiscretion  of  ours.  And 
certainly  the  whole  edifice  sinks  to  the  ground  immediately 
if  you  refuse  on  that  account  to  give  us  any  further  assist- 
ance." He  lays  down  his  pen,  but  taking  it  up  again,, adds: 
"The  English,  I  just  now  learn,  flatter  themselves  they 
have  already  divided  us.  I  hope  this  little  misunderstanding 
will  therefore  be  kept  a  secret,  and  that  they  will  find  them- 
selves totally  mistaken."  ^ 

It  was  indeed  true  that  if  Vergennes  stood  in  the  way  of 
this  generous  treaty,  his  whole  work  would  turn  to  ashes  in 
his  hands:  England  and  America  would  again  unite  against 

*  Fitzmaurice,  Shelbume,  ii.  214. 
» Franklin,  Works,  viii.  228-230. 


50  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

France.  Accordingly,  on  December  21  he  wrote  to  his 
representative  in  Philadelphia,  Luzanne,  not  to  complain 
Vergennes's  to  Congress  of  the  action  of  the  American 
conclusions  commissioners,  and  he  arranged  a  new  loan  of 
six  million  francs  to  the  United  States. 

Meantime  the  French  and  Spanish  treaties  gradually 
progressed,  till  on  September  3,  1783,  definitive  treaties  of 
The  end  of  the  peace  were  signed  between  Great  Britain  and 
^"  France,  Spain  and  the  United  States.     The 

latter  was  identical  with  the  provisional  articles,  except 
for  the  secret  article,  which  was  left  out  as  no  longer  neces- 
sary, since  the  status  of  the  Floridas  was  determined  by 
their  cession  to  Spain.  France  gained  Tobago.  The  Nether-v/ 
lands,  after  a  long  negotiation,  made  their  peace  in  1784, 
accepting  the  loss  of  their  mercantile  privileges  and  of  several  "^ 
colonies. 

The  peace  meant  that  our  national  existence,  announced 

to  the  world  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence  July  4, 

-nrt.  .  1.  J  1776,  had  been  established.    Further,  the  treaty 

What  had  .  .,,,.,  i 

been   accom-      gave  US  a  territory,  not  indeed  logical  and 

^  satisfactory,    but    ample    for    present    needs. 

We  had  not  won  our  independence  and  our  field  for  growth 
by  the  force  of  arms  alone,  but  by  our  success  in  manipulat- 
ing the  divisions  of  Europe  to  our  advantage,  a  success 
largely  due  to  our  diplomats.  Elate  though  they  were,  their 
task  was  by  no  means  finished;  for  the  boundaries  of  our 
territories  were  nearly  all  vague  or  questionable,  and  we  were 
still  a  weak  nation  among  the  strong.  Until  we  could  develop 
our  own  strength  it  would  continue  to  be  necessary  to  take 
wise  advantage  of  the  divisions  of  Europe  in  order  to  insure 
our  safety  and  our  winnings. 


CHAPTER  VI 

RELIGION  AND  COMMERCE 

Independent  and  at  peace,  the  United  States  faced  the 

diplomatic  problems  of  national  existence.     One  of  these, 

which  still  continues  to  vex  some  nations,  was    _,    „  .^  . 
.  1    1      mi  T^*  United 

at  once  and  definitively  settled.    The  connec-    states  and  the 

tion  of  a  portion  of  their  subjects  with  a  non-  *^**^^ 
resident  religious  authority  had  always  been  a  matter  of 
national  concern.  Expecting  that  such  would  be  the  policy 
of  the  new  government,  and  that  it  would  wish  to  free  its 
Catholic  citizens  from  English  control,  the  papal  nuncio  at 
Paris  addressed  Franklin,  July  28,  1783,  with  the  proposal 
that  Congress  consent  to  the  establishment  in  some  city 
of  the  United  States  of  "one  of  its  Catholic  subjects"  with 
ecclesiastical  authority  as  bishop  or  apostolic  prefect.  Frank- 
lin properly  informed  the  nuncio  that  neither  Congress  nor 
any  state  could  take  action  on  such  a  matter,  but  that  a 
dignitary  thus  appointed  by  Rome  would  nevertheless  be 
cordially  welcomed,  a  position  in  which  he  was  upheld  by 
Congress.  Less  wisely  he  recommended  that  Roman  con- 
trol be  exercised  through  the  medium  of  some  French  ec- 
clesiastic, who  would  thus  replace  the  vicar-general  at  Lon- 
don. This  latter  plan  was  heartily  embraced  by  the  French 
government,  which  hoped  by  French  education  and  connec- 
tion to  render  the  Catholic  element  a  weapon  of  French  in- 
fluence, and  possibly  had  in  mind  the  prestige  accruing  to 
France  from  the  French  protectorate  of  Catholics  in  the 
Orient.  The  Roman  Propaganda  investigated  the  question, 
however,  and,  after  testing  the  sentiment  of  the  American 
Catholics,  decided  to  appoint  an  American  bishop,  John 

51 


52  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Carroll,  and  thus  deal  with  its  members  without  the  media- 
tion of  any  foreign  nation.^ 

These  two  wise  decisions  were  paralleled  in  what  was  per- 
haps the  more  trying  case  of  the  American  adherents  of  the 
Anjdi  Church  of  England.  They  at  once  assumed 
Church  in  the  position  that  national  independence  should 

be  reflected  in  a  national  church  organization; 
but  to  secure  a  continuation  of  the  apostolic  succession  it 
was  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  the  mother  country,  since 
there  were  no  bishops  in  America.  In  order  to  obtain  con- 
secration, moreover,  a  bishop  must  swear  allegiance  to  the 
English  crown,  and  the  colonial  opposition  to  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  bishop  before  the  Revolution  caused  England  to 
doubt  the  reception  of  one  now.  Samuel  Seabury,  the  first 
applicant,  was  forced  to  accept  his  consecration  from  a  small 
independent  branch  of  the  church  in  Scotland.  The  attitude 
of  Congress,  however,  and  a  declaration  to  the  same  effect 
by  Connecticut  soon  removed  apprehension  as  to  American 
opposition;  and  John  Adams  while  minister  in  England 
exerted  himself  unoflficially,  as  Franklin  had  done  in  Paris, 
to  make  matters  smooth.  The  result  was  the  consecration, 
in  1787,  and  by  English  bishops,  of  two  additional  American 
bishops  without  the  hampering  oath.^ 

With  religion  thus  freed  from  foreign  governmental  con- 
trol and  not  interfered  with  by  the  home  government,  reli- 
gious questions  were  practically  removed  from 
religious  prob-  diplomacy  until,  with  the  beginning  of  the 
<u^o^^  missionary  movement,  they  reappeared  in  the 

form  of  demands  for  the  protection  of  Amer- 
ican religious  workers  and  property  in  foreign  countries. 

Meanwhile  popular  interest  in  diplomacy  was  chiefly  di- 
rected toward  commercial  affairs.     One  reason  why  the 

*  C.  R.  Fish,  "Documents  relative  to  the  Adjustment  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Organization  in  the  United  States  to  the  Conditions  of  National 
Independence,  1783-1789,"  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1910,  xv.  800-829. 

*  Richard  Hildreth,  History  of  the  United  States  of  America  (6  vols..  New 
York,  1880-82),  iu.  479-481. 


RELIGION  AND  COMMERCE  58 

colonies  had  chafed  against  dependence  on  England  was  f 
the  fact  that  their  trade  had  for  the  most  part  been  cur-  ' 
tailed  by  the  limits  of  the  British  empire,  and,  j    _  .  , 

worse  still,  had  been  regulated  within  those;   necessi^  for 
limits  by  an  authority  in  which  they  did  not! 
share.   One  of  the  chief  advantages  of  independence  was  to  be/ 
the  opening  of  new  channels  of  trade.    International  trade, 
however,  is  as  dependent  upon  legalized  relationships  as  is 
domestic  trade  upon  the  preservation  of  law  and  order;  and 
in  the  eighteenth  century  such  legal  basis  must  depend,  even 
more  than  in  the  twentieth,  upon  special  treaty  agreements; 
for  general  international  law  was  at  that  time  less  uniform 
and  less  pervasive  than  it  is  to-day,  besides  including  many 
rules  and  regulations  discriminating  against  foreigners  which 
lingered  on  from  the  middle  ages. 

At  the  commencement  of  peace  such  treaties  existed  only 
with  France  and  the  Netherlands.  It  did  not,  however,  seem 
diflScult  to  extend  the  series,  for  every  nation 
of  Europe  was  intent  on  diverting  to  itself  the  sire°for°treat- 
golden  current  of  American  trade  to  which  so  ^^1^°^  *^°"" 
much  of  England's  prosperity  was  attributed. 
No  sooner  was  American  independence  assured  than  Frank- 
lin was  besieged  with  requests  to  enter  into  negotiation.  On 
December  24,  1782,  he  wrote  to  Livingston,  "The  Swedish 
ambassador  has  exchanged  full  powers  with  me."  In  Feb- 
ruary, 1783,  the  Danish  minister  was  instructed  to  arrange 
a  treaty  similar  to  that  between  the  United  States  and  Hol- 
land. In  July  Franklin  wrote  that  the  electors  of  Saxony 
and  Bavaria,  the  king  of  Prussia,  and  the  emperor  were 
thinking  of  treaties,  and  in  September  that  Russia  wanted 
trade.  April  15  of  the  same  year  he  wrote  to  Livingston 
that  he  had  received  offers  to  serve  as  consul  for  America 
from  merchants  in  every  port  of  France  and  from  most  of 
those  of  Europe.^ 

Not  all  these  projects  materialized  into  treaties;  but  in 
1  Franklin,  Works,  viii.  172-313. 


54  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

1783  Franklin  concluded  one  with  Sweden,  and  in   1785  I 
Adams,  Franklin,  and   Jefferson  made   one  with  Prussia.  | 
.       These  compacts,  like  those  with  France  and 
our  early  Holland,  were  exceeding  liberal  in  their  pro- 

visions.    They  granted  freedom  of  religion  to 
the  citizens  of  one  country  who  were  occupied  in  the  other, 
and  abolished  the  droit  d'aubaine,  or  tax  on  the  estates  of 
deceased  foreigners.     With  regard  to  trade  during  time  of 
war,  these  treaties  aligned  the  United  States  with  the  Dutch,  ^ 
or  continental,  views  rather  than  with  those  of  the  English. 
The  interests  of  most  European  nations  were  similar  to  those 
of  the  United  Stat^^s  in  opposition  to  those  of  Great  Britain,  v 
they  were  the  interests  of  nations  weak  at  sea  against  the 
strong.    In  the  end  the  continental  views  for  the  most  part 
triumphed,  but  they  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  accepted 
international  law  in  the  eighteenth  century.    They  expressed 
desires  rather  than  accomplished  facts.     Among  the  provi- 
sions bearing  on  the  subject  were  those  by  which  the  belliger-  | 
ent  right  of  search  was  strictly  limited,  contraband  was  nar-  j 
rowly    interpreted,    neutral    ships    were    allowed   to   carry  [ 
enemies'  goods,  and  in  the  case  of  Prussia  privateering  was  ' 
prohibited  between  the  two  powers.    The  French  treaty, 
however,  allowed  the  capture  of  neutral  goods  on  enemies' 
ships.     In  1788  Jefferson,  then  serving  as  minister  to  France, 
concluded  an  elaborate  treaty  with  that  country  regulating 
the  rights  of  consuls. 

Meanwhile,  not  waiting  for  treaties,  adventurous  Amer- 
ican merchants  were  striking  out  for  trade  beyond  the  limits 
Trade  in  Asia  of  Europe  in  the  Far  East,  which  had  beckoned 
and  Africa  Columbus,  and  whose  most  cherished  product, 

tea,  had  caused  one  of  the  dramatic  preludes  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. Previously  debarred  from  this  trade  by  the  monopoly 
granted  to  the  East  India  Company,  the  colonists  were 
nevertheless  somewhat  familiar  with  it,  and  had  long  used 
Asiatic  commodities.  Once  free,  they  hastened  to  make  use 
of  their  opportunities.     In  1784  the  first  American  vessel 


RELIGION  AND  COMMERCE  55 

reached  Canton,  in  1786  an  American  commercial  agent 
was  in  residence  there,  and  soon  American  vessels  were  fre- 
quenting the  northwest  coast  of  America  in  search  of  the 
furs  and  ginseng  which  the  Chinese  wished  in  exchange  for 
their  tea  and  silk.  Moreover,  on  the  coming  of  peace,  Amer- 
icans had  resumed  their  traffic  on  the  slave  coast  of  Africa, 
where  there  were  no  governments  with  which  they  must 
come  to  terms. ^ 

In  the  Mediterranean,  however,  no  progress  was  made. 
This  was  not  due  to  a  neglect  on  the  part  of  the  Italian 
powers  to  cultivate  the  United  States.  The  Mediterranean 
papal  nuncio,  while  writing  of  religion  in  be-  *^***® 
half  of  the  church,  had  also  mentioned  trade  in  behalf  of 
the  states  of  the  church;  and  Naples,  Venice,  and  Malta 
all  made  similar  advances.  Nor  was  it  because  the  United 
States  was  unfamiliar  with  trade  conditions  in  that  inland 
sea;  for  as  colonists  the  Puritan  New  Englanders  had  con- 
stantly supplied  the  Mediterranean  countries  with  salted 
cod  for  fast-day  fare,  and  wheat  and  rice,  and  had  smuggled 
away  ribbons,  silks,  Leghorn  hats,  and  other  commodities. 
The  difficulty  lay  in  the  fact  that  here  was  encountered  one 
of  the  disadvantages  of  separation  from  England.  The 
English  navy  no  longer  protected  American  ships  from  the 
Barbary  pirates.^ 

The  North  African  states,  Morocco, .  Algiers,  Tunis,  and 
Tripoli,  constituted  an  anachronism  that  was  a  blot  upon  the 
civilization  of  Europe.  Their  official  navies  The  Barbary 
consisted  of  pirate  craft,  which  swept  down  s***®^ 
upon  peaceful  trading- vessels  and  sold,  with  ship  and  goods, 
the  sailors  and  passengers  into  captivity.  So  well  recognized 
was  their  activity  that  there  existed  an  active  "Society  of  the 
Holy  Trinity  for  the  Redemption  of  Captives,"  whose  work 

'  Katharine  Coman,  The  Industrial  History  of  the  United  States  (New 
York,  1910),  135-137;  Hildreth,  United  States,  iii.  510. 

'Eugene  Schuyler,  American  DijdoTnacy  (New  York,  1886),  198-208; 
E.  Dupuy,  Americains  et  Barbaresques,  Paris,  1910. 


56  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

went  on  from  century  to  century.  At  the  time  of  the  Revo- 
lution these  pirates  respected  the  flags  of  certain  countries, 
as  England,  France,  and  Spain,  in  return  for  heavy  pay- 
ments. That  these  nations,  whose  fleets  could  have  cleared 
the  sea  as  Pompey's  did  in  67  B.  C,  failed  to  do  so,  was  for 
reasons  similar  to  those  which  cause  the  police  of  some  large 
cities  to  tolerate  "gunmen"  and  vice.  FrankHn  wrote, 
July  22,  1783,  that  it  was  a  maxim  among  English  merchants 
that,  "  if  there  were  no  Algiers,  it  would  be  worth  England's 
while  to  build  one."  By  preventing  the  smaller  nations  from 
competing  in  trade,  the  pirates  increased  the  employment  of 
the  protected  merchant  marines. 

In  July,  1785,  an  American  schooner,  Maria,  and  the  ship 
Dauphin  were  captured,  and  American  trade  in  the  Mediter- 

-,  .,      .  ranean  ceased.    The  United  States  had  hoped 

Failure  to  open  .  *^ 

the  Mediter-  to  substitute  the  French  navy  as  protector  in 
place  of  the  English,  but  France  would  prom- 
ise nothing  except  assistance  in  making  a  treaty.  In  May, 
1784,  Adams,  Franklin,  and  Jefferson  were  empowered  to 
negotiate  with  them;  but  negotiation  was  expensive  and  the 
agents  themselves  were  not  agreed  as  to  method.  Adams 
favored  the  European  practice  of  buying  peace,  whereas 
Jefferson  was  opposed  to  such  a  policy,  and  broached  the 
impractical  scheme  of  forming  a  general  confederation  to 
put  the  pirates  down.  In  July,  1787,  Thomas  Barclay,  being 
specially  delegated  by  Adams  and  Jefferson,  had  the  as- 
tonishing good  luck  to  conclude  a  treaty  with  Morocco 
without  tribute.  Success,  however,  failed  to  attend  the 
negotiations  with  the  other  powers,  and  at  the  close  of  the 
Confederation  trade  in  the  Mediterranean  was  still  closed  to 
American  vessels  and  a  number  of  Americans  still  remained 
as  slaves  in  Algerian  households. 

Spain  and  Portugal,  however,  were  accessible.  To  these 
countries  had  always  gone  the  best  of  the  colonial  fish,  and 
when  fishing  was  resumed  after  the  war  it  was  again  sent 
there  for  sale.    Meal,  lumber  products,  rice,  and  some  other 


RELIGION  AND  COMMERCE  57 

goods  also  sought  these  markets.     With  independence  it  was 
hoped  that  this  trade  might  be  made  more  profitable  by 
the  securing  of  return  cargoes,  which  had  for    _    .       .^ 
the  most  part  previously  been  prohibited  by    Spain  and 
the  English  navigation  acts.    Both  countries 
permitted  trade,  but  American  merchants  and  sea-captains 
found  themselves  under  disadvantages  due  to  the  absence  of 
the  treaty  protection  which  they  had  enjoyed  as  English  sub- 
jects.   Rates  and  regulations  were  now  arbitrarily  changed, 
and  religious  difficulties  kept  arising.    It  was  hoped  to  settle 
these  discords  by  negotiation,  and  also  to  induce  Spain  to 
open  up,  in  some  degree,  a  direct  trade  with  her  colonies,  / 
for  much  of  what  Americans  sold  in  Spain  was  reexported 
to  the  Spanish  settlements. 

In  1784  Jay  succeeded  Livingston  as  secretary  of  foreign 
affairs,  and  Spain  sent  over  Gardoqui  to  continue  the  negotia- 
tions which  had  been  begun  in  1779.     They 
,         J  .  •   1  . .  Failxire  of  ne- 

found  agreement  on  commercial  matters  easy;    gotiations  with 

but  the  old  difficulty  of  the  Mississippi  per-  g'g^  """^  ^*"'- 
sisted,  and  Spain's  ambitions  with  regard  to 
the  West  assumed  a  new  phase,  so  that  no  treaty  was  con- 
summated. As  none  was  made  with  Portugal  either,  the 
Confederation  government  thus  failed  to  satisfy  the  demand 
of  the  commercial  community  that  trade  with  these  two 
nations  be  put  upon  a  solid  basis. 

However  great  might  be  the  future  development  of  the 
new  channels  of  trade  opened  up  by  independence,  the  great- 
est present  change  felt  by  the  people  of  the    _    .       .^ 
United  States  was  that  concerning  their  rela-    the  British 
tions  with  the  British  empire.    Heretofore  they         ^"^ 
had  been  free  of  the  empire,  but  debarred  from  the  rest  of  the 
world;  now  they  had  the  world  before  them,  but  were  stran- 
gers within  the  empire.    Unless  diplomacy  could  secure  them 
some  of  their  old  advantages,  the  new  might  not  suffice  to 
make  good  their  losses.     Trade  with  Great  Britain  itself  / 
was  still  allowed,  and  afforded  a  market  for  tobacco,  tar  and  '^ 


58  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

turpentine,  and  some  other  products;  but  our  exports  to  that 
country  had  never  paid  for  our  imports,  and  did  not  bid  fair 
to  do  so  in  the  future.  The  balance  had  been  paid  by  the 
excess  in  our  favor  resulting  from  the  trade  with  the  British 
West  India  islands.^ 

This  trade  had  been  the  most  important  of  all  branches  of 
colonial  commerce.  Those  islands  were  devoted  to  raising 
British  West  staple  products,  such  as  sugar,  and  they  relied 
Indies  jjj  large  measure  on  the  continental  colonies 

for  food,  including  wheat,  cheese,  and  salt  pork;  for  lumber, 
including  barrel  staves  and  framed  houses  ready  to  set  up; 
for  horses,  and  for  many  of  their  slaves;  and  particularly 
they  bought  for  their  slaves  the  poorer  qualities  of  cod  and 
mackerel  which,  indiscriminately  with  the  good,  were  caught 
by  the  fisherman  but  which  could  not  be  sold  in  Europe. 
This  trade  had  not  only  afforded  a  market  for  our  farms  and 
industries,  but  had  also  given  employment  to  our  ships,  and 
thereby  fostered  ship-building  and  all  the  gamut  of  subsidiary 
occupations.  It  had  been  the  corner  stone  of  American 
commerce,  and  its  preservation  was  a  primary  object  of 
American  diplomacy. 

As  soon  as  the  preliminary  articles  of  peace  were  signed 

in  November,  1782,  work  upon  a  treaty  of  commerce  was 

_.  ,,        ,  begun.     The  Duke  of  Manchester  and  David 

Shelbume's  °  .     . 

plans  and  de-     Hartly    were    commissioned    by    the    English 

government    for    "opening,    promoting,    and 

rendering  perpetual  the  mutual  intercourse  of  trade  and 

commerce  between  our  kingdom  and  the  dominions  of  the 

United  States."     Lord  Shelburne  was  deeply  influenced  by 

the  views  of  Adam  Smith.    He  was  inclined  to  continue  the 

policy  which  he  had  adopted  in  response  to  Jay's  offer,  and 

by  liberal  arrangements  with  America  to  prevent  the  per- 

*  Edward  Channing,  History  of  the  United  States  (vols,  i.-iii.  New  York, 
1905-12),  iii.  412-424;  Phineas  Bond,  Letters,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report, 
1896,  i.  51S-659;  Stephen  Higginson,  Letters,  ibid.,  711-841;  Marquis  of 
Buckingham,  Letters  to  Sir  John  Temple,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.,  Proceedings, 
1866,  pp.  69-80. 


RELIGION  AND  COMMERCE  59 

manent  alignment  of  the  United  States  with  France.  His 
power,  however,  was  limited.  To  some  degree,  it  may  be 
said,  his  ministry  was  tolerated  by  Parliament  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  performing  the  disagreeable  task  of  sanctioning 
the  partition  of  the  empire.  On  February  24,  1783,  he  was 
forced  to  resign,  and  was  succeeded  by  an  incongruous  com- 
bination headed  jointly  by  the  inveterate  contestants.  Fox 
and  North.  Vaughan  wrote  to  Franklin  the  next  day,  "But 
the  overthrow  of  parties  is  nothing  to  the  overthrow  of  sys- 
tems relative  to  English  commerce,  which  was  intended  to 
be  placed  on  a  footing  that  would  have  been  an  example  to 
all  mankind,  and  probably  have  restored  England  to  her 
pinnacle  again."  ^ 

The  new  government  was  to  a  considerable  extent  influ- 
enced by  Lord  Sheffield,  whose  "Observations  on  the  Com- 
merce of  the  United  States,"  published  in  change  of 
1783,  set  forth  the  long-established  view  of  ^^^^^  P°"<^y 
England's  policy  with  regard  to  trade  and  navigation.  On 
July  2,  1783,  a  royal  proclamation  confined  the  West  Indian 
trade  to  British  ships;  July  27,  the  commissioners  found  "it 
best  to  drop  all  commercial  articles  in  our  definitive  treaty." 
The  subject,  however,  was  one  which  the  United  States 
could  not  afford  to  drop,  and  John  Adams  was  sent  as  minis- 
ter to  England  to  renew  negotiations.  Arriving  in  February, 
1785,  as  first  representative  from  America  to  the  British 
crown,  himself  a  leading  figure  in  the  struggle  for  independ- 
ence, he  was  in  a  position  of  some  delicacy,  but  nevertheless 
he  found  his  new  post  eminently  congenial.  The  ponderous 
seriousness  of  English  public  life  sufficiently  resembled  re- 
spectability to  win  his  lively  approbation.  On  examining 
the  library  of  George  III.,  he  felt  that  it  contained  every 
book  which  a  king  should  have  and  no  other.  His  sturdy 
Americanism,  however,  asserted  itself.  When  the  king  some- 
what jocularly  remarked  upon  Adams's  well  known  dislike 
of  the  French,  the  latter  replied,  "I  must  avow  to  your  ma- 
1  Franklin,  Works,  viii.  261. 


60  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

jesty,  I  have  no  attachment  but  to  my  ovm  country."  The 
king  responded,  "quick  as  lightning,"  "An  honest  man  will 
never  have  any  other."  ^ 

In  spite  of  this  auspicious  opening  Adams's  mission  failed 
of  its  main  object.  In  fact,  in  1788  an  act  of  Parliament 
Adams's  mis-  made  permanent  the  policy  of  the  proclama- 
^°"  tion  of  1783,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  succession   • 

to  the  premiership  of  William  Pitt,  who  in  1783  had  shared 
Lord  Shelburne's  liberal  convictions.  Not  only  were  Amer- 
ican ships  prohibited  from  engaging  in  the  West  Indian  trade, 
but  the  policy  of  encouraging  Canada  to  supply  the  islands 
with  the  goods  they  needed  was  adopted,  with  the  result 
that  British  ships  were  allowed  to  carry  United  States  goods 
to  the  islands  only  at  such  times  and  to  such  a  degree  as 
was  absolutely  necessary. 

One  reason  for  this  policy  was  explained  in  the  following 

words  by  the  Duke  of  Dorset,  with  whom  Adams  was  treat- 

„     ,   „  ..  .       ing:  "The  apparent  determination  of  the  re- 
Great    Bntain         °     .  '^^  i  i    • 
distrusts  the       spective  states  to  regulate  their  own  separate 
Confederation       .    ,          ,                 j            -i        i       i    x  i 

mterests,     renders    it    absolutely    necessary, 

towards  forming  a  permanent  system  of  commerce,  that  my 
court  should  be  informed  how  far  the  commissioners  can 
be  duly  authorized  to  enter  into  any  engagement  with  Great  \/ 
Britain,  which  it  may  not  be  in  the  power  of  any  one  of  the 
states  to  render  totally  useless  and  ineflBcient."  This  point 
was  well  taken  to  the  extent  that  the  sole  power  over  com- 
merce given  to  Congress  by  the  Articles  of  Confederation 
was  that  of  preventing  the  states  from  levying  discriminating 
duties  against  nations  with  which  the  country  was  in  treaty 
relations.  Moreover,  England  had  practical  demonstration 
of  the  inefficiency  of  Congress  in  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of 
the  treaty  of  peace,  various  states  still  put  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  collection  of  British  debts  and  refused  to  heed 
the  recommendation  of  Congress  for  a  greater  leniency 
toward  loyalists.  This  impotence  of  Congress  not  only 
^  J.  Q.  and  C.  F.  Adama,  John  Adams,  vol.  ii. 


RELIGION  AND  COMMERCE  61 

caused  the  British  government  to  doubt  the  efficacy  of  a 
treaty  on  commercial  subjects  with  the  United  States,  but 
relieved  it  from  any  apprehension  of  effective  retaliation. 
Congress  could  not  pass  retaliatory  laws;  and  although  some 
of  the  states,  as  Virginia  and  Georgia,  did  so,  the  English 
statesmen  correctly  judged  that  any  universal  agreement  to 
such  an  end  was  not  within  the  realm  of  practical  politics.^ 

Still  more  conclusive  to  the  English  mind  was  the  fact 
that  Great  Britain,  without  a  treaty,  was  nevertheless  enjoy- 
ing the  most  essential  advantages  of  American     -,     ♦«•♦«• 
trade.    The  Americans  were  familiar  with  Eng-    holds  Amer- 
lish  goods,  liked  them,  and  found  them  on  the 
whole  the  cheapest  in  the  world.    The  British  merchants  more 
easily  resumed  American  connections  than  other  nations 
established  them;  and  particularly  they  were  willing  to  grant 
the  long  credits  which  the  Americans  desired.     London, 
moreover,  was  actually  the  most  convenient  distributing 
centre  of  the  world,  and  its  merchants  continued  to  handle 
many  articles,  such  as  German  linens,  which  the  Americans 
desired  from  the  continent.    In  1789  probably  three  quarters 
of  our  imports  came  from  Great  Britain,  who  in  turn  re- 
ceived perhaps  half  of  our  exports.    France,  although  coax- 
ing our  trade  by  liberal  concessions  to  our  whale  oil,  fish, 
grains,  and  such  products  in  1787,  and  seeking  earnestly  to 
develop  in  the  United  States  a  taste  for  French  brandy, 
secured  but  a  small  and  not  increasing  portion  of  the  Amer- 
ican traffic.    Naturally,  therefore,  England  saw  no  neces-  ; 
sity  for  granting  favors,  when  without  them  she  continued 
to  enjoy  that  market  for  her  factories  and  employment  for  ' 
her  vessels  of  which  Vergennes  had  thought  to  deprive 
her. 

Thus  the  government  under  the  Confederation  was  not  - 
able  to  reopen  the  British  West  Indies  to  trade.    Although 
the  trade  of  the  French  islands  was  open  to  small  Amer- 

^  Secret  Journals  of  Congress,  iv.  185-286;  W.  C.  Fisher,  American  Trade 
ftegulationa  before  1789,  Amer.  Hist.  Asspc.^  Papers,  1889,  iii.  467-493. 


62  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ican  vessels  trading  directly  there  and  back,  yet  it  was  sub- 
ject to  such  disadvantages  that  it  by  no  means  took  the 
Failures  of  the  place  of  what  we  had  lost.  In  fact  this  was  not 
Confederation  entirely  a  gain  after  all,  for  the  colonies  had  to 
some  degree  engaged  in  it  before  the  Revolution,  albeit  ille- 
gally. With  the  loss  of  the  Mediterranean  traffic  and  the  un- 
certainties in  Spain  and  Portugal,  the  total  effect  of  the  Rev- 
olution on  commerce  could  in  1789  hardly  be  said  to  have 
been  satisfactory,  and  the  failure  of  negotiations  was  rightly 
felt  to  have  been  due  in  large  measure  to  the  lack  of  a 
strong  national  government  capable  of  making  itself  re- 
spected abroad. 


CHAPTERVII 

THE  WEST 

The  failure  of  the  negotiations  with  Great  Britain  and 
Spain  on  the  question  of  commerce  was  not  by  any  means 
due  entirely  to  the  intrinsic  difficulties  of  the  Conditions  on 
subject.  Both  nations  were  our  neighbors,  and  *^*  frontier 
the  problems  of  territorial  propinquity  were  in  both  cases 
more  complicated  and  disturbing  than  those  of  oceanic  traffic. 
The  cession  to  the  United  States  of  the  region  bounded  by 
the  Appalachian  mountains,  the  Great  Lakes,  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  the  Floridas  was  not  regarded  by  European  states- 
men as  finally  determining  the  future.  As  it  stood,  more- 
over, this  area  did  not  constitute  a  satisfactory  territorial 
unit;  for,  as  conditions  of  transportation  then  were,  its  com- 
mercial outlets  fell  to  the  control,  not  of  the  United  States, 
but,  as  to  the  southern  half,  to  Spain,  who  held  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi,  and  as  to  the  northern  half  to  Great 
Britain,  who  held  the  St.  Lawrence,  Its  population  was 
during  the  period  of  the  Confederation  about  equally  divided 
between  Indians,  who  held  themselves  to  be  independent, 
and  frontiersmen,  whose  loyalty  to  the  central  government  of 
the  United  States  was  yet  to  be  created  and  would  depend 
upon  the  ability  of  that  government  to  solve  their  problems. 
Thus,  as  Washington  said,  the  western  settlers  "stood  upon  a 
pivot,  the  touch  of  a  feather  would  turn  them  any  way." 

At  the  close  of  hostilities  Great  Britain  still  held  important 
posts  in  the  ceded  area,  at  such  strategic  positions  as  De- 
troit, Michilimackinac,  Niagara,  and  Oswego.  „„  ,, 
In  July,  1783,  Washington  sent  Baron  Steuben  "  debts,"  and 
to  General  Haldiman,  the  governor-general  of 
Canada,  to  accept  the  surrender  of  these  forts.  The  latter 
said  that  he  had  received  no  instructions  on  the  point  and 

68 


64  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

refused  to  discuss  the  question.  In  June,  1784,  instructions 
did  indeed  reach  him,  but  they  were  to  the  effect  that  the 
posts  should  be  held,  a  position  that  was  later  justified  by 
the  British  minister,  Hammond,  on  the  ground  that  the 
United  States  had  failed  to  live  up  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty 
as  to  the  payment  of  British  debts  and  the  treatment  of  the 
loyalists.  The  balance  of  evidence  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  the  refusal  to  give  up  the  posts  preceded  any  definite 
information  as  to  the  disregard  by  the  states  of  the  injunc- 
tions of  the  treaty  and  the  requests  of  Congress.  If  this 
excuse  had  not  been  afforded,  however,  it  is  possible  that 
the  British  might  later  have  yielded  the  point;  in  fact,  the 
British  foreign  office  carefully  framed  its  own  dispatches  on 
this  view  of  the  matter.  But  the  first  refusal  was  based  on 
other  grounds.^ 

One  of  these  was  the  complaint  of  the  British  fur-traders, 
who  protested  as  soon  as  the  terms  of  the  provisional  articles 

„.  .  ,  were  announced.  Their  trade  made  London 
The  fur-trade  i         <•   i  i  i     i 

the  most  important  fur-market  of  the  world;  the 

carrying  out  of  the  treaty,  they  claimed,  would  practically 
destroy  their  occupation;  for  half  their  furs  came  from  the 
forests  and  streams  allotted  to  the  Americans,  and  the  best 
trails,  portages,  and  river  channels  were  on  the  American 
side  of  the  boundary. 

More  important  than  the  fur-traders  were  the  Indians, 
who,  though  in  many  tribes,  comprised  only  two  main  groups. 
.  One  of  these  was  the  Iroquois,  who  had  so  long 
maintained  themselves  in  the  fair  valleys  of 
central  New  York,  exercising  by  their  valor  and  their  shrewd- 
ness in  diplomacy  a  potent  influence  on  the  struggles  between 
the  French,  Dutch,  English,  and  Americans.  Although  the 
real  power  of  the  Iroquois  confederacy  had  been  broken  by 
the  expedition  of  the  American  army  under  General  Sullivan 
in  1779,  they  still  retained  the  title  to  their  lands  and  a  great 

*  A.  C.  McLaughlin,  "The  Western  Posts  and  the  British  Debts,"  Amer. 
Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1894,  pp.  413-444. 


THE  WEST  65 

name.  During  the  period  of  the  Confederation  they  divided 
into  two  groups,  one  of  which  made  friends  with  the  Amer- 
icans and  retained  their  homes,  while  the  other  and  larger 
band  preferred  their  traditional  friendship  with  the  British 
and  removed  to  a  grant  given  to  them  by  the  British 
government  west  of  the  Niagara  river.  The  leader  of  this 
portion  was  the  famous  Joseph  Brant,  a  man  of  ability 
and  distinction  who  stood  high  in  the  councils  of  the 
English.^ 

The  other  main  group,  consisting  of  the  Delaware,  Wyan- 
dot, Shawanee,  Miami,  and  other  tribes,  and  comprising 

about  five  thousand  warriors,  was  known  col-    _.    „  _^. 

The  North- 

lectively,  although  there  was  but  slight  co-  western  In- 
hesion among  the  several  tribes,  as  the  North- 
western Indians.  They  occupied,  geographically,  the  region 
which  is  to-day  Ohio  and  Indiana,  and  politically  held  the 
same  strategic  relation  to  boundaries  and  settlements  which 
the  Iroquois  had  formerly  held.  By  the  British  they  were 
regarded  as  still  under  the  influence  of  the  Iroquois,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  being  less  civilized  and  more  independent, 
they  were  no  longer  inclined  to  accept  the  leadership  of  that 
confederation  or  of  Brant. 

When  the  tribes  heard  of  the  treaty  of  peace  their  anger 
against  the  British  was  intense,  because  they  were  not  in- 
cluded in  its  terms.  They  had  for  the  most  xhe  Indian 
part  been  engaged  in  the  war  as  allies  of  the  p®"^ 
British,  the  treaty  left  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  Americans. 
So  violent  was  their  tone  that  the  British  feared  some  such 
general  and  concerted  movement  among  them  as  had  taken 
place  under  Pontiac  in  1764,  when  the  Indians  had  been 
similarly  deserted  by  the  French.  Against  such  an  attack  the 
feeble  British  garrisons  along  the  lakes  would  be  but  a  frail 
defence;  but,  should  these  be  withdrawn,  the  little  settle- 
ments of  French  about  the  trading  centres,  and  of  American 

*  I.  J.  Cox,  "The  Indian  as  a  Diplomatic  Factor  in  the  History  of  the 
Old  Northwest,"  Ohio  Archceol.  and  Hist.  Quarterly,  1909,  xviii.  542-565. 


66  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

loyalists  who  were  beginning  to  occupy  what  is  now  Ontario, 
would  fall  like  brush  before  the  fire.  To  prevent  such  a 
catastrophe,  the  British  commissioners  in  Paris  had  suggested 
that  Great  Britain  retain  the  forts  for  three  years,  or  until 
American  garrisons  arrived;  but  this  proposition  had  been 
rejected.^ 

Angry  as  the  tribes  were  with  the  British,  they  felt  a  more 
fundamental  hostility  to  the  "Long  Knives"  or  Americans, 
Indians  and  whose  advancing  settlements  drove  wild  life 
Americans  before  them.    They  were  loath  to  make  peace 

with  them  particularly  because  to  the  Americans  a  treaty 
with  Indians  meant  acquisition  of  territory.  The  Indians 
continued  to  trade  with  the  British  agents,  to  frequent  the 
British  forts,  to  speak  of  George  III,  the  great  chief  with  the 
Ted  coat,  as  father;  but  if  they  were  to  be  obedient  children 
they  wished  protection  from  their  enemies.  The  Indians 
were,  therefore,  a  weapon  for  the  British,  but  one  which  re- 
quired careful  handling. 

The  policy  of  the  British  government  was  one  of  peace 
and  pacification,  but  it  could  not  command  the  Indians  to 
The  British  accept  American  terms  without  the  danger  of 
Indian  policy  g^  great  uprising.  Nor  could  it  entirely  control 
its  Own  agents  So  far  away  on  the  frontier  and  necessarily 
invested  with  large  personal  responsibility.  Many  of  these 
were  American  loyalists,  as  bitter  against  their  former  coun- 
trymen as  were  the  Indians.  Guns  and  ammunition  were 
sold,  indiscreet  utterances  were  made,  ardent  young  Eng- 
lishmen and  Canadians  occasionally  joined  the  Indian  forays; 
and  the  Americans  interpreted  British  policy  as  a  careful 
nursing  of  the  tribes  to  be  used  as  a  lash  to  castigate  the 
United  States  frontier  when  occasion  should  arise.^ 

The  most  important  European  settlement  in  the  drainage 
basin  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  except  for  the  French  Canadian 

*  Papers  drawn  from  the  Canadian  archives,  the  Simcoe  papers,  and  the 
British  Public  Record  Office,  by  Miss  Orpha  Leavitt,  for  use  in  a  Wisconsin 
doctor's  thesis  as  yet  unpublished. 


THE  WEST  67 

farmers  along  the  main  river,  was  that  of  the  "Green 
Mountain  Boys"  in  the  valley  of  Lake  Champlain.  Their 
position  was  a  peculiar  one.  Although  they  were 
organized  as  a  separate  state,  their  lands  were 
claimed  by  both  New  Hampshire  and  New  York  and  their 
government  was  not  recognized  by  Congress.  During  the 
Revolution  they  had  fought  on  the  American  side,  but  they 
had  negotiated  with  Great  Britain  independently.  With 
peace,  their  great  desire  was  incorporation  into  the  American 
Union,  within  whose  boundaries  they  were  living;  and  yet 
they  realized  that  Great  Britain  held  their  welfare  in  her 
hands,  for  the  only  outlet  for  their  lumber  and  grain  was 
down  the  Richelieu,  or  Sorrel,  river  to  Montreal.^ 

To  obtain  the  privilege  of  this  route  they  determined  to 
negotiate  on  their  own  account,  and  in  1786  sent  three  com- 
missioners to  frame  a  treaty  of  commerce  with    _  _ 

1  1        .     Influence   of 

Lord  Dorchester,  then  governor-general  of  the  St.  Law- 
Canada.  In  1787  and  1788,  the  British  govern-  "°" 
ment  granted  them  certain  privileges  by  proclamation  and 
ordinance;  but  the  Vermonters,  wishing  a  formal  treaty, 
continued  negotiations  through  1790.  On  April  17,  1790, 
Cattrell,  in  behalf  of  the  Canadian  government,  wrote  to 
W.  W.  Grenville  of  the  British  foreign  oflSce:  "It  belongs 
not  to  the  Committee  to  decide  how  far  any  article  in  the  late 
Treaty  of  Peace,  by  which  the  Independence  of  the  United 
States  was  acknowledged  and  the  extent  of  their  Territories 
defined,  may  make  it  improper  for  the  government  of  this 
Country  to  form  a  separate  Treaty  with  the  State  of  Ver- 
mont, or  whether  it  may  be  politically  prudent  all  circum- 
stances considered,  to  risk  giving  offence  to  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States,  by  such  a  measure."  He  thought,  how- 
ever, that  it  would  certainly  be  of  commercial  benefit  to 
Great  Britain  "to  prevent  Vermont  and  Kentuck  and  all 
the  other  settlements  now  forming  in  the  Interior  parts  of 

^  F.  J.  Turner,  "English  policy  toward  America  in  1790-1791,"  Amer. 
Hist.  Review,  1902,  viii.  78-86. 


68  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  great  Continent  of  North  America,  from  becoming  de- 
pendent on  the  Government  of  the  United  States  or  on  that 
of  any  Foreign  Country,  and  to  preserve  them  on  the  con- 
trary in  a  state  of  Independence,  and  to  induce  them  to  form 
Treaties  of  Commerce  and  Friendship  with  Great  Britain." 
Great  Britain  had  less  to  offer  Kentucky  than  she  could 
give  to  Vermont;  moreover,  her  relations  with  the  Indians 

_    ^  ,_      .     caused  the  settlers  there  to  be,  some  of  them 
Kentucky  and  .  .  .  . 

the  St.  Law-  suspicions,  and  an  mcreasing  number  violently 
hostile.  Yet  the  portages  between  the  northern 
branches  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Great  Lakes  might  be  used 
as  an  outlet  for  Kentucky  products,  and  in  1788,  according 
to  the  report  of  John  Connolly,  a  British  agent  in  that  region, 
the  p>eople  were  thinking  of  bargaining  for  this  outlet  down 
the  St.  Lawrence.^ 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  Vermonters  and 
Kentuckians  were  actually  planning  local  independence,  in 
Possibilities  of  order  to  realize  that  the  continued  failure  of 
British  control  ^^le  United  States  to  open  a  channel  for  their 
commerce,  combined  with  the  possibility  of  accomplishing 
such  a  result  by  their  own  endeavors,  was  calculated  speedily 
to  develop  a  desire  and  a  purpose  for  independence.  Furtjor- 
more,  whUe  the  British  government  had  no  direct  policy  for 
bringing  about  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  it  is  evident  that 
it  was  closely  observing  conditions  in  the  West  and  was  not 
inclined  to  relinquish  anything  that  it  held.  With  its  con- 
trol of  the  Indians  and  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  it  remained  a 
factor  in  the  development  of  the  whole  Northwest,  irrespec- 
tive of  boundaries.  The  future  of  the  valley  of  the  Great 
Lakes  and  of  the  northern  part  of  the  Ohio  valley  might  yet 
prove  to  lie  with  Great  Britain  rather  than  with  the  United 
States. 

Of  more  immediate  interest  was  the  problem  of  the  South- 
west, where  the  situation  was  similar  to  that  in  the  norths 

*  Theodore  Roosevelt,  Winning  of  the  West  (4  vols.,  New  York,  etc, 
1889-96),  vol.  iii.  chs.  iv.-v. 


THE  WEST  e& 

although  the  various  factors  differed  in  their  relative  weight 
and  the  need  for  a  solution  was  more  urgent.  The  future 
of  the  Mississippi  valley  probably  lay  in  the  Kentucky  and 
hands  of  the  American  pioneers  who  were  pour-  Cumberland 
ing  into  that  region.  Their  settlements  constituted  two  oases 
in  the  wilderness.  The  more  important,  consisting  of  Scotch- 
Irish  mountaineers  and  Revolutionary  veterans  largely  from 
Virginia,  was  in  the  blue-grass  district  of  Kentucky.  In- 
creasing with  great  rapidity  throughout  the  Confederation, 
it  had  in  1790  about  70,000  inhabitants.  The  other  settle- 
ment, one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  the  southwest,  was  in 
the  Tennessee  blue  grass,  about  Nashville,  and  was  known 
as  the  Cumberland  district.  Settled  more  exclusively  by  the 
mountaineer  type,  it  had  in  1790  less  than  half  as  large  a  pop- 
ulation as  Kentucky,  and  was  also  more  exposed,  being  sur- 
rounded by  the  powerful  tribes  of  the  southwestern  Indians. 

Like  the  Vermonters,  these  invaders  of  the  wilderness  had 
shown  their  patriotism  during  the  Revolution  by  fighting 
against  the  British;  they  had  assisted  George  spirit  of  in- 
Rogerc  Clark  in  the  capture  of  Kaskaskia  and  dependence 
Vincennes,  and  had  themselves  delivered  the  great  blow  at 
King's  Mountain  of  which  the  story  in  ballad  and  fireside 
tale  enlivened  many  a  forest  cabin  for  years  to  come.  Like 
the  Vermonters,  however,  it  was  independence  that  fired 
them,  and  not  particularly  loyalty  to  the  American  Union 
or  even  to  their  states.  Tennessee  had  a  government,  headed 
by  John  Sevier,  which  claimed  separation  from  the  parent 
state  of  North  Carolina;  and  Kentucky  was  anxious  to  or- 
ganize separately  from  Virginia. 

Their  virgin  farms  produced  abundant  crops,  and  nearly  all 

\/ere  on  the  banks  of  rivers  hurrying  to  meet  the  Mississippi 

and  the  sea.    The  forests  furnished  ready  ma-         _ 

Traffic 
terial  for  rafts  and  rude  boats,  and  all  nature 

invited  to  this  easy  path  of  export.     It  was  only  necessary  to 

obtain  the  permission  of  the  Spaniards  to  drift  down  to  some 

point  near  the  gulf,  there  tranship  their  goods  at  some  place 


70  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

of  deposit,  and  to  return  with  the  proceeds,  either  by  sea 
to  Philadelphia  and  thence  home  across  the  mountains,  or 
buying  a  horse  at  New  Orleans  or  Natchez  ride  home  through 
the  forests.  During  the  Revolution,  when  we  were  to  some 
extent  cooperating  with  Spain,  they  had  tested  the  advan- 
">«'  tages  of  this  traffic;  but  in  1786  Spain  closed  the  route.  To 
reopen  it  was  the  work  of  Congress.^ 

Jay,  treating  with  Gardoqui  at  Philadelphia,  pointed  to 
the  treaty  of  peace  with  England,  which  specifically  declared 
The  "right"  that  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  should 
of  navigation  j^^  ^^^^  from  its  source  to  the  ocean,  and  to  the 
treaty  of  1763  between  Great  Britain  and  Spain,  which  had 
given  England  this  right.  Gardoqui  claimed  that  the  con- 
cession to  England  was  a  specific  grant,  which  she  had  no 
power  to  transfer  to  another  country.  He  refused  to  accept 
Jay's  argument  that  the  United  States  had  a  natural  right 
to  follow  to  the  ocean  all  rivers  on  which  any  of  its  territory 
bordered;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  moreover,  free  navigation 
was  of  comparatively  little  use  unless  accompanied  by  the 
privilege  of  a  place  of  deposit  where  rafts  could  be  broken  up 
and  transhipment  to  ocean-going  vessels  made.^ 

Spain  was  the  more  tenacious  of  her  position  because  of 
a  misunderstanding  regarding  the  Florida  boundary.  The 
The  Florida  treaty  of  1783  between  England  and  Spain 
boundary  ^.^^^  "jjjg  Britannic  Majesty  likewise  cedes 

and  guarantees,  in  full  right,  to  His  Catholic  Majesty  East 
Florida,  as  also  West  Florida."  In  the  treaty  of  even  date 
between  England  and  the  United  States  the  northern  bound- 
ary of  West  Florida  was  fixed  at  the  thirty-first  parallel. 
As  between  these  two  documents,  the  one  indefinite,  the 
other  definite,  the  latter  would  naturally  govern.  Spain, 
however,  claimed  that  "West  Florida"  was  a  definite  term, 
that  England  had  in  1764  extended  the  province  to  a  line 
running  through  the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo.     Moreover,  her 

'  Winsor,  Westward  Movement,  247-256. 
*  Secret  Journals  of  Congress,  iv.  42-132. 


THE  WEST  71 

claim  in  equity  is  improved  by  a  study  of  the  preliminary 
articles  of  both  treaties;  for  those  of  the  American  treaty 
agreed  to  the  Yazoo  boundary  in  case  England  remained  in 
possession  of  West  Florida,  whereas  the  agreement  with 
Spain  was  that  she  should  "continue"  to  hold  West  Florida. 
Now,  she  actually  did  hold  Natchez,  the  only  important 
post  in  the  disputed  region.  Technically  the  arguments 
balanced,  but  Spain  "continued"  to  hold  Natchez,  which 
not  only  was  a  Spanish  garrison  town,  but  was  peopled  for 
the  most  part  with  American  loyalists,  who  were  averse  to  a 
transfer  of  authority.  Congress  was,  therefore  as  unable  to 
clear  the  national  territory  of  foreign  control  to  the  south- 
west as  to  the  northwest. 

Meantime  the  commercial  interests  of  the  coast  were  im- 
patient at  having  an  agreement  held  up  because  of  these 
western  questions,  which  they  felt  to  be  of  Uttle  «  East "  and 
concern.  Not  all,  moreover,  favored  the  open-  "  ^®^* " 
ing  of  the  Mississippi.  In  addition  to  a  feeUng  that  western 
emigration  weakened  the  older  parts  of  the  country,  there 
was  a  distinct  fear,  voiced  by  such  men  as  Rufus  King,  that, 
should  the  West  learn  to  face  down  the  Mississippi^  the 
country  would  be  divided  into  two  spheres  so  distinct  that 
union  would  cease  to  be  possible.  He  believed  that  the  de- 
velopment of  the  West  had  best  wait  on  the  slow  process  of 
creating  transportation  routes  across  the  mountains. 

The  position  of  Congress  had  been  vacillating.  In  1779  it 
had  made  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  an  ultimatum  in 
any  treaty  with  Spain;  in  1781  it  had  withdrawn  , 
this  condition;  in  1784  it  had  returned  to  it. 
In  1786  Jay,  who  had  ignored  the  instructions  of  1781,  con- 
cluded that  he  could  not  carry  out  those  of  1784,  and  arranged 
a  treaty  with  Gardoqui  on  the  basis  that  the  United  States 
should  forego  the  navigation  for  twenty-five  years,  without 
prejudicing  her  rights.  This  plan  he  recommended  to  Con- 
gress, with  whom  the  question  assumed  a  sectional  aspect. 
The  commercial  regions,  New  England  and  the  middle  states. 


72  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

were  in  favor  of  it,  the  southern  states,  less  interested  in 
general  commerce  and  more  closely  in  touch  with  the  West, 
were  opposed.  On  one  vote  seven  states  out  of  the  thirteen 
favored  the  proposal,  but  the  decision  was  ultimately  left 
over  to  the  new  government  under  the  constitution. 

The  people  of  the  West  had  been  anxiously  watching  these 
negotiations,  and  were  growing  restless  at  the  protracted  de- 
Westem  dis-  lay  of  Congress  in  securing  what  they  wished, 
content  'j'jjg  news  of  Jay's  proposed  abandonment  of 

what  they  considered  their  birthright,  turned  restiveness  into 
distrust.  They  were  not  a  patient  race  and  their  impatience 
was  heightened  by  the  similar  failure  of  Congress  to  deal 
eflfectually  with  their  Indian  enemies. 

The  Southwestern  Indians  were  more  numerous  than  the 
Northwestern,  and  better  organized;  the  five  great  tribes, 
Cherokee,  Creeks,  Choctaw,  Chickasaw,  and 
States  and  the  Chicamauga,  could  together  furnish  perhaps 
fadil^s*^*^™  twenty  thousand  warriors.  The  close  of  the 
war  found  these  tribes  at  enmity  with  the 
Americans.  In  1785  commissioners  arranged  a  treaty  with 
the  Cherokee,  but  the  boundary  provided  was  not  satisfac- 
tory to  the  frontiersmen,  and  North  Carolina  stood  by  her 
citizens.  The  articles  of  Confederation  gave  Congress  con- 
trol of  Indian  affairs  only  in  the  case  of  tribes  not  living  within 
the  limits  of  a  single  state.  North  Carolina,  therefore,  claim- 
ing to  comprehend  the  Cherokee,  denied  the  validity  of  the 
treaty.  To  the  failure  of  Congress  to  open  the  Mississippi 
was  thus  added  the  failure  to  quiet  the  Indians  upon  satis- 
factory terms,  and  the  people  of  the  West  came  to  believe 
that  their  happiness  must  depend  on  their  own  exertions. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  West  became  fertile  ground 
for  the  development  of  plans  and  plots  and  conspiracies. 
Western  proj-  They  grew  up,  withered,  and  revived  again; 
*''**  they  adjusted  themselves  to  times  and  condi- 

tions; they  flourished  now  successively,  and  now  simulta- 
neously even  in  the  same  mind.    They  stretched  their  threads 


THE  WEST  73 

to  Congress  and  the  coast,  and  across  the  ocean  to  Madrid, 
Paris,  and  London;  they  connected  themselves  with  the 
general  history  of  the  age.  At  times  secret  and  unobserved, 
at  times  the  central  objects  of  attention,  they  together  form 
one  of  the  two  leading  themes  of  our  diplomatic  history  until 
after  1803.  During  the  Confederation  they  were  practically 
all  directed  to  the  solution  of  western  problems  by  some  one 
of  the  following  four  methods, — by  the  self-reliant  seizure  of 
New  Orleans,  a  task  somewhat  beyond  existing  resources; 
by  submission  to  the  control  of  Spain;  by  independence  and 
alliance  with  Spain;  or  by  independence  and  alliance  with 
Great  Britain.  It  is  probable  that  the  majority  of  the  in- 
habitants were  at  most  times  disposed  to  follow  a  fifth 
course, — the  obvious  and  legal  one  of  urging  their  grievances 
upon  the  government  of  the  United  States  in  the  hope  that 
it  would  acquire  the  power  to  redress  them.  The  supporters 
of  this  view,  however,  were  often  discouraged,  for  they  were 
not  sustained  by  any  such  deep-seated  loyalty  as  developed 
when  the  nation  had  proved  itself  deserving  of  their  de- 
votion. 

Fully  aware  of  the  situation,  Spain  was  disposed  to  pull 
every  string  of  intrigue  in  order  to  manipulate  it  to  her  own 
advantage.  Her  Indian  policy  was  well  con-  The  Spanish 
ceived  and  well  executed.  The  government  ^^^  P^^cy 
encouraged  the  great  Scotch  firm  of  Panton,  Leslie  and 
Company,  whose  American  headquarters  were  at  Pensacola. 
It  saw  to  it  that  traders  frequented  the  Indian  villages,  and 
that  their  rates  for  goods  were  moderate.  It  allowed  a  secret 
trade  in  firearms.  It  distributed  generous  presents.  To 
the  great  chief  of  the  Creeks,  the  most  powerful  man  among 
the  Indians,  Alexander  McGillivray,  it  paid  a  yearly  pension. 
Of  this  man,  Navarro,  intendant  or  civil  oflBcer  of  Louisiana, 
wrote,  April  15,  1786:  "So  long  as  we  shall  have  this  chief 
on  our  side,  we  may  rely  on  having  established,  between 
the  Floridas  and  Georgia,  a  barrier  which  it  will  not  be  easy 
to  break  through.    The  Indians  are  now  fully  convinced  of 


74  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  ambition  of  the  Americans;  the  recollection  of  past  m- 
juries  still  dwells  on  their  minds,  and,  with  it,  the  fear  that 
these  greedy  neighbors  may  one  day  seize  upon  their  lands, 
and  strip  them  of  a  property  to  which  they  consider  them- 
selves as  having  a  right  derived  from  nature  herself.  It 
ought  to  be  one  of  the  chief  points  in  the  policy  of  this  Gov- 
ernment to  keep  this  sentiment  alive  in  their  breasts."  Upon 
these  Indians,  with  the  Creole  population,  the  Spanish  gov- 
ernment placed  its  greatest  dependence  for  the  defence  of 
Louisiana,  and  through  Louisiana  of  the  mines  of  Mexico.^ 

It  hoped,  however,  by  intrigue  with  the  western  settlers 
to  create  a  still  more  advanced  barrier,  namely,  to  acquire 
The  coloniza-  or  to  control  the  region  which  it  had  endeavored 
tion  plan  ^^  obtain  in  the  negotiation  of  1779  with  Eng- 

land and  of  1782  with  Jay.  Alert  and  eager  as  it  was,  how- 
ever, the  Spanish  government  lacked  unity  of  purpose.  One 
of  the  plans  considered  was  that  of  Navarro,  who  wrote, 
December  19,  1787:  "It  is  necessary  to  keep  in  mind  that, 
between  this  province  and  the  territories  of  New  Spain, 
there  is  nothing  but  the  feeble  barrier  of  the  Mississippi, 
which  it  is  as  easy  to  pass  as  it  is  impossible  to  protect,  and 
that,  if  it  be  good  p>olicy  to  fortify  this  province  by  drawing 
a  large  population  within  its  limits,  there  are  no  other  means 
than  that  of  granting  certain  franchises  to  commerce,  leaving 
aside,  as  much  as  possible,  all  restrictions  and  shackles,  or 
at  least  postponing  them  to  a  future  time,  if  they  must  exist. 
In  addition,  the  government  must  distinguish  itself  by  the 
equity  of  its  administration,  the  suavity  of  its  relations  with 
the  people,  and  the  disinterestedness  of  its  officers  in  their 
dealings  with  the  foreigners  who  may  resort  to  the  colony. 
This  is  the  only  way  to  form,  in  a  short  time,  a  sohd  rampart 
for  the  protection  of  the  kingdom  of  Mexico."  ^ 

*  Charles  Gayarr€,  History  of  Louisiana  (Sd  ed.,  4  vols..  New  Orleans, 
1885),  iii.  175  and  passim;  Roosevelt,  Winning  of  the  West,  vol.  iii.;  Winsor, 
Westward  Movement. 

'  Gayarr6,  Louisiana,  iii.  189. 


THE  WEST  75 

This  plan  was  fostered  by  Gardoqui,  who  at  Philadelphia 
entered  into  relations  with  Colonel  George  Morgan  and  ar- 
ranged a  deal  with  him.  Morgan  received  a  grant  of  land 
and  undertook  to  establish  a  colony,  New  Madrid,  at  the 
strategic  point  in  what  is  now  Missouri,  opposite  the  mouth 
of  the  Ohio.  George  Rogers  Clark  was  interested  in  a  scheme 
to  organize  a  similar  colony  on  the  Yazoo,  and  similar  plans 
engaged  James  Wilkinson,  John  Brown,  a  delegate  in  Con- 
gress, Harry  Inness,  the  attorney-general  of  the  Kentucky 
district,  and  other  men  of  influence  and  ambition.  To  make 
settlement  in  these  new  grants  desirable  it  was  proposed  to 
allow  emigrants  to  bring  in  their  property  free  of  duty  and 
to  enjoy  religious  tolerance;  but  of  course  the  main  induce- 
ment would  be  freedom  to  use  the  Mississippi.  The  essential 
point  was  to  keep  the  river  tight  closed  to  those  living  in  the 
American  districts.^ 

With  regard  to  the  wisdom  of  this  plan  it  may  be  remarked 
that,  as  immigrants  of  this  kind  would  change  their  flag  only 
for  their  personal  advantage,  the  durability  of  james  Wilkin- 
their  loyalty  to  the  Spanish  crown  might  well  be  ^°° 
suspected.  It  was  like  asking  the  fox  to  guard  the  chickens. 
Something  like  this  was  felt  by  Miro,  the  governor  of  Louis- 
iana, to  whom  the  tempter  came  in  the  form  of  James  Wilkin- 
son. During  the  winter  of  1775  a  few  hundred  Americans, 
suffering  sickness,  icy  cold,  and  want,  had  besieged  Quebec. 
That  little  group  must  have  possessed  distinguished  courage 
and  a  spirit  of  high  adventure,  but  it  contained  also  the 
three  well-known  traitors  of  our  history,  Benedict  Arnold, 
Aaron  Burr,  and  James  Wilkinson.  One  can  hardly  refrain 
from  supposing  that  over  their  camp-fires  conversation  often 
ran  to  the  fascinating  possibilities  of  Spanish  America,  to  the 
mines  of  Mexico  and  Peru.  Of  the  three,  Wilkinson  was  the 
least,  but  the  most  enduring. 

Settling  in  Kentucky,  this  man  no  sooner  won  confidence 

*  C.  H.  Haskins,  The  Yazoo  Land  Companies,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Papers, 
1891,  V.  395-437. 


76  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

by  a  successful  raid  against  the  Indians  than  he  began  to 
tread  the  shady  paths  of  forest  diplomacy.  In  1786  he 
Independence  visited  Natchez  and  estabhshed  relations  with 
and  aUiance  Gayoso,  the  Spanish  commandant.  The  next 
year  he  descended  the  river  with  a  cargo  of  tobacco,  flour, 
butter,  and  bacon.  He  secured  an  interview  with  Miro,  to 
whom  he  presented  a  plan  for  allowing  a  few  prominent  men 
of  the  American  settlements  the  privileges  of  commerce,  in 
return  for  which  they  would  devote  themselves  to  persuad- 
ing the  whole  region  to  declare  its  independence  and  form  an 
alliance  with  Spain.  Miro  wrote,  January  8,  1788:  "The 
delivery  of  Kentucky  into  his  Majesty's  hands,  which  is  the 
main  object  to  which  Wilkinson  has  promised  to  devote 
himself  entirely,  would  forever  constitute  this  province  a 
rampart  for  the  protection  of  New  Spain."  Wilkinson  was 
allowed  to  complete  his  transactions,  and  with  such  of  his 
profits  as  he  did  not  hand  over  to  Miro  he  went  home  by 
way  of  Philadelphia.^ 

It  is  obvious  that  this  project  was  somewhat  at  variance 
with  the  colonization  scheme,  for  it  would  furnish  relief  to 
Kentucky  un-  some  at  least  of  the  inhabitants  of  Kentucky, 
decided  Instead  of  deciding  definitively  upon  one  plan 

or  the  other,  however,  the  Spanish  authorities  tried  to  ride 
both.  They  somewhat  distrusted  Wilkinson,  as  they  did 
the  proposed  colonizers,  and  by  limiting  trading  privileges 
to  a  few  they  hoped  still  to  attract  immigration.  Wilkinson, 
meantime,  whatever  his  ultimate  intentions  may  have  been, 
pushed  his  plans.  He  hoped  to  secure  the  consent  of  Vir- 
ginia to  the  organization  of  Kentucky  as  a  separate  state, 
and  then  to  apply  the  process  later  known  as  secession.  In 
July,  1788,  he  made  his  proposals  to  the  Kentucky  constitu- 
tional convention,  and,  although  he  did  not  win  their  adop- 
tion, he  secured  a  postponement  of  the  final  decision.  In 
June,  Miro  had  written  home  that  he  heard  from  Kentucky 
that  in  various  conversations  "  among  the  most  distinguished 
*  T.  M.  Green,  Spanish  Conspiracy,  Cincinnati,  1891, 


THE  WEST  77 

citizens  of  that  State,"  it  had  been  said  "that  the  direction 
of  the  current  of  the  rivers  which  run  in  front  of  their  dwell- 
ings points  clearly  to  the  power  to  which  they  ought  to  ally 
themselves." 

Miro  did  not  neglect  Tennessee.  Of  the  settlers  in  the 
Nashville  region  the  most  prominent  was  James  Robertson. 
Restless  under  the  restraint  of  trade,  but  even  Miro  and 
more  under  the  Indian  attacks,  he  at  any  rate  Tennessee 
coquetted  with  the  Spaniards.  McGillivray  wrote,  April  25, 
1788,  that  the  Cumberland  settlers  had  asked  for  terms,  "and 
added  that  they  would  throw  themselves  into  the  arms  of 
his  Majesty  as  subjects,  and  that  Cumberland  and  Kentucky 
are  determined  to  free  themselves  from  their  dependence 
on  Congress,  because  that  body  cannot  protect  either  their 
persons  or  their  property,  or  favor  their  commerce.  They 
therefore,  believe  that  they  owe  no  obedience  to  a  power 
which  is  incapable  of  benefiting  them."  Even  in  the  valleys 
of  East  Tennessee,  John  Sevier,  foremost  man  of  the  dis- 
trict, in  1788  offered  his  services  to  Miro  and  Gardoqui, 
although  he  subsequently  withdrew  from  the  connec- 
tion.^ 

The  government  under  the  Confederation,  therefore,  not 
only  failed  to  open  up  commerce  with  the  Mediterranean  v 
and  the  West  Indies,  and  to  put  that  with    Diplomatic 
Spain  upon  a  desirable  basis,  but  it  was  unable    ^^^^ 
to  occupy  the  territory  granted  to  the  United  States  by  the 
treaty  of  1783,  either  in  the  northwest  or  on  the  Florida 
border.    It  was  unable  to  quiet  the  Indians  of  north  or  south, 
or  to  provide  commercial  outlets  for  the  trans-Appalachian 
settlers.     Its  failure  was  causing  not  only  discontent  but 
disloyalty,  and  to  such  a  degree  that,  although  the  racial 
control  of  the  great  valley  was  probably  determined  by  the 
character  of  the  aggressive  population  already  on  the  spot, 
its  governmental  future  was  still  uncertain. 

*  Roosevelt,  Winning  ofth$  West,  iii.  chs.  iii.-v.;  Win3or,  Westtoard  Move- 
ment, 334, 


78  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

While  the  western  situation  was  not  widely  appreciated 
in  the  older  portion  of  the  country,  the  financial  plight  was 
The  danger  of  fully  realized.  Owing  to  the  lack  of  national 
the  debt  resources,  the  interest  on  our  foreign  debt  was 

met  only  by  occasional  sales  of  such  portions  of  the  Dutch 
loan  arranged  by  Adams  as  had  not  been  immediately  taken 
up.^  The  loans  from  France  were  still  unprovided  for,  and 
it  was  the  gossip  of  diplomatic  circles  that  France  might  take 
the  island  of  Rhode  Island  as  her  payment.^  To  the  public 
mind  of  Europe  in  1789,  the  acquisition  of  a  French  naval 
base  on  the  United  States  coast  seemed  no  more  improbable 
than  the  acquisition  of  a  United  States  naval  base  in  Cuba 
seems  to-day.  It  was  by  no  means  an  accepted  opinion 
that  the  United  States  would  prove  to  be  more  than  what  we 
call  to-day  a  protectorate,  under  French  or  English  influence. 
The  public  debt  was  one  of  the  weapons  of  France,  as  it  has 
since  so  often  been  the  key  to  European  interference  in  the 
weaker  countries  of  the  world.  Even  though  we  were  not 
actually  in  danger  of  being  forced  into  political  dependency, 
Europe  had  yet  to  be  convinced  that  we  were  not.  The  fu- 
ture independence  as  well  as  the  future  limits  of  the  country 
were  in  1789  felt  to  be  undetermined. 

*  John  Adams,  Works,  see  index  under  loans. 

*  For  the  French  position,  see  "  Correspondence  of  the  Comte  de  Moustier 
[French  Minister  in  the  United  States]  with  the  Comte  de  Montmorin," 
Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1903,  viii.  709-733;  for  rumors,  see  Buckingham's  letter 
to  Temple,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.,  Proceedings,  1866,  p.  75. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

OLD  PROBLEMS  IN  NEW  HANDS  * 

Under  the  Articles  of  Confederation  the  administration 
had  proved  too  weak  to  perform  the  duties  of  a  national 
government    in    maintaining   the    rights  and 
interests  of    its  citizens    among  the  nations    powers  of  the 
of  the  world.     This  failure  in  diplomacy  was    l^^^i  *°^' 
one  of  the  causes  for  the  formation  of  a  stronger  ^ 
central  authority.     Naturally,   therefore,   the  constitution, 
gave  the  new  government  a  freer  hand  in  dealing  with  inter- 
national affairs.    The  states  conceded  to  the  nation  almost^ 
complete  control  of  war,  peace,  treaty-making,  army  and  j 
navy,   commerce,   naturalization,   and  Indian  affairs;   and  j 
treaties  were  made  the  law  of  the  land,  enforceable  by  the  i 
national  supreme  court.    The  only  limitations  were  that  the 
importation  of  slaves  was  not  to  be  prohibited  for  twenty 
years,  that  no  taxes  should  be  levied  on  exports,  and  no  prefer- 
ence given  to  the  ports  of  one  state  over  those  of  another. 
In  actual  practice,  these  limitations  proved  to  give  rise  to 
little  controversy  and  to  hamper  the  national  government 

^  J.  D.  Richardson,  Mestages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  10  vols.,  to 
1899,  with  continuations  by  other  editors  (contains  valuable  summaries 
and  discussions);  Journal  of  the  Executive  Proceedings  of  the  Senate,  1789- 
1901,  32  vols,  in  34,  Washington,  1828-1911  (contains  votes  on  treaties 
and  appointments) ;  Compilation  of  Reports  of  [Senate]  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations,  1789-1901,  8  vols.,  Washington,  1901  (Senate  Doc.,  56  Cong.,  2 
sess..  No.  231) ;  American  State  Papers,  Foreign  Relations,  6  vols.,  Washing- 
ton, 1832-59  (gives  such  correspondence  as  was  submitted  to  Congress 
from  1789  to  1828;  that  between  1828  and  1860  is  not  collected  [see  Hasse, 
Index  .  .  .  foreign  affairs,  1828-1861];  since  1860  selected  material  has  been 
published  each  year,  although  further  papers  are  still  presented  to  Congress 
on  call  from  time  to  time);  J.  B.  Moore,  Digest  of  International  Law  as 
embodied  .  .  .  especially  in  Documents  .  .  .  of  the  United  States,  8  vols., 
Washington,  1906  (House  Doc.,  56  Cong.,  2  sess..  No.  551;  an  invaluable 
aid,  discussing  all  points  involving  questions  of  law). 

79 


80  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

very  little  in  its  negotiations;  but  the  failure  to  give  the 
government  full  control  of  aliens  within  the  limits  of  the 
states,  coupled  with  the  fact  that  foreign  nations  have  held 
it  to  be  responsible  for  them,  has  occasionally  caused  trouble. 

Within  the  government,  the  direction  of  foreign  affairs 
was  given  to  the  President,  but  the  appointment  of  "  ambas- 
The  executive  sadors,  other  public  ministers,  and  consuls" 
and  Congress  requires  the  confirmation  of  the  Senate,  and 
treaties  must  be  ratified  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  same 
body.  The  relation  of  the  House  of  Representatives  to 
diplomacy  has  proved  one  of  the  most  baffling  ambiguities 
of  the  constitution.  A  minister  appointed  by  the  President 
and  confirmed  by  the  Senate  is  an  official  of  the  United 
States.  He  can,  however,  draw  no  salary  unless  one  is  pro- 
vided for  by  Congress  as  a  whole.  In  the  same  way  a  treaty 
confirmed  by  the  Senate  is  the  law  of  the  land  and  enforceable 
by  the  supreme  court;  but  if  it  provides  for  the  expenditure 
of  money  it  cannot  be  executed  unless  the  House  consents. 
A  treaty,  moreover,  often  fixes  rates  to  be  paid  on  imported 
articles  and  on  the  vessels  carrying  them;  but  of  no  power 
are  the  representatives  more  jealous  than  that  of  regulating 
customs  duties,  a  function  clearly  granted  by  the  constitu- 
tion to  Congress  as  a  whole.  Although  these  questions  have 
never  been  authoritatively  adjudicated  upon,  and  perhaps  / 
never  can  be,  it  may  be  said  that  Congress  as  a  body  has 
directed  the  expansion  of  the  diplomatic  service,  that  the 
House,  although  it  has  sometimes  delayed  discharging  finan-  / 
cial  obligations  laid  upon  the  nation  by  treaties,  has  never 
failed  to  do  so  eventually,  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  it  y 
has  never  yielded  its  direction  of  commercial  policy. 

When  Washington  took  office  in  April,  1789,  he  found  no 
organization  by  means  of  which  he  could  execute  his  diplo- 
The  determin-  matic  powers.  Congress,  however,  speedily 
ation  of  policy  provided  for  a  department  of  state,  charged 
chiefly  with  that  function,  its  secretary  becoming  in  effect 
foreign  minister.    The  natural  selection  for  this  office  was 


OLD  PROBLEMS  IN  NEW  HANDS  81 

John  Jay,  but  he  preferred  the  position  of  chief  justice. 
Washington  therefore  appointed  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  had 
served  on  the  committee  of  correspondence  of  the  Continental 
Congress  and  since  1784  had  been  minister  to  France.  For- 
eign affairs  were,  however,  of  such  critical  moment  through- 
out the  Federalist  period  that  many  questions  of  policy  were 
discussed  by  the  whole  cabinet,  together  with  Jay  and  the  vice- 
president  John  Adams.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Jefferson's  opin- 
ion was  seldom  followed;  his  influence  was  modifying  rather 
than  directing.  The  responsibility  and  the  credit  belong 
primarily  to  the  presidents,  Washington  and,  later,  Adams.^ 

Although  conditions  of  intercourse  were  better  than  dur- 
ing the  Revolution,  they  were  still  poor,  and  a  close-knit 
policy  was  impossible.  It  was  very  difficult,  v  a  ^-  * 
moreover,  to  induce  fit  men  to  accept  appoint-  diplomatic 
ments  in  the  regular  diplomatic  service.  Sala- 
ries, while  perhaps  more  adequate  than  they  are  to-day,  were 
smaller  than  during  the  Revolution.  The  social  allure  which 
now  renders  so  many  patriots  willing  to  spend  abroad  for 
their  country  was  not  strong  enough  to  cross  the  Atlantic 
in  the  cheerless  barks  of  that  day.  Old  men  feared  the  voy- 
age; young  men  like  John  Quincy  Adams  disliked  to  aban- 
don their  professions  for  positions  of  "nominal  respecta- 
bility and  real  insignificance."  Consequently  it  was  found 
impossible  to  keep  first-class  ministers  except  at  London  and 
Paris.  Spain  was  ill-supplied,  and  the  missions  to  Holland, 
Portugal,  Russia,  and  Prussia  were  only  occasionally  filled. 
In  this  situation  the  government  resorted  to  the  expedient 
of  sending  special  missions  in  important  crises,  and  at  such 
times  it  was  well  served. 

The  consular  service  was  still  less  satisfactory.  The  only 
positions  that  carried  salaries  were  those  to  the  Barbary 
states,  which  were  semi-diplomatic   in  character.     In  all 

1  On  organization,  see  Schuyler,  American  DiploTnacy,  chs.  i-iii;  J.  W. 
Foster,  The  Practice  of  Diplomacy,  Boston,  1910:  Gaillard  Hunt,  Depart- 
ment of  State,  New  Haven,  1914. 


82  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

other  cases  compensation  came  from  fees  alone.  The  result 
was  that  consuls  usually  had  to  be  chosen  from  merchants 
The  consular  trading  at  the  ports,  who  in  many  cases  were 
semce  j^^^  Americans,     The  whole  idea  of  using  con- 

suls as  a  means  of  advancing  national  commercial  interests 
was  of  later  growth  in  the  United  States.  At  that  time 
their  services  were  purely  those  of  trade  regulation  and 
registration. 

The  strength  of  the  new  government  was  first  apparent  at 
home,  and  next  appeared  in  the  handling  of  those  diplomatic 
Financial  problems  which  were  also  in  part  domestic, 

strength  r^j^g  financial  resources  developed  by  Hamil- 

ton's management  at  once  settled  the  question  of  credit, 
and  never  since  that  time  has  the  United  States  offered  an 
excuse  for  foreign  interference  by  failing  to  meet  its  financial 
obligations,  or  even  by  being  in  danger  of  such  failure.  The 
repudiation  of  portions  of  their  debts  by  some  of  the  in- 
dividual states,  however,  has  at  times  caused  trouble, 
though  never  danger. 

While  settling  its  finances,  the  new  government  took  a 
first  step  toward  developing  the  loyalty  of  the  frontier  by 
P  admitting  Vermont,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee 

tionofthe  to  statehood,  the  first  two  in  1791  and  1792 

West 

respectively,  the  last  in  1796.  Now  repre- 
sented, the  new  states  were  inclined  to  await  somewhat  more 
loyally,  if  not  more  patiently,  the  solution  of  their  special 
problems. 

The  Indian  question  was  taken  up  vigorously,  though  not 
with  entire  success.  Various  laws  were  passed  to  diminish  the 
friction  between  the  savages  and  the  pioneers 
^  *^^  and  traders;  and  finally  Washington,  in  his  fifth 
annual  message,  recommended  the  establishment  of  govern- 
ment trading-houses  among  them  "to  conciliate  their  attach- 
ment." In  1796  this  system  was  adopted,  in  the  hope  thereby 
to  detach  them  from  the  Spaniards  and  English.  Tackle 
wrote  to  Lord  Bathurst,  November  24,  1812:  "Of  all  the 


OLD  PROBLEMS  IN  NEW  HANDS  83 

projects  of  Genl.  Washington,  after  effecting  the  separation 
of  those  Colonies  from  the  mother  country;  I  apprehend 
this  of  the  Trading  houses,  best  calculated  to  undermine  the 
influence  of  Great  Britain,  with  the  Indians."  ^ 

While  this  general  policy  was  being  worked  out,  negotia- 
tions were  carried  on  with  the  various  tribes.  McGillivray 
and  other  chiefs  were  brought  to  New  York,  f^ted,  and 
bribed.  In  spite  of  obstacles  which  the  Spaniards  were  sup- 
posed to,  and  probably  did,  interpose,  a  treaty  was  arranged 
with  the  Creeks  in  1790;  ^  and  in  the  same  year  orders  were 
given  that  the  treaty  of  Hopewell,  made  in  1785  with  the 
Cherokee,  be  observed  by  the  white  settlers.  Peace  was  thus 
established  in  the  southwest,  although  the  situation  was  not 
conducive  to  slumber. 

In  the  northwest,  negotiation  proved  futile,  and  Washing- 
ton advised  that  economy  would  "point  to  prompt  and  deci- 
sive efiFort  rather  than  to  defensive  and  linger-    ,  .. 

„     rm  1  •      1-  1     Indian  wars 

ing  operations.       Ihe  means  at  his  disposal 

were,  however,  insuflScient.  In  1790  General  Harmer  was  sent 
against  the  Indians  and  disastrously  defeated,  and  the  fol- 
lowing year  a  more  formidable  expedition  under  St.  Clair, 
governor  of  Northwest  Territory,  went  down  in  utter  rout. 
General  Wayne,  whose  nickname  "  Mad  Anthony "  is  appro- 
priate only  if  it  is  considered  as  implying  the  presence  of 
dash  and  not  the  absence  of  judgment,  was  then  appointed 
to  the  command  of  the  western  department.  It  was  the 
spring  of  1794  before  he  moved  against  the  Indians.  In 
February  they  had  been  encouraged  by  an  injudicious  speech 
of  Lord  Dorchester,  and  they  now  took  their  stand  near  a 
newly-established  British  fort  at  the  rapids  of  the  Maumee, 
twenty  miles  within  American  territory.  General  Knox, 
secretary  of  war,  wrote  to  Wayne:  "If,  therefore,  in  the 

^  Wisconsin  Hist.  Soc.,  Collections,  1911,  xx.  4-5;  Washington,  Works 
(ed.  Ford),  xi.  465. 

*John  Marshall,  Life  of  Washington  (5  vols.,  Philadelphia,  1804-07), 
V.  274. 


84  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

course  of  your  operations  against  the  Indian  enemy,  it  should 
become  necessary  to  dislodge  the  party  at  the  rapids  of  the 
Miami,  [sic]  you  are  hereby  authorized,  in  the  name  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States,  to  do  it."  Wayne,  however, 
succeeded  in  inflicting  a  decisive  defeat  upon  the  Indians  in 
the  battle  of  Fallen  Timbers,  without  becoming  officially  in- 
volved with  the  British,  though  he  notified  General  Knox, 
"It  is  with  infinite  pleasure  that  I  announce  to  you  the  bril- 
liant success  of  the  Federal  army  under  my  command,  in  a 
general  action  with  the  combined  force  of  the  hostile  Indians, 
and  a  considerable  number  of  the  volunteers  and  militia  of 
Detroit."  Peace  with  the  Indians,  however,  did  not  come 
until  the  next  year,  1795,  after  the  Jay  treaty  had  been 
framed  and  continued  peace  between  Great  Britain  and 
America  seemed  assured.  Defeated  and  deserted,  the  In- 
dians agreed  to  the  treaty  of  Greenville,  which  granted  the 
Americans  a  large  portion  of  what  is  now  Ohio  and  a  part  of 
Indiana.  By  1795,  therefore,  the  new  government  had  ac- 
complished one  of  its  tasks  in  restoring  peace  to  the  frontier 
and  making  itself  respected  by  the  Indians.  It  could  not, 
however,  put  an  end  to  the  inevitable  conflict  between  the 
onward-pushing  forces  of  American  civilization  and  the 
inhabitants  of  the  forest,  who  continued  to  lean  for  support 
upon  the  less  aggressive  Spaniards  and  English,  This  peace 
constituted  merely  a  truce,  but  a  truce  which  allowed  tens 
of  thousands  of  American  pioneers  to  establish  themselves 
in  the  wilderness  and  to  tip  the  balance  substantially  in  favor 
of  the  United  States  before  the  hostile  forces  closed  in  final 
struggle.^ 

One  problem  did  not  wait  upon  another,  and  during  these 
same  years  the  questions  of  commerce  were  being  discussed. 
With  regard  to  the  Barbary  states  the  administration  adopted    / 
the  European  practice  of  purchasing  peace.    Yet,  even  with 

^B.  A.  Hinsdale,  Old  Northwest  (New  York,  1888),  184flF.;  also  unpub- 
lished theses  by  Shong  and  Groves  in  the  library  of  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin. 


OLD  PROBLEMS  IN  NEW  HANDS  85 

money  and  a  willingness  to  use  it,  the  difficulties  remained 
serious.  It  was  not  till  1795  that  a  treaty  was  arranged 
with  Algiers,  to  be  followed  in  1796  by  a  Mediterranean 
similar  one  with  Tripoli,  and  finally,  in  1799,  *'*'** 
by  one  with  Tunis.  Then  the  coast  seemed  clear.  In  spite 
of  these  treaties  and  the  expenditure  of  nearly  two  million 
dollars,  however,  there  continued  to  be  such  constant  trouble 
that  the  Federalist  administration  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  made  the  Mediterranean  a  safe  route  for  American 
commerce.^ 

But  far  more  important  was  the  question  of  general  com- 
mercial policy,  the  source  which  was  expected  not  merely  to 
provide  the  government  with  most  of  its  reve-  The  merchant 
nue,  but  also  to  advance  the  interests  of  Amer-  ™*""® 
ican  merchants  and  ship-owners.  It  was  a  question  which 
lay  with  Congress  rather  than  with  the  administration.  The 
first  point,  after  the  imposition  of  a  customs  tariflF,  was 
whether  there  should  be  discrimination  in  favor  of  American 
as  opposed  to  foreign  vessels,  a  policy  that  was  opposed  by 
the  agricultural  interests  on  the  ground  that  it  would  inevi- 
tably mean  higher  freight  rates.  By  the  commercial  interests 
it  was  of  course  strongly  urged,  and  with  them  sided  what 
we  may  call  the  nationalists.  Jefferson,  although  from  an 
agricultural  state,  argued:  "In  times  of  general  peace,  it 
multiplies  competition  for  employment  in  transportation, 
and  so  keeps  it  at  its  proper  level,  and  in  times  of  war,  that 
is  to  say,  when  those  nations  who  may  be  our  principal  car- 
riers, shall  be  at  war  with  each  other,  if  we  have  not  within 
ourselves  the  means  of  transportation,  our  products  must  be 
exported  in  belligerent  vessels,  at  the  increased  expense  of 
war  freights  and  insurance,  and  the  articles  which  will  not 
bear  it,  must  perish  on  our  hands."  It  was  finally  voted  f 
that  American  vessels  should  pay  six  cents  duty  per  ton  on 
entering  a  port,  and  foreign  vessels  fifty  cents.  To  encourage 
American  ship-building,  American-built,  foreign-owned  ves- 
^  J.  B.  Moore,  American  DipUmiaq/  (New  York,  etc.,  1905),  63-7£. 


86  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

sels  were  to  pay  a  middle  rate,  thirty  cents.  In  addition,/ 
American  vessels  were  to  receive  ten  per  cent  rebate  from  the,' 
duties  imposed  on  their  cargoes.  ' 

Keener  discussion  raged  on  a  second  point, — whether 
there  should  be  discrimination  between  the  vessels  of  various 
Discrimina-  foreign  countries  according  to  their  treatment 
**°°  of  our  vessels.    The  strongest  advocate  of  this 

policy  was  Jefferson,  who  in  December,  1793,  submitted  to 
Congress  a  remarkably  able  report  setting  forth  his  views. 
"Our  commerce,"  he  declared,  "is  certainly  of  a  character 
to  entitle  it  to  favor  in  most  countries.  The  commodities 
we  offer  are  either  necessaries  of  life,  or  materials  for  manu- 
facture, or  convenient  subjects  of  revenue;  and  we  take  in 
exchange,  either  manufactures,  when  they  have  received  the 
last  finish  of  art  and  industry,  or  mere  luxuries."  He  thought 
that  by  discrimination  we  could  force  the  nations  of  the 
world,  and  Great  Britain  in  particular,  to  throw  open  their 
ports  on  our  own  terms.^ 

By  the  commercial  classes  this  plan  was  opposed  as  imprac- 
ticable.   They  realized  that  trade  is  seldom  much  more  profit- 

_     ...  able  to  one  nation  than  to  another,  that  actually 

Retaliation  ,  »     n      •  •  i   /-. 

the  greater  bulk  of  our  commerce  was  with  Great 

Britain,  and  that  she  might  retaliate.  Fisher  Ames  wrote, 
July  2,  1789:  "But  are  we  Yankees  invulnerable,  if  a  war 
of  regulations  should  be  waged  with  Britain?  Are  they  not 
able  to  retaliate?  Are  they  not  rich  enough  to  bear  some  loss 
and  inconvenience?  Would  not  their  pride  spurn  at  the  idea 
of  being  forced  into  a  treaty?"^  Jefferson's  plan,  there- 
fore, although  supported  warmly  by  Madison  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  was  defeated,  and  he  was  forced  to 
pigeon-hole  it  among  those  policies  which  were  await- 
ing the  day,  which  he  believed  certain  to  come,  when 
the  people  would  confide  their  welfare  to  his  willing 
hands. 

» Amer.  State  Papers.  Foreign,  I  300-S04. 

«  Fisher  Ames,  Works  (ed.  Seth  Ames,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1854),  i.  57-60. 


OLD  PROBLEMS  IN  NEW  HANDS  87 

These  measures  for  fostering  the  American  merchant  ma- 
rine actually  worked,  and,  in  combination  with  circumstance, 
worked  marvellously.  American  ships  rapidly  Diplomatic 
secured  not  only  our  whole  coasting  trade  ^*^"^** 
but  about  eighty  per  cent  of  our  foreign  trade,  and  held  it 
for  many  years.  The  commercial  classes  became  enthusias- 
tic for  a  government  that  could  do  so  much  by  its  own 
regulations.  In  matters  which  required  the  mutual  con- 
sent of  other  governments,  however,  success  was  not 
so  immediate.  Spain  could  not  be  persuaded  to  open  the 
Mississippi,  and  Great  Britain  allowed  the  use  of  the 
St.  Lawrence  only  by  highly  exceptionable  special  agree- 
ments with  Vermont.  The  British  West  Indies  remained 
closed. 

While  these  essential  matters  were  still  unsettled,  we  did 
force  from  Great  Britain  an  important  courtesy.  That 
country  had  steadily  refused  to  commission  a  First  minister 
minister  to  the  United  States,  her  commercial  ^"^  England 
interests  being  well  attended  to  by  a  consul-general.  Sir 
John  Temple,  and  the  active  Phineas  Bond,  consul  at  Phila- 
delphia. With  the  return  of  Adams  in  1788  we  were  equally 
unrepresented  in  England,  nor  could  we,  consistently  with 
our  self-respect,  again  appoint  a  minister  until  Great  Britain 
was  willing  to  reciprocate.  To  meet  the  situation,  which 
was  not  only  inconvenient  but,  considering  all  conditions, 
dangerous  as  well,  Washington  sent  Gouverneur  Morris 
unoflBcially  to  England.  He  succeeded  in  impressing  the 
English  ministry  with  the  friendliness  of  the  American 
administration,  and  the  probability  of  hostile  commercial 
legislation  by  Congress  if  England  remained  obdurate,  with 
the  result  that  in  1791  George  Hammond  was  appointed 
minister  just  in  time,  as  Lord  Grenville  was  informed,  to 
prevent  the  passage  of  an  act  discriminating  against  English 
commerce.  The  next  year  Thomas  Pinckney  was  sent  as 
American  minister  to  Great  Britain.  Although  neither 
Pinckney  nor  Hammond  accomplished  definite  results,  the 


88  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

exchange  of  ministers  somewhat  enhanced  the  prestige  of 
the  United  States.^ 

While  formulating  these  general  policies,  the  government 
found  itself  confronted  by  an  episode  which  for  a  moment 
N  tk  s  d  P^^^^d  t^^t  ^^  t^®  strings  of  American  diplo- 
macy. The  situation  quickly  relaxed,  it  is  true, 
but  in  that  moment  were  brought  to  view  motives  and  forces 
which  were  to  play  a  vital  part  in  the  history  of  the  United 
States  for  many  years  to  come.  In  the  same  month  in  which 
Washington  was  inaugurated,  two  Spanish  war  vessels,  un- 
authorized by  their  government,  seized  some  goods  left  by  an 
English  company  which  intended  upon  its  own  responsibility 
to  form  a  permanent  commercial  settlement  at  Nootka 
Sound,  on  what  is  now  called  the  island  of  Vancouver,  at  that 
time  one  of  the  most  remote  spots  on  the  sea-washed  earth. 
As  fast  as  the  wind  could  carry  the  ships  of  the  day,  the 
news  was  brought  to  the  courts  of  England  and  Spain.^ 

The  affair  was  accidental,  but  it  involved  the  fundamental 
interests  and  the  long-established  views  of  both  countries. 
The  verge  of  England  could  not  let  the  seizure  go  unnoticed 
"""  without  recognizing  the  Spanish  claim  to  the 

unoccupied  coast  of  North  America,  a  claim  resting  entirely 
upon  a  questioned  discovery.  A  virile  growing  power,  §he 
had  for  two  hundred  years  denied  such  prescriptive  rights. 
Spaio,  on  the  other  hand,  could  not  make  amends  without 
either  giving  up  her  claims  to  ownership  or  acknbwledging 
the  breakdown  of  her  policy  of  commercial  exclusion.  Both 
nations  prepared  for  war.  Spain  called  on  France,  who, 
although  the  Revolution  had  begun,  was  still  bound  to  her 
by  the  Family  Alliance.     Pitt  made  ready  to  regain  the 

^  E.  D.  Adams,  The  Influence  of  Grenville  on  Pitfs  Foreign  Policy,  1787-' 
1798,  Washington,  1904;  Dropmore  Papers  (British  Hist.  Mss.  Commission, 
Report.  1894,  xiv.  pt.  v.),  ii.  228,  250,  263,  444. 

*  W.  R.  Manning,  The  Nootka  Sound  Controversy,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc., 
Report,  1904,  pp.  279-478;  W.  E.  H.  Lecky,  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury (8  vols.,  London,  1878-90),  v.  206-209;  H.  H.  Bancroft,  Northwest 
Coast  (2  vols.,  San  Francisco,  1884),  i.  180-225. 


OLD  PROBLEMS  IN  NEW  HANDS  89 

golden  colonies  of  Spain  won  by  his  father  but  lost  through 
the  policy  of  George  III. 

To  Pitt's  hand  lay  many  strange  instruments.  Among 
them  was  William  A.  Bowles,  a  fantastic  American  loyalist,  a 
portrait-painter,  an  actor,  a  soldier,  who  was  pitt  and  the 
at  this  time  adventuring  for  a  fortune  in  trade  ^<^"^s 
with  the  southwestern  Indians.  A  rival  of  the  Spanish- 
sympathizing  McGillivray,  he  offered  to  organize  among  the 
Indians  a  force  to  capture  the  mines  of  Mexico.  "I  should 
inform  your  Lordship,"  he  wrote  to  Lord  Grenville,  January 
13,  1791,  "that  these  Speculations  would  meet  with  other 
support  than  the  force  of  the  Creek  and  Cherokee  Nation. 
There  are  now  settled  in  the  Cumberland  Country  [a]  set  of 
men,  who  are  the  Relicts  of  the  American  Army;  These  people 
are  weary  of  their  Situation.  ...  I  have  had  a  request 
from  .  .  .  [them]  to  lead  them  on  an  expedition  to  the 
Spanish  settlements,  that  being  the  object  of  adventure  now 
most  thought  of,  in  that  part  of  the  world.  .  .  .  These 
people  are  desirous  on  any  terms,  of  coming  to  settle 
amongst  us,  as  well  for  the  objects  of  peace  as  those  of  War. 
For,  at  present,  they  are  shut  out  from  the  sea.  They  feel 
no  attachment  to  the  Americans  and  would  be  glad  to 
abandon  everything  for  a  situation  near  the  Sea  in  our 
Country  [the  Indian  lands]."  ^ 

More  formidable  than  Bowles  was  the  mysterious  Francisco 
de  Miranda.  A  native  of  that  hive  of  revolution,  Caracas  of 
Venezuela,  he  left  a  Spanish  post  in  1782  and  ...  , 
devoted  his  life  to  the  cause  of  freeing  Spanish 
America.  Had  he  directed  his  efforts  toward  internal  prepara- 
tion rather  than  to  securing  foreign  assistance,  he  might 
perhaps  have  anticipated  Bolivar  as  the  successful  leader  of 
that  movement;  but,  again,  he  might  have  been  shot  sooner 
than  he  was.  From  1790  till  1810  he  is  always  to  be  found 
hovering  about  the  courts  of  whatever  powers  seemed  most 

^F.  J.  Turner,  "English  Policy  toward  America  in  1790-1791,"  Amer. 
Hist.  Review,  1902,  vii.  706-735. 


90  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

likely  to  welcome  a  project  against  Spain.  A  man  of  ability 
and  with  an  unusual  capacity  for  winning  confidence,  he 
was  successively  in  close  contact  with  England,  France,  Eng- 
land again,  and  at  times  with  Russia  and  the  United  States. 
His  plan  at  this  time  was  the  formation  of  a  great  independent 
Spanish-American  constitutional  monarchy  in  commercial 
alliance  with  Great  Britain.^ 

It  is  obvious  that  such  proposals  touched  the  United 
States  very  nearly,  and  would  have  much  disturbed  its 
g    .      „  government  had  it  known  of  them.    Still  more 

land,  and  the  important,  however,  and  more  apparent  was 
the  prevalent  feeling  that,  should  a  general 
war  break  out,  the  United  States  would  necessarily  become 
involved  in  it.  Spain  sought  American  favor  by  failing  to 
seize  two  American  ships  that  were  at  Nootka  Sound.  She 
also  began  to  speak  soft  on  the  Mississippi  question.  Pitt, 
however,  brought  the  subject  up  in  more  concrete  form. 
Influenced  by  Miranda  or  by  his  own  designs,  he  made  ar- 
rangements for  a  descent  upon  New  Spain.  He  had  agents 
at  Charleston  and  New  York;  he  considered  the  advisability 
of  sending  troops  from  India  against  the  west  coast  of  Mexico; 
and  particularly  he  thought  it  possible  to  use  the  troops  at 
Detroit  against  New  Orleans.  As  this  project  involved  cross- 
ing American  territory,  he  sent  an  agent  to  sound  the  Amer- 
ican government  as  to  its  attitude.  This  agent.  Major  Beck- 
with,  met  Hamilton  in  July,  1790,  and  requested  permission 
thus  to  use  American  territory  should  it  prove  desirable.  He 
spoke  of  the  cause  of  the  expected  rupture,  observing  that 
"it  was  one  in  which  all  commercial  nations  must  be  sup- 
posed to  favor  the  views  of  Great  Britain,  that  it  was  there- 
fore presumed,  should  war  take  place,  that  the  United  States 

*  F.  J.  Turner,  "  English  Policy  toward  America  in  1790-1791,"  Amer. 
Hist.  Review,  1902,  vii.  706-735;  also  W.  S.  Robertson,  Francisco  de  Miranda 
and  the  Revolutionizing  of  Spanish  America,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1907, 
i.  189-539;  Hubert  Hall,  "Pitt  and  General  Miranda,"  Athenceum,  April  19, 
1902.  pp.  498-499. 


OLD  PROBLEMS  IN  NEW  HANDS  91 

would  find  it  to  their  interest  to  take  part  with  Great  Britain 
rather  than  with  Spain." 

This  was  the  first  question  of  high  diplomacy  presented 
to  the  new  government.  Our  two  neighbors  were  apparently 
about  to  go  to  war.  Should  we  side  with  Spain,  united  States 
or  with  Great  Britain,  or  remain  neutral?  ^^"^^ 
What  would  be  the  obligations  of  neutrality?  what  its  rights? 
On  August  27  Washington  asked  his  advisers  for  their  opin- 
ions on  the  crisis.  They  discussed  it  broadly.  Jefferson 
feared  an  English  conquest  of  Florida  and  Louisiana.  "  Em- 
braced from  the  St.  Croix  to  the  St.  Mary  on  jefiferson's 
the  one  side  by  their  possessions,"  he  wrote,  "®^* 
"  on  the  other  by  their  fleet,  we  need  not  hesitate  to  say  that 
they  would  soon  find  means  to  unite  to  them  all  the  territory 
covered  by  the  ramifications  of  the  Mississippi."  Under 
such  circumstances  he  looked  forward  to  "bloody  and 
eternal  war  or  indissoluble  confederacy"  with  her.  "In 
my  opinion,"  he  said,  "we  ought  to  make  ourselves 
parties  in  the  general  war  expected  to  take  place,  should 
this  be  the  only  means  of  preventing  the  calamity."  He 
hoped  that  by  way  of  compromise  England  might  allow  us 
Florida  and  New  Orleans;  and  on  the  immediate  question 
of  permission  to  cross  our  territory  he  advised  delay. ^ 

Hamilton  inclined  toward  England.  "It  is  not  to  be 
doubted,"  he  wrote,  September  15,  1790,  "that  the  part 
which  the  courts  of  France  and  Spain  took  in  Hamilton's 
our  quarrel  with  Great  Britain,  is  to  be  attrib-  ^®''* 
uted,  not  to  an  attachment  to  our  independence  or  liberty, 
but  to  a  desire  of  diminishing  the  power  of  Great  Britain 
by  severing  the  British  empire,"  a  view  in  which  Jay  naturally 
agreed  with  him.  Although  Hamilton  recognized  the  danger 
of  permitting  Great  Britain  to  take  Florida  and  Louisiana, 
he  felt  that  our  refusal  to  allow  the  expedition  would 
not  prevent  it,  but  would  involve  us  in  the  war  on  the 

*  Thomas  Jefferson,  Writings  (ed.  P.  L.  Ford,  10  vols..  New  York,  etc^ 
1892-99),  V.  228,  238,  August  28,  1790. 


92  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

side  of  Spain,  who  was  sure  to  lose.  He  too  would  delay, 
but  would  grant  the  permission  if  the  issue  were  forced.^ 

John  Adams  alone  struck  the  note  of  absolute  neutrality 
which  was  to  characterize  American  diplomacy.  Already 
Adams  and  in  1782  he  had  written  Livingston:  "America 
neutrality  j^g^g  been  long  enough  involved  in  the  wars  of 

Europe.  She  has  been  a  football  between  contending  nations 
from  the  beginning,  and  it  is  easy  to  foresee,  that  France 
and  England  both  will  endeavor  to  involve  us  in  their  future 
wars.  It  is  our  interest  and  duty  to  avoid  them  as  much  as 
possible,  and  to  be  completely  independent,  and  to  have 
nothing  to  do  with  either  of  them,  but  in  commerce."  He 
therefore  advised  refusal.  Should  the  troops  be  sent  with- 
out permission,  we  could  remonstrate.^ 

Fortunately  the  real  issue  had  already  been  decided  by 

the  defeat  of  Mirabeau  in  the  debate  of  May  20-22  in  the 

„  _^  ,  National  Assembly  of  France.  Louis  XVI  and 
War  averted         ,  .       ,    .  ,      ,  i  i  ,  ,       .  • 

his  advisers  had  hoped  by  war  to  turn  the  rising 

tide  of  revolution  into  patriotism.     In  that  case  the  King 

needed  to  retain  the  right  of  making  peace  and  war,  and  to 

this  end  Mirabeau  exerted  himself.     When,  however,  the 

Assembly  voted  that  it  alone  possessed  the  right,  the  chance 

that  France  might  join  Spain  passed,  and  Spain  was  forced 

to  seek  terms  of  England.^ 

The  treaty  between  them,  signed  October  28,  1790,  was 

of  importance  to  the  United  States  both  immediately  and 

Nootka  Sound     subsequently.     The  third  and  sixth   articles 

*'***y  allowed  freedom  of  trade  and  settlement  on  v 

the  coasts  of  the  Pacific,  "in  places  not  already  occupied," 

north  of  "the  parts  occupied  by  Spain,"  that  is,  practically 

above  San  Francisco  bay.     Although  this    relaxation   of 

^  Alexander  Hamilton,  Works  (ed.  J.  C.  Hamilton,  7  vols..  New  York, 
1850-51),  iv.  48-69.  September  15,  1790. 

*  John  Adams,  Works,  viii.  9, 497-500,  August  29, 1790. 

*  F.  M.  Fling,  Mirabeau  and  the  French  Revolution,  N.  Y.,  1908.  Albert 
Sorel,  L'Europe  et  la  revolution  JranQaise  (8  vols.,  Paris,  1885-1904)  il.  61, 
84-95, 


OLD  PROBLEMS  IN  NEW  HANDS  93 

Spanish  control  applied  specifically  to  England,  the  Ameri- 
cans profited  by  it.  Already  frequenting  the  coast  for 
its  furs  and  gingseng,  they  would  in  the  long  run  at  least 
have  been  annoyed  by  Spanish  interference,  had  it  not  been 
for  this  treaty.  As  it  was,  in  the  year  1792  Captain  Gray 
sailed,  the  first  white  man.  into  the  great  river  of  the  region  j 
and  named  it  after  his  ship,  the  Columbia,  thus  establishing 
the  first  link  in  the  chain  of  claims  which  was  to  bring  Oregon 
to  the  United  States. 

It  is  plain  that,  when  the  end  of  Washington's  first  term 
approached  in  1793,  the  diplomatic  situation  did  not  warrant 
his  withdrawal  with  the  sense  of  leaving  a  task  Uncompleted 
accompHshed.  Nearly  everything  was  still  **^^^ 
unsettled,  and  he  consented  to  serve  again  in  hope  of  carrying 
the  various  problems  to  solution.  Nevertheless,  the  govern- 
ment was  feeling  the  good  influence  of  improved  stability, 
the  administration  had  determined  its  policy  on  some  im- 
portant questions,  and  on  most  others  its  individual  mem- 
bers had  begun  to  find  themselves. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  NEUTRALITY 

Thus  prepared,  the  United  States  was  in  the  spring  of  1793 
overtaken  by  a  hurricane  of  diplomatic  disturbance  which 
D  f  th      ^^^  ^®  blow  with  increasing  violence  for  twenty- 

French  two  years.     The  revolution  which  began  to 

take  form  in  1789  was,  in  the  minds  of  its 
leaders,  only  accidentally  French.  Its  ideals  were  equally 
applicable  to  all  nations  in  which  the  people  were  oppressed 
by  their  rulers.  This  international  character  of  its  profes- 
sions, which  it  retained  to  the  end,  was  at  the  beginning  in 
some  degree  actually  true.  It  was  welcomed  by  liberals 
in  all  countries.  It  crossed  the  channel  into  England.  As 
Wordsworth  wrote, 

"  Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive. 
But  to  be  young  was  very  heaven." 

When  the  Bastile  fell  Lafayette  sent  its  keys  to  Washing- 
ton, a  recognition  of  the  indebtedness  which  the  cause  of 
revolution  owed  to  America.  French  fashions  for  the  first 
time  invaded  our  country;  and  civic  feasts,  liberty  caps, 
and  the  salutation  of  "citizen"  and  "citizeness"  became 
common  in  our  streets. 

As  one  wave  of  radicalism  succeeded  another  in  France, 
each  raising  the  tide  of  revolution  higher  toward  the  final 

_      ,  ^_         fury  of  the  Terror,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  more 
War    between  "^  ,    ,      ,.    i  ,  , 

France  and  moderate  cooled,  died,  and  turned  to  opposi- 
tion. By  1793  England  had  become  in  effect 
a  unit  in  resisting  the  spread  of  Revolution,  and  for  the  ma- 
jority of  Englishmen  Revolution  had  come  to  be  embodied 
in  France.  The  inoculation  of  humanity  was  not  able  to  , 
cope  with  the  traditional  antipathies  of  French  and  English. 

94 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  NEUTRALITY     95 

France  continued  to  fight  for  the  ideal  of  "Liberty,"  but 
England  had  come  to  personify  for  her  the  forces  of  oppres- 
sion. In  February,  1793,  she  anticipated  a  declaration  of 
war  on  the  part  of  England  by  declaring  war  with  that 
country  herself. 

In  America  sentiment  divided.  Jefferson  liked  the  French, 
as  had  Franklin.  He  had  played  a  part  in  the  beginning  of 
their  revolution  and  knew  many  of  their  American 
leaders.  He  had  a  French  cook,  and  he  intro-  sympatJ^es 
duced  from  France  the  revival  of  classic  forms  of  architec- 
ture. Himself  as  peaceful  as  a  Quaker,  he  was  not  troubled 
over  a  little  blood-letting.  He  had  said  at  the  time  of  the 
Shays  Rebellion  that  the  tree  of  liberty  must  from  time  to 
time  be  watered  by  the  blood  of  patriots  and  tyrants;  "it  is 
its  natural  manure."  Serene  in  his  belief  in  the  ultimate 
triumph  of  right  and  reason,  he  looked  without  flinching 
upon  the  excesses  of  the  Terror,  and  maintained  his  sympathy 
with  the  fundamental  purpose  of  the  movement.  Hamil- 
ton, on  the  other  hand,  to  whom  civilization  seemed  based 
upon  the  slow  and  precarious  triumph  of  informed  intelli- 
gence over  brutish  ignorance,  saw  the  whole  structure  totter- 
ing in  France  with  the  successes  of  the  sans  culottes,  and 
imperilled  in  the  world  at  large.  Between  the  two  was  every 
shade  of  opinion,  and  in  fact  many  were  more  radical  than 
either.  To  the  danger  that  would  inevitably  come  to  the 
United  States  of  being  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  any  war 
between  France  and  Great  Britain  was  added  the  peril  of 
being  divided  within  itself  over  the  issue.  It  was  probably 
fortunate  that  at  this  crisis  both  opinions  were  represented 
in  the  cabinet,  and  it  was  incalculably  advantageous  that 
the  government  was  presided  over  by  Washington's  force, 
prestige,  and  balance.^ 

France,  taking  arms  against  the  "  impious  hand  of  tyrants," 
— the  governments  of  England,  Prussia,  Austria,  Holland, 

*  C.  D.  Hazen,  Contemporary  Arruirican  Opinion  of  the  French  Revolution, 
Baltimore,  1897. 


96  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

and  Spain, — did  not  lose  sight  of  America.     Even  in  the 
kaleidoscopic  whirl  of  Paris  Americans  were  conspicuous. 

Thomas  Paine  sought  to  become  the  essayist 
of  the  United     of  the  new  revolution,  as  he  had  been  of  the 

American;  John  Paul  Jones  was  ready  to  repeat 
his  naval  triumphs  in  its  behalf;  the  poet,  Joel  Barlow,  dab- 
bled now  in  land  speculation,  now  in  politics.  Brissot  de 
Warville,  "who  ruled  the  council,"  had  in  1788  completed 
a  voyage  through  America.  When,  therefore,  the  French 
republic  was  proclaimed,  September  22,  1792,  there  was  a 
reasonable  hope  on  the  part  of  its  leaders  that  it  would  find 
sympathy  and  support  from  the  sister  republic  across  the 
ocean.  The  two  countries  were  bound  together  by  the  inti- 
mate treaties  of  1778  and  1788;  the  United  States  owed 
France  money,  the  hastened  payment  of  which  would  ease 
her  finances;  the  American  merchant  marine  could  be  use- 
ful to  France  in  many  ways  and  would  find  such  occupation 
profitable.  To  announce  the  new  republic,  to  realize  these 
advantages,  to  replace  the  existing  treaties  by  a  still  closer 
one,  by  "a  true  family  compact"  on  a  "liberal  and  fraternal 
basis,"  Edmund  C.  Genet,  an  enthusiastic  patriot,  only 
twenty-eight  years  of  age  and  yet  trained  for  many  years  in 
the  foreign  oflBce  under  Vergennes,  was  sent  as  minister  to 
the  United  States.^ 

But  Gen^t  was  not  to  be  a  mere  diplomatic  representative, 
as  that  term  is  now  understood.    French  ministers  during  the 

Revolution  felt  themselves  commissioned,  not 
Genet's  task 

from   government   to   government,   but  from 

people  to  people.    They  embodied  revolution;  their  functions 

were  unlimited;  and  in  this  case  Genet's  instructions  definitely 

launched  him  into  colossal  enterprises.     All  America  was  his 

province.     Miranda  was  now  high  in  the  counsels  of  the 

French;  Dumouriez  wrote  to  Lebrun,  November  30,  1792, 

of  the  "superb  project  of  General  Miranda"  for  revolu- 

*  McMaster,  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States  (8  vols..  New  York, 
188S-191S),  ii.  89-141. 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  NEUTRALITY     97 

lionizing  Spanish  America.  The  foreign  office,  however, 
was  somewhat  more  conservative  and  more  French:  "To 
embrace  all  at  once  the  immense  country  which  stretches 
from  New  Mexico  to  Chili  to  make  revolutions,  is  to  be  will- 
ing to  lose  realities,  to  occupy  oneself  with  Chimeras.  With- 
out doubt  these  immense  possessions  will  not  remain  always 
under  the  yoke  of  Spain,  but  it  does  not  depend  upon  us 
to-day  to  deliver  them." 

Permanent  national  interests,  however,  survive  all  changes 
in  the  form  of  government.  The  recovery  of  Louisiana  had 
been  constantly  in  the  mind  of  the  French  France  and 
ever  since  its  loss  in  1763.  No  longer  ago  than  I^'"s»»"* 
1787,  indeed,  a  project  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  end 
had  been  presented  to  the  French  government.  With  the 
new  vigor  of  the  Revolution  throbbing  in  her  veins  France 
was  not  likely  to  forget  that  she  had  once  had  a  vast  American 
empire,  that  tens  of  thousands  of  French  were  living  in 
Louisiana,  to  say  nothing  of  Canada.  On  the  contrary, 
the  old  end  was  sought  with  new  energy.  The  recovery  of 
Louisiana  was  among  the  duties  assigned  to  Gen^t. 

His  means  were  to  be  found  in  the  United  States:  first, 
money,  which  Hamilton  was  to  give  in  repayment  of  the 
French  loans;  second,  an  army,  which  was  to  Gen«t's  in- 
consist  of  the  An^erican  frontiersmen,  spurred  structions 
by  promise  of  abundant  loot  and  by  that  persistent  motive, 
the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi.  The  foremost  of  the 
frontiersmen,  George  Rogers  Clark,  anticipated  the  desires 
of  France  by  offering  his  services.  His  letter  probably 
reached  France  before  Gen#t  sailed;  at  any  rate,  the  latter 
counted  upon  him. 

Even  to  the  French  enthusiasts  of  1792  it  occurred  that 
this  plan  of  organizing  within  the  United  States,  and  by  the 
resources  of  the  United  States,  forces  to  attack  Gen«t  and  the 
Spain,  with  whom  the  nation  was  at  peace,  ^'"*®'*  States 
involved  delicate  questions.  Nor  were  they  unaware  that 
a  reaction  had  taken  place  in  this  country,  for  the  foreign 


98  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

office  took  care  to  inform  Gen^t,  "The  enjoyment  of  liberty 
has  rendered  them  [the  Americans]  more  calm,  they  no 
longer  treat  it  as  lovers  but  as  husbands."  He  was  to  be 
cautious,  therefore,  in  revealing  his  plans,  and  the  more 
so  in  view  of  the  possibilities  of  the  future.  Was  Louisiana 
to  become  free,  French,  or  part  of  the  United  States? 

France  was  concerned  with  the  future,  not  of  Louisiana 
alone,  but  of  all  the  rest  of  the  West  as  well.  "Nature,** 
Prance  and  Gen^t  was  instructed,  "has  traced  the  future 
the  West  revolutions  of  North  America."    It  is  divided 

into  two  parts  by  the  Appalachian  Mountains.  "The  East 
part  is  peopled,  that  of  the  West  is  almost  not.  The  climates 
of  the  two  countries  offer  as  many  differences  as  are  found 
in  the  interests  of  the  inhabitants.  The  one  direct  their 
speculations  toward  New  Orleans,  which  will  be  their  only 
outlet,  the  other  toward  the  cities  established  on  the  borders 
of  the  Atlantic  sea.  ...  This  liberty  of  navigation  and  the 
independence  of  Louisiana  will  draw  into  this  country  an 
immense  population  at  the  expense  of  the  United  States. 
By  the  progressive  growth  of  this  population  the  schism 
between  the  Atlantic  states  and  those  of  the  West  will  be 
inevitable.  The  Americans  know  it  and  do  their  best  to 
delay  the  epoch."  The  question  might,  therefore,  he  was 
told,  be  safely  left  to  time.  Louisiana  would  need  French 
aid,  and  the  West  would  ultimately  join  her;  but  naturally 
such  plans  were  not  for  the  ears  of  the  American  cabinet. 

On  April  8,  1793,  Gen^t  arrived  at  Charleston.  Welcomed 
with  official  sympathy  by  Governor  Moultrie  and  by  popular 
Gen6t'8  ex-  demonstration,  he  devoted  himself,  perhaps 
'*'**  more  openly  than  was  intended,  to   the   or- 

ganization of  operations  against  the  enemies  of  France. 
Against  English  commerce  he  issued  a  number  of  privateer- 
ing commissions  (of  which  he  was  said  to  have  brought 
three  hundred)  to  American  vessels  manned  by  Americans; 
and  in  accordance  with  a  decree  of  the  National  Convention, 
he  authorized  the  French  consuls  in  American  ports  to  act 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  NEUTRALITY     99 

as  courts  of  admiralty  for  the  trial,  condemnation,  and  sale 
of  prizes.  The  business  of  these  courts  was  not  long  in  be- 
ginning, for  unwarned  British  vessels  promptly  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  French-commissioned  American  privateers. 
Against  Spain,  he  arranged  an  expedition  of  southeastern 
American  frontiersmen  to  attack  St.  Augustine.  To  pro- 
mote the  cause  of  Revolution,  he  also  organized  a  Jacobin 
club.  Leaving  these  affairs  at  Charleston  in  the  hands  of 
the  consul,  Mangourit,  he  then  started  north.  In  an  atmos- 
phere warm  with  popular  sympathy,  to  which  he  knew  how 
to  respond  in  a  manner  piquant  and  provocative,  he  rode  to 
Philadelphia,  which  he  reached  May  16,  prepared  to  repeat 
the  part  which  Franklin  had  sustained  in  Paris.^ 

On  April  8,  the  day  on  which  Gen^t  made  Charleston, 
the  American  cabinet,  chilled  by  the  news  of  the  proscrip- 
tion of  Lafayette  and  the  beheading  of  Louis  Cabinet  dis- 
XVI,  heard  of  the  war  between  France  and  «"s**o"* 
England.  They  had  five  weeks  for  consultation  before 
Genet  would  reach  the  capital.  The  questions  which  Wash- 
ington presented  to  the  members  included  the  following: 
Whether  Gen^t  should  be  received;  whether  the  republican 
authorities  should  be  recognized  as  the  government  of  France; 
whether  the  treaties  were  still  binding,  and,  if  they  were, 
whether  the  guarantee  of  the  French  West  Indies  was  still 
obligatory;  and  exactly  what  the  favors  granted  to  the 
French  consuls,  war  vessels,  and  privateers  involved.  The 
primary  question,  however,  was  whether  a  proclamation  of 
neutrality  should  be  issued,  and,  if  so,  what  jeflerson  ver- 
form  should  be  given  to  it.  The  answers  to  *"'  Hamilton 
these  questions  brought  out  clearly  the  opposing  views  of 
Jefferson  and  Hamilton.  Over  the  validity  of  the  French 
treaties  they  were  particularly  at  odds.    Jay  had  already, 

*F.  J.  Turner,  "The  Origin  of  Genfit's  Projected  Attack  on  Louisiana 
and  the  Floridas,"  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1898,  iii.  650-671;  Correspondence  of 
Clark  and  Genet,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1896,  i.  930-1107;  Mangourit 
Correspondence,  ibid.,  1897,  pp.  569-679. 


100  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

in  1788,  maintained  that  the  treaty  of  alliance  terminated 
with  the  war,  that  is  in  1783,  and  Hamilton  had  supported 
him.  The  latter  now  held  that  the  treaty  had  been  made 
with  the  government  of  Louis  XVI,  and  could  not  be  re- 
garded as  binding  with  the  new  government  of  France. 
Jefferson  more  correctly  maintained  that  a  treaty  was  the 
action  of  a  nation,  not  of  a  government,  and  therefore  sur- 
vived all  changes  of  form.  Madison  expressed  the  same  idea 
in  the  words,  "A  nation,  by  exercising  the  right  of  changing 
the  organ  of  its  will,  can  neither  disengage  itself  from  the 
obligations,  nor  forfeit  the  benefit  of  its  treaties."  A  more 
promising  lever,  however,  for  releasing  us  from  the  uncom- 
fortable obligations  resulting  from  the  warmth  of  our  rela- 
tions with  France  during  our  own  Revolution  lay  in  the 
disregard,  by  the  new  French  government,  of  some  of  its 
corresponding  obligations;  but  the  facts  were  not  yet  suffi- 
ciently well  ascertained  to  justify  more  than  a  protest.  On 
neutrality  all  were  agreed;  nor  did  its  preservation  seem  to 
them  so  difficult  as  it  had  at  the  time  of  the  Nootka  Sound 
affair,  for  they  were  as  yet  in  ignorance  of  the  territorial  am- 
bitions of  France.^  In  this  case  it  seemed  to  be  a  problem  of 
the  sea  alone. 

The  final  decision  lay  with  Washington,  and  his  first  step 
was  to  issue,  on  April  22,  a  proclamation  of  neutrality.  In 
Proclamation  deference  to  Jefferson's  wish,  however,  the 
of  neutrality  word  neutrality  was  omitted,  as  it  was  thought 
that  some  uncertainty  in  regard  to  our  position  might  be  of 
advantage.  This  document,  announcing  "a  conduct  friendly 
and  impartial  towards  the  belligerent  powers,"  and  warning 
all  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  avoid  hostilities  and  not 
to  trade  with  the  powers  at  war  in  any  of  "those  articles 
which  are  deemed  contraband  by  the  modern  usage  of  na- 
tions," has  assumed  unique  position  in  the  development  of 
American  diplomacy.     It  really  represented  not  merely  an 

» Hamilton,  Works  (ed.  H.  C.  Lodge,  9  vols..  New  York,  etc.,  1885-86), 
iv.  20-135;  Jefferson,  Writings  (ed.  Ford),  vi.  219-231. 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  NEUTRALITY    101 

intention  to  keep  out  of  the  war  then  in  progress,  but  also 
the  national  determination  to  resist  the  centripetal  forces  i 
of  European  politics  and  to  be  left  free  to  work  out  our  na-  < 
tional  development.  As  the  first  public  announcement  of  i 
this  determination,  it  forms  the  basis  of  our  most  characteris-  ' 
tic  diplomatic  policy.^ 

It  was  further  resolved  to  receive  Gen§t,  a  step  which 
ultimately  meant  recognition  of  the  French  republic.    This 
instance  became  a  precedent,  which  the  United  «/Recogiiition  of 
States  has  nearly  always  followed,  for  promptly    *^®  republic 
recognizing  accomplished  changes  of  government  in  foreign 
"countries.     It  is  a  policy  equally  consistent  with  our  pro- 
fessed belief  in  the  right  of  revolution  and  with  the  practical  ^ 
common  sense  which  has  usually  been  found  in  American 
diplomacy.    The  other  questions  at  issue  were  left  for  future 
decision.    That  of  the  West  India  guarantee,  which  Hamil- 
ton claimed  could  not  hold  in  case  of  an  offensive  war  such 
as  France  was  then  waging  against  Great  Britain  even  if  the 
treaties  were  still  in  force,  was  soon  happily  settled  by  the  ^ 
decision  of  France  not  to  insist  upon  it.    The  validity  of  the 
treaties,  and  their  exact  bearing  upon  the  neutral  rights  and  y 
duties  of  the  United  States,  remained  topics  of  controversy 
until  Napoleon  cut  the  knot  in  1801. 

Genet  was  probably  more  incensed  than  disappointed  by 
the  proclamation,  and  he  was  still  further  angered  by  his 
official  greeting  at  Philadelphia,  where  he  was  Reception  of 
received  by  Washington  in  a  room  decorated  ^®°** 
with  medallions  of  Louis  Capet  and  Marie  Antoinette,  and 
with  a  rather  frigid  bow  in  place  of  the  fraternal  embrace 
and  kiss  symbolic  of  the  Revolution.  Hamilton,  moreover, 
courteously  explained  the  impossibility  of  anticipating  in 
any  large  way  the  payment  of  the  French  loans,  and  Gen^t 
was  thus  left  without  the  financial  resources  upon  which  he 
had  relied.    Nevertheless,  he  proceeded  with  his  plans.    He 

^  Washington,  Writings  (ed.  Ford),  xii.  281-282;  Moore.  American  Diplo- 
macy, 33-62. 


102  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

forwarded  a  commission  of  commander-in-chief  to  George 
Rogers  Clark,  and  stirred  the  Kentucky  settlements  on  the 
Ohio  and  those  of  Tennessee  on  the  Cumberland  with  the 
preparation  of  flat  boats  and  provisions.  On  June  19,  he 
wrote  to  Lebrun  that  he  was  provisioning  the  West  Indies, 
inciting  the  Canadians,  arming  Kentucky,  and  preparing 
an  expedition  by  sea  to  assist  in  the  attack  on  New  Orleans. 

On  July  5  Genet  discreetly  unfolded  his  Louisiana  project 
to  Jeflferson.  The  latter,  understanding  that  the  rendezvous 
Jefferson  and  was  to  be  outside  of  the  United  States  and 
Gen«t  ^jj^|.   Ix)uisiana   was   to   be   independent,   ex- 

pressed indifference,  but  warned  him  that  the  halter  would 
be  the  fate  of  the  participants  in  such  an  expedition.  Never- 
theless, he  gave  a  letter  to  Michaux,  who  under  the  guise  of 
an  explorer  was  to  act  as  French  agent  in  the  West,  com- 
mending him  to  Governor  Shelby  of  Kentucky. 

Meantime  Genet  was  involved  with  Jefferson  in  constant 
discussion  on  questions  of  neutrality.  The  treaty  with  France 
declared  that  in  time  of  war  it  should  not  be 
lawful  for  citizens  of  other  countries  "to  fit  their 
ships  in  the  ports  of  either  the  one  or  the  other  of  the  afore- 
said parties."  This  certainly  forbade  the  fitting  out  of 
British  war  vessels  in  American  ports,  but  Genet  claimed 
that  by  implication  it  allowed  that  privilege  to  the  French. 
This  Jefferson  denied;  indeed,  to  have  held  otherwise  would 
have  meant  immediate  war  with  England.  Again,  the  seven- 
teenth article  of  the  treaty  of  commerce  provided  that  prizes 
should  not  "  be  arrested  or  seized  when  they  come  to  or  enter 
the  ports  of  either  party."  Gen^t  claimed  that  this  conceded 
complete  jurisdiction  over  prizes  to  the  French  consular 
courts,  Jefferson,  that  the  United  States  retained  in  full  the 
rights  necessary  to  enforce  her  own  neutrality  regulations 
in  case  of  captures  in  violation  thereof.  Jefferson  held  that 
Americans  enlisting  in  French  privateers,  were  violating  our 
declared  neutrality  and  should  be  punished.  On  this  charge 
Henfield  and   Singleterry,   Americans   enlisted   on  one  of 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  NEUTRALITY    103 

Genet's  Charleston  privateers,  were  arrested.  Gen^t  pro- 
tested, "The  crime  laid  to  their  charge,  the  crime  which  my 
pen  almost  refuses  to  state,  is  the  serving  of  France,  and  the 
defending,  with  her  children,  the  common  and  glorious  cause 
of  liberty." 

The  inevitable  crisis  came  in  July,  when  V Ambuscade,  the 
French  frigate  which  had  brought  Gen^t,  captured  within 
the  capes  of  the  Delaware,  and  hence  cleariy  The  Little 
illegally  because  within  American  waters,  the  I^«™o"** 
British  vessel  Little  Sarah,  and  brought  her  to  Philadelphia. 
The  government  ordered  her  surrender,  but  instead  of 
complying,  Genet  renamed  her  the  Little  Democrat  and  fitted 
her  out  for  a  privateer.  Brought  to  task  for  this  by  Jefferson, 
he  promised  that  she  should  not  sail  until  the  matter  was 
adjusted.  Nevertheless,  she  secretly  dropped  down  the 
river  and  put  to  sea,  whereupon  the  government,  in  a  letter 
of  August  23,  demanded  of  France  the  recall  of  Gen6t. 

Pending  an  answer.  Genet  remained  in  the  country.  A 
large  portion  of  the  press  sympathized  with  France,  and 
attacked  the  government  for  its  lack  of  syra-  Gendt's  appeal 
pathy.  Particularly  Freneau's  National  Gazette  ^  *^*  ^^^^^ 
lashed  Washington  with  scorpions,  until  he  doubted  whether 
free  government  and  free  speech  could  coexist.  Thus  spurred, 
Gen^t  resolved  to  turn  from  the  government  to  the  people, 
and  straightway  addressed  the  President  in  a  letter  of  bom- 
bastic insult  which  found  its  way  into  the  newspapers.  When 
Congress  came  together  in  December  the  whole  correspond-, 
ence  was  submitted  to  it,  and  then  Gen^t  found  that  the 
Americans  had  indeed  cooled  to  the  passions  of  liberty.  He 
received  some  applause  but  no  effective  support;  even  the 
Democratic  societies  formed  upon  the  model  of  the  Jacobin 
club  were  unwilling  to  push  to  extremes. 

In  February  his  mission  ended.  His  friends,  the  Girondists 
had  fallen;  and  their  successors  the  Jacobins,  Danton  and 
Robespierre,  were  anxious  for  his  head  and  did  not  hesitate 
to  recall  him.    He  failed  to  respond,  however,  remaining  to 


104  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

become  a  citizen  of  the  United  States;  but  he  ceased  to  be 
minister  and  to  figure  in  the  national  life.  As  a  balm  to  the 
Recall  of  pride  of  the  republic,  France  asked  the  cor- 

*'*'^**  responding  recall  of  Gouverneur  Morris,  since 

1792  our  minister  there.  An  aristocrat  to  the  finger-tips, 
Moms  had  not  badly  maintained  himself  in  a  difficult 
position  during  those  two  dreadful  years  in  Paris;  but  his 
Recall  of  sympathies  with  the  king  and  the  nobility 

Moms  were  well  known,  and  he  was  not  persona  grata 

to  the  French  government.  The  United  States,  therefore, 
properly  acceded  to  the  request  and  withdrew  him. 

On  December  31,  1793,  Jefferson  resigned  from  the  cab- 
inet. The  strain  of  acting  as  a  spokesman  of  a  policy  which 
Retirement  of  came  steadily  to  be  directed  more  and  more 
Jefferson  y^y  Washington  in  accordance  with  Hamilton's 

advice  was  too  great  for  him,  and  he  was  also  torn  within 
himself  between  his  sympathy  for  France  and  his  belief  in 
neutrality.  Genet  complained,  perhaps  not  unjustly,  that 
he  had  an  official  and  a  confidential  language  which  widely 
differed.  His  service  in  remaining  throughout  the  Gen^t 
affair,  however,  cannot  be  overestimated.  The  majority 
still  sympathized  with  France,  and  the  fact  that  the  position 
of  the  government  had  been  expounded  by  a  known  French 
sympathizer  did  much  to  maintain  confidence  at  home  and 
to  present  to  foreign  nations  an  appearance  of  national 
solidarity. 

Jefferson  was  succeeded  by  Edmund  Randolph  of  Virginia, 
who  as  attorney-general  had,  on  the  whole,  supported  him, 
Randolph  and  although  he  was  somewhat  aptly  described  by 
Monroe  John  Quincy  Adams  as  "a  body  devoid  of 

weight  dragged  along  by  the  current  of  events."  To  succeed 
Morris,  Washington  appointed  James  Monroe,  another 
friend  of  Jefferson  and  an  avowed  sympathizer  with  France. 
He  had  desired  to  send  Jefferson's  leading  supporter,  Madi- 
son, who  declined;  the  pro-French  senators  had  urged  Aaron 
Burr;  yet  Monroe's  appointment  was  regarded  as  conciliatory 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  NEUTRALITY    105 

both  at  home  and  abroad,  and  it  was  hoped  that  he  would 
inaugurate  an  era  of  friendly  understanding  with  France 
on  the  basis  of  absolute  neutrality. 

Meantime  the  government  was  developing  the  details  of 
its  system.  News  of  the  still  active  western  preparations 
reached  it,  and  in  March  Washington  issued  a  Enforcement 
supplementary  proclamation  dealing  with  this  °*  neutrality 
phase  of  the  situation.  Governor  Shelby  expressed  his  un- 
willingness to  act  under  a  proclamation  against  "  men  whom 
he  considered  as  friends  and  brethren,"  in  behalf  of  the  king 
of  Spain,  whom  he  viewed  as  "an  enemy  and  a  tyrrant";  but 
General  Wayne,  by  occupying  a  strategic  position  at  the 
junction  of  the  Cumberland  and  the  Ohio,  succeeded  in 
separating  Clark's  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  forces.  Whether 
the  government  could  have  held  its  own  had  the  issue  been 
forced,  is  a  question;  but  at  least  it  showed  vigor  and  purpose. 
In  regard  to  the  ocean  still  greater  energy  was  exhibited. 
The  only  advantage  allowed  to  the  French  over  the  English, 
as  a  result  of  the  treaties,  was  that  the  former  were  allowed 
to  sell  prizes  in  American  ports  and  the  latter  were  not. 
Thus  far  the  enforcement  of  neutrality  had  been  wholly  by 
executive  discretion;  but  there  was  some  criticism  that 
this  had  been  stretched  too  far,  and  the  courts  had 
in  some  instances  refused  to  enforce  executive  orders. 
The  government's  position  was  therefore  strengthened 
when,  June  5,  1794,  Congress  passed  our  first  neutrality 
act. 

This  law  made  all  persons  entering  the  service  of  any 
foreign  state,  or  enlisting  others  in  such  service,  liable  to  a 
fine  of  $1,000  and  three  years'  imprisonment;  Neutrality  law 
it  likewise  made  punishable  the  fitting  out,  ^^^* 
or  increasing  the  armament,  of  any  foreign  ship  or  cruiser. 
The  government's  good  faith  was  further  indicated  by  the 
appropriation  of  eighty  thousand  dollars  for  the  purposes 
of  enforcement.  This  act,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
president's  proclamations  and  the  rules  adopted  by  the  cab- 


106  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

inet  on  August  3,  1793,  "as  to  the  equipment  of  vessels  in 
the  ports  of  the  United  States  by  belligerent  powers,"  was 
important  not  only  in  establishing  the  American  policy,  but 
also  in  developing  the  general  principles  of  international 
law.  The  American  position  represented  the  most  advanced 
views  of  the  day  in  regard  to  the  obligations  of  neutrals,  and 
its  practice  far  exceeded  that  of  any  other  nation  up  to  that 
time. 

Fortunately,  the  attitude  of  France  was  for  the  moment 
complaisant.  Genet  was  succeeded  by  a  commission  of  which 
Fauchet's  J*  A.  J.  Fauchet  was  chief  with  the  title  of 

mission  minister,    its    instructions    being    dated    No- 

vember 25,  1793,  at  the  very  abyss  of  French  fortunes. 
Hostile  armies,  insurrections,  and  famine  were  pressing  in 
upon  the  new  republic.  Genet's  actions  were  disavowed,  the 
western  plans  were  given  up,  and  American  neutrality  was 
recognized.  France  was,  in  short,  coming  to  an  appreciation 
of  the  fact  that  American  neutrality  was  one  of  her  strongest 
assets.  The  chief  need  was  food,  and  the  carrying  of  provi- 
sions in  neutral  American  vessels  was  the  chief  concern  of 
the  commissioners.  Desirable  as  such  provisions  were  for 
the  famine-stricken  capital,  they  were  a  matter  of  absolute 
necessity  for  the  West  Indian  colonies  of  France.  Fauchet 
wrote,  February  4,  1795:  "You  recall.  Citizen,  that  when 
the  legation  was  sent,  the  Republic  was  in  danger.  We  saw 
in  the  United  States  a  point  useful  for  our  provisioning  which 
caused  us  not  a  little  alarm,  and  other  political  interests  were 
entirely  subordinated  to  this  powerful  consideration."  In 
the  same  letter  he  wrote:  "'The  force  of  things,'  said  Mr. 
Jefferson,  'delivers  the  French  colonies  to  us;  France  enjoys 
the  sovereignty,  we  the  profit.'  Mr.  Jefferson  thought 
justly,"  he  went  on.  "  Colonies  which  America  can  cast  into 
famine  in  time  of  war  .  .  .  must  form  close  bonds  with  a 
people  which  can  from  fortnight  to  fortnight  satisfy  their 
needs.  .  .  .  France  has  to  fear  for  her  colonies."  To  assist 
in  this  emergency  Hamilton  did  advance  some  money  not  yet 


V 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  NEUTRALITY    107 

due.    Monroe  was  welcomed  in  France  with  lively  satisfac- 
tion, and  for  the  moment  cordiality  reigned,^ 

The  Genet  episode,  therefore,  passed.  It  had  threatened 
to  drag  the  United  States  into  the  general  war  of  Europe 
either  directly  through  sympathetic  attraction  close  of  the 
for  France,  or  indirectly  by  the  use  of  her  soil,  *pisode 
citizens,  and  waters  for  the  military  purposes  of  that  country. 
It  had  threatened  to  divide  the  United  States  into  two  war- 
ring factions.  Instead,  it  left  her  resolute  in  the  possession 
of  a  well-developed  policy,  and  still  presenting  a  united  front 
to  a  divided  Europe. 

*  F.  J.  Turner,  Correspondence  of  the  French  Ministers  to  the  United  States, 
1791-1797,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1903,  vol.  ii. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  JAY  TREATY 

While  relations  with  France  were  thus  assuming  a  quiet 
tone,  a  new  episode  was  taking  shape.    In  1793  it  seemed  that  . 
Changed  con-  •  we  might  be  stampeded  into  war  with  England  i 
ditions  j^y  ^^j.  French  sympathies;  in  1794  it  looked  j 

as  if  England  might  force  us  into  war  by  her  aggressions.  In ! 
1793  it  was  a  question  of  our  obligations  as  neutrals,  in  1794 1 
of  our  rights  as  neutrals. 

The  trade  between  France  and  her  West  India  colonies 
constituted  perhaps  two-thirds  of  her  sea-borne  commerce. 
The  French  It  provided  France  with  her  breakfast, — coffee. 
West  Indies  sugar,  and  chocolate.  In  return,  France  sup- 
plied not  only  manufactured  goods,  but  also,  until  the  de- 
moralization of  agriculture  in  1793,  grain.  The  French 
fishermen  of  Brittany,  moreover,  caught  on  the  banks  of 
Newfoundland  the  short  cod  and  mackerel  which  fed  the 
slaves  of  San  Domingo,  Guadaloupe,  and  Martinique,  while 
the  best  were  taken  across  the  ocean  to  serve  the  lenten  fare 
of  the  French  at  home.  Should  these  branches  of  trade  be 
cut  oflF,  it  would  cause  financial  loss  and  inconvenience  in 
France,  it  would  cause  starvation  in  the  colonies.  In  fact, 
the  Revolution  increased  the  needs  of  trade,  since  for  a  time 
France  ceased  to  be  able  to  feed  herself  and  so  became  an 
importer  of  foodstuffs. 

The  protection  of  this  trade  was  the  underlying  function  of 

the  French  navy.    While,  however,  the  French  fleet  was  strong 

„        .  and  efficient,  it  was  less  powerful  than  that  of 

Neutral  trade       _,      .       ,         '  .       ,    ^  ,    ,      » 

England.     Except  m  the  war  of  the  American 

Revolution,  when  it  joined  forces  with  Spain,  it  proved  un- 
equal to  the  task,  and  direct  trade  in  French  vessels  was 

108 


THE  JAY  TREATY  109 

generally  in  time  of  war  so  insecure  as  to  be  impracticable. 
To  meet  this  situation,  it  had  been  the  custom  of  France  in 
such  emergencies  to  open  the  colonial  trade  to  neutral  nations, 
and  the  Dutch,  protected  by  their  English  treaties,  had  en- 
joyed the  lion's  share.  The  natural  convenience  of  the  Ameri- 
can granaries,  however,  the  hunger  of  San  Domingo,  and  the 
seamanship  and  commercial  spirit  of  the  American  colonists 
often  overcame  the  obstacles  of  legality  and  enmity.  During 
the  Seven  Years'  war  colonial  vessels  laden  with  grain  often 
dropped  down  to  the  vicinity  of  the  French  islands,  and,  by 
collusion  with  the  authorities,  allowed  themselves  to  be  cap- 
tured, their  cargoes  being  ostensibly  seized  but  actually  paid 
for.i 

For  these  precarious  advantages  the  new  war  promised  to 
substitute  a  legal  and  extensive  trade.  Almost  simultane- 
ously with  the  declaration  of  hostilities  France  *^ 
opened  her  colonial  ports.  The  Dutch  no  states  and  the 
longer  had  their  treaties  with  England;  in  fact,  ^'^^^  ^^^^ 
they  may  scarcely  be  said  to  have  had  a  mer- 
chant marine.  To  the  Americans,  therefore,  possessing  as 
they  did  the  world's  most  important  neutral  marine,  was 
offered  the  opportunity  not  only  of  provisioning  the  islands, 
but  of  serving  as  intermediaries  between  the  colonies  and 
the  mother  country,  in  addition  to  supplying  the  latter  with 
provisions.  Our  merchants  were  quick  to  take  advantage 
of  the  situation.  They  carried  our  products  to  the  islands, 
exchanged  them  for  island  products,  and  carried  the  latter  to 
France,  or  brought  them  back  to  the  United  States  and  then 
took  or  sent  them  to  France.  In  1791  we  exported  2,000,000 
pounds  of  coffee  and  1,200,000  pounds  of  sugar;  in  1793, 
34,000,000  pounds  of  coffee  and  18,000,000  pounds  of  sugar. 
Merchants  throve,  ship-owners  turned  their  capital  with 
unprecedented  rapidity,  shipyards  were  pressed  to  complete 

^  T.  L.  Stoddard,  The  French  Revolution  in  San  Domingo  (Boston,  1914); 
A.  T.  Mahan,  Influence  of  Sea  Power  upon  the  French  Revolution  and  Empire, 
1793-1812  (10th  ed.,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1898),  vol.  i.  ch.  iv.,  vol.  ii.  chs.  vii.-viii. 


110  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

new  vessels,  sailmakers  and  ropemakers  were  busy;  farmers 
opened  new  fields  to  supply  the  demand  for  grain,  salt  pork, 
hemp,  butter,  and  other  staple  articles;  fishermen  enlarged 
their  ventures  and  their  catches  to  supply  what  the  Bretons 
could  no  longer  furnish.  In  part,  but  not  mainly,  the  sym- 
pathy for  France  was  due  to  the  general  prosperity  which  ^ 
resulted  from  the  outbreak  of  hostilities. 

To  England  the  situation  was  doubly  distasteful,  first 
because  it  was  of  advantage  to  France,  and  second  because 
English  atti-  it  served  to  build  up  the  American  merchant 
*"***  marine,  the  only  one,  since  the  fall  of  the  Dutch, 

which  endangered  the  supremacy  of  her  commercial  fleet, 
upon  which  rested  her  naval  power,  her  colonies,  and  her 
wealth.  Her  navy  was  of  little  use  to  her  if  American  vessels, 
in  an  impenetrable  armor  of  neutrality,  could  serve  all  the 
customary  routes  of  French  commerce.  It  was  not  thus  that 
the  first  Pitt  had  made  commerce  flourish  by  means  of  war. 
England  had  never  shown  a  disposition  to  stand  passive 
before  an  international  opinion,  which  had  been  formulated 
by  Dutch  publicists,  was  without  the  backing  of  effective 
force,  and  could  hardly  be  dignified  by  the  name  of  interna- 
tional law.  She  had  rather,  as  a  result  of  her  experience, 
so  bent  the  common  law  of  the  sea  as  to  furnish  her  navy 
with  weapons  as  effective  against  neutrals  as  against  enemies, 
and  she  was  prepared  to  use  them. 

The  first  of  these  was  the  principle  that  enemies'  goods  at 
sea  might  be  seized  and  confiscated  even  when  carried  in 
"  Free  ships,  neutral  ships.  There  was  a  growing  sentiment 
free  goods"  '  ^^iSi^  "frgg  ghips"  should  make  "free  goods." 
This  had  been  one  of  the  declarations  of  the  Armed  Neutral- 
ity, and  was  embodied  in  all  the  commercial  treaties  of  the 
United  States.  England's  practice,  however,  was  the  older, 
and  she  refused  to  recognize  the  new  idea  as  having  the  force 
of  law.  Neutrals  could  escape  the  consequences  of  her  rule 
by  becoming  the  actual  owners  of  the  cargo,  but  to  do  so  • 
involved  a  large  capital.    Such  a  purchase,  moreover,  was 


THE  JAY  TREATY  111 

looked  upon  as  collusive;  hence,  being  subject  to  examina-  / 
tion  in  the  English  admiralty  courts,  the  practice  involved 
no  little  risk. 

A  second  difference  in  England's  policy  had  reference  to  / 
contraband.  It  was  universally  admitted  that  for  a  neutral 
to  carry  war  material  to  a  belligerent  was  law- 
less, and  justified  the  seizure  of  the  material  in 
question,  the  freight,  and  possibly  the  ship  itself.  There  was, 
however,  disagreement  as  to  what  constituted  war  material. 
The  weaker  maritime  powers  thought  that  the  term  should 
be  narrowly  interpreted;  England,  on  the  contrary,  except 
when  bound  by  treaty,  as  in  the  case  of  Russia,  held  for  a 
broad  interpretation.  On  June  8,  1793,  she  issued  an  order 
in  council  authorizing  the  seizure  of  "all  ships  laden  with 
com,  flour,  or  meal."  This  measure  she  defended  as  being 
not  only  within  her  rights  but  in  retaliation  for  a  similar 
French  decree  of  May.  The  French  claimed  that  their  decree 
had  been  of  a  special  rather  than  a  general  character  and 
had  already  been  withdrawn  when  the  British  order  had 
been  issued.  Failing  to  secure  the  withdrawal  of  the  latter, 
the  French  in  July  renewed  their  decree,  and  provisions  be- 
came seizable  by  both  parties.  In  September,  however,  the 
British  ordered  that  provisions  so  seized  be  paid  for  and  the  V 
vessels  released.  The  provision  trade  continued  to  grow, 
but  its  fortunes  were  checkered  and  its  success  a  gamble. 
It  should  be  observed  that  while  Great  Britain  and  France 
were  ostensibly  pursuing  the  same  policy,  it  was,  of  course,  \/ 
the  British  navy  which  made  the  most  seizures  and  won  the 
most  hatred. 

Another  point  upon  which  England  maintained  a  position  \ 
at  variance  with  that  of  most  nations  was  regarding  blockade.  * 
All  nations  recognized  that  a  vessel  endeavor-    ^^   ^  A 
ing  to  enter  a  port  publicly  blockaded  incurred  • 
the  risk  of  capture  and  confiscation.    The  continental  school 
of  international  law  held  that  in  such  cases  the  blockade  must   "^ 
be  properly  announced,  and  that  it  must  be  effectively  main- 


112  AMERICAN  DIPLOIVIACY 

tained  off  the  actual  port.  England  upheld  what  her  enemies 
derisively  called  the  "Paper  Blockade,"  to  the  effect  that  a  ,• 
considerable  area  of  coast  might  be  blockaded  by  a  single 
fleet  cruising  along  it,  and  that  the  rule  might  be  enforced 
upon  any  vessel,  anywhere,  whose  papers  indicated  that  it 
was  destined  for  one  of  the  blockaded  harbors.  In  accord- 
ance with  this  policy,  England  in  1793  blockaded  numerous  y 
West  Indian  ports. 

In  addition  to  these  interpretations  of  general  principles, 
England  had  another  rule  adapted  to  meet  the  special  case 
"  Rule   of  of  the  French  West  India  islands.    Announced 

1766"  ^y  ^^  order  in  council  of  1756,  it  is  known  as  } 

the  "Rule  of  1756."  Briefly,  it  meant  that,  when  a  nation 
closed  its  colonies  to  other  nations  in  time  of  peace,  it  had  no 
right  to  open  them  in  time  of  war,  and  that,  if  it  did,  all  such 
commerce  was  liable  to  seizure.  English  instructions  of 
November  6,  1793,  ordered  naval  oflScers  to  "stay  and  de- 
tain all  ships  laden  with  goods  the  produce  of  any  colony 
belonging  to  France,  or  carrying  provisions  or  other  supplies 
for  the  use  of  any  such  colony,  and"  to  "bring  the  same,  with 
their  cargoes,  to  legal  adjudication  in  our  courts  of  ad- 
miralty." This  instruction  was  modified  January  8,  1794, 
in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  open  the  trade  between  the  United  / 
States  and  unblockaded  ports  in  the  West  Indies,  in  articles 
not  contraband  and  not  of  French  ownership.  The  goods 
thus  introduced  into  the  United  States  might  then  be  shipped  / 
to  unblockaded  ports  in  France.  The  West  Indian  trade 
was  thus  not  destroyed,  but  it  was  hampered.  Moreover, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  American  vessels  had  been  seized 
under  the  first  instruction,  and  in  the  spring  of  1794  were 
condemned  by  the  admiralty  courts  of  various  British  West 
India  Islands. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  British  war  vessel  cruising  in  the  open 
sea  had  many  questions  to  ask  of  any  merchantman  it  met. 
The  display  of  a  flag  was  not  suflBcient  answer;  in  fact,  the 
standard  of  morality  concerning  the  use  of  national  emblems 


THE  JAY  TREATY  113 

at  sea  has  never  been  high.  In  such  cases  international  law 
permits  the  war  vessel  to  "visit"  the  merchantman  to  ex- 
amine her  papers.  It  was  unquestionably  true  "  visit "  and 
that  these  papers  often  failed  to  tell  the  whole  *  search  " 
story:  the  port  of  destination  was  frequently  given  falsely, 
and  the  captain  often  took  on  questionable  cargo  after  the 
clearance  papers  had  been  made  out.  The  British,  therefore,  y 
claimed  the  right  to  "search"  the  cargo.  This  privilege  the 
United  States  and  most  other  powers  strenuously  denied. 
On  this  point  America  was  perhaps  in  worse  case  than  other 
countries,  for  their  merchant  vessels  often  sailed  in  fleets 
under  convoy  of  a  war  vessel,  which  assumed  responsibility, 
whereas  we  had  no  navy,  and  our  commerce  was  too  scat- 
tered to  allow  such  concentration.^ 

Such  searches,  moreover,  brought  up  another  vexed  point  of 
dispute  which  was  peculiarly  our  own,  and  which  waxed  con- 
stantly in  importance  until  it  overshadowed  all    , 

.  .     .  -    ,         Impressments 

the  rest,    it  is  only  by  an  appreciation  of  the 

rock-bottomed  beUef  of  Englishmen  that  everything  which 
they  held  sacred  rested  upon  their  fleet,  that  we  can  com- 
prehend the  spectacle  of  a  people,  on  the  verge  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  submitting  to  the  "press."  Every  British- 
bom  subject  was  bound  to  serve  the  nation,  if  the  fleet  needed 
men.  British  war  vessels,  if  short-handed,  might  stop  any 
British  vessel  and  take  off  such  sailors  as  it  needed,  leaving 
only  the  absolute  minimum  number  required  for  naviga- 
tion. In  their  searches  of  American  vessels,  British  officers 
often  saw  British  subjects  aiding  to  build  up  ^  merchant 
marine  which,  if  not  indeed  belligerent,  was,  they  believed, 
sapping  the  strength  of  Great  Britain.  In  such  cases  they 
took  them  off.  Misled  by  similarities  of  language  and  ap- 
pearance, they  sometimes  took  native  Americans.  Such  in- 
stances were  more  annoying  than  serious,  for  the  Americans 
were  returned  when  nationality  was  proved, — a  matter,  to 

*  Mahan,  Sea  Power  in  its  Relations  to  the  War  of  1812  (2  vols.,  Boston, 
1905),  i.  42-99. 


114  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

be  sure,  of  delay  and  sometimes  of  difficulty,  owing  to  our 
lax  methods  of  registration.  More  often  they  took  British- 
born  subjects  who  had  been  naturalized  in  the  United  States. 
In  such  instances  the  chasm  of  misunderstanding  was  un- 
bridgable.  England  claimed  that  a  man  British-born  could 
never  expatriate  himself;  whereas  the  United  States  held 
that  all  her  citizens,  native  and  naturalized,  stood  upon  the 
same  basis  and  were  equally  entitled  to  protection. 

When  one  remembers  that  the  British  naval  officers  were 
spurred  in  the  performance  of  their  duties  by  the  distribu- 

,^.  tion  among  them  of  the  major  portion  of  the 

Pnze  money  i       r    i  •  i  111 

proceeds  01  the  prizes  they  captured,  and  that 

nearly  every  little  British  West  India  island  had  its  own 
prize  court,  often  incompetent  and  sometimes  venal,  at  least 
to  the  extent  of  preferring  a  condemnation  with  fees  to  an 
acquittal  without  them,  one  sees  that  the  opportunities  for 
friction  were  countless.  Added  to  all  these  considerations 
was  a  maladroit  action  of  the  British  government,  as  a  result 
of  which  the  Portuguese  fleet,  which  customarily  guarded 
the  straits  of  Gibraltar,  was  in  the  summer  of  1793  with- 
drawn from  that  duty.  Algerian  corsairs  now  dashed  out 
into  the  Atlantic,  and  by  the  end  of  the  year  ten  American 
vessels  had  fallen  into  their  hands.  The  final  pitch  of  excite- 
ment was  reached  when,  in  March,  1794,  came  the  reports 
of  the  speech  of  Lord  Dorchester,  the  governor  general  of 
Canada  and  just  back  from  London,  to  the  Canadian 
Indians,  predicting  war  with  the  United  States  and  bidding 
them  prepare. 

As  news  of  one  unfriendly  act  after  another  reached  Amer- 
ica, excitement  increased  day  by  day.  Congress  was  in  ses- 
United  States  sion,  and  in  the  spring  of  1794  came  to  be  di- 
^  ^^  vided  between  those  who  hoped  for  and  those 

who  dreaded  a  war  with  Great  Britain.  Fisher  Ames,  an 
ardent  sympathizer  with  England,  wrote,  March  26:  "The 
English  are  absolutely  madmen.  Order  in  this  country  is 
endangered  by  their  hostility,  no  less  than  by  the  French 


/ 


THE  JAY  TREATY  115 

friendship.    They  act,  on  almost  every  point,  against  their 
interests  and  their  real  wishes."    The  House  voted  to  suspend 
commercial  intercourse  with  Great  Britain  until  restitution 
should  be  made,  but  by  the  assistance  of  the  Senate,  the 
administration  was  enabled  to  carry  out  its  own  less  bellig- 
erent policy.    A  general  embargo  was  passed,  on  the  ground 
that  the  seas  were  unsafe  for  American  shipping;  the  first/ 
steps  were  taken  in  the  construction  of  a  navy;  and,  most  im- 
portant of  all,  a  final  solemn  embassy  was  sent  to  Great! 
Britain  to  present  the  case  of  the  United  States  and  demand  i 
satisfaction.^ 

For  this  task  the  chief  justice,  John  Jay,  was  chosen.  It 
seems  to  have  been  felt  that,  since  in  Monroe  a  friendly 
minister  had  been  sent  to  France,  so  an  Eng-     ,    . 

To Y  8  miSSlOll 

lish  sympathizer  should  be  sent  to  England. 
Hamilton  was  distrusted  by  the  Republicans.  Jay  had 
more  experience  than  any  other  American  except  Adams, 
who  was  disliked  by  many  Federalists;  but  even  Jay  was 
attacked  because  of  his  Mississippi  proposal  of  1786.  He  was 
now  instructed  to  adjust  all  the  multifarious  diflficulties 
growing  out  of  the  treaty  of  1783,  particularly  the  continued 
occupation  of  the  posts  by  the  British.  He  was  to  arrange 
a  treaty  of  commerce.  He  was  to  secure  compensation  for 
seizures  of  American  vessels,  and  agreements  concerning 
impressments,  blockades,  and  other  points  of  international 
law.  On  these  latter  points  he  was  to  accept  no  settlement 
except  along  the  line  of  his  instructions,  which  in  each  case 
laid  down  the  American  view  of  the  matter.  With  this 
heavy  burden,  and  weighted  down  with  the  sense  of  his  re- 
sponsibility to  prevent  a  war  which  he  felt  to  be  almost  in- 
evitable. Jay  set  sail  for  England. 

The  "madness"  of  England  was  twofold.  In  so  far  as  it 
related  to  her  principles  of  maritime  conduct,  it  was  basic, 
four-square  with  her  conceptions  of  national  safety.     From 

*  Trescot,  W.  H.,  The  DiplomcUic  History  of  the  Administrationa  of  Wash- 
ington and  Adams  (Boston,  1857),  chs.  ii.-iv. 


116  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

these  she  would  not  move  while  a  war-ship  was  afloat. 
Her  vexatious  conduct  in  other  matters,  however,  was  very 
England's  largely  connected  with  her  belief  that  war  with 

"  madness  "  ^^^  United  States  was  sure  to  come.  Equally 
unable  with  France  to  understand  the  American  desire  for 
isolation,  she  felt  that  France  would  ultimately  win  our 
alliance. 

Her  greatest  anxiety  was  in  regard  to  the  West.  The 
Northwestern  Indians  still  called  upon  her  for  support  against 
English  appre-  the  Americans,  and  threatened  to  turn  on 
hensions  Gresii  Britain  if  aid  was  refused.     The  fur- 

traders  were  more  distressed  than  before,  because  of  the 
discovery  that  the  source  of  the  Mississippi  probably  lay 
south  of  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  a  circumstance  that  rendered 
the  British  right  to  navigate  that  river  worthless.  To  meet 
both  difficulties,  Hammond  had  in  1792  urged  the  formation 
of  an  Indian  buffer  state  to  stretch  everywhere  between 
the  United  States  and  Canada,  or  at  least  to  include  the 
country  northwest  of  the  Ohio.  This  means  of  settlement 
was  then  rejected  by  the  Americans,  even  in  spite  of  the 
sting  of  St.  Clair's  recent  defeat;  and  now,  in  1794,  the  situa- 
tion was  in  their  favor.  Wayne's  army,  which  seemed  to  the 
Americans  a  valiant  David  going  into  the  wilderness  to  meet 
the  Goliath  of  Indians  and  British,  was  known  by  the  latter 
to  be  larger  than  the  combined  British  forces  in  all  the  posts, 
and  seemed  to  loom  menacingly  over  all  British  America. 
England's  real  efforts  to  bring  about  peace  between  the 
Indians  and  the  Americans  had  caused  both  to  be  suspicious; 
and  the  mistake  of  a  subordinate  had  furnished  the  United 
States  with  a  new  grievance  by  the  establishment  of  the  fort 
on  the  Maumee.  Finally,  Lord  Dorchester's  speech  to  the 
Canadian  Indians,  which  had  been  made  public,  had  roused 
the  hope  of  the  Indians  on  American  soil,  while  hardening 
the  American  distrust  into  conviction.  In  the  early  summer 
of  1794,  therefore,  Pitt  and  his  foreign  minister.  Lord  Gren- 
ville,  feared  that  there  could  be  no  escape  from  a  clash  on 


THE  JAY  TREATY  117 

the  frontier  which  would  bring  the  United  States  into  the 
war.^  Nor  did  England  want  war.  From  the  abyss  of  No- 
vember, 1793,  France  was  emerging  triumphant;  her  armies 
and  Revolution  were  everywhere  advancing.  The  first 
coalition  against  her  was  falling  to  pieces. 

Jay,  therefore,  was  warmly  welcomed  when  he  reached 
England.  In  estimating  his  chances  of  success,  one  feels 
that  he  was  under  some  psychological  dis-  jay  and  Gren- 
advantage.  His  mere  arrival  reassured  Lord  ^^® 
Grenville,  who  was  at  once  convinced  that  a  treaty  could 
be  made,  and  who  even  anticipated  that  the  United  States, 
recoiling  from  France,  might  actually  join  England.  Jay, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  to  the  end  fearful  lest  no  treaty  could 
be  arranged  and  that  war  would  result.  Throughout  the 
negotiations  the  fortunes  of  France  rose  higher,  and  in  the 
midst  of  them  came  news  of  Wayne's  victory  over  the  In- 
dians. Of  this  international  situation  Jay,  trembling  for  his 
treaty,  seems  to  have  taken  no  advantage. 

The  treaty  which  was  signed  on  November  19,  1794,  was 

most  comprehensive.     It  embodied  for  the  first  time  two 

principles  since  then  common  in  American  „  ^i  x  * 
1-   1  <>      rr.1  r  Settlement    of 

diplomacy.^     The  settlement  of  many  vexed    the  treaty  of 

points   it  left  to  commissions  authorized  to  i 

determine  results  by  judicial  or  semi-judicial  process,  and 

it  provided  for  the  mutual  extradition  of  persons  "  charged  ^ 

with  murder  and  forgery."    The  difficulties  arising  out  of  the 

treaty  of  1783  were  compromised,  but  to  the  advantage  of 

the  United  States.     Great  Britain  agreed  to  evacuate  the 

posts  on  or  before  June  1,  1796.    A  commission  provided  to 

determine  what  river  was  intended  to  be  described  as  the 

"St.  Croix"  on  the  northeast  boundary  ultimately  accepted 

^  Unpublished  thesia  on  the  Jay  treaty,  by  Orpha  Leavitt;  also  Dropmore 
Papers,  ii. 

*  For  this  and  all  subsequent  instances  of  arbitration,  to  1897,  see  J.  B. 
Moore,  History  and  Digest  of  International  Arbitrations,  6  vols.,  Washington, 
1898  (House  Misc.  Doc.,  53  Cong.  2  sess..  No.  212).  In  every  case  this  work 
gives  an  admirable  sketch  of  the  origin  and  settlement  of  the  dispute. 


118  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  river  now  known  by  that  name,  although  an  additional 
convention  of  1798  was  required  to  determine  its  source.    A 
commission  was  to  ascertain  the  source  of  the  Mississippi,  »/ 
which,  however,  failed  in  its  object.     Another  commission 
was  to  adjudicate  on  the  question  of  the  pre-revolutionary  ix 
debts  due  to  British  merchants,  of  which  the  United  States 
was  to  assume  the  obligation.     Difficulties  arising  on  this 
subject,  a  new  convention  became  necessary  in  1802,  and   , 
ultimately  we  had  to  pay  something  over  two  million  and 
a  half  dollars.    The  question  of  compensation  by  the  United 
States  to  loyalists  was  dropped,  and  also  that  of  indemnity 
by  Great  Britain  for  slaves  carried  away  in  1783,  a  demand 
which  we  based  on  the  general  provision  for  the  mutual 
restoration  of  property.    It  is  probable  that  Jay  might  have 
obtained  the  latter  point,  had  he  forced  the  issue.  ^ 

A  commission  was  also  charged  with  the  settlement  of  ' 
claims  by  British  merchants  because  of  the  failure  of  the 
s  tti  t  f  United  States  to  perform  properly  her  neutral ; 
violations  of  duties  during  1793,  and  of  those  by  American 
merchants  because  of  "irregular  or  illegal  cap- 
tures or  condemnations"  by  the  British  in  violation  of  our 
neutral  rights.  After  many  delays,  this  commission  awarded 
American  claimants  nearly  six  million  dollars  and  British 
claimants  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand. 

A  permanent  commercial  provision  in  the  treaty  allowed  / 
trade  from  Vermont  to  Montreal  and  Quebec,  and  freedom 
Commercial        of   trade   with   the   Indian   tribes   across   th^ 
clauses  border,  except  in  the  Hudson  Bay  region, — \ 

reciprocal  advantages.  For  a  limited  time  the  British  East  ^ 
Indian  trade  was  opened  to  Americans.  That  of  the  West 
Indies,  so  long  and  earnestly  desired,  was  made  free  to  Amer- 
ican vessels  of  seventy  tons'  burden, — that  is,  those  that  were 
too  small  to  cross  the  ocean  and  so  were  confined  to  direct 
voyages.     This  provision,  however,  was  bound  up  with  a- 

*  F.  A.  Ogg,  Jay's  Treaty  and  the  Slavery  Interests  of  the  United  States, 
Amer.  Hist.  Assoc,  Report,  1901,  i.  273-298. 


THE  JAY  TREATY  119 

promise  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  to  refrain  from 
"carrying  any  molasses,  sugar,  cojffee,  cocoa,  or  cotton  in 
American  vessels,  either  from  His  Majesty's  islands  or  from  ^ 
the  United  States"  to  any  country  except  the  United  States, 
a  promise  that  was  an  utterly  inexcusable  error  on  the  part    / 
of  Jay,  for  in  the  case  of  cotton  it  forbade  us  to  export  our 
own  products  in  our  own  vessels.     The  Senate  cut  this  article 
from  the  treaty,  and  trade  with  the  British  West  Indies  re- 
mained subject  to  temporary  regulations.    Between  England 
herself  and  the  United  States  commerce  and  navigation  were  / 
to  be  for  twelve  years  on  the  basis  of  the  most  favored  nation. 

Jay  was  soon  and  properly  convinced  that  he  could  not 
obtain  a  recognition  of  the  American  position  on  any  points 
of  international  law.    In  the  event  of  such  an    international 
emergency  he  had  been  instructed  to  conclude    P™<^ces 
nothing  on  the  subject.    He  felt,  however,  that  minor  modi- 
fications of  the  English  position  and  definite  understandings 
would  be  advantageous;  and  he  had  always  been  accustomed 
to  break  instructions.     He  therefore  concluded  articles,  to 
last  twelve  years,  admitting  that  provisions  might  in  some 
cases  be  contraband  although  they  should  be  paid  for,  and 
that  enemies'   goods  on  neutral  vessels  might  be  seized. 
Article  xvii.  provided .  that  due  notice  of  blockade  should 
be  given,  but  said  nothing  of  "paper"  blockades,;  article  xxiv. 
forbade  "foreign"  privateers  .to  sell  prizes  in  the  ports  of  v- 
either,  party;  article  xxv.  admitted  British  prizes  to  Aiperiean  ^ 
harbors;  but  these  articles  were  not  to  be  construed  in  such 
a  way  as  to  violate  any  previous  treaty,  the  fact  being  that 
they  apparently  clashed  with  our  treaties  with  France. 

Once  signed,  the  Jay  treaty  began  a  series  of  adventures 
that  remind  one  of  a  Baron  Munchausen  tale.  Not  till 
June,  1795,  did  it  reach  America.  The  Senate,  Acceptance  by 
promptly  called  in  special  session,  ratified  it  *^®  Senate 
June  24,  with  the  exception  of  the  West  Indian  article.  For 
a  time  it  was  doubtful  what  the  effect  of  such  partial  ratifica- 
tion would  be;  but  in  the  end  England  accepted  the  change,  ^ 


120  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

and  a  precedent  was  established  which  has  many  times  been 
followed.  Meanwhile  the  treaty  itself  had  been  kept  secret, 
but  a  copy  was  presently  furnished  to  the  press  by  Senator 
Mason  of  Virginia.  Instantly  there  followed  an  outburst 
of  popular  indignation  which  swept  from  one  end  of  the  coun- 
try to  the  other,  and  for  a  moment  united  all  classes  of  the 
population.  Jay,  according  to  the  cheerful  custom  of  the 
day,  was  burned  in  eflSgy,  and  Hamilton,  who  attempted  to 
defend  him,  was  stoned. 

While  the  popular  tumult  was  raging,  Washington  was 
at  Mount  Vernon,  deferring  his  signature.  He  chafed  at 
Randolph  and  Jay's  disregard  for  his  instructions,  and  was 
Fauchet  disturbed  over  a  new  British  order  for  the 

seizure  of  provisions,  which,  the  United  States  claimed,  was 
not  warranted  by  circumstances.  Randolph,  the  secretary  of 
state,  was  urging  that  he  withhold  his  signature  altogether. 
At  this  juncture  the  sea  once  more  gave  up  its  prey,  this 
time  dispatches  of  Fauchet  thrown  overboard  to  avoid  cap- 
ture by  the  British  but  secured  by  their  sailors.  One  of  these. 
No.  10,  which  Hammond  handed  to  Hamilton,  referred  to  the 
"precious  confessions"  of  Randolph  disclosed  in  a  previous 
letter.  No.  6.  Despite  the  subsequent  publication  of  the 
latter,  with  a  letter  of  explanation  by  Fauchet  and  a  Vindica- 
tion by  Randolph,  the  exact  nature  of  these  precious  confes- 
sions remains  unproved.  Randolph  and  Fauchet  claimed 
that  they  had  to  do  with  internal  affairs,  the  Whiskey  Rebel- 
lion in  particular.  From  the  internal  evidence,  however, 
John  Quincy  Adams  concluded,  and  not  without  some  force, 
that  they  had  reference  to  the  enforcement  of  neutrality. 
At  all  events,  that  there  was  revealed  an  amazing  condition 
of  confidential  intercourse  between  the  secretary  of  state 
and  a  foreign  minister,  is  undoubted.  This  circumstance, 
to  be  sure,  appears  less  remarkable  in  view  of  later  revela- 
tions of  the  astonishing  intimacy  of  Hamilton,  secretary 
of  the  treasury,  and  other  Federalists,  with  the  British 
minister;  but  there  is  this  difference,  that  Randolph  en- 


THE  JAY  TREATY  121 

deavored  to  obtain  money  from  Fauchet,  a  fact  which  turns 
his  indiscretion  into  moral  obliquity.^ 

At  any  rate,  Washington  considered  that  the  new  situa- 
tion demanded  immediate  action,  and  decided  to  sign  the 
treaty  in  spite  of  his  dissatisfaction  with  it.    Washington 
With  a  grimness  closely  allied  with  humor,  he    signs  the 
ordered  Randolph  to  complete  a  protest  to 
Great  Britain  at  the  seizure  of  provisions,  and,  when  it  was 
completed,  showed  him  the  dispatch.    Randolph  at  once  re- 
signed, and,  after  a  succession  of  attempts  to  bring  in  some 
notable  personage,  was  replaced  by  Timothy  Pickering,  a  de- 
cided partisan  of  England,  a  man  able  and  honest,  but  with- 
out poise. 

Not  even  yet  was  the  treaty  safe.  It  called  for  the  appoint- 
ment of  commissioners  and  the  appropriation  of  money,  and 
the  latter  must  come  by  vote  of  the  House  of  jhe  House  ac- 
Representatives.  Should  the  appropriation  cepts  the 
fail,  the  treaty  could  not  be  executed.  All  the 
forces  hostile  to  England,  favorable  to  France,  and  opposed 
to  the  administration  and  the  treaty,  rallied  for  a  final  strug- 
gle. The  year  before  Fisher  Ames  had  said  of  certain  resolu- 
tions that  they  had  French  stamped  on  their  face,  and  Parker 
of  Virginia  had  replied  that  he  wished  everybody  had  a  stamp 
on  his  forehead  to  show  whether  he  was  for  France  or  Great 
Britain.  Now  the  feeling  was  even  more  intense.  The  House, 
led  by  Edward  Livingston,  demanded  that  it  be  furnished 
with  copies  of  the  papers  in  the  case.  This  request  Washing- 
ton refused.  It  could  not  force  him,  nor  could  he  force  it. 
He  could  refuse  the  papers,  but  it  was  more  important  that 
the  House  could  refuse  the  money.  The  debate  became  the 
leading  question  of  the  session.  On  the  whole  the  treaty 
gained  support  as  the  commercial  classes  came  to  accept 
Washington's  view,  that,  although  the  treaty  was  not  a 

*  Edmund  Randolph,  Vindication  of  Mr.  Randolph's  Resignation,  Phila- 
delphia, 1795;  M,  D.  Conway,  Omitted  Chapters  of  History,  disclosed  in  the 
Life  and  Papers  of  Edmund  Randolph,  New  York,  etc.,  1888. 


122  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

good  one,  the  existing  choice  lay  not  between  it  and  a  better  ^ 
one,  but  between  it  and  war.    This  view  was  most  forcibly  ex- 
pressed by  Fisher  Ames  in  the  greatest  speech  till  then  made 
in  Congress;  and  at  length,  on  April  30,  1796,  the  appropria- 
tion was  passed  and  the  treaty  became  an  established  fact.^ 

The  Jay  treaty  worked  more  satisfactorily  than  was  ex-  ^ 
pected.     Grenville  had  promised  Jay  some  concessions  not 
Working    of       formally  mentioned,  and  these  were  fulfilled, 
the  treaty  -pj^g  admiralty  courts  in  the  West  Indies  were 

reorganized  and  made  respectable.  Hammond  was  replaced 
by  Liston,  who  proved  to  be  somewhat  more  pleasing 
personally.  From  1796,  moreover,  in  spite  of  the  excision  , 
of  the  West  Indian  article  from  the  treaty,  that  trade 
was  thrown  open  to  American  vessels  under  certain  lim- 
itations. Best  of  all  was  the  quieting  effect  on  the  north- 
ern frontier.  Vermont  was  relieved  by  the  opening  of  trade  ■ 
to  Montreal,  the  national  power  was  vindicated  by  the  oc-; 
cupation  of  the  whole  national  territory,  and  with  the  Jayi 
treaty  added  to  Wayne's  treaty  of  1795  came  sixteen  years; 
of  comparative  peace  with  the  Indians.  On  September  8, 
1796,  the  British  consul.  Bond,  wrote  to  Lord  Grenville  that 
the  treaty  had  a  "  tendency  to  retain  this  infant  country  in  a 
state  of  peace  with  the  most  powerful  empire  in  the  universe." 

The  effect  of  the  Jay  treaty  was  not  confined  to  the  rela- 
tions between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain.  The 
European  document  was  observed  by  all  the  cabinets  of 

opmion  Europe  with  varying  emotions,  but  everywhere 

from  the  point  of  view  of  the  obsession  that  the  United  States 
must  be  upon  one  side  or  the  other.  If  she  had  rejected  the 
overtures  of  France  and  made  a  treaty  with  England,  it 
must  mean  that  she  was  to  be  counted  on  the  side  of  England. 
Nowhere,  was  the  effect  so  immediate  and  pronounced  as 
in  Spain.* 

*  S.  B.  Crandall,  Treaties,  their  Making  and  Enforcement,  New  York,  1904. 

*  C,  C.  Pinckney,  Thomas  Pinckney,  Boston,  etc.,  1895;  Schuyler,  American 
Diplomacy,  271-281. 


THE  JAY  TREATY  12S 

Important  as  were  the  questions  at  issue  with  that  coun- 
try, no  progress  had  been  made  in  solving  them.  In  part 
this  was  due  to  the  inadequacy,  nearly  always  Relations  with 
characteristic,  of  our  representation  at  that  ^p"^ 
court.  Carmichael  exhibited  a  nonchalance  that  excites 
suspicions  as  to  his  good  intent.  His  industrious  successor. 
Short,  was  persona  non  grata.  At  length,  in  August,  1794, 
Spain  distinctly  declared  that  "at  least  His  Majesty  ex- 
pected that  the  ministers  appointed  by  the  United  States 
should  be  persons  of  such  character,  distinction,  and  temper 
as  would  become  a  residence  near  his  royal  person." 

Meantime  Spain  had  continued  her  various  policies,  keep- 
ing on  good  terms  with  the  Indians  and  bribing  Wilkinson. 
In  1794  Gayoso  had  hopes  of  Kentucky,  but  Spanish  poli- 
feared  that,  if  the  settlers  there  knew  of  the  "®° 
Spanish  relations  with  the  Indians,  they  would,  instead  of 
continuing  their  negotiations,  "become  our  most  cruel  ene- 
mies." Washington  wrote  in  September,  1794:  "Spain  by  a 
similar  conduct  to  that  of  Great  Britain  has  imposed  the 
necessity  of  sending  an  envoy  extraordinary  to  her.  They 
cooperate;  cordial  in  their  hatred,  they  have  agreed  to  em- 
ploy the  Indians  against  us." 

The  envoy  selected  was  Thomas  Pinckney,  the  resident 
minister  at  London,  whose  position  was  perhaps  rendered 
slightly  invidious  in  consequence  of  Jay's  mis-  pinckney's 
sion.  The  attitude  of  Spain  always  varied  ""ssion 
with  the  changes  in  European  conditions.  By  her  defeats  of 
1794  she  had  been  forced  to  turn  from  England  to  France; 
the  treaty  of  Basle,  July  22,  1795,  revived  the  old  "family" 
alliance,  although  the  dynastic  situation  had  so  tragically 
changed.  It  was  in  this  new  condition  that  news  of  the  Jay 
treaty  found  Spain.  Her  court,  believing  that  it  meant 
the  alliance  of  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  saw  in 
imagination  irresistible  forces  descending  upon  her  frail  de- 
fences in  Louisiana  and  attacking  the  mines  of  Mexico. 
Although  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  coming  to  terms,  her 


1^4  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ministers  could  not  shake  off  their  constitutional  habits  of 
delay,  until  on  October  24,  1795,  Pinckney  announced  his 
immediate  departure  for  London.  His  bluff  was  successful, 
and  on  October  27  the  treaty  of  San  Lorenzo  was  signed. 

As  the  first  treaty  between  United  States  and  Spain,  it 
laid  down  the  general  rules  of  intercourse  upon  liberal  terms. 
Treaty  of  San  In  regard  to  neutral  rights  it  provided  that 
Lorenzo  provisions  should  not  be  contraband  of  war, 

and  that  free  ships  make  free  goods.    Until  1794  the  Spanish 
fleet  had  cooperated  with  that  of  Great  Britain,  and  had 
acted  upon  somewhat  the  same  principles.    To  settle  ques- 
tions arising  from  this  conduct,  a  commission  was  arranged 
for,  which  came  to  an  end  in  1800  after  having  awarded 
over  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  American  claimants. 
But  these  questions  were  of  less  interest  than  those  relating 
to  boundaries  and  the  use  of  the  Mississippi.     As  to  the  , 
former,  Spain  accepted  the  American  contention,  the  thirty- 
first  parallel,  and  agreed  to  evacuate  her  posts  in  the  disputed ' 
region.    She  opened  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  to  the  / 
Americans,  and  engaged  that  for  three  years  New  Orleans  } 
was  to  serve  them  as  a  "place  of  deposit"  with  the  right  to  { 
export  their  goods  therefrom  free  of  duty.    "And  His  Maj- 
esty promises  either  to  continue  this  permission,  if  he  finds 
during  that  time  that  it  is  not  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  J 
Spain,  or  if  he  should  not  agree  to  continue  it  there,  he  will 
assign  to  them  on  another  part  of  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi 
an  equivalent  establishment." 

With  the  prompt  ratification  of  this  favorable  treaty, 
Washington  could  indeed  feel  that  the  new  government  had 
.  ^  justified  itself  to  the  people  as  their  representa- 
national  gov-  tive  before  the  world.  The  diplomatic  prob- 
lems that  had  helped  cause  the  fall  of  the 
Confederation  had  all  been  solved.  Commercial  treaties 
had  been  made  with  Spain  and  Great  Britain.  If  the  latter 
had  not  permanently  opened  her  West  India  islands,  at  any 
rate  they  were  open  now.   The  Indians  north  and  south  had 


THE  JAY  TREATY  125 

been  quieted.  Outlets  had  been  obtained  down  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  Montreal  and  Quebec,  and  down  the  Mississippi 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  occupation  of  the  entire  national 
territory  had  been  provided  for.  In  addition,  the  policy  of 
national  independence  from  European  disputes  had  been 
effectively  laid  down,  the  worst  irregularities  of  belligerent 
interference  with  our  commerce  had  been  done  away  with, 
and  compensation  for  our  losses  provided  for.  If  these  settle- 
ments were  not  all  to  prove  permanent,  at  least  they  estab- 
lished precedents  which  we  were  steadily  gaining  added 
strength  to  enforce.  For  many  of  these  sue-  Washington's 
cesses  Washington  could  take  personal  credit,  "^^"*^<^« 
over  and  above  that  of  choosing  the  men  who  accomplished 
them.  The  Indian  policy  was  peculiarly  his  own.  His  selec- 
tion from  the  various  alternatives  proposed  by  Hamilton 
and  Jefferson  for  handling  the  Genet  affair  made  the  policy 
adopted  essentially  his.  In  view  of  the  conflicting  forces 
within  him  and  without,  his  decision  to  sign  the  Jay  treaty 
was  a  great  act  which  proved  to  be  a  wise  one.  Finally  in 
his  farewell  address  he  gave  the  policy  of  neutrality  a  con- 
secration in  the  minds  of  the  people  which  still  persists.  The , 
points  on  which  he  might  have  done  better  were  compara- 
tively minor.  He  was  able  to  retire  in  March,  1797,  not, 
to  be  sure,  leaving  all  problems  solved,  but  having  settled 
all  those,  except  the  opening  of  the  Mediterranean,  that 
he  was  chosen  to  deal  with,  and  more. 


CHAPTER  XI 
WAR  AND  PEACE  WITH  FRANCE 

The  Jay  treaty,  which  settled  so  many  of  our  difficulties, 
served  to  intensify  those  with  France.  That  country,  in 
Permanent  addition  to  a  continued  insistence  on  the  execu- 

FrenchpoUcies  ^^^^^  ^f  ^Yie  treaties  of  1778  and  1788,  was  press- 
ing two  lines  of  policy  which  animated  her  diplomacy  through- 
out the  period  of  her  final  struggle  with  England.  One 
was  the  claim,  which  gradually  took  clearer  and  clearer  form, 
that  the  rights  of  the  neutral  were  the  possession  of  the  bel- 
ligerent. She  held  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  United  States 
to  maintain  in  full  her  neutral  rights  against  England,  that 
the  failure  to  do  so  constituted  practical  alliance  with  Eng- 
land and  justified  retaliatory  disregard  of  neutral  rights  by 
France.  Her  second  policy  was  the  attempt  to  destroy  Eng- 
lish trade  by  attacking  her  commerce,  "to  force  the  English 
to  a  shameful  bankruptcy."  John  Quincy  Adams  wrote, 
August  21,  1796:  "But  the  French  Government  are  evi- 
dently making  their  preparations  to  put  in  execution  their 
singular  plan  of  war  against  Britain,  the  season  ensuing. 
That  they  will  succeed  in  cutting  off  the  communication 
between  that  island  and  all  the  rest  of  Europe,  is  not  at  all 
impossible."  ^ 

The  mission  of  Monroe  had  been  accepted  as  an  indica- 
tion of  regard  for  France.  He  had  been  publicly  and  en- 
Monroe  in  thusiastically  received  by  the  convention  in 
France  August,  1794,  and  had  pleased  it  by  his  re- 
sponse. "America  and  France,"  he  said  in  effect,  "have 
the  same  interests  and  principles,  the  recollection  of  common 

1  Volume  ii.  of  his  Writings  (ed.  W.  C.  Ford,  New  York,  1913,  etc.)  throws 
much  light  on  this  period. 

12S 


WAR  AND  PEACE  WITH  FRANCE         127 

dangers  and  difficulties  will  cement  the  union.  The  United 
States  is  sincerely  attached  to  the  liberty,  prosperity,  and 
happiness  of  the  French  Republic.  I  know  that  in  perpetuat- 
ing the  harmony  between  the  two  republics,  I  shall  promote 
the  interests  of  both."  Nor  had  the  mission  of  Jay  as  ex- 
plained by  Monroe  caused  any  alarm,  for  he  was  sent  to  assert 
American  neutral  rights.^  The  French  believed  that  he 
would  be  unsuccessful  and  that  his  mission  would  result  in 
war  with  England. 

Under  these  circumstances  Monroe  had  been  successful 
in  obtaining  some  useful  concessions.  In  July,  1795,  the 
retaliatory  decree  of  France  making  English  French  friend- 
goods  in  American  vessels  seizable  was  re-  ^*^" 
pealed.  "It  is  amidst  her  triumphs  that  the  Republic  loves 
to  give  this  striking  mark  of  its  fidelity.  Victorious  France 
knows  no  other  concern  than  that  of  justice;  no  other  diplo- 
matic language  than  that  of  truth."  P.  A.  Adet,  who  arrived 
in  America  in  June,  1795,  to  replace  Fauchet,  had  received 
most  amicable  instructions.  Monroe  had  even  encouraged 
France  to  hope  for  a  loan  from  the  United  States,  and  had 
urged  it  on  our  government  alleging  that  France  was  fighting 
our  battles. 

The  news  of  the  signature  of  the  Jay  treaty  alarmed 
France,  and  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety  turned  to 
Monroe  for  information  as  to  its  details;  but  The  Jay  treaty 
since,  as  the  result  of  a  policy  rather  difficult  "i^'*"<=* 
to  account  for,  he  had  been  left  uninformed  by  Jay  and  by 
the  United  States  government,  he  could  give  only  vague  as- 
surances that  the  compact  was  not  inconsistent  with  our 
obligations  to  France.  Confident  rumor,  however,  speedily 
detailed  its  terms,  and  a  copy  of  the  treaty  itself,  sent  by 
Adet,  reached  France  in  the  summer  of  1795.  Monroe  and 
the  French  leaders  equally  were  stunned.  Instead  of  vindi- 
cating the  status  of  neutrality  laid  down  in  our  treaties  with 

*  James  Monroe,  A  View  of  the  Conduct  of  the  Executive  in  the  Foreign  Af' 
fairs  of  the  United  Stales,  Philadelphia,  1797. 


128  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

France,  it  accepted  a  totally  different  status,  permitting  to 
England  practices  against  which  we  had  protested  in  the 
case  of  France.  The  English  had  just  touched  France  to  the 
quick  by  their  second  order  for  the  seizure  of  provisions  as 
contraband,  and  it  was  seen  that  they  were  justified  by  the 
new  treaty.  Monroe  was  unable  to  meet  the  situation.  In 
February,  1796,  France  declared  her  alliance  with  the  United 
States  at  an  end.  On  July  2,  1796,  a  decree  of  the  French 
executive  Directory  announced  that  France  would  treat 
neutrals  as  England  did,  and  actually  went  further  by  de- 
claring all  goods  destined  for  England  contraband.  In  No- 
vember, Adet  announced  to  the  American  government  that 
he  had  been  ordered  to  terminate  his  mission. 

On  August  22,  1796,  the  American  government  had  re- 
called Monroe  and  appointed  in  his  place  Charles  Cotes- 
Recall  of  worth  Pinckney.  Monroe's  recall  was  due 
Monroe  partly  to  his  failure  to  press  American  claims 
in  all  cases  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  government;  particularly 
the  claim  for  compensation  for  captures  under  the  decrees 
ordering  the  seizure  of  English  goods  in  American  vessels  and 
making  provisions  contraband,  both  of  them  in  violation  of 
the  treaty  of  1778,  but  defended  by  France  on  the  basis  of 
retaliation.  Still  more  was  his  recall  due  to  the  general  tone 
of  his  correspondence,  which  constituted  a  protest  against  the 
policy  of  his  own  country  and  a  defence  of  France.  It  may 
be  said,  however,  that  he  did  secure  more  concessions  from 
France  than  Jay  could  obtain  from  England,  and  that  he 
had  been  instructed  to  cultivate  French  friendship.  He  was 
undoubtedly  indiscreet,  but  part  of  the  blame  must  be  laid 
to  the  policy  of  sending  in  sucb  a  delicate  crisis  a  minister 
known  to  be  out  of  touch  with  his  superiors.  The  most 
serious  fault  of  Monroe  was  his  conduct  after  he  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  details  of  Jay's  treaty,  and  still  more  after 
his  own  recall.  In  close  touch  with  the  French  leaders, 
he  impressed  upon  them  the  difference,  which  they  were 
only  too  prone  to  believe,  between  the  government  of  the 


WAR  AND  PEACE  WITH  FRANCE    12d 

United  States  and  the  people.  He  acknowledged  that  the 
government  was  hostile  to  France,  but  he  urged  them  to  wait 
for  justice  until  after  the  next  presidential  election,  which 
he  was  sure  would  bring  Jefferson  into  the  presidency.  He 
assisted  in  destroying  that  impression  of  national  solidarity 
for  which  Washington  had  labored  so  hard,  and  which  Jeffer- 
son himself  had  confirmed  by  his  correspondence  with  Genet. 

France  and  Monroe  were  not  without  some  justification 
for  believing  that  the  existing  American  government  was 
not  only  anti-French  but  to  some  degree  pro-  pfo.En-i}sh 
English.  Washington,  indeed,  remained  im-  policy  in  the 
partially  American,  but  he  had  been  forced  to 
give  up  his  vision  of  an  administration  comprehending  all 
parties.  His  assistants  were  Federalists,  and  they  sympa- 
thized with  England.  In  1796  Thomas  Pinckney  was  re- 
placed at  London  by  an  ardent  English  partisan,  Rufus  King. 
In  1797  John  Quincy  Adams  was  commissioned  to  reframe 
our  treaties  with  Prussia  and  Sweden,  of  which  the  first  had 
expired  and  the  other  was  about  to  expire.  He  was  instructed 
by  Pickering  to  leave  out  the  former  provisions  regarding 
free  ships,  free  goods.  "It  is  a  principle,"  wrote  Pickering, 
"that  the  United  States  have  adopted  in  all  their  treaties 
(except  that  with  Great  Britain),  and  which  they  sincerely 
desire  might  become  universal:  but  treaties  formed  for  this 
object  they  find  to  be  of  little  or  no  avail,  because  the  prin- 
ciple is  not  universally  admitted  among  the  maritime  na- 
tions." He  was  also  to  enlarge  the  definition  of  contraband. 
Against  these  changes  in  the  American  policy,  showing  so 
marked  a  leaning  to  the  English  practice,  Adams  vigorously 
protested,  but  his  instructions  remained  unchanged.  Al- 
though such  details  were  not  generally  known,  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  administration  became  increasingly  hostile  to 
France. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  French  government  took 
occasion  to  show  its  friendliness  for  Monroe  upon  his  with- 
drawal as  minister.     It  refused  to  receive  his  successor. 


130  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Pinckney,  and  on  February  3,  1797,  ordered  him  to  leave  the 
country.  Although  it  withdrew  Adet  from  his  mission,  it  al- 
France  and  lowed  him  to  remain  in  the  United  States  in  the 
the  election  of  hope  that  he  might  influence  the  presidential 
election  of  1796.  Adet  announced  his  with- 
drawal in  a  letter  which  he  published  in  the  press,  explaining 
it  not  as  "a  rupture  between  France  and  the  United  States, 
but  as  a  mark  of  just  discontent,  which  was  to  last  until  the 
government  of  the  United  States  returned  to  sentiments  and 
to  measures  more  conformable  to  the  interests  of  the  alliance; 
and  to  the  sworn  friendship  between  the  two  nations."  His 
interference  was  perhaps  not  without  some  weight,  but  it 
did  not  secure  the  election  of  Jefferson.  John  Adams  was 
chosen  to  the  presidency,  and  the  officials  as  well  as  the 
policy  of  the  old  administration  bade  fair  to  be  continued 
for  at  least  four  years  more.^ 

Hopeless  of  American  friendship,  France  turned  with 
more  energy  toward  other  plans.  In  February,  1795,  Fauchet 
France  and  had  in  a  long  letter  advised  that  the  only  way 
Louisiana  ^f  offsetting  the  effects  of  the  Jay  treaty,  of 

which  he  did  not  then  know  the  details,  was  by  the  acquisi- 
tion of  Louisiana.  That  colony  could  feed  the  islands  and 
so  wrench  them  free  from  their  dependence  on  the  United 
States.  This  familiar  policy  France  determined  to  pursue. 
With  Spain  as  an  ally,  cession  and  not  capture,  mu^t  be  the 
method.  Accordingly,  the  French  commissioner^  for  .  the 
treaty  of  Basle  were  instructed,  "The  restitution  of  Louisiana 
is  of  all  the  conditions  we  have  proposed  the  one  to  which 
we  attach  the  greatest  importance."  Failing  at  that  time, 
France  instructed  General  Perignon,  her  ambassador  at 
Madrid,  March  16,  1796,  to  urge  the  point:  "Our  possession 
of  Louisiana  would  give  us  the  means  to  offset  the  marked 
predilection  of  the  Federal  government  for  our  enemy  and 
keep  it  within  the  line  of  duty  by  the  fear  of  a  dismember- 
ment, we  might  cause." 

»  McMaster,  People  of  the  United  States,  ii.  209-416,  429-476. 


WAR  AND  PEACE  WITH  FRANCE         131 

This  dismemberment  of  the  United  States,  so  clearly  fore- 
shadowed in  the  instructions  to  Genet,  continued  to  haunt 
the  minds  of  the  French  ministers.  Adet,  New  French 
while  striving  to  excite  the  French  Canadians  ^^t^'fi^^s 
against  England,^  sent  his  ablest  agent.  General  Collot,  into 
the  American  West.  He  was  to  nourish  sentiments  of  dissen- 
sion among  the  leaders  "by  observing  that  the  interests 
of  the  eastern  and  western  parts  of  the  United  States  were 
in  collision,  that  the  period  was  not  distant  when  a  separation 
must  take  place,  and  the  range  of  mountains  on  this  side  of 
the  Ohio  was  the  natural  boundary  of  the  new  government, 
and  that  in  the  event  of  separation  the  western  people  ought 
to  look  to  France  as  their  natural  ally  and  protector."  On 
July  15,  1797,  Talleyrand  became  French  minister  of  foreign 
affairs.  Just  returned  from  banishment  in  the  United  States, 
he  had  recently  read  before  the  Institute  papers  on  "The 
Commercial  Relations  of  the  United  States"  and  "The 
Colonial  Interests  of  France."  Although  primarily  con- 
cerned at  the  moment  with  Bonaparte's  plan  to  divert  at- 
tention to  Africa,  he  maintained  that  the  eastern  part  of  the 
United  States  was  irrevocably  bound  to  England  by  lan- 
guage, habits,  and  trade,  but  that  the  country  beyond  the 
mountains  would  in  time  separate  and  need  France.^ 

The  American  government  only  suspected  these  western 
designs;  but  the  official  insult  involved  in  the  treatment  of 
Pinckney  was  patent,  and  the  constant  seiz-  Adams's  com- 
ure  and  condemnation  of  American  vessels  un-  mission  to 
der  successive  decrees,  unjustifiable  and  often 
contradictory,  demanded  attention.  As  experiments  with 
Monroe,  a  Republican,  and  Pinckney,  a  Federalist,  had 
proved  unsatisfactory,  Adams,  with  general  approval,  de- 
cided to  send  a  joint  commission  of  three, — to  Pinckney, 

1  Canadian  Archives,  1891,  pp.  63-79;  1894,  p.  527. 

*  A.  Cans,  "Les  idees  de  Talleyrand  sur  la  politique  coloniale  de  la  France 
au  lendemain  de  la  Revolution,"  Revue  d'Histoire  Modeme,  1900,  ii.  58-63; 
F.  J.  Turner,  "The  Policy  of  France  toward  the  Mississippi  Valley,"  Amer. 
Hist.  Review.  1905,  x.  249-279. 


132  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

were  added  John  Marshall,  a  Federalist,  and  Elbridge  Gerry, 

a  Republican.    On  the  day  on  which  Talleyrand  took  office 

they  received  their  instructions. 

Arriving  in  Paris  at  the  very  crest  of  the  Revolution, 

they  found  themselves  confronting  a  situation  unparalleled 

since  the  last  century  of  the  Roman  republic. 
French  revolu-     rn  •  ^  -m  i    i    i 

tionary   dipio-     Triumphant  France  was  surrounded  by  na- 

°"*^^  tions  buying  peace;  the  dazzling  private  ex- 

penditure which  betokened  the  coming  empire  tempted  pub- 
lic officials  to  demand  private  douceurs  for  the  favor  of  their 
nod.  The  world  seemed  melting  into  new  shapes  at  the 
whim  of  those  who  from  moment  to  moment  dominated 
Paris.  America  was  a  minor  consideration;  she  was  treated 
as  were  other  powers.  Even  the  astute  Talleyrand,  master 
of  finesse,  could  see  the  need  of  no  more  subtile  weapon 
than  the  threat,  to  be  parried  by  the  bribe. 

He  refused  to  receive  the  commissioners  until  redress  of 
grievances  was  made  and  the  President's  message  of  May  16, 
Secret  negotia-  1797,  dealing  with  the  French  situation,  atoned 
**°°^  for.    Privately,  however,  he  met  them,  and 

introduced  them  to  certain  individuals  as  possessing  his  con- 
fidence. These  persons  explained  that  as  a  preliminary  to 
negotiation  France  expected  the  United  States  to  buy  from 
her,  at  par,  certain  Dutch  bonds  worth  about  fifty  cents 
on  the  dollar, — two  satellite  republics  were  to  combine  to 
feed  the  great  one.  To  set  the  whole  in  motion,  a  million 
francs,  it  was  hinted,  would  be  expected  by  the  proper  of- 
ficials. This  proposal  was  not  so  likely  to  surprise  a  trained 
diplomat  at  that  time  as  now,  if  indeed  anything  in  the 
Paris  of  1798  could  have  surprised  a  trained  diplomat.  It 
was  in  effect  a  renewal  in  a  different  form  of  the  loan  prop- 
osition of  1794  so  warmly  endorsed  by  Monroe.  We  had 
not  hesitated  to  buy  peace  from  the  Barbary  pirates,  and 
there  was  really  no  need  of  being  more  scrupulous  about 
corrupting  Talleyrand's  morals  than  theirs.  Pitt  himself 
was  at  this  very  time  seriously  considering  the  purchase  of 


WAR  AND  PEACE  WITH  FRANCE    133 

peace  on  similar,  but  dearer,  terms. ^  I  believe,  however, 
that  Americans  remain  glad  that  their  commissioners  were 
shocked,  and  that  Pinckney  replied,  "No!  no!  no!  not  a 
sixpence!"  Pinckney  and  Marshall  at  once  broke  off  nego- 
tiations. Gerry  lingered  for  three  months  more,  but  with- 
out being  trapped  into  any  concessions  by  Talleyrand;  then 
he  too  left  France,  in  August,  1798. 

Meanwhile  the  commissioners'  dispatches  had  been  re- 
ceived in  America.     On  March  19  Adams  announced  that 
they  rendered  peace  no  longer  possible.     In    xh    x  Y  z 
April  they  were  published,  the  letters  X,  Y  and    correspond- 
Z  being  used  to  designate  the  intermediaries; 
and  their  contents  convinced  a  large  majority  of  Americans 
that  Adams  was  right.     Congress  authorized  an  increase  in 
army  and  navy,  and  on  June  21  Adams  was  widely  applauded 
for  his  announcement  that  he  would  "never  send  another 
minister  to  France  without  assurances  that  he  will  [would] 
be  received,  respected,  and  honored  as  the  representative  of 
a  great,  free,  powerful,  and  independent  nation." 

Although  peace  was  at  an  end,  war  was  not  begun.  It  was 
hoped  that  we  might  hang  between  the  two.  On  July  7 
Adams  declared  our  treaties  with  France  sus-  American  re- 
pended.  An  act  of  June  12  had  already  sus-  P"^*^^ 
pended  all  commercial  intercourse  with  her,  and  on  June  15 
merchant  vessels  were  authorized  to  arm  and  to  defend 
themselves  against  search,  seizure,  or  interference  by  French 
vessels.  On  July  8  authority  was  given  to  naval  vessels  to 
capture  any  armed  French  vessels,  and  the  president  was 
empowered  to  commission  privateers  to  do  the  same.  As 
practically  all  French  merchantmen  sailed  armed,  this  licence 
offered  a  wide  field.  Three  hundred  and  sixty-five  privateers 
were  commissioned,  France  lost  ninety  ships,  and  sevetal 
naval  duels  were  fought.^ 

^  Adams,  Influence  of  Grenville  on  Pitt's  Foreign  Policy,  67. 

2  G.  W.  Allen,  Our  Naval  War  vnth  France,  Boston,  etc.,  1909;  G.  N. 
Tricoche,  "Une  page  peu  connue  de  I'histoire  de  France,  la  guerre  franco* 
americaine  (1798-1801),"  Revue  Historique,  1904,  Ixxxv.  288-299. 


134  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

In  order  to  avoid  the  losses  to  American  merchants  which 
would  come  from  a  closing  of  the  trade  with  the  West  Indies, 
West  Indian  Adams,  June  26,  1799,  declared  suspended  the 
^^^^  suspension  of  French  commerce  in  the  case  of 

certain  ports  of  San  Domingo,  That  colony  was  then  under 
the  control  of  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  and  its  political  con- 
nection with  France  was  but  slight.  It  is  probable,  also, 
that  American  merchants  even  continued  to  supply  the 
more  loyal  islands  of  Guadaloupe  and  Martinique  by  means 
of  collusive  captures.  Hostilities  therefore  brought  little 
inconvenience  to  the  United  States,  and,  as  for  danger,  Adams 
said  that  he  no  more  expected  to  see  a  French  army  in 
America,  than  in  heaven.^ 

Although  we  did  not  consider  ourselves  at  war  with  France, 
we  were  fighting  her.  The  policy  of  isolation  had  been  in 
The  Blount  part  deviated  from.  Were  we  going  to  give  it 
conspiracy  ^p  wholly  by  becoming  the  ally  of  England, 

and  so  be  enmeshed  in  the  general  European  conflict?  There 
were  many  circumstances  that  rendered  such  an  event  prob- 
able and  many  men  who  desired  it.  The  new  British  minis- 
ter, Liston,  proved  pleasing.  He  won  confidence  at  once, 
in  1797,  by  helping  to  disclose  a  project  of  William  Blount, 
senator  from  Tennessee,  for  a  joint  expedition  of  frontiers- 
men and  the  British  fleet  to  seize  Louisiana  and  put  it  under 
the  control  of  Great  Britain.  Impeached  by  the  House  of 
Representatives,  Blount  resigned  to  escape  conviction,  and 
was  promptly  elected  governor  of  his  state;  his  plan  serves 
to  show  how  minds  in  the  West  were  turning.  Since  Spain 
was  loath  to  live  up  to  the  treaty  of  1795,  it  was  becoming 
doubtful  whether  that  settlement  would  prove  permanent; 
Great  Britain,  therefore,  in  becoming  the  enemy  of  Spain, 
became  the  natural  friend  of  the  frontiersman. 

For  similar  reasons  Miranda  left  France,  now  the  ally  of 
Spain,  and  sought  England,  where  in  1797  he  was  once  more 
deep  in  the  confidence  of  Pitt.  His  plans  resembled  those 
1  Hildreth,  United  States,  v.  267-270. 


WAR  AND  PEACE  WITH  FRANCE    135 

of  1790,  except  that  the  United  States  had  swum  into  his  ken. 
He  would  now  give  the  Floridas  and  New  Orleans  to  that 
country,  "the  Mississippi  being  in  every  re-  Miranda's 
spect  the  best  and  most  solid  barrier  that  one  ''*" 
can  establish  between  the  two  great  nations  which  occupy 
the  American  continent."  England  was  to  have  Porto  Rico 
and  other  islands.  To  all  these  nations — England,  the  United 
States,  and  Spanish  America — the  use  of  the  isthmuses  of 
Panama  and  Nicaragua  was  to  be  guaranteed.  The  instru- 
ments to  secure  all  this  were  to  be  the  United  States  army, 
the  English  navy,  and  Spanish-American  discontent.^ 

These  plans  were  accepted  with  enthusiasm  by  Rufus 
King,  who  communicated  them  to  Pickering,  our  secretary 
of  state,  and  to  Hamilton,  who  under  Washing-  Federalists' 
ton  commanded  the  new  army.  The  plan  P'*"^  **""  ^" 
pleased  Hamilton.  He  wrote  to  Senator  Gunn  of  Georgia, 
December  22,  1798:  "This,  you  perceive,  looks  to  offensive 
operations.  If  we  are  to  engage  in  war,  our  game  will  be 
to  attack  where  we  can.  France  is  not  to  be  considered  as 
separated  from  her  ally.  Tempting  objects  will  be  within 
our  grasp."  King  wrote,  October  20,  1798,  "Things  are 
here,  as  we  could  desire:  there  will  be  precisely  such  a  co- 
operation as  we  wish  the  moment  we  are  ready;"  and  again, 
on  January  21,  1799:  "For  God's  sake,  attend  to  the  very 
interesting  subject  treated  of  in  my  ciphered  dispatches  to 
the  Secretary  of  State  of  the  10th,  18thi  &  19th  instant. 
Connect  it,  as  it  should  be,  with  the  main  object,  the  time 
to  accomplish  which  has  arrived.  Without  superstition. 
Providence  seems  to  have  prepared  the  way,  and  to  have 
pointed  out  the  instruments  of  its  will.  Our  children  will 
reproach  us  if  we  neglect  our  duty,  and  humanity  will  escape 
many  scourges  if  we  act  with  wisdom  and  decision."  On 
March  22  he  wrote  less  hopefully  to  the  secretary  of  state, 
"one  is  tired  with  beholding,  and  with  endeavoring  in  vain  to 
account  for  the  blindness  that  even  yet  prevents  an  honest 
^  Robertson,  Miranda,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1907,  i.  189-539. 


136  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

and  general  confederacy  against  the  overbearing  Power  of 
France."  On  March  12,  1799,  Dr.  Edward  Stevens  was  ap- 
pointed consul-general  to  San  Domingo,  to  enter  into  rela- 
tions with  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  and  to  cooperate  with  the 
English  consul  in  encouraging  the  independence  of  the  island. 
It  is  significant  that  Hamilton  was  at  this  time  in  touch  with 
Wilkinson.^ 

Whatever  advantages  this  plan  might  have  secured  to 
the  United  States,  it  certainly  involved  the  abandon- 
,  ment  of  the  policy  of  neutrality.  It  involved 
mission  for  also  the  risk  of  internal  disunion.  How  widely 
apart  the  opposing  factions  in  the  nation  were 
already  leaning  is  indicated  by  the  mission  of  Dr.  Logan,  a 
Philadelphia  Quaker,  who  went  to  France  in  1798  to  treat 
for  peace  upon  his  own  account.  Instead  of  passports  he 
carried  letters  from  Jefferson  and  from  Thomas  McKean, 
chief  justice  of  Pennsylvania.  In  1799  such  private  missions 
were  prohibited  by  law,  but  his  action  is  symptomatic  of 
the  way  in  which  a  war  with  France  would  have  divided  the 
nation. 

Talleyrand  had  intended  by  his  bullying  to  produce,  not 
war,  but  money.  American  hostility  was  inconvenient  to 
_  .    ,      France;  actual  war  and  alliance  with  England 

fers  to  nego-  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  might  be  dan- 
gerous to  her.  Moreover,  the  French  expedition 
to  Egypt  had  proved  disappointing,  and  in  his  brain  were  re- 
volving American  projects  which  required,  for  the  time,  peace 
with  the  United  States.  On  September  28,  1798,  therefore, 
he  informed  William  Vans  Murray,  our  minister  at  The  Hague, 
that  any  minister  whom  the  United  States  might  send  would 

*  George  Gibbs,  Memoirs  of  the  Administrations  of  Washington  and  John 
Adams,  2  vols..  New  York,  1846;  J.  Q.  and  C.  F.  Adams,  John  Adams,  i. 
516  ff.;  John  Adams,  Works,  vols,  iii.,  viii.,  app.;  C.  R.  King,  Life  and  Corre- 
spondence of  Rufus  King  (6  vols..  New  York,  1894-1900),  vol.  11.;  Hamilton. 
Works  (ed.  Lodge),  vol.  viii.  (ed.  Hamilton),  vol.  v.;  "Letters  of  Toussaint 
Louverture  and  of  Edward  Stevens,  1798-1800,"  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1910, 
xvi.  64-101. 


WAR  AND  PEACE  WITH  FRANCE  137 

be  received  with  the  respect  due  to  the  "representative  of  a 
free,  independent,  and  powerful  nation."  This  letter  was 
at  once  seized  upon  by  Adams  as  complying  with  the  condi- 
tions that  he  had  laid  down  in  his  message  of  June  21.  His 
sturdy  and  persistent  Americanism  had  accepted  hostility, 
not  from  preference,  but  as  necessary  to  the  national  honor 
and  prestige.  He  was  anxious  to  return  to  neutrality  and 
diplomatic  isolation,  and  on  February  18,  1799,  he  nomi- 
nated Murray  to  the  Senate,  as  minister  to  France. 

Of  all  personal   decisions   in  American  diplomacy,  this 
was  the  most  important,  unless  it  be  that  Jay  was  justified 

in  his  suspicions  of  Vergennes  in   1782  and     ,. 

^  °  .  Adams  accepts 

so   deflected   the   course   of    history   at   that    the    opportu- 
point.    Of  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  Adams's  °'  ^^^^^ 

course  there  can  be  no  doubt.  He  could,  however,  be 
counted  upon  to  be  as  disagreeable  as  he  was  right.  He 
sent  in  the  nomination  without  consulting  even  his  secre- 
tary of  state.  For  this  unusual  discourtesy  it  is,  how- 
ever, possible  that  there  was  some  excuse.  Had  the  prop- 
osition been  submitted  to  his  cabinet,  dominated  as  it  was 
by  Hamilton,  it  would  undoubtedly  have  been  rejected  and 
further  action  would  have  been  difficult.  Once  Talleyrand's 
offer  became  public,  however,  an  overwhelming  public  opin- 
ion, all  Republicans  and  the  moderate  Federalists,  demanded 
its  acceptance.  Pickering,  Hamilton,  and  their  associates 
were  aghast,  but  did  not  dare  oppose  the  mission.  Yet  they 
succeeded  in  substituting  for  a  minister  a  commission,  com- 
prising, in  addition  to  Murray,  the  chief  justice  Oliver  Ells- 
worth, and  Patrick  Henry,  upon  whose  refusal  Governor 
Davie  of  North  Carolina  was  substituted.  Concerning  the 
instructions  to  this  commission,  Pinckney  wrote  to  King, 
March  12,  1799:  "These  terms  are  what  we  have  a  clear 
right  to,  and  our  interest  and  honor  oblige  us  to  insist  on. 
Yet  I  very  much  doubt  whether  France  will  yield  them.  I 
am  morally  sure  she  will  not;  and  this  has  put  us  all  much 
at  our  ease." 


138  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

In  spite  of  this  confidence,  however,  Adams  had  personally 
to  intervene  to  secure  the  departure  of  the  envoys.  Pickering 
Cabinet  dis-  did  not  choose  to  take  the  course  of  resignation, 
sensions  which  his  difference  of  purpose  and  his  personal 

relations  with  Adams  made  obvious.  He  clung  to  his  position 
until  May  12,  1800,  when  Adams  removed  him.  With  him 
went  also  Hamilton's  influence  over  diplomacy,  which  since 
1789  had  largely  controlled  details.  Yet  none  of  the  great 
decisions  or  policies  of  the  period  had  been  Hamilton's, 
although  in  some  such  cases  his  view  had  coincided  with 
that  followed  and  had  often  helped  to  shape  it.  In  this  final 
clash,  however  brilliant  and  fascinating  were  his  ideas  and 
however  great  his  capacity  to  realize  them,  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  Adams,  bred  of  the  soil,  stood  for  the  desires 
John  Marshall  and  best  interests  of  his  country.  Pickering 
secretary  ^^^  replaced  by  John  Marshall,  whose  term 

was  too  short  and  quiet  to  test  his  diplomatic  abilities. 

In  Paris  the  negotiations,  having  the  good  will  of  Talley- 
rand and  of  the  rising  Bonaparte,  progressed  rapidly.  On 
Conyention  of  September  30,  1800,  a  convention  was  con- 
eluded.  This  agreement  was  generally  satis- 
factory on  points  relating  to  navigation.  It  laid  down  the 
French  view,  which  was  also  the  American,  with  regard 
to  free  ships  making  free  goods,  and  also  with  regard  to  con- 
traband. In  one  point,  however,  we  were  obliged  to  accept 
the  French  view,  as  Jay  had  accepted  the  English, — namely, 
the  provision  that  neutral  goods  on  enemies'  vessels  might 
be  seized.  The  chief  difficulty  lay  in  the  American  demand 
that  indemnity  be  paid  for  illegal  condemnations  by  the 
French,  on  which  were  based  nearly  twenty-three  hundred 
sound  claims,  and  the  French  demand  for  the  execution  of 
the  treaties  of  1778  and  1788.  The  commissioners  finally 
decided  to  leave  these  questions  for  future  negotiation  "at 
a  convenient  time,"  the  treaties  meanwhile  to  be  inoper- 
ative. This  proposal  the  United  States  Senate  amended  by 
the  provision  that  the  convention  should  remain  in  force 


WAR  AND  PEACE  WITH  FRANCE    139 

for  eight  years.  Bonaparte,  by  this  time  Napoleon  and 
consul,  with  his  usual  clear  headedness  accepted  this  amend- 
ment, "provided  that  by  this  retrenchment  the  two  States 
renounce  the  respective  pretensions  which  are  the  object  of 
the  said  article." 

Thus  were  disposed  of  forever  the  treaties  which  consti- 
tuted our  first  "entangling  alliance."  The  advantage  that 
accrued  to  the  nation  is  obvious.  The  justice  v  a  t 
of  thus  exchanging  private  claims  for  national  ''  French  trea- 
gain  has  since  then  many  times  engaged  the 
attention  of  Congress,  but  these  particular  "French  Spolia- 
tion Claims"  became  henceforth  a  domestic  problem. 

The  end  thus  arrived  at  is  to  be  attributed  not  only  to 
Adams's  decision  to  make  peace,  but  to  his  willingness,  pre- 
viously shown,  to  make  war.  The  brief  brush  _  .  .  . 
with  France  had,  moreover,  brought  other  "  French  spoli- 
results.  Fearing  some  such  scheme  as  Miranda 
was  elaborating,  Spain  at  length,  and  reluctantly,  in  March, 
1798,  evacuated  her  posts  between  the  Yazoo  and  the  thirty- 
first  parallel,  and  the  United  States  for  the  first  time  actually 
possessed  in  full  the  boundaries  awarded  her  by  the  peace  of 
1783. 

To  the  achievements  noted  at  the  close  of  Washington's 
administration,  therefore,  the  Adams  administration  added 
that  of  meeting  the  most  acute  crisis  that  had 
yet  confronted  the  nation,  and  of  emerging  eriUst  period" 
from  it  with  the  fundamental  policy  of  neu- 
trality still  intact,  and  relieved  from  treaty  complications. 
It  left  the  affairs  of  the  nation  in  a  condition  superficially 
satisfactory  and  actually  strong. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE 

The  succession  of  Jefferson  to  the  presidency  made  less  im- 
mediate change  in  the  current  of  American  diplomacy  than 
A  change  of  was  expected,  much  less  than  in  domestic  af- 
r6gime  fairs.    The  formal  etiquette  with  which  Wash- 

ington had  surrounded  himself  was  modified  and  its  neg- 
lect caused  some  friction  with  the  foreign  ministers  at  Wash- 
ington; but  the  essential  practice  of  having  all  governmental 
intercourse  with  them  pass  through  the  hands  of  the  secre- 
tary of  state  was  retained.  Jefferson,  moreover,  was  a  gen- 
tleman and  of  cosmopolitan  experience;  and  on  the  whole  the 
administration  was  well-mannered,  Jefferson  had  long  held 
that  ministers  should  not  be  retained  abroad  more  than  six 
or  eight  years,  for  fear  that  they  would  cease  to  be  true  repre- 
sentatives of  Americanism,  a  principle  for  which  there  was 
much  to  be  said  in  those  days,  when  foreign  politics  tended 
so  to  engage  American  sympathies  and  antipathies  and  com- 
munication was  so  scant.  Charles  Pinckney  was  therefore 
nominated  minister  at  Madrid,  "vice  David  Humphreys, 
recalled  on  account  of  long  absence  from  the  United  States," 
and  Robert  Livingston  was  substituted  for  Short,  in  France, 
for  the  same  reason;  but  comparatively  little  more  was  heard 
of  the  practice.^  In  the  interests  of  economy  the  missions  to 
Prussia,  Holland,  and  Portugal  were  discontinued,  a  step 
which  John  Quincy  Adams  considered  a  mistake,  as  it  left 
us  at  the  mercy  of  the  two  great  belligerent  powers  by  putting 
us  out  of  touch  with  our  natural  friends,  the  neutral  maritime 
nations;  but  the  neutral  nations  were  so  weak  that  the  loss 
cannot  be  considered  great.    Most  of  the  men  appointed  by 

*  C.  R.  Fish,  The  Civil  Service  and  the  Patronage  (New  York,  etc.,  1905), 
88. 

140 


THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  141 

Jefferson  were  of  ability  and  training,  though  his  leading 
agent,  Monroe,  seems  to  have  been  framed  for  other  tasks 
than  diplomacy.  Jefferson's  most  important  advisers  were 
James  Madison,  secretary  of  state,  and  Albert  Gallatin, 
secretary  of  the  treasury;  but  his  own  power,  ability,  and 
experience  served  to  give  him  control.^ 

The  first  question  which  confronted  the  administration 
resulted  from  a  tangle  in  that  particular  thread  of  diplomacy 
which  the  Federalists  had  failed  to  unravel.  Mediterranean 
Our  treaties  with  the  Barbary  states  were  not  *^**^® 
highly  regarded  by  those  powers.  The  Dey  of  Algiers  had 
objected  to  making  one.  "If  I  were  to  make  peace  with 
every  body,"  said  he,  "what  should  I  do  with  my  corsairs? 
What  should  I  do  with  my  soldiers.'*  They  would  take  oflF 
my  head  for  the  want  of  other  prizes,  not  being  able  to  live 
upon  their  miserable  allowance."  Nor  did  the  treaty  once 
made  lie  very  heavily  upon  him;  it  seemed  in  fact  to  offer 
him  some  amusement.  In  1800  Captain  Bainbridge,  arriv- 
ing at  Algiers  with  the  usual  tribute,  was  ordered  to  carry 
dispatches  to  Constantinople.  "You  pay  me  tribute,"  ex- 
plained the  Dey,  "by  which  you  become  my  slaves,  and  there- 
fore I  have  a  right  to  order  you  as  I  think  proper."  Jefferson 
had  long  been  familiar  with  the  situation,  and  had  always 
opposed  the  policy  of  tribute.  Now  he  proposed  to  use  force 
to  exact  respect.  Inconsistent  as  this  policy  seems  to  be 
with  his  general  belief  in  the  supremacy  of  reason,  it  was 
probably  based  upon  a  still  more  fundamental  sense  of 
honor,  and  a  somewhat  emotional  reaction  from  so  barbaric 
an  anachronism  as  the  Barbary  coast.  At  any  rate,  he  sent 
a  squadron  to  the  Mediterranean,  where  for  several  years 
American  ships  and  men,  captains  and  consuls,  performed 
their  parts  in  romantic  adventures  which  smack  of  the 

^  Jefferson,  Writings,  ed.  Ford,  10  vols. ;  James  Madison,  Writings,  ed. 
Gaillard  Hunt,  9  vols..  New  York,  1900-1910;  Albert  Gallatin,  Writings,  ed. 
Henry  Adams,  3  vols.,  Philadelphia,  1879;  James  Monroe,  Writings,  edt 
S.  M.  Hamilton,  9  vols.,  New  York,  etc.,  1898-1903, 


142  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Arabian  Nights  rather  than  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Inde- 
pendent of  home  support,  as  only  saiHng-vessels  can  be,  they 
so  successfully  impressed  the  rulers  of  the  several  states  that 
^  by  1805  the  sea  was  comparatively  safe  for  American  traders.^ 

Even  at  JeflPerson's  inauguration  the  great  event  of  his  ad- 
ministration was  taking  shape  behind  carefully  closed  doors. 
There  was  no  novelty  in  what  was  being 
rand  and  Na-  planned;  except  what  lay  in  the  ability  of  the 
^  *°"  actors  and  the  strength  of  the  forces  at  their 

command.  Talleyrand  and  Napoleon  had  definitely  taken 
up  the  plans  for  dominating  the  Mississippi  valley,  and 
through  it  the  western  world,  with  which  so  many  men  had 
been  playing  now  for  fifty  years.  At  their  back  they  had  the 
virility  and  enthusiasm  of  revolutionary  France,  now  disci- 
plined into  military  effectiveness;  they  had  the  defeated  and 
demoralized,  but  still  powerful,  French  navy.^ 

The  first  step  was  to  get  Louisiana,  to  get  it  quickly  and 

undamaged.      Talleyrand   wrote   to   his   representative   at 

-  .  ,  Madrid  in  the  summer  of  1798:  "The  Court  of 
Cession    of  . 

Louisiana  to  Madrid,  ever  blind  to  its  own  interests,  and 
never  docile  to  the  lessons  of  experience,  has 
again  recently  adopted  a  measure  which  cannot  fail  to  pro- 
duce the  worst  effects  upon  its  political  existence  and  on  the 
preservation  of  its  colonies.  The  United  States  has  been  put 
in  possession  of  the  forts  situated  along  the  Mississippi, 
which  the  Spaniards  had  occupied  as  posts  essential  to  arrest 
the  progress  of  the  Americans  in  those  countries."  The 
Americans,  he  said,  must  be  shut  up  within  "the  limits 
which  nature  seems  to  have  traced  for  them," — ^the  same 
limits,  of  course,  which  Rayneval  had  traced  for  d'Aranda 
and  Jay  in  1782.  Spain,  continued  Talleyrand,  should 
"yield  a  small  part  of  her  immense  domain  to  preserve  the 

*  G.  W.  Allen,  Our  Navy  and  the  Barbary  Corsairs,  Boston,  etc.,  1905. 

*  Gustav  Roloff,  Die  Kolonialpolitik  Napoleons  I,  Munich,  etc.,  1899; 
Henry  Adams,  "  Napol6on  ler  et  Saint  Domingue,"  Revue  Historique,  1S84, 
xxiv.  92-130. 


THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  14S 

rest."  Let  Spain  cede  the  Floridas  and  Louisiana  to  France, 
"and  from  that  moment  the  power  of  the  United  States  is 
bounded  by  the  limits  which  it  may  suit  the  interests  and 
tranquilHty  of  France  and  Spain  to  assign  her."  Spain  still 
resisted  the  inevitable,  but  at  length  on  October  1,  1800,  the  / 
treaty  of  San  Ildefonso  was  signed,  "  retroceding "  Louisiana 
to  France  in  exchange  for  some  Italian  provinces.  With  a 
persistence  worthy  of  a  more  hopeful  cause  Spain  still  clung 
to  the  Floridas.^ 

Twenty-four  hours  before,  the  convention  bringing  about 
the  necessary  truce  with  the  United  States  had  been  signed. 
There  remained  necessary,  peace  with  Great  Reduction  of 
Britain  to  free  the  ocean  for  French  operations.  ^"^  Domingo 
On  October  1,  1801,  preliminary  articles  were  signed  with 
that  country,  and  on  March  27,  1802,  the  peace  of  Amiens 
was  concluded.  One  detail  was  still  incomplete,  but  it  seemed 
to  offer  small  difficulty.  The  key  to  the  new  colonial  empire 
of  France  must  be  the  island  of  San  Domingo,  still  dominated 
by  the  negro  Toussaint  L'Ouverture,  whose  loyalty  to  France 
was  insufficient  for  the  purposes  in  view.  In  January,  1802, 
Napoleon's  brother-in-law,  Leclerc,  with  ten  thousand  men 
and  a  large  fleet,  arrived  off  the  island  to  restore  it  to  its 
dependence.  His  military  successes  paved  the  way  for  the 
reestablishment  of  slavery,  and  Toussaint  L'Ouverture  was 
sent  prisoner  to  France.  Napoleon  then  prepared  his  expedi- 
tion to  Louisiana,  and  drew  up  instructions  to  General  Victor, 
who  was  to  command  it. 

The  central  feature  of  this  plan,  the  cession  of  Louisiana, 
was  still  a  secret;  Talleyrand  even  denied  it,  yet  rumor 
spread.     In  April,  1801,  John  Quincy  Adams    -^^ 
had  heard  of  it  at  Berlin.     In  1802  Godoy,    reaches 
"  Prince  of  the  Peace  "  and  the  leading  figure  in 
Spain,  being  pressed  by  France  for  the  Floridas,  seems  to 
have  allowed  a  copy  of  the  treaty  to  fall  into  our  hands.    In 

*  See  F.  L.  Riley,  Spanish  Policy  in  Mississippi  after  the  Treaty  of  San 
Lorenzo,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1897, 175-192. 


144  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

November,  1802,  a  premonition  was  given  of  what  might 
happen  should  the  transfer  take  place.  The  Spanish  intend- 
ant  at  New  Orleans,  at  French  instigation,  as  it  was  believed, 
forbade  the  Americans  the  use  of  that  city  as  a  place  of  de- 
p)osit,  and  refused  to  designate  another.  The  first  action  was 
in  accordance  with  our  treaty  with  Spain,  more  than  the 
three  years  specified  having  elapsed;  but  the  refusal  to  assign 
a  new  port  was  a  violation  of  that  treaty.  It  again  clogged 
the  Mississippi  and  stirred  all  the  forces  of  the  restless  West.^ 

Fortunately,  Jefferson  was  familiar  with  every  factor  of 
this  new  combination  of  long-existing  conditions.  He  flour- 
Jefferson  ished  before  France  the  danger  of  an  alliance 
threatens  between  the  United  States  and  England.  In 
a  letter  intended  to  be  read  by  the  French  leaders  he  wrote: 
"The  day  that  France  takes  possession  of  New  Orleans  fixes 
the  sentence  which  is  to  restrain  her  forever  within  her  low 
water  mark.  It  seals  the  union  of  two  nations,  which  in 
conjunction  can  maintain  exclusive  possession  of  the  ocean. 
From  that  moment  we  must  marry  ourselves  to  the  British 
fleet  and  nation."  He  showed  marked  favoritism  to  the 
British  representative,  Thornton,  and  scared  the  French 
minister,  Pinchon,  into  a  promise  to  endeavor  to  secure  the 
opening  of  the  Mississippi  from  France.  Yrujo,  the  Spanish 
minister,  did  obtain  a  temporary  restoration  of  the  right 
of  deposit  at  New  Orleans. 

For  the  serious  handling  of  the  question  Jefferson  reverted 
to  the  method  thrice  employed  by  the  Federalists,  a  special 
Jefferson's  mission;  and  he  chose  Monroe  for  the  office. 

^^^y  The  latter  was  instructed  to  purchase  New 

Orleans  and  the  Floridas,  being  allowed  to  bid  anything  up 
to  ten  million  dollars.  Congress  had  just  appropriated  two 
million  for  the  purpose.    If  the  purchase  could  not  be  made> 

*  Henry  Adams,  History  of  the  United  States  during  the  Administrations  of 
Jefferson  and  Madison,  9  vols..  New  York,  1889-91  (gives  an  incomparable 
account  of  the  diplomacy  of  the  period).  See  also  F.  A.  Ogg,  The  Opening 
of  the  Mississippi,  New  York,  1904. 


THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  145 

he  was  to  secure  an  acknowledgment  of  the  right  of  deposit. 
If  this  could  not  be  obtained,  he  was  to  await  new  instruc- 
tions. The  cabinet  decided  that  in  such  case  negotiations 
should  be  protracted  until  the  next  inevitable  war  between 
England  and  France  broke  out,  and  then  cooperation  should 
be  arranged  with  England.  In  accordance  with  this  policy 
of  delay  the  departure  of  Monroe  was  not  hurried,  and  he  did 
not  leave  till  March  8,  1803. 

JeflFerson's  policy  was  exactly  adapted  to  the  situation. 
The  only  criticism  is,  that  he  ought  to  have  overcome  his 
scruples  against  a  navy  and  have  strengthened  j^  .  , 
our  position  in  order  that  we  might  be  in  change  of 
readiness  for  the  war  which  was  so  definite  a 
possibility.  The  event,  however,  was  in  no  wise  dependent 
upon  him,  and  had  practically  been  consummated  before 
Monroe  reached  Paris.  Meanwhile  news  had  reached 
France  of  the  death,  from  disease,  of  Leclerc  and  a  large 
part  of  the  French  army  in  San  Domingo  and  of  the  revival 
of  revolt.  Napoleon,  while  steadfast  in  the  pursuit  of  funda- 
mental purposes,  never  shot  a  second  arrow  to  recover  one 
lost  in  a  side  issue.  He  was  already  interesting  himself  in 
the  prospect  of  a  new  European  war.  On  March  12,  1803, 
he  practically  broke  with  England.  Under  such  circum- 
stances he  was  not  so  foolish  as  to  squander  another  army  on 
America.    The  colonial  empire  was  dropped. 

Napoleon  was  too  able  an  economist  to  keep  intact  ma- 
chinery for  which  he  now  had  no  use:  he  would  scrap  it  for 
what  it  would  bring.  On  April  10  he  spoke  of  ^  . 
Louisiana  to  Barbe  Marbois,  who,  familiar  scraps  Louis- 
with  American  affairs  from  our  own  Revolu- 
tion, was  negotiating  with  Livingston.  England,  he  said, 
would  seize  it  at  the  first  moment  of  war,  and  added:  "I 
think  of  ceding  it  to  the  United  States.  I  can  hardly  say 
that  I  cede  it  to  them,  for  it  is  not  yet  in  our  possession. 
If,  however,  I  leave  the  least  time  to  our  enemies,  I  shall 
only  transmit  an  empty  title  to  those  republicans  whose 


146  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

friendship  I  seek.  .  .  .  Irresolution  and  deliberation  are 
no  longer  in  reason;  I  renounce  Louisiana.  It  is  not  only 
New  Orleans  that  I  cede,  it  is  the  whole  colony,  without 
reserve.  I  know  the  price  of  what  I  abandon."  Marbois  was 
to  get  at  least  fifty  million  francs  for  the  cession. 

On  April  11  this  proix)sal  was  broached  to  Livingston,  and 
the  next  day  Monroe  arrived.    Negotiations  proceeded  with 
.   .  the  rapidity  customary  when  Napoleon  was  in 

command,  and  on  April  30  the  treaty  was  signed. 
In  return  for  the  cession  we  agreed  to  pay  sixty  million  francs, 
and  we  assumed  the  payment  to  our  own  citizens  of  claims 
against  France  to  the  extent  of  not  over  twenty  million  francs. 

That  Napoleon  made  a  good  bargain  must  be  conceded. 
He  received  more  money  than  the  minimum  he  had  set; 
Napoleon's  he  won,  too,  some  of  that  feeling  of  friendship 

bargain  which  he  had  mentioned ;  and  he  kept  Louisiana 

out  of  the  hands  of  England.  Moreover,  there  seems  to  be 
no  reason  to  believe  that  he  had  any  idea  that  he  was  re- 
nouncing Louisiana.  Perhaps  his  mind  saw  things  too 
simply:  his  struggle  was  with  England;  once  England  was 
downed,  the  world  was  his  to  command.  The  very  difficulty 
in  disposing  of  Louisiana  which  even  he  had  with  his  ad- 
visers and  with  public  opinion  illustrates  the  hold  which 
the  vision  of  America  had  on  the  French  mind.  Actually 
with  the  delivery  of  New  Orleans  to  the  United  States,  De-\ 
cember  20,  1803,  and  the  independence  of  Hayti,  or  western) 
San  Domingo,  proclaimed  November  29  of  the  same  year,\ 
France  was  eliminated  as  a  territorial  factor  in  our  history;  j 
but  although  the  crisis  had  passed,  her  policies  and  ambi-j 
tions  continued  to  be  of  moment. 

In  America  the  news  of  the  treaty  was  confounding.  It 
was  more  than  had  been  hoped  for;  it  was  not  exactly  what 
Problem  of  the  was  desired.  It  raised  a  score  of  opportunities 
treaty  £qj.  dispute  and  distraction.    In  the  first  place, 

there  was  no  specific  power  to  annex  territory  granted  in  the 
^constitution,  although  it  was  easily  inferred  from  the  power 


THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  147 

to  make  treaties.    More  seriously  discussed  was  the  clause     . 
of  the  treaty  providing  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  ceded 
territory  should  be  "incorporated  in  the  Union."    The  Fed- 
eralists were  willing  to  annex  territories  to  govern,  but  not 
to  give  them  a  share  in  the  government.    By  the  acceptance 
of  the  treaty,  however,  this  question  was  at  least  quieted. 
The  treaty  also  provided  that  France  and  Spain  be  exempted^ 
from  discriminating  duties  in  the  ports  of  Louisiana  for; 
twelve  years,  and  that  France  remain  forever  after  that  on 
the  basis  of  the  most  favored  nation.     The  first  of  these , 
provisions  was  of  doubtful  constitutionality,  while  the  second  i 
was  long  a  source  of  dispute  with  France. 

These  were  problems  that  could  be  settled  at  leisure,  and 
they  were  but  pin-pricks  compared  with  those  which  the 
purchase  solved.    The  navigation  of  the  Mis-    Results  of  the 
sissippi   was   now   completely   freed,   and   its    *^«**y 
future  was  not  dependent  upon  the  continued  favor  of  any  , 
foreign  nation.    All  the  interests  which  had  drawn  the  fron-  | 
tiersmen   toward   Spain   or   Great   Britain,   dividing   their  > 
allegiance,  now  were  added  ties  to  strengthen  their  natural  ; 
bonds  of  race  and  sympathy  with  the  American  government.  ; 
The  completeness  of  the  change  was  shown  by  the  utter  i 
collapse  of  Burr's  conspiracy  in  1806. 

What  his  plans  were  is  not  entirely  clear;  probably  he 
himself  changed  them  so  often  that  they  lost  their  definite- 
ness.  At  any  rate,  he  played  on  all  the  cus-  Burr's  con- 
tomary  strings  of  western  adventure.  His  ^piracy 
objective  was  Spanish  America.  England's  cooperation  he 
sought,  offering  through  the  British  minister.  Merry,  in 
1804  "to  effect  a  separation  of  the  western  part  of  the  United 
States  from  that  which  lies  between  the  Atlantic  and  the 
mountains,  in  its  whole  extent."  Closing  his  vice-presidency, 
he  journeyed  through  the  West  and  collected  material  for 
an  expedition;  he  was  also  in  touch  with  Wilkinson,  now  in 
command  of  the  western  department.  The  latter,  however, 
was  more  weatherwise  than  Burr,  and,  bribed  by  Spain,  he 


148  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

betrayed  Burr,  and  the  whole  bubble  burst.  In  fact,  It 
never  had  any  semblance  of  real  strength,  for  there  was 
no  motive  for  disloyalty,  or  even  lack  of  loyalty,  in  the  West. 
The  government  of  the  United  States  had  obtained  for  it 
its  most  conspicuous  desire.^ 

So  much  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  had  accomplished, 
while  it  was  not  yet  clear  just  what  Louisiana  was.  To 
Western  limits  the  westward  it  had  never  had  a  boundary; 
of  Louisiana  even  such  boundary  agreements  as  had  once 
existed  had  been  absorbed  by  the  Spanish  annexation  of 
1763,  and  were  lost  to  memory.  Napoleon  had  ordered 
Victor  to  occupy  to  the  Rio  Grande,  and  this  fact  was 
known  to  the  American  government.  Jefferson's  imagina- 
tion, moreover,  stretched  to  the  uttermost  limits  of  the  op- 
I>ortunIty.  Even  before  he  had  acquired  Louisiana  he  had 
planned  its  exploration,  and  in  1804  started  the  Lewis  and 
Clark  expedition  westward,  up  the  Missouri,  across  the 
mountains,  and  beyond  any  conceivable  limits  of  the  pur- 
chase, to  the  Pacific.  In  1805  the  expedition  descended 
the  Columbia  and  thus  added  a  link  to  the  chain  of  our 
claims  to  the  Oregon  country,  the  first  of  which  had  been 
forged  when  Captain  Gray  in  1792  had  entered  the  mouth 
of  that  river.  The  record  of  the  expedition,  put  in  popular 
form  by  Nicholas  Biddle  In  1814,  engaged  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  far-seeing  In  dreams  which  made  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana  seem  but  a  step  In  our  progress.  In  1806  and  1807 
Captain  Zebulon  Pike  was  sent  into  the  region  south  of  the 
Missouri,  where  he  felt  the  Spaniards,  and  gained  an  Idea 
of  the  actual  limits  of  what  we  had  acquired.^ 

To  the  eastward  the  situation  was  more  definite.  In  fact 
it  was  definite.  Our  treaty  of  cession  recited  as  its  definition 
of  Louisiana  the  description  given  in  the  treaty  of  San 

^  W.  F.  McCaleb,  The  Aaron  Burr  Conspiracy,  New  York,  1903. 

*  Henry  Gannett,  Boundaries  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  several  States 
and  Territories.  2d  edition,  1900  (U.  S.  Geological  Survey,  Bulletin,  No.  171); 
H.  E.  Chambers,  West  Florida,  Baltimore,  1898. 


THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  I4ff 

Bdefonso  between  France  and  Spain:  "The  Colony  or  Prov- 
ince of  Louisiana  with  the  same  extent  that  it  now  has  in  the 
hands  of  Spain,  and  that  it  had  when  France  „ 
possessed  it,  and  such  as  it  should  be  after  boundary  of 
the  treaties  subsequently  entered  into  between 
Spain  and  other  states."  This  definition  was  obviously 
self-contradictory.  Louisiana,  when  France  possessed  it, 
stretched  eastward  to  the  Perdido  river  and  included 
Mobile;  the  province  as  it  was  in  the  hands  of  Spain  ex- 
tended only  to  the  Iberville.  The  meaning,  however,  was 
clear  enough.  The  treaty  was  entitled  one  of  "retrocession." 
Spain  could  retrocede  to  France  only  what  she  had  received 
from  France;  that  is  the  region  from  the  Iberville  westward 
given  her  in  1763.  Although  in  1800  she  held  that  between 
the  Iberville  and  the  Perdido,  it  was  by  cession  from  England 
in  1783,  and  was  separately  organized  as  part  of  the  province 
of  West  Florida.  This  was  well  understood  by  the  French. 
Berthier  wrote,  "After  the  general  peace,  the  King  might 
decide  to  cede  a  part  of  the  Floridas  between  the  Mississippi 
and  the  Mobile,  on  the  special  demand  which  the  First 
Consul  might  make  of  it."  Talleyrand  wrote  to  Napoleon, 
November  18,  1802,  "West  Florida  suffices  for  the  desired 
enlargement  of  Louisiana,  it  completes  the  retrocession  of 
the  French  Colony,  such  as  it  was  given  to  Spain."  The 
instructions  to  General  Victor  ordered  him  to  take  posses- 
sion only  to  the  Iberville. 

Madison,  Livingston,  and  Monroe,  however,  seized  upon  . 
the  ambiguity.  In  a  small  way  each  of  the  rivers  flowing 
into  the  gulf  presented  the  same  problem  as  United  States 
the  Mississippi.  Population  was  occupying  <^*""* 
their  upper  banks,  and  desired  to  use  them  as  outlets  for 
their  products.  So  far  as  immediate  utility  was  concerned, 
the  securing  of  the  territory  beyond  the  Mississippi,  which 
no  one  had  thought  of  buying,  was  not  a  compensation  for 
the  gulf  fringe  of  West  Florida,  which  Livingston  and  Monroe 
had  been  instructed  to  purchase.    Our  relations  with  Spain, 


150  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

moreover,  were  sure  to  be  unpleasant  whether  we  pressed 
this  additional  claim  or  not,  for  Napoleon  had  promised 
Spain  never  to  give  Louisiana  to  a  foreign  power.  This 
promise,  to  be  sure,  was  not  incorporated  in  the  treaty  of 
San  Udefonso  and  did  not  impair  our  title,  but  it  afforded 
a  starting-point  of  disagreement.  Under  these  circumstances 
the  government  decided  that  we  had  actually  purchased  the 
territory  to  the  Perdido,  the  wish  having  a  very  close  rela- 
tion to  the  thought. 

The  dispute,  of  course,  was  with  Spain,  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact  Napoleon  controlled  Spain.  Except  for  a  brief  and  un- 
Napoleon's  successful  mission  of  Monroe  to  Madrid,  the 

game  American  government  recognized  the  logic  of 

the  situation,  and  directed  its  efforts  to  the  fountain  head 
at  Paris.  Though  claiming  title,  it  was  nevertheless  willing 
to  pay  for  the  recognition  of  it,  and  to  purchase  other  por- 
tions of  the  dereUct  Spanish  empire.  Napoleon  might  have 
settled  the  question  as  to  the  boundary  by  opening  his  records. 
He  preferred,  however,  mystery  and  confusion.  Talleyrand 
said  to  Livingston,  "You  have  made  a  noble  bargain  and  I 
suppose  you  will  make  the  most  of  it."  From  1804  to  1812, 
indeed,  the  Florida  question  became  a  barometer  of  European 
conditions.  When  pressure  was  heavy,  Napoleon  was  ready 
to  treat  for  a  money  consideration:  December  24,  1804, 
Armstrong  wrote  to  Madison,  "This  country  has  deter- 
mined to  convert  the  negotiation  into  a  job,  and  to  draw  from 
it  advantages  merely  pecuniary  to  herself."  When  pressure 
was  light.  Napoleon  was  shocked  at  the  assumption  that  he 
might  sell  property  belonging  to  his  ally.  When  by  the  ac- 
cession of  his  brother  Joseph  to  the  throne  of  Spain  the  pos- 
sessions of  that  crown  became  part  of  the  estate  of  the 
house  of  Bonaparte,  he  warned  the  United  States  against 
interference. 

On  the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  Napoleon  used  the 
Florida  question  as  a  bait  to  keep  the  United  States  in 
the  vicinity  of  his  hook,  and  that  he  was  not  without  some 


THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE  151 

success.  In  the  end,  however,  fate  and  Madison  got  the 
better  of  him.  That  portion  of  the  disputed  region  on  the 
east  bank  of  the  Mississippi  between  the  thirty-  o  ti  f 
first  parallel  and  the  Iberville  was  being  oc-  (disputed  terri- 
cupied  by  American  settlers,  regardless  of  its 
international  status.  In  September,  1810,  these  people 
proclaimed  their  independence  and  asked  for  annexation  to 
the  United  States.  October  27,  1810,  Madison,  acting  on 
the  supposition  that  it  was  already  United  States  territory, 
ordered  its  occupation,  whereupon  Claiborne,  governor  of 
Orleans  territory,  took  possession  to  the  Pearl  river,  the 
present  boundary  between  the  states  of  Louisiana  and  Mis- 
sissippi. In  1813  General  Wilkinson  occupied  Mobile  and 
the  region  eastward  to  the  Perdido.  From  that  time  the 
United  States  remained  in  possession  of.  its  utmost  claims 
as  to  the  eastern  boundary  of  Louisiana,  but  its  title  to  that 
part  of  it  between  the  Iberville  and  the  Perdido  had  yet 
to  be  determined. 


1/ 


V 


CHAPTER   XIII 

THE  EMBARGO 

The  war  renewed  between  France  and  England  in  1803, 
the  shadow  of  which  brought  us  Louisiana,  had  many  other 
Change  of  con-  things  in  store  for  us,  both  pleasant  and  un- 
ditions  pleasant.    The  course  of  the  struggle  from  1803  \ 

to  1815  parallels  in  many  ways  that  between  1793  and  1802.  / 
Some  of  the  factors,  however,  had  changed.  Our  own  West 
had  become  strong  enough  to  master  its  own  destiny;  it  was 
now  so  firmly  attached  to  the  government  that  it  ceased 
for  the  present  to  enter  into  the  plans  of  European  states. 
The  policy  of  our  government  continued  to  be  that  of  neu- 
trality, but  its  sympathies  were  now  French  instead  of  Eng- 
lish. Its  methods  of  preserving  neutrality,  moreover,  were 
so  decidedly  different  as  to  change  the  whole  character  of 
our  diplomacy.  In  the  case  of  both  France  and  England, 
the  preceding  war  had  witnessed  experiments;  the  new  one 
found  determined  policies.  The  defeat  of  Napoleon's  navies 
at  Trafalgar  in  1805  gave  England  a  more  complete  control 
of  the  sea  than  she  had  ever  had  before,  while  his  victories 
by  land  isolated  her  from  the  continent  in  a  manner  new  and 
menacing. 

With  the  diplomatic  elimination  of  the  W^est,  American 
commerce  with  the  belligerents  became  the  focus  of  attention. 
American  com-  Its  steady-going  element  consisted  in  the  ex- 
'^^^^^  change   of   our   raw   products   for   England's 

manufactures.  Carried  on  largely  in  our  own  vessels,  it  was 
safe,  fairly  unvarying  in  quantity,  and  brought  in  reasonable 
profits  to  respectable  established  firms.  Less  important  was 
that  carried  on  with  the  British  colonies  under  temporary 
suspensions  of  the  navigation  laws  and  by  special  licences. 

152 


THE  EMBARGO  153 

Part  of  this  trade,  it  is  true,  was  practically  regular  and  suited 
to  the  conservative  temperament.  As  however,  the  permis- 
sions were  based  on  the  needs  of  the  moment,  there  was  a  fluc- 
tuating margin,  which  gave  opportunity  to  those  with  a  keen 
scent  for  special  venture  and  quick  turnovers.  News  of 
crops  and  markets  was  eagerly  read,  and  the  British  govern- 
ment was  besieged  with  special  applications.  In  1809  it 
refused  a  licence  to  export  ice  and  snow  from  the  United 
States  to  the  West  Indies;  those  were  commodities  sufliciently 
abundant  in  the  loyal  colony  of  Canada. 

More  adventurous,  and  after  1805  partaking  somewhat  of 
the  nature  of  speculation,  was  the  continued  attempt  to 
supply  France  with  her  breakfast  of  West  American  car- 
Indian  coffee,  sugar,  and  cocoa.  Hayti  was  'y"i8-trade 
now  practically  free,  but  its  market  continued  to  be  France; 
and  the  other  islands  furnished  their  quota.  In  return  the 
islands  wanted  provisions,  which  we  ourselves  could  furnish, 
and  manufactured  goods,  which  should  have  come  from 
France  but  which  we  often  secured  for  them  from  England. 
This  trade  demanded  high  freight  rates  and  protected  itself 
by  insurance.  It  produced  both  fortunes  and  bankruptcies. 
By  1805  it  overshadowed  the  safer  trade  with  England. 
Between  1803  and  1806  our  exports  of  domestic  goods  sank 
from  $42,206,000  to  $41,253,000;  those  of  foreign  goods  rose 
from  $13,594,000  to  $60,283,000.^ 

Still  choicer  titbits  invited  those  who  frankly  disregarded 
business  principles  and  resorted  to  speculation  pure  and  sim- 
ple. To  add  to  their  lading  of  French  colonial  Speculative 
products  some  of  the  manufactures  of  England  '*"*'"" 
so  eagerly  desired  and  so  highly  priced  on  the  continent,  and, 
protected  by  licences  from  England  and  France,  to  carry  on 
trade  between  the  enemies,  or  to  carry  it  on  unprotected, 
induced  many  to  risk  ships  and  liberty.    To  disregard  the 

*  Mathew  Carey,  The  Olive  Branch,  Philadelphia,  1815  (contains  many 
original  documents  and  statistics);  British  and  Foreign  State  Papera  (an 
annual  series). 


154  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

restrictive  laws  framed  with  such  rapidity  by  the  United 
States  government,  to  gamble  on  a  change  of  regulation 
before  reaching  port  or  on  the  possibility  of  bribing  officials, 
to  coast  from  one  French  port  to  another,  to  rove  at  will 
over  the  ocean  using  whatever  flag  and  papers  were  con- 
venient at  the  moment,  involved  serious  risks,  but  not  suf- 
ficient danger  to  exclude  such  practices.  Everywhere  the 
Americans  found  and  made  business.  Gallatin  estimated 
that  our  merchant  marine  grew  seventy  thousand  tons  a 
year  and  called  for  over  four  thousand  additional  men;  and 
Phineas  Bond  had  already  in  1796  referred  to  the  enter- 
prising spirit  of  so  many  of  our  traders  in  "forcing  the  pre- 
scribed channels  of  commerce."  To  shepherd  such  a  reckless 
crew  was  no  easy  task  for  an  administration  so  firmly  based 
on  the  idea  of  self-government,  but  at  heart  so  paternalistic, 
as  was  that  of  Jefferson. 

The  attitude  of  Great  Britain  toward  this  trade  was  not 
a  simple  one.     Underlying  all  her  actions  was  a  sensitive 
Great  Britam's     national  jealousy  at  the  growth  of  a  rival  mer-  / 
^^*^^  chant  marine,  and  a  constant  purpose  to  give 

every  possible  advantage  to  her  own.  She  did  not  wish  to 
cut  off  all  trade  with  the  enemy;  she  was  especially  anxious 
to  sell  all  the  manufactured  goods  possible.  She  tried,  there- 
fore, to  confine  trade  to  channels  favorable  to  herself,  and 
to  cause  it  to  pass  under  her  watchful  eye.  Agricultural 
conditions  had  so  readjusted  themselves  on  the  continent 
that  there  was  less  chance  of  starving  France  into  submis- 
sion; hence  the  question  of  regarding  provisions  as  contra- 
band of  war  was  not  so  important  as  in  the  previous  war. 
In  the  execution  of  her  policy  she  showed  an  arrogance  and 
a  carelessness  of  others  that  often  caused  her  to  persist  in  ^ 
practices  not  essential  to  her  general  policy  and  yet  provoca- 
tive of  retaliation.  England's  policy  cannot  be  considered 
apart  from  her  bad  manners. 

The  policy  of  Napoleon  toward  neutral  trade  was  based 
on  the  ideas  of  the  Directory.    It  was  subsidiary  to  his  cen- 


THE  EMBARGO  155 

tral  idea  of  destroying  England  by  destroying  her  commerce. 
He  would  close  all  the  ports  of  the  world  to  British  trade, 
he  would  cause  her  ships  to  be  idle  and  her  Napoleon's 
factories  to  be  glutted  with  unsalable  goods;  ^^'^^ 
then  bankruptcy  and  submission  would  be  inevitable.  This 
was  the  fundamental  purpose  which  underlay  his  entire 
foreign  policy  from  1805,  and  which  resulted  in  the  climatic 
tragedy  of  the  Russian  invasion.  While  he  undoubtedly 
miscalculated  the  tenacity  of  the  British  will,  and  thought 
that  less  pressure  would  be  necessary  to  bring  a  nation  of 
shopkeepers  to  terms  than  proved  to  be  the  case,  his  plan  was 
not  fantastic  and  he  may  have  come  within  sight  of  success. 
He  himself,  when  at  Elba,  reviewing  and  magnifying,  like 
so  many  lesser  of  the  fallen,  the  turns  of  fortune  against 
him,  said  that  he  would  have  succeeded  had  not  the  Spanish 
revolt  opened  up  to  England,  after  1808,  the  trade  of  Spanish 
America  which  she  had  so  long  desired  and  which  gave  a 
new  market  for  her  surplus  products.^  It  should  not  be  held 
against  him  as  an  inconsistency,  or  as  an  evidence  of  the  im- 
possibility of  his  plan,  that  his  armies  were  often  clothed  in 
British  goods.  He  realized  the  temporary  necessity,  but 
under  the  protection  of  his  system  he  expected  to  develop 
self-suflficing  industry  on  the  continent.  Indeed,  one  of  the 
most  permanent  results  of  his  rule  has  been  found  to  be  pre- 
cisely this  development.  With  such  a  policy  Napoleon  knew 
no  neutrals:  trade  with  his  enemy  was  vital  assistance  to 
his  enemy.  This  policy,  however,  was  diplomatically  veiled 
so  as  to  enable  him  to  employ  neutral  vessels  for  his  own  pur- 
poses. The  details  of  his  regulations  therefore  change  from 
time  to  time.  Without  a  navy,  he  was  driven  to  such  meas- 
ures as  could  be  enforced  in  his  own  ports. 

In  the  United  States  the  policy  formulated  to  defend  our 
trade  was  emphatically  Jefferson's,  although  it  so  closely 
resembled  Napoleon's  that  it  was  attributed  to  French  in- 

^  T.  B.  Richards,  "An  Unpublished  Talk  with  Napoleon,"  Earper't  Maga- 
Tine,  January  1911,  pp.  165-175. 


156  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

fluence.  If  there  was  any  connection,  however,  it  was  JeflFer- 
son  who  originated  the  plan.  Even  as  a  youth  he  had 
Jefiferson's  been  much  impressed  with  the  rapidity  with 

P**^*^^  which  the  colonial  non-importation  agreements 

had  brought  England  to  terms,  and  he  believed  that  similar 
pressure  would  be  as  effective  between  nations  as  it  had 
proved  between  colony  and  mother  country.  He  may  well 
have  discussed  the  matter  with  the  French  revolutionary 
leaders  during  his  residence  in  France.  Certainly  on  his  re- 
turn he  urged  it  upon  Congress  in  his  report  of  1793.  Now 
as  president  he  intended  to  use  it  as  the  bulwark  of  defence 
for  our  commerce  and  our  merchant  marine. 

The  first  serious  diflBculty  arose  with  England  over  the 
trade  of  the  French  West  Indies.     As  a  result  of  decisions 

_  ,  .  .  of  Sir  William  Scott  in  the  cases  of  the  Emanuel 
England    and 

the  French  m  1799  and  the  Polly  m  1800,  that  trade  had 
been  allowed  to  the  Americans  if  carried  on 
from  the  colonies  to  the  United  States  and  from  the  United 
States  to  France.  July  23,  1805,  in  the  case  of  the  Essex, 
Scott  practically  reversed  himself,  declaring  that  on  an  inno- 
cent voyage  between  the  United  States  and  Europe  th6 
neutral  owner  of  such  colonial  goods  must  be  able  to  prove 
by  something  more  than  evidence  of  a  custom-house  entry 
that  his  original  intention  had  been  to  terminate  his  venture 
in  an  American  port.  Upon  this  theory  several  American 
vessels  were  condemned,  and  the  trade,  while  not  prohibited, 
was  rendered  uncertain  and  difficult;  for  it  was,  of  course, 
almost  never  the  intention  of  the  American  owner  to  ter- 
minate his  venture  in  the  United  States,  and  he  was  actually 
in  most  cases  owner  merely  in  form  and  not  in  substance, 
a  situation  that  might  be  revealed  by  the  British  courts 
which  it  was  framed  to  deceive.  This  trade,  as  well  as  other 
branches  of  traffic,  was  soon  additionally  hampered  by  a 
British  order  in  council  of  May  16,  1806,  blockading  the  coast 
from  Havre  to  Ostend  and  prohibiting  the  coast  trade  to 
neutrals  from  Havre  to  the  Elbe. 


THE  EMBARGO  157 

Another  source  of  difficulty  arose  from  the  discovery  by 

the  British  that  this  blockade  could  be  more  effectively 

and  conveniently  enforced  off  the  American    -,,    .    . 

1      T-i         1  T^  •     1  Blockade   of 

than  the  French  coast.    For  years,  it  became    American 

customary  for  every  American  vessel  leaving 
New  York,  the  Chesapeake,  and  other  harbors  to  heave  to, 
and  submit  to  a  vigorous  search.  If  the  result  created  sus- 
picion, the  vessel  was  put  in  charge  of  a  British  officer  and 
sent  to  Halifax  for  adjudication  by  the  admiralty  court 
there.  In  1806,  in  the  execution  of  this  police  duty,  the 
British  accidentally  shot  and  killed  an  American  sea-captain. 

Usually  the  vessel  was  allowed  to  proceed,  but  in  a 
large  number  of  cases  with  the  loss  of  members  of  its 
crew.  The  impressment  problem  gave  in- 
creasing trouble.  Of  the  four  thousand  new 
seamen  demanded  each  year  by  the  merchant  marine 
twenty-five  hundred,  it  was  reckoned,  were  British  born, 
most  of  them  sailors  who  preferred  the  better  wages, 
food,  and  treatment  to  be  found  on  American  vessels. 
Such  transfer  of  allegiance  in  the  heat  of  the  national 
hfe-and-death  struggle  was  regarded  by  British  public  opin- 
ion as  no  less  than  desertion;  hence  the  navy  vigorously 
resorted  to  impressment  to  redress  the  balance.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  there  were  a  thousand  cases  annually. 

It  was  in  this  state  of  affairs  that  the  clauses  of  the  Jay 
treaty  relating  to  neutral  rights  expired.     Jefferson  pre- 
pared to  substitute  for  them  a  new  and  better    ,,  , 
'^                                                                                                Monroe    and 

treaty.  To  brmg  pressure  to  bear  upon  Eng-  Pinkney  in 
land,  he  had  Congress  pass  a  non-importation 
act,  prohibiting  the  entry  of  certain  British  goods  which 
he  esteemed  not  necessary  to  our  happiness.  Its  operation 
was  not  to  be  immediate,  but  it  was  to  hang  like  a  sword  of 
Damocles  over  the  negotiations.  Many  doubted  its  effi- 
ciency. John  Randolph  derided  it  as  "a  milk  and  water 
bill,  a  dose  of  chicken  broth  to  be  taken  nine  months  hence." 
To  bring  it  to  the  attention  of  England,  Jefferson  appointed 


158  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

a  commission  consisting  of  Monroe,  who  had  succeeded  King 
as  minister,  and  William  Pinkney.  Their  instructions, 
drawn  up  by  Madison,  insisted  upon  three  ultimata,— 
namely,  an  agreement  regarding  impressments,  indemnity 
for  American  vessels  and  cargoes  condemned,  as  we  held, 
unjustly,  and  a  satisfactory  provision  regarding  the  trade  of 
the  French  West  Indies.  "We  begin  to  broach  the  idea 
that  we  consider  the  whole  Gulf  stream  as  our  waters,"  said 
Madison,  a  remark  which  reminds  one  of  Fauchet's  comment 
in  1795,  that  America  "puffs  itself  up  with  its  position  and 
the  future  power  to  which  it  can  pretend." 

Happy  in  beginning  their  negotiations  under  the  auspices 
of  Charles  James  Fox,  always  the  friend  of  America  and  now 
foreign  minister,  they  found  their  hopes  soon  dashed  by  his 
death.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  this  made  little  differ- 
ence, for  on  the  subjects  upon  which  they  desired  acquies- 
cence no  British  minister  would  have  dared  offer  even  com- 
promise. Unable  to  obtain  a  single  important  concession 
they  nevertheless  signed  a  treaty  on  December  31,  1806, 
which  was  as  unsatisfactory  as  that  of  Jay  on  matters  of 
international  law,  besides  affording  none  of  the  compensa- 
tions which  that  treaty  offered,  for  there  were  no  outstanding 
matters  at  issue  of  a  character  not  thought  to  be  necessary 
to  England's  national  existence.  The  treaty  was  not  con- 
summated; Jefferson  never  presented  it  to  the  Senate. 

With  the  failure  of  the  treaty,  the  lightning  began  to 
play  in  dead  earnest.  In  November,  1806,  Napoleon  had 
Napoleon's  de-  issued  his  Berlin  decree  declaring  the  British 
"**  isles  blockaded,  with  the  result,  as  concerned 

neutrals,  that  no  vessel  coming  from  England  or  her  colonies 
should  after  a  nine  months'  notice  be  admitted  into  any 
French  port.  This  was  followed  by  the  Milan  decree  of 
December  17^  1807,  which  declared  that  any  vessel  submit- 
ting to  search,  by  a  British  ship,  paying  duty  to  the  British 
government,  or  coming  from  or  destined  for  a  British  port 
should  be  good  prize. 


THE  EMBARGO  159 

Meantime  an  English  order  in  council  of  January  7,  1807, 
known  as  Lord  Howick's  order,  forbade  neutral  vessels 
to  engage  in  the  French  coasting  trade,  even  British  orders 
between  unblockaded  ports.  The  British  at-  ^^co*^*^ 
titude  is  indicated  in  a  dispatch  from  Lord  Howick  to 
Erskine,  the  British  minister  to  the  United  States:  "His 
Majesty,  with  that  forbearance  and  moderation  which  has 
at  all  times  distinguished  his  conduct,  has  determined  for  the 
present  to  confine  himself  to  the  exercise  of  the  powers  given 
him  by  his  decided  naval  superiority  in  such  manner  only 
as  is  authorized  by  the  acknowledged  principles  of  the  law 
of  nations."  On  November  11,  1807,  an  order  known  as 
Spencer  Perceval's  established  a  "paper"  blockade  of  the 
whole  European  coast  from  Trieste  to  Copenhagen.  No 
neutral  vessel  could  enter  any  port  from  which  British  ves- 
sels were  excluded,  unless  clearing  from  a  British  port  and 
under  British  regulations,  including  the  payment  of  duties, 
a  condition  which  ipso  facto  rendered  it  liable  to  seizure  by 
France. 

While  this  clash  of  decrees  and  orders  sounded  but  dimly 
in  the  ears  of  most  Americans,  uncertain  as  yet  as  to  what 
they  portended,  an  episode  on  the  coast  of    _.     .         . 
America  roused  the  nation,  so  observers  said,    Chesapeake 
more  than  anything  had  done  since  Lexington. 
The  Chesapeake,  an  American  frigate  fitting  for  the  Mediter- 
ranean, enrolled  a  number  of  men  whom  the  British  ad- 
miral off  the  coast  claimed  as  deserters.    Commodore  Barron 
satisfied  himself  that  such  was  not  the  case,  and  on  June  22, 
1807,  set  sail.    The  Chesapeake  was  followed  by  the  Leopard, 
one  of  the  vessels  enforcing  the  blockade  of  Europe  off  Chesa- 
peake Bay,  and  was  ordered  to  heave  to.    After  a  formal 
resistance,  she  lowered  her  flag,  officers  from  the  Leopard 
took  off  the  men  in  question,  and  left  the  Chesapeake,  which 
promptly  returned  to  Norfolk. 

This  extension  of  the  practice  of  impressment  to  national 
naval  vessels  found  no  support  even  in  the  elastic  interna- 


160  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tional  law  of  the  day.  The  British  government  did  not  at- 
tempt to  defend  it,  but  it  handled  the  matter  with  so  un- 
popular indig-  pardonable  a  stupidity  that  the  episode  re- 
nation  mained  an  open  sore  for  four  years.    Jefferson 

expressed  his  indignation  in  a  proclamation  of  July  2,  which 
forbade  the  use  of  American  harbors  to  British  war  vessels, 
and  on  July  30  he  called  a  special  session  of  Congress. 

The  measure  that  he  recommended  was  not  war,  but  it  no 
less  reflected  the  seriousness  of  his  view  of  the  situation.    War 

^        ,  he  believed  a  barbarism;  for  it  he  would  substi- 

The  embargo  .  .       .  *     i     i    »•         i    , 

tute  the  appeal  to  interest.    As  he  believed  that 

under  normal  conditions  commercial  discrimination  was  an  ef- 
fective instrument,  so  he  believed  that  under  abnormal  condi- 
tions a  total  cessation  of  trade  would  exert  all  the  compulsive 
efforts  of  war  without  its  horrors.  In  other  words, *he  would 
have  us  withdraw  from  the  commerce  of  the  world,  in  the 
belief  that  it  would  not  be  long  before  the  nations  would  be 
clamoring  for  us  to  reopen  our  ports  on  our  own  terms.  As 
a  result  of  his  recommendation,  on  December  21,  1807,  a 
general  and  indefinite  embargo  was  established.  No  vessel 
was  to  leave  port,  except  (1)  foreign  vessels  in  ballast,  or 
with  such  cargo  as  they  had  laded  before  the  passage  of  the 
act,  and  (2)  vessels  engaged  in  the  coasting  trade.  This 
embargo  seemed  to  resemble  that  established  at  the  time  of 
Jay's  mission  to  England;  but  it  is  to  be  differentiated  from 
that  because  it  was  regarded  by  those  who  adopted  it,  not 
as  a  temporary  expedient  providing  for  the  safety  of  our 
shipping,  but  as  a  weapon  to  conquer  favorable  terms  from 
our  adversaries. 

So  it  happened  that,  before  our  merchants  could  be  sure 
what  effect  the  rival  orders  and  decrees  might  have  upon 
Eff  t  f  th  their  business, — although  they  felt  certain  that 
embargo  on  there  would  be  loopholes  in  both  the  French 
and  English  systems, — their  own  government 
laid  a  restraining  hand  on  all  their  ventures.  It  was  the 
steady-going  merchants  who  suffered  most,  those  who  were 


THE  EMBARGO  161 

engaged  in  the  regular  trade  with  England  and  her  colonies, 
and  so  were  comparatively  untouched  by  the  regulations 
either  of  that  country  or  of  France.  The  more  adventurous 
could  always  find  opportunities  for  traflSc  by  evading  or  dis- 
regarding the  law.  Until  stopped  by  a  supplementary  act, 
many  vessels  cleared  for  an  American  port  but  found  them- 
selves driven  by  stress  of  weather  to  the  West  Indies.  Once 
there,  they  sold  their  goods.  Even  when  this  practice  was 
stopped,  some  preserved  freedom  by  remaining  away  from 
home.  April  11,  1808,  an  English  order  in  council  forbade 
the  seizure  of  American  vessels  in  the  West  Indies  and  South 
America,  even  if  without  papers.  In  March,  April,  and  May 
sixteen  American  vessels  were  allowed  to  enter  English  ports. 
Although  numbers  of  American  vessels  thus  found  employ- 
ment it  was,  however,  in  carrying  on  the  business  of  others, 
not  in  supplying  the  United  States  with  what  she  desired 
and  taking  from  her  ports  what  she  had  for  sale.  Our  com- 
merce was  dead. 

Whether  or  not  Jefferson  was  right  in  claiming  that  Amer- 
ican commerce  was  more  essential  to  other  nations  than  to 
ourselves,  at  any  rate  we  had  a  governmental  Faaure  of  the 
organization  more  sensitive  to  public  distress  *™*'"«o 
than  other  nations.  The  embargo  did  cause  suffering  in  the 
British  empire:  Newfoundland  was  on  the  point  of  starva- 
tion, and  English  mills  shut  down,  with  all  the  attendant 
woes.    England,  however,  remained  firm. 

In  the  United  States  opposition  swept  down  the  coast. 
In  New  England  the  criticism  of  the  commercial  classes, 
unappreciative  of  this  attempt  to  clear  the  Repeal  of  the 
seas  by  forbidding  the  use  of  them,  rose  to  ^^^"■go 
fury.  New  England  statesmen  talked  of  disunion.  In  the 
middle  states  the  farmer,  for  whose  crops  the  home  market 
was  inadequate,  added  his  voice  to  that  of  the  merchant  of 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Baltimore.  Washington  Irving, 
in  his  Knickerbocker  history  of  New  York,  ridiculed  the 
embargo:  "Never  was  a  more  comprehensive,  a  more  ex- 


162  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

peditious,  or,  what  is  still  better,  a  more  economical  measure 
devised,  than  this  of  defeating  the  Yankees  by  proclama- 
tion— ^an  expedient,  likewise,  so  gentle  and  humane,  there 
were  ten  chances  to  one  in  favor  of  its  succeeding, — ^but 
then  there  was  one  chance  to  ten  that  it  would  not  succeed, — 
as  the  ill-natured  fates  would  have  it,  that  single  chance  car- 
ried the  day."  Even  the  Virginia  planters,  groaning  under 
the  burden  of  supporting  their  slaves,  whose  products  re- 
mained unsold  on  the  plantation,  protested.  On  February  28,  . 
1809,  the  embargo  was  repealed,  having  brought  about  no  "^ 
amelioration  of  our  international  position. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
WAR  WITH  ENGLAND 

The  succession  of  Madison  to  the  presidency  on  March  4, 
1809,  meant  no  change  of  ideas.  In  fact,  it  hardly  involved  a 
change  of  personnel;  for  Jefferson  was  still  Non-inter- 
consulted,  and  the  new  secretary  of  state,  '^^^^^ 
Robert  Smith,  was  scarcely  more  than  a  figure-head,  Madi- 
son himself  often  writing  his  dispatches.  The  embargo  had 
failed,  but  a  substitute  had  been  provided.  This  took  the 
form  of  a  non-intercourse  act,  which  opened  up  commerce 
to  the  rest  of  the  world  but  prohibited  it  with  France,  Eng- 
land, and  their  colonies.  To  them  America  remained  tight 
closed.  The  law  set  forth,  however,  that  should  England 
withdraw  her  orders,  or  France  her  decrees,  the  President 
could  resume  intercourse  with  the  complaisant  power. 

In  spite  of  the  importance  of  the  restrictions  that  remained, 
the  merchant  marine  soon  found  unparalleled  opportunities 
for  employment.  That  of  Massachusetts  in-  Prosperity  of 
creased  from  310,000  tons  in  1807  to  352,000  co°^«f" 
tons  in  1810.  The  British  armies  in  Spain  and  Portugal 
needed  provisions,  and  those  countries  were  open  to  our 
trade.  To  the  north,  Russia  was  free  to  neutrals  after  De- 
cember 31,  1810,  and  we  were  practically  the  only  neutrals. 
This  opportunity  was  not  too  far  afield  for  our  enterprize. 
By  way  of  the  Baltic  and  the  port  of  Riga,  and  even  by  the 
Arctic  port  of  Archangel,  the  route  to  which  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  lying  far  from  the  haunts  of  the  British  navy,  we 
sent  to  Russia,  in  1810,  $3,975,000  worth  of  goods,  in  1811, 
$6,137,000  worth.  To  guard  this  new  trade,  we  exchanged 
ministers  with  that  country  in  1809,  sending  thither  John 
Quincy  Adams,  who  had  now  affiliated  with  the  dominant 

;i63 


164  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

party.  Holland  and  Naples,  moreover,  and  other  stretches 
of  European  coast,  though  actually  under  Napoleonic  con- 
trol, were  not  legally  French  and  did  not  fall  within  our 
prohibition.  To  them  we  could  send  such  things  as  Napoleon 
wished  and  England  did  not  object  to.  Fish  and  oil  were 
permitted,  but  cotton  England  banned  as  tending  to  build 
up  French  manufactures.  Nor  did  prohibition  by  law  ac- 
tually prevent  American  vessels  from  dropping  into  the 
harbors  of  France  herself,  when  the  way  was  open.  In  addi- 
tion, our  ships  were  licensed  by  the  belligerents  to  carry  on 
some  of  that  exchange  between  them  which  was  so  beneficial 
that  it  defied  the  dictates  of  policy.  Increasingly,  however, 
this  trade  was  given  to  their  own  vessels,  and  it  never  was  so 
large  as  the  unlicensed  smuggling  carried  on  by  the  boatmen 
of  the  Channel  in  the  teeth  of  the  authorities  of  both  coun^ 
tries.  If  by  this  description  the  ocean  may  seem  to  have 
been  a  smooth  road  to  the  Americans,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  there  were  always  the  perils  of  search  and  im- 
pressment, and  the  chances  of  sudden  changes  in  regulations, 
involving  delay,  seizure,  and  confiscation.  Worse  still,  the 
standard  trade  of  bringing  English  manufactures  into  the 
United  States,  and  of  exporting  tobacco  and  other  goods  to 
England  and  provisions  to  her  colonies,  was  practically 
ended.  ^ 

It  was  Under  these  circumstances  that  George  Canning, 
now  British  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  resolved  to  take  ad- 
Erskine  ar-  vantage  of  the  offer  contained  in  the  non- 
rangement  intercourse  act  in  order  to  reopen  the  American 

market  to  British  manufactures.  This  negotiation  was  to 
take  place  in  America,  and  he  instructed  his  minister  at 
Washington  to  announce  that  the  orders  would  be  recalled 
on  condition  that  we  withdraw  non-intercourse  with  Eng- 

*  For  the  study  of  the  actual  course  of  commerce  during  these  years  the 
Guide  to  the  Material  in  London  Archives  for  the  History  of  the  United  States 
since  1783,  by  C.  O.  Paullin  and  F.  L.  Paxson,  is  useful.  It  describes  the 
papers  to  the  period  of  the  Civil  War.  The  records  of  the  Board  of  Trade 
are  found  to  contain  the  most  novel  material. 


WAR  WITH  ENGLAND  165 

land,  that  we  forego  trade  with  the  French  West  Indies,  and 
that  we  allow  England  to  enforce  our  non-intercourse  act 
with  France,  The  British  minister  at  this  time  was  David 
Montague  Erskine,  a  young  Whig  appointed  by  Fox  in 
1806,  very  friendly  toward  America  and  married  to  an  Amer- 
ican wife.  With  him  an  agreement  was  made  which  dealt 
with  the  Chesapeake  affair  and  the  recall  of  the  orders,  and 
looked  to  the  formation  of  a  general  treaty  of  commerce 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  but  which 
left  out  Canning's  last  two  conditions.  In  accordance  with 
this  arrangement,  Madison,  on  June  10,  1809,  declared  inter- 
course with  Great  Britain  restored. 

Canning  at  once  rejected  the  agreement,  recalled  Erskine, 
and  sent  in  his  place  Francis  James  Jackson,  who  was  not 
expected  to  repeat  Erskine's  mistake  of  over-  Canning  dis- 
friendliness  to  America,  and  who  lived  up  to  *^°^^  Erskine 
his  reputation.  After  five  weeks'  exchange  of  notes,  which 
grew  increasingly  unpleasant,  the  American  government  re- 
fused to  deal  further  with  him.  Canning,  however,  had 
promised  him  a  year  in  America,  and  he  was  not  recalled 
until  the  end  of  it.  Until  the  autumn  of  1810,  therefore,  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  were  provided  with  a  burr 
under  the  saddle  which  the  tact  of  Pinkney,  our  minister  at 
London,  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  make  comfortable. 

Meanwhile  Napoleon  had  not  been  unconscious  of  the 
United  States,  though  he  had  not  needed  to  give  her  much 
of  his  attention,  since  her  policy  conformed  Napoleon  and 
to  his  own,  and  he  seemed  to  be  reaping  tlie«™''*'8o 
the  reward  for  the  sale  of  Louisiana.  As  if  in  accordance 
with  his  desires, — but  in  reality  because  of  the  southern 
objection  to  recognizing  a  republic  founded  on  a  slave  in- 
surrection,— intercourse  had  in  1806  been  prohibited  with  his 
revolted  colony  of  Hayti,  in  which  he  took  a  fleeting  in- 
terest. The  embargo  again,  though  a  measure  based  on 
Jefferson's  philosophy,  exactly  fitted  into  Napoleon's  con- 
tinental system.     Although  he  objected  to  it  as  regarded 


166  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

France,  he  could  not  have  devised  a  plan  better  suited  to 
his  purposes  had  he  been  dictator  of  America.  "The  Em- 
peror applauds  the  embargo,"  said  Turreau,  French  minister 
at  Washington.  On  April  5,  1808,  Napoleon  issued  from 
Bayonne  a  decree  ordering  the  sequestration  of  all  American  ■/' 
vessels  arriving  in  France,  as  presumably  British  property 
sailing  under  false  papers,  no  American  vessels  being  legally 
afloat. 

The  repeal  of  the  embargo  was  therefore  a  rebuff,  and  its 
form,  by  grouping  England  and  France  together  and  differ- 
Naool  and  ^ntiating  between  France  and  her  dependent 
non-inter-  states,  was  still  more  so.    Moreover,  the  pro- 

hibition of  Haytian  trade,  which  had  never 
been  effective,  lapsed  about  the  same  time.  Napoleon  there- 
fore ordered  his  minister  to  withdraw  from  Washington. 
On  August  4,  1809,  after  Canning's  disavowal  of  the  Erskine 
agreement  had  assured  a  return  to  non-intercourse  and  a 
period  of  aggravation  between  England  and  the  United 
States,  while  the  battle  of  Wagram  gave  him  command  of 
Europe,  he  drafted  the  decree  of  Vienna,  ordering  the  seizure 
and  confiscation  of  "every  American  ship  which  shall  enter  ''  \ 
the  ports  of  France,  Spain,  or  Italy."  This  step  he  justified 
by  the  arguments  that  those  entering  French  ports  were 
violating  the  law  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the  other 
countries  under  French  control  should  not  be  allowed  to 
enjoy  trade  forbidden  to  France.  The  decree  was  kept  secret, 
apparently  in  order  to  induce  American  vessels  to  enter. 
Thiers  says:  "To  admit  false  neutrals  in  order  to  confiscate 
them  afterwards,  greatly  pleased  his  astute  mind,  little 
scrupulous  in  the  choice  of  means,  especially  in  regard  to 
shameless  smugglers  who  violated  at  once  the  laws  of  their 
own  country  and  those  of  the  country  that  consented  to 
admit  them."  ^  Napoleon  himself  wrote  to  Danzig:  "Let 
the  American  ships  enter  your  ports !    Seize  them  afterwards. 

*  M.  J.  L.  A.  Thiers,  Histoire  du  consulat  et  de  fempire  (21  vols.,  Parish 
etc.,  1845-69),  vol.  xii. 


WAR  WITH  ENGLAND  167 

You  shall  deliver  the  cargoes  to  me,  and  I  will  take  them  in 
part  payment  of  the  Prussian  war  debt."  On  March  25, 
1810,  he  published  the  Rambouillet  decree,  which  was  prac- 
tically a  public  announcement  of  that  of  Vienna,  but  with 
this  difiFerence,  that  it  merely  sequestered  the  American 
vessels  instead  of  confiscating  them.  He  thus  held  in  his 
hands  over  eight  million  dollars'  worth  of  American  property 
as  hostage  for  our  behavior.  The  number  of  vessels  seized 
in  the  various  countries  indicated  the  state  of  trade:  51  in 
France,  44  in  Spain,  28  in  Naples,  and  11  in  Holland.  To 
carry  out  this  vigorous  policy  he  was  forced  to  depose  his 
brother  Louis,  king  of  Holland,  and  annex  that  country  to 
France,  as  well  as  to  drive  from  the  cabinet  his  valuable 
assistant,  Fouch^,  He  still  continued,  however,  to  license 
American  vessels  to  import  specified  goods,  and  they  con- 
tinued to  pay  high  for  such  licences. 

In  spite  of  the  attention  that  he  devoted  to  it,  American 
trade  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  a  leading  consideration 
with  Napoleon  at  this  time;  his  main  desire,     j-     .  , 

the  closing  of  the  American  market  to  British  Macon  Bill 
goods,  was  still  fulfilled.  Very  different,  how- 
ever, was  the  situation  created  by  the  next  change  in  the 
American  system.  Restive  under  our  own  regulations,  public 
sentiment,  after  a  hard  struggle,  at  length.  May  1,  1810,.ob-, 
tained  a  practical  abandonment  of  the  restrictive  system; 
by  means  of  an  act  popularly  known  as  "Macon  Bill  No.  2/* 
which  allowed  trade  with  all  the  world.  The  only  continu- 
ance of  the  policy  of  using  commercial  regulation  as  a  weapon 
of  diplomacy  is  foimd  in  the  provision  authorizing  the  Presi- 
dent, in  case  either  Great  Britain  or  France  should,  before 
the  third  day  of  March  following,  "so  revoke  or  modify  her  {/ 
edicts"  as  to  "cease  to  violate  the  neutral  commerce  of  the 
United  States,"  and  the  other  country  should  not  do  so,  to 
renew  the  non-intercourse  act  against  the  obdurate  power. 

This  was  indeed  a  blow  to  Napoleon's  continental  system, 
for  it  reopened  to  England  her  most  valuable  single  market. 


^ 


168  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

It  is  said  that  he  devoted  three  days  to  a  consideration  of 
the  situation.  The  result  was  a  letter  from  his  foreign  minis- 
ter, Cadore,  of  August  5,  1810:  "In  this  new  state  of  things, 
I  am  authorized  to  declare  to  you,  sir,  that  the  decrees  of 
Berlin  and  Milan  are  revoked,  and  that  after  the  1st  of  No- 
vember they  will  cease  to  have  effect;  it  being  understood 
that,  in  consequence  of  this  declaration,  the  English  shall 
revoke  their  orders  in  council,  and  renounce  the  new  prin- 
ciples of  blockade  which  they  have  wished  to  establish;  or 
that  the  United  States,  conformably  to  the  act  you  have 
just  communicated,  shall  cause  their  rights  to  be  respected 
by  the  English.  It  is  with  the  most  particular  satisfaction, 
sir,  that  I  make  known  to  you  this  determination  of  the 
Emperor,  His  majesty  loves  the  Americans.  Their  pros- 
perity and  their  commerce  are  within  the  scope  of  his  policy.** 

But  Napoleon's  purpose  was  not  the  abandonment  of  his 
system.  "It  is  evident,"  said  he,  "that  we  commit  ourselves 
to  nothing."  He  explained  to  his  council  that,  should  the 
English  withdraw  their  orders,  he  could  achieve  his  results 
by  customs  regulation.  What  he  hoped  was  that  by  the 
ambiguity  of  his  letter  he  might  once  more  embroil  England 
and  the  United  States.  Meantime,  to  clean  the  slate  of 
the  past,  he  ordered  the  American  vessels  sequestered  by  \/ 
the  RambouUlet  decree  to  be  confiscated.  This  order  was 
not  published;  but,  when  its  effects  became  evident,  Cadore 
explained  that  it  did  not  affect  the  future,  that  it  was  in 
reprisal  for  our  non-intercourse  act,  and  that  the  law  of 
reprisal  was  final. 

Madison  seized  upon  this  letter  with  avidity.  He  at  once 
demanded  that  Great  Britain  withdraw  her  orders,  including 
Napoleon  and  the  blockade  of  1806,  and  threatened  non- 
Madison  intercourse  should  she  fail  to  do  so.  The  Mar- 
quis of  Wellesley,  who  had  succeeded  Canning,  was  more 
favorably  disposed  toward  the  United  States;  but  as  he  read 
the  Cadore  letter  it  contained  a  conditional  offer,  not  a  state- 
ment of  fact.    He  thought  it  meant  that,  if  Great  Britain 


WAR  WITH  ENGLAND  169 

should  withdraw  her  orders,  Napoleon  would  withdraw  his 
decrees;  that  if  she  should  not  do  so  the  decrees  would  also 
remain  in  force  unless  the  United  States  made  her  neutrality 
respected,  that  is,  unless  she  forced  England  to  recall  her 
orders.  In  this  impasse  the  United  States  would  not,  he 
believed,  be  justified  in  differentiating  between  the  belliger- 
ents until  she  received  evidence  of  the  withdrawal  of  the 
decrees.  He  also  found  in  the  letter  an  additional  condition, 
— namely,  that  Great  Britain  must  renounce  her  principle 
of  blockade.  Madison,  however,  understanding  that  the 
decrees  were  actually  withdrawn, — ^for  Napoleon  failed  to 
answer  the  riddle  which  he  had  set, — declared  non-intercourse  y 
with  England  reestablished  after  February  2,  1811,  He  was 
sustained  by  an  act  of  Congress  of  March  2,  1811,  and  in  ' 
April,  as  an  expression  of  his  discontent,  he  withdrew  Pinkney 
from  London.  Once  more,  therefore,  Napoleon  closed  the  ^ 
American  market  to  England. 

His  wall,  however,  was  crumbling  at  its  opposite  extremity. 
It  has  been  noted  that  on  December  31,  1810,  Russia  opened 
her  ports  to  neutral  vessels.  American  ship-  Napoleon  and 
ping  straightway  crowded  her  ports,  and  much  ^"^^* 
that  they  brought  was  British.  Of  our  exports  to  Russia  in 
1811,  amounting  to  over  $6,000,000,  only  $1,630,499  were 
of  our  own  products.  Nor  did  the  total  amount  given  in 
our  figures  include  cargoes  taken  in  England  and  admitted 
by  Russia  because  of  the  American  flag  borne  by  the  ship 
carrying  them,  a  flag  which  in  many  cases  it  had  no  right  to 
fly.  Napoleon  called  upon  the  czar  to  close  this  breach.  The 
Russian  court  was  divided,  torn  by  factions.  Curiously, 
Romanzoff,  who  was  sympathetic  with  France,  wished  to 
encourage  the  American  merchant  marine  in  order  to  release 
Russia  from  her  former  dependence  on  England;  Nesselrode, 
whose  inclinations  were  English,  objected  to  extending  privi- 
leges to  the  United  States  not  granted  to  Great  Britain.  He 
wished  alliance  with  the  latter  power.  American  trade,  long 
torn  by  the  dogs  of  war,  thus  became  the  bone  of  contention 


170  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

to  set  them  fighting  among  themselves.  John  Quincy  Adams 
found  himself  at  St.  Petersburg, — familiar  to  him  as  a  boy- 
hood memory  from  his  stay  there  while  secretary  to  Francis 
Dana,  our  first  minister, — more  vitally  involved  in  European 
entanglements  than  had  been  any  American  minister  since 
Franklin.  Napoleon  would  assent  to  no  compromise,  the 
czar  would  not  close  his  ports,  and  events  marched  rapidly 
toward  war  and  Napoleon's  invasion.^ 

In  behalf  of  our  commerce,  Russia  was  preparing  for  war 
with  France  and  alHance  with  England;  Napoleon  was  pre- 
paring to  force  Russia  to  close  her  ports  to  neutral  trade. 
Could  we  still  preserve  our  neutrality  in  this  supreme  mo- 
ment of  struggle?  To  which  side  did  our  interests  ally  us? 
To  Russia,  fighting  to  defend  our  rights  but  allied  with  Eng- 
land, our  great  commercial  rival?  or  to  Napoleon,  endeavoring 
to  shut  us  out  of  Europe,  but  professing  himself,  if  he  won 
and  brought  England  to  terms,  willing  to  establish  peace  on 
earth  and  freedom  on  the  seas?  Even  if  these  professions 
were  not  to  be  accepted  at  their  face  value,  at  any  rate  it  was 
probable  that  a  victorious  Napoleon  would  not  be  lenient, 
should  one  have  stirred  his  wrath. 

During  the  spring  of  1811  Madison  and  Monroe,  the  latter 
of  whom  had  just  replaced  Smith  at  the  state  department, 
Napoleonic  debated  over  the  question.     The  immediate 

tnumph  issue  was  whether  we  should  send  a  minister 

to  France  to  take  the  place  of  Armstrong,  who  had  returned 
to  America.  Evidence  accumulated  that  Napoleon's  decrees 
still  operated  and  that  the  sequestered  American  vessels 
were  actually  confiscated.  The  balance  turned  against 
France.  At  this  critical  moment,  however.  Napoleon  once 
more  proved  himself  equal  to  the  emergency.  His  foreign 
minister,  the  Duke  of  Bassano,  informed  Jonathan  Russell, 
our  secretary  of  legation,  that  the  emperor  had  authorized 
"the  admission  of  the  American  cargoes  which  had  been 

» J.  Q.  Adams,  Memoirs  (12  vob.,  PhUadelphia,  1874-77),  ii.  491-662,  iii. 
1-144. 


WAR  WITH  ENGLAND  171 

provisionally  placed  on  deposit."  This  turned  the  scale; 
Joel  Barlow  was  appointed  minister,  and  relations  were  con- 
tinued. 

The  administration  still  hoped  for  peace,  although  lean- 
ing toward  France;  but  its  plans  were  set  at  naught  by  the 
entrance  into  national  politics  of  two  new  The  "War 
factors.  The  first  was  a  general  fighting  spirit  ^^^^  " 
brought  to  Congress,  when  it  met  in  the  autumn  of  1811,  by  a 
number  of  young  men  who  soon  began  to  act  together  and  to  ^ 
be  known  as  the  "War  Hawks."  The  aroma  of  war  had  for 
twenty  years  floated  across  the  Atlantic,  but  it  had  brought 
only  its  glories  and  not  its  sorrows.  To  the  younger  genera- 
tion war  seemed  to  be  almost  the  normal  condition,  and  to 
offer  opportunities  of  distinction  and  advancement  which 
peace  denied.  If,  however,  the  wars  of  Europe  had  an  effect 
on  American  youth,  the  effect  was  general.  No  longer,  as 
in  1793,  did  the  particular  issues  of  European  politics  divide 
the  majority  of  Americans  into  partisans  of  France  and  of 
England.  The  new  war  leaders  were  nationalists;  they  I 
wished  to  fight  to  vindicate  the  honor  of  their  country, 
smirched,  they  believed,  by  her  long  supine  submission  to 
the  whacks  and  blows  of  the  belligerents.  Isolation  they 
accepted,  but  they  did  not  believe  that  it  must  necessarily 
be  passive.  Many  of  the  leaders  were  indifferent  as  to  whom 
they  fought;  Calhoun,  the  logical,  with  the  enthusiasm  of 
youth,  would  fight  both.^ 

Direction  was  given  to  this  warlike  spirit  by  the  second  fac- 
tor.   Once  more  western  problems  became  vital :  they  were  to 
determine  the  issue.    This  time  it  was  primarily    »«,■«,  .^ 
a  question  of  the  northwest,  though  its  views 
were  voiced  in  Congress  by  Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky,  speaker 
of  the  new  House  of  Representatives.^     The  most  obvious 

1  J.  C.  Calhoun,  Works  (ed.  R.  K.  CraU6,  6  vols..  New  York,  1853-55), 
vol.  ii. 

» Henry  Clay,  Works  (ed.  C.  Colton,  7  vols.,  New  York,  1897),  voL  I 
cb.  iz. 


172  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

motive  for  discontent  resulted  from  the  Indian  situation. 
Steadily  since  1796  the  pioneer  had  pressed  into  the  wilder- 
ness, steadily  the  government  had  made  broad  his  way  by 
contriving  one  purchase  of  Indian  land  after  another.  The 
Indians,  grumbling,  had  yielded  to  necessity;  but  dissatisfac- 
tion grew  among  them,  and  recently  had  resulted  in  com- 
bination to  resist  encroachment.  Under  the  leadership  of 
two  brothers,  Tecumseh,  the  war  chief,  and  Olliwochica, 

_.    ,  ,.  the  prophet,  the  beginnings  of  a  confederacy 

The  Indians  .  i      i      i       i  .    •  - 

were  formed,  the  leaders  conceivmg  of  a  union 

not  only  of  the  northern  tribes  but  also  between  the  northern 

and  southern  groups.     In  1811  war  began  in  the  battle  of 

Tippecanoe,  near  the  Wabash. 

That  the  Indian  hostility  was  encouraged  by  the  British, 
and  that  the  latter  would  aid  the  savages  in  the  coming  war, 
British  and  In-  was  firmly  believed  by  the  sanest  heads  on 
^*°'  the  frontier.    William  Henry  Harrison,  gover- 

nor of  Indiana  territory  and  in  command  at  Tippecanoe,  said 
that  he  could  always  tell  the  state  of  relations  between 
United  States  and  Great  Britain  by  the  behavior  of  the 
Indians.  Great  Britain's  policy  was  actually  not  different 
from  that  pursued  during  Washington's  administration. 
There  was  on  the  part  of  the  government  no  incitement  to 
hostility;  rather,  the  effort  was  to  keep  the  peace.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  maintained,  though  not  entirely  of  its  own 
choice,  relations  with  the  Indians  which,  considering  the  fact 
that  these  tribes  were  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States, 
were  not  compatible  with  any  principle  of  international 
comity.  Moreover,  as  was  natural  on  so  wild  a  frontier, 
its  control  over  its  own  agents  and  subjects  was  so  lax  that 
it  was  sometimes  involved  by  their  acts  in  complications 
for  which  it  was  not  directly  responsible  but  which  it  was 
by  its  international  duty  required  to  prevent. 

The  British  subjects  concerned  in  these  relations  were 
nearly  all  fur-traders.  Scotch,  French-Canadians,  English, 
and  half-breeds,  they  led  lives  of  the  most  unfettered  free- 


WAR  WITH  ENGLAND  ITS 

dom,  with  the  exception  of  an  almost  complete  economic 
dependence  upon  the  two  great  British  companies,  the  Hud- 
son Bay,  and  the  Northwestern.  Together  these  Fur-trade  ri- 
companies  dominated  the  whole  region  west-  ^*^** 
ward  from  Lake  Michigan,  including  what  is  now  Wisconsin 
and  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Missouri. 
Wide  as  was  the  area,  its  paths,  the  rivers  and  trails,  were 
none  too  numerous,  and  the  traders  of  the  two  companies 
were  continually  encountering  each  other,  as  well  as  the 
rivals  of  both,  the  Americans.  The  latter  had  hitherto  not 
been  so  well  organized  as  the  British  subjects;  but  of  late 
the  American  Fur  Company,  of  which  John  Jacob  Astor  was 
the  leading  spirit,  had  been  bringing  order  out  of  chaos. 
Astor's  imperial  plans  were  now  taking  the  form  of  estab- 
lishing a  permanent  settlement  on  the  Pacific  coast.  He 
engaged  experts  from  the  Northwestern  Company,  and  in 
1811  founded  the  post  of  Astoria  on  the  Columbia.  This 
distant  enterprise  did  not,  however,  diminish  the  rivalry 
nearer  home.  From  St.  Louis  and  Michilimackinac  went 
forth  better  and  better  equipped  bands  of  American  traders, 
who  competed  with  those  sent  out  by  the  British  companies. 
The  emulation  in  the  forests  and  plains  was  transmitted, 
with  the  skins,  to  Montreal  and  to  New  York,  which  sup- 
plied the  capital  for  the  expeditions  and  for  the  establish- 
ment of  the  posts,  and  which  competed  in  the  disposal  of  the 
furs.  Relatively  the  British  were  losing  ground;  they  asked 
for  government  support;  they  bemoaned  the  influence  of  the 
United  States  government  factories  which  had  been  estab- 
lished at  Washington's  behest.  To  the  American  frontiers- 
men, their  own  government  seemed  inert  and  spineless  as 
compared  with  that  of  Great  Britain,  and  particularly  they 
protested  at  the  free  use  of  American  soil  which  the  British 
companies  enjoyed  under  the  Jay  treaty.  This  growing 
rivalry  was  temporarily  embittered  by  the  fall  in  the  price  of 
furs  as  a  result  of  the  European  wars.  The  pressure  for 
assistance  was  equally  strong  upon  both  governments,  but 


174  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

it  was  most  effective  at  this  time  in  strengthening  the  call 
for  war  from  the  American  frontier.^ 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  purpose  of  the  virile 
West  was  purely  self-defence.  To  north,  to  west,  to  south. 
Conquest  of  it  felt  nothing  stronger  than  itself,  except  the 
Canada  bonds  of  the  United  States  government  which 

held  it  in.  It  strained  at  the  leash.  It  felt  competent,  if 
left  alone,  to  settle  all  its  difficulties  in  the  completes!  man- 
ner by  wiping  out  opposition.  It  wished  merely  permission 
to  use  its  strength.  February  22,  1810,  Henry  Clay  said 
to  the  Senate:  "The  conquest  of  Canada  is  in  your  power, 
I  trust  I  shall  not  be  deemed  presumptuous  when  I  state 
that  I  verily  believe  that  the  militia  of  Kentucky  are  alone 
competent  to  place  Montreal  and  Upper  Canada  at  your 
feet." 

The  new  national  'spirit,  thus  directed  by  the  West,  swept 

the  administration  fluttering  before  it.   The  breeze  was  fanned, 

„  ,  .  ,  to  be  sure,  by  some  new  episodes,  such  as  the 
War  declared  .  . 

encounter  in  1811  of  the  President  and  the  Little 

Belt,  in  which  the  former  avenged  our  navy  for  the  maltreat- 
ment of  the  Chesapeake  by  the  Leopard,  and  the  publication 
by  Congress  in  1812  of  the  papers  of  John  Henry,  a  British 
secret  agent;  but  these  things  counted  little.  On  April  1, 
1812,  in  a  secret  message,  Madison  recommended  an  em- 
bargo preparatory  to  war.  On  June  1  he  recommended  war, 
and  on  July  18  Congress  accepted  the  recommendation. 

England  at  the  eleventh  hour  sought  to  preserve  peace. 
She  sent  over  the  comparatively  agreeable  Augustus  John 
England's  ef-  Foster.  Apology  and  reparation  for  the 
fort  for  peace  Leopard-Chesapeake  affair  were  at  length  ar- 
ranged. On  June  16  the  recall  of  the  orders  was  voted  by 
Parliament.  Madison,  however,  deemed  this  insufficient. 
He  demanded  assurance  that  blockades  should  not  be  made 

*  Washington  Irving,  Astoria,  1  vols.,  Philadelphia,  1836;  H.  M.  Chitten- 
den, The  American  Fur  Trade  of  the  Far  West,  3  vols..  New  York,  1902; 
The  Fur-trade  in  Wisconsin,  Wisconsin  Hist.  Soc.,  Collections,  1911,  vol.  xx. 


WAR  WITH  ENGLAND  175 

to  do  the  duty  of  the  orders,  that  the  enforcement  of  English 

blockades  off  the  American  coast  should  cease,  and  that  the 

impressment  of  seamen  should  be  suspended,  pending  a  treaty 

which  should  settle  the  matter  definitively.    In  the  election  of 

1812  the  country  supported  Madison  by  reelecting  him.    It 

is  noticeable  that  the  commercial  states  voted    ^ 

,  .  1  •    n      1  e     Causes  of  war 

agamst  him,  protestmg  at  this  nnai  attempt  of 

an  administration  of  agriculturists  to  protect  our  commercial 

interests.    The  West  solidly  supported  him.    The  causes  of 

the  war  were  not  Great  Britain's  failure  to  agree  with  us  as 

to  the  position  of  neutrals,  nor  did  they  spring  from  the 

jockeying  of  Napoleon;  they  lay  rather  in  the  national  anger 

roused  by  twenty  years'  disregard  of  our  neutral  rights. 

It  was  not  detailed  arguments,  but  accumulated  woes,  that 

moved  the  "War  Hawks"  of  the  East,  while  those  of  the 

West  felt  the  added  impulse  to  obtain  a  free  hand  for  the 

settlement  of  their  own  problems. 


CHAPTER  XV 
PEACE 

Until  the  spring  of  1814  Great  Britain  did  not  blockade 
the  coast  north  of  Cape  Cod.  In  part  this  forbearance  may 
_  t  B  't  •  have  been  due  to  a  hope,  based  upon  the  re- 
and  New  Eng-  ports  of  secret  agents  like  John  Henry  and 
John  Howe,  her  consuls,  and  Jackson  her 
minister,  that  the  discontent  of  that  region  might  find  ex- 
pression in  separation  from  the  United  States.^  It  was  true 
that  its  leading  men  doubted  whether  they  could  forever 
endure  a  government  so  distasteful  in  its  policies;  and  their 
anger  mounted  higher  when,  in  this  supreme  moment  of  the 
contest  between  Napoleon  representing  the  forces  of  revolu- 
tion, and  England  the  supporter  of  order,  the  administration 
threw  its  weight  into  what  they  believed  was  the  wrong 
scale.  Their  view  was  expressed  by  Pickering's  toast  to 
Jackson  in  1810,  "The  world's  last  hope, — Britain's  fast- 
anchored  isle."  This  feeling  extended  to  heckling  the  govern- 
ment, and  later  to  action  looking  toward  a  break-up  of  the 
Union;  but  it  did  not  reach  the  point  of  treating  with  the 
national  enemy,  nor  did  it  prevent  New  England  from  doing 
its  fair  share  in  the  war.^ 

Great  Britain  did  not  lose  by  her  leniency,  however,  and 

probably  her  motive  was  less  political  than  commercial.    The 

^        ^  West  Indies  and  the  armies  in  Canada  needed 

War  trade 

supplies,  and  New  England  could  furnish  them, 

and  did.    As,  in  the  wars  between  England  and  France  when 

we  were  colonies,  our  ship-captains  helped  supply  the  French 

*  "Secret  Reports  of  John  Howe,  1808,"  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1911-12,  xvii. 
70-102,  332-354;  see  also  PauUin  and  Paxson,  Gwicfe,"Lady  Jackson  Papers." 

*  Edmund  Quincy,  Life  of  Josiah  Quincy  (Boston,  1867),  242-306. 

176 


PEACE  177 

West  India  islands,*  so  now,  under  one  disguise  or  another, 
the  New  England  ships  brought  to  Halifax  and  other  ports 
the  needed  provisions,  and  from  one  point  or  another  gath- 
ered cargoes  to  import  into  Boston  and  other  open  ports.  In 
fact,  war  proved  to  have  less  effect  on  New  England  com-  ^ 
merce  than  the  embargo  had  had.  South  of  Cape  Cod  the 
blockade  was  so  far  from  being  of  the  "paper"  variety  that 
practically  no  trade  could  go  on  without  the  assent  of  Great 
Britain.  Her  armies  in  Spain,  however,  must  be  fed,  and 
they  continued  to  draw  their  supplies  from  the  ample  gran- 
aries about  the  Chesapeake,  brought  to  them  in  American 
vessels  equipped  with  special  licences.  Privateering,  more- 
over, was  not  much  more  hazardous  than  were  many  other  / 
branches  of  the  trade  which  Americans  had  been  pursuing. 
Many  merchants  strengthened  their  craft,  enlarged  their 
crews,  and  scoured  the  seas  for  British  merchantmen.  The 
national  balance  of  captures  and  losses  was  not  very  unequal, 
about  seventeen  hundred  captures  of  merchant  vessels  being 
credited  to  the  Americans  as  against  about  fourteen  hundred 
losses;  but  wealth  changed  hands  rapidly.  Fortunes  running 
over  a  million  were  won.  The  losses  made  less  impression 
because,  owing  to  various  kinds  of  insurance,  they  actually 
did  not  fall  with  corresponding  heaviness  upon  individuals. 
Most  avenues  of  trade,  however,  were  closed,  and  par- 
ticularly the  ordinary  unromantic  routes.  The  severest 
blow  was  the  cutting-oflf  of  the  coast  trade, .  changed  con- 
which  had  been  steadily  growing  since  the  end  <^*^o°s  "*  ^8^* 
of  the  Revolution,  and  which  alone  had  escaped  the  dead 
hand  of  the  embargo.  The  Newfoundland  fisheries  also 
were  closed.  With  the  fall  of  Napoleon  in  the  spring  of 
1814,  England,  on  the  day  after  her  final  peace  with  France, 
shut  up  the  United  States  so  completely  that  during  that 
summer  her  commerce  was  represented  on  the  ocean  by 
nothing  but  some  forty  or  fifty  privateers. 

^  G.  S.  Kimball,  Correspondence  of  William  Pitt  .  .  .  vnth  Colonial  Goth 
emors,  1  vols..  New  York,  etc.,  1906. 


178  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

To  the  West,  which  had  wanted  the  war,  it  brought  both 
satisfaction  and  disappointment.  The  Indians  were  thor- 
Westem  cam-  oughly  and,  as  it  proved,  finally  overwhelmed, 
P***^^  both  to  the  south  in  the  battle  of  Horseshoe 

Bend,  and  to  the  north  in  the  battle  of  Thames.  This  latter 
result,  however,  was  not  due  to  the  unassisted  efforts  of  the 
frontiersmen  themselves,  as  Clay  had  boasted  that  it  would 
be.  The  navy,  which  after  a  brilliant  and  important  struggle 
had  been  driven  from  the  ocean,  sent  of  its  personnel  to  the 
lakes,  where,  in  the  battles  of  Lake  Erie  and  Lake  Cham- 
plain,  it  established  a  control,  which  it  continued  to  main- 
tain, over  all  the  border  lakes  except  Ontario,  where  neither 
side  obtained  supremacy.  Even  with  this  assistance  Upper 
Canada  remained  unconquered.  The  western  leaders  had 
overlooked  one  element  in  the  situation, — the  people  of  the 
region  which  is  now  Ontario.  The  nucleus  of  this  sturdy 
population  consisted  of  American  loyalists  and  their  de- 
scendants. Hearty  in  their  hatred  of  the  United  States,  they 
were  situated  nearer  the  strategic  points  than  were  the  Amer- 
icans, and  they  afforded  a  substantial  support  to  the  British 
troops,  which  until  1814  were  none  too  numerous.  After 
the  release  of  Wellington's  veterans  by  the  closing  of  the 
European  wars,  conquest  by  the  Americans  was  of  course 
out  of  question.  In  fact,  in  that  year  the  British  held  points 
on  American  soil  all  along  the  northern  boundary.^ 

While  these  events  were  taking  place  negotiations  for 
peace  were  in  progress.^  It  was  displeasing  to  the  czar  that, 
Russia  offers  just  when  Napoleon  was  invading  Russia  to 
mediation  close  her  ports  to  American  trade,  the  United 

States  should  go  to  war  with  Great  Britain,  his  friend  and 
leading  ally.     He,  therefore,  September  21,  1812,  offered 

»  C.  P.  Lucas,  The  Canadian  War  of  1812,  Oxford,  1906. 

*For  the  peace  negotiations;  J.  Q.  Adams,  Memoirs,  and  Writings; 
Gallatin,  Writings;  Bayard,  Papers,  Am.  Hist.  Assoc,  Report,  1913,  vol.  II; 
Clay  and  Crawford,  Correspondence,  Am.  Hist.  Review,  XX,  108-129;  and 
American  Slate  Papers,  Foreign  Relations.  The  best  historical  account  is  that 
in  the  last  chapter  of  Mahan's  Sea  Power  in  its  Relations  to  the  War  of  181S. 


PEACE  iro 

mediation,  and  Adams  at  once  sent  word  of  the  offer  to 
Washington.  It  reached  there  with  the  news  of  Napoleon's 
reverses.  We  had  bet  on  the  wrong  horse.  We  had  care- 
fully refrained  from  allying  ourselves  with  Napoleon,  but 
the  fact  that  he  too  was  fighting  England  had  undoubtedly 
lent  us  courage.  Madison  did  not  relish  the  idea  of  carrying 
on  the  war  alone.  Indeed,  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  negotiate,  or  why  he  should  not  accept  the  mediation  of 
Russia,  whose  useful  friendship  our  commerce  had  experi- 
enced. The  offer  was  therefore  accepted,  March  11,  1813, 
and  a  mission  was  appointed  consisting  of  Albert  Gallatin 
and  Adams  of  the  administration  party,  and  James  A. 
Bayard,  a  Federalist. 

When  Gallatin  and  Bayard  reached  Europe  they  found  the 
offer  of  mediation  rejected  by  England.  Although  Great 
Britain  and  Russia  were  united  in  fighting  Russia  versuB 
Napoleon,  their  ideas  did  not  harmonize  on  ^"**  ^'^**"* 
many  other  subjects.  Particularly  on  those  involved  in  the 
dispute  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  were 
they  poles  apart,  Russia  clinging  to  the  pronouncements  of 
Catharine's  Armed  Neutrality,  England  to  the  principles 
that  had  so  long  controlled  her  conduct.  "Maritime  law!" 
said  Lord  Walpole  at  one  time  to  Adams.  "Why,  Russia 
may  fight  us  till  she  sinks,  and  she  will  get  no  maritime  law 
from  us;  that  is  no  change  in  the  maritime  law.  Maritime 
law  submitted  to  the  Congress!  What  can  there  be  upon 
earth  more  absurd?"  Alexander,  moreover,  became  less 
intent  upon  pressing  the  matter  as  the  allies  became  more 
successful  and  it  was  seen  that  the  weight  of  America  was 
not  sufficient  to  prevent  the  balance  tipping  against  Na- 
poleon.   Mediation  failed. 

On  July  13,  1813,  Castlereagh  offered  to  negotiate  directly. 
This  offer,  made  while  victory  in  Europe  was  still  undeter- 
mined, was  eagerly  accepted  by  Madison  after  the  defeat 
of  Napoleon  in  the  campaigns  of  that  year  had  become  pat- 
ent.   He  added  to  the  American  commission  Henry  Clay  to 


180  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

represent  the  West,  and  Jonathan  Russell,  who  had  served  in 
France.  After  some  troublesome  preliminaries  it  was  ar- 
Opening  of  ne-  ranged  that  the  negotiations  take  place  at  Ghent, 
gotiations  rpj^^  ^.^^  commissions  were  well  chosen  and  rep- 

resentative. On  the  British  side  Lord  Gambier  was  an  ad- 
miral, Henry  Goulburn  was  member  of  Parliament  and  under- 
secretary for  the  colonies,  and  William  Adams  was  a  doctor 
of  law.  Expert  and  skilful  as  they  were,  however,  they  were 
no  match  for  the  American  commissioners.  Three  of  these, 
Gallatin,  Bayard,  and  Clay,  were  without  diplomatic  ex- 
perience,  but  Gallatin  and  Clay,  with  Adams,  were  among 
the  ablest  half-dozen  men  of  our  country.  They  were  thor- 
oughly at  home  in  handling  American  questions;  they  were 
used  to  dealing  with  men;  and  they  had  an  intellectual  power 
and  a  driving  force  which  utterly  overshadowed  that  of  their 
opponents.  England  was  at  the  disadvantage  of  having  her 
best  talent  diverted  to  the  more  important  Congress  of 
Vienna,  but  even  her  delegation  there  could  not  have  over- 
matched the  Americans  at  Ghent.  Though  Adams  was  the 
head  of  the  American  commission,  Gallatin  was  its  most 
influential  member.  A  French  Swiss  by  birth  and  education, 
and  of  noble  family,  he  was  regarded  by  Europeans  as  one  of 
themselves,  familiar  with  their  standards  and  mode  of  life, 
a  solace  in  their  intercourse  with  the,  if  not  untutored  at 
least  differently  tutored,  Americans.  At  the  most  critical 
moment  of  the  negotiation  the  duke  of  Wellington  did  not 
hesitate  to  write  to  him  privately  of  his  wish  for  peace. 
Gallatin  acted  as  mediator  between  the  members  of  the 
commission  and  between  the  commission  as  a  whole  and 
European  public  men.^ 

Our  best  efforts  were  indeed  needed.  England  was  at  her 
pinnacle.  The  Times,  in  June,  1814,  when  Gallatin  and 
Bayard  were  in  London,  said:  "Having  disposed  of  all  our 
enemies  in  Europe,  let  us  have  no  cant  of  moderation.    There 

*  A  Oreat  Peace  Maker,  the  Diary  of  James  Gallatin,  New  York,  1914, 
34-85. 


PEACE  181 

is  no  public  feeling  in  the  country  stronger  than  that  of 
indignation  against  the  Americans.  As  we  urged  the 
principle  of  no  peace  with  Bonaparte,  so  we  English  opin- 
must  maintain  the  doctrine  of  no  peace  with  *°" 
James  Madison."  The  same  paper,  announcing  the  American 
victory  at  Plattsburg,  said,  October  14,  1814:  "This  is  a 
lamentable  event  to  the  civilized  world.  The  subversion  of 
the  whole  system  of  the  Jeffersonian  school  .  .  .  was  an 
event  to  which  we  should  have  bent  and  yet  must  bend  all 
our  energies.  The  present  American  government  must  be 
displaced,  or  it  will  sooner  or  later  plant  its  poisoned  dagger 
in  the  heart  of  the  parent  state."  Again  it  declared,  "Mr. 
Madison's  dirty  swindling  manoeuvers  in  respect  to  Louisiana 
and  the  Floridas  remain  to  be  punished,"  The  British  were 
at  this  time  in  Spanish  Florida;  they  threatened  Mobile;  and 
throughout  the  negotiations  news  was  awaited  of  the  fleet 
and  the  army  under  Pakenham  which  was  advancing  upon 
New  Orleans.  Louisiana  had  as  yet  but  a  small  American 
population,  it  was  isolated  from  the  settled  West,  and  the 
loyalty  of  its  Creoles  was  in  doubt.  It  seemed  possible, 
therefore,  that  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  might  be  lost 
and  all  the  attendant  problems  once  more  arise. 

More  definite  was  the  danger  to  the  northward.  The 
Canadian  Gazette  insisted  that  the  United  States  surrender 
the  northern  part  of  New  York  State,  so  as  The  "buffer 
to  give  Canada  both  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence  ^***®  " 
and  of  the  Niagara.  It  insisted  also  on  a  guaranteed  buflFer 
Indian  country,  bounded  toward  the  United  States  by  a 
line  from  Sandusky  to  Kaskaskia.  This  old  idea,  which 
Hammond  had  been  instructed  to  act  upon  in  1792,  was 
now  being  continually  urged  upon  the  British  ministry. 
Tackle  wrote  to  Lord  Bathurst,  November  24,  1812,  suggest- 
ing that  the  Indian  territory  extend  to  the  Maumee  and  the 
Wabash.  "It  would  be,  in  my  feeble  judgment,"  he  urged, 
"if  occupied  exclusively  by  Indians,  an  all  important  barrier 
to  the  designs  of  the  United  States  against  the  influence. 


182  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

and  intercourse  of  the  British,  with  the  immense  regions 
extending  Westerly  even  to  the  Pacific  Ocean."  The  fur- 
traders  and  the  Indians  had  fought  well  during  the  war, 
the  latter  especially  had  suflFered;  now  both  demanded  that 
protection  which  they  had  persistently  been  claiming  from 
the  British  government  since  1783. 

Under  these  circumstances,  Castlereagh  issued  his  in- 
structions, July  28,  1814.  Maritime  law  was  not  to  be 
The  rival  in-  touched.  The  boundary  should  be  "rectified" 
structions  g^  ^^  g-^^  ^j^^  British  a  road  from  Halifax  to 

Quebec,  with  Sackett's  harbor  to  command  the  St.  Lawrence, 
Fort  Niagara  to  command  the  river  of  the  same  name,  and 
Moose  island  and  Eastport  to  command  the  mouth  of  the 
St.  Croix.  The  Indians  should  be  included  in  the  treaty, 
and  should  be  assured  of  a  mutually  guaranteed  boundary, — 
that  fixed  by  Wayne's  treaty  of  1795.  The  United  States 
must  give  up  its  privileges  in  the  fisheries,  and  the  naviga- 
tion of  the  lakes;  England,  having  access  to  the  Mississippi 
through  the  Indian  country,  must  continue  to  enjoy  its 
navigation.  The  American  instructions,  prepared  by  Mon- 
roe, January  14,  1814,  were  to  obtain  first  of  all  an  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  American  position  on  points  of  maritime  law, 
though  a  compromise  was  suggested  on  the  subject  of  im- 
pressment whereby  Great  Britain  was  to  yield  the  right 
and  the  United  States  was  to  forbid  British  born  sailors  to 
serve  in  American  vessels.  Indemnity  was  to  be  secured  for 
illegal  captures.  The  commissioners  were  to  urge  "the  ad- 
vantages to  both  countries  which  are  promised  by  a  transfer 
of  the  upper  parts  and  even  the  whole  of  Canada  to  the 
United  States,"  and  were  to  point  out  that  experience  had 
shown  that  Great  Britain  could  not  "participate  in  the 
dominion  and  navigation  of  the  lakes  without  incurring  the 
danger  of  an  early  renewal  of  the  war." 

These  differences  seemed  to  preclude  the  possibility  of 
agreement,  especially  since  the  British  terms  were  presented 
in  the  form  of  an  ultimatum.    On  August  24,  the  American 


PEACE  183 

commissioners  returned  a  "unanimous  and  decided  negative," 
in  a  very  able  note  setting  forth  that  the  English  claims  were 
"founded  neither  on  reciprocity,  nor  any  of  the 
usual  bases  of  negotiation,  neither  that  of  uii 
possedetis  nor  of  status  quo  ante  helium."  Openly,  but  not 
hastily,  they  prepared  to  leave  Ghent.  While  thus  delaying 
they  talked  much  with  the  British  commissioners,  par- 
ticularly in  regard  to  the  buffer  state.  Gallatin  asked  what 
would  become  of  the  hundred  thousand  Americans  already 
living  within  the  boundary  proposed.  Goulburn,  perhaps 
hearing  of  them  for  the  first  time,  thought  that  the  line 
might  be  slightly  changed,  but  that  on  the  whole  the  Ameri- 
cans could  shift  for  themselves :  the  Indians  would  treat  them 
well;  he  knew  an  Indian  who  was  very  intelligent.  Adams 
said  that  such  a  treaty  provision  was  opposing  a  feather 
to  a  torrent.  Population,  he  declared,  was  increasing:  "As 
it  continued  to  increase  in  such  proportions,  was  it  in  human 
experience,  or  in  human  power,  to  check  its  progress  by  a 
bond  of  paper  purporting  to  exclude  posterity  from  the 
natural  means  of  subsistence?"  Bayard,  the  Federalist,  told 
Goulburn  that,  when  it  became  known  that  the  negotiation 
had  broken  off  on  such  terms,  the  Federalist  party  in  the 
United  States  would  be  overwhelmed. 

In  the  end  the  Americans  succeeded  in  making  an  impres- 
sion on  the  British  commissioners,  and  through  them  on 
the  ministry.  Since  England  had  been  put  _  .  . 
in  the  position  of  continuing  the  war  for  con-  peace  in  Eng- 
quest,  the  ministry  became  satisfied  that  if 
the  negotiations  ended  at  this  point  the  war  would  become 
"quite  popular"  in  America.  "It  is  very  material,"  they 
said,  "to  throw  the  rupture  of  the  negotiations,  if  it  take 
place,  upon  the  Americans."  It  was,  indeed,  feared  that  the 
war  might  become  unpopular  in  England:  the  Times  did 
not  represent  the  whole  nation.  The  same  elements  of 
distress  which,  anxious  for  the  American  market,  had  all 
too  late  forced  the  recall  of  the  orders  in  council,  would  be 


184  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

little  inclined  to  forego  their  trade  much  longer  for  remote 
accessions  of  territory  in  the  wilds  of  America.  The  minis- 
try, moreover,  was  full  of  anxiety  over  the  wrangles  of  the 
late  allies  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  where  events  were 
rapidly  shaping  themselves  for  a  new  European  alignment, — 
England,  France,  and  Austria  against  Russia  and  Prussia — 
and  a  new  war.  Moved  by  these  considerations,  it  sent  new 
instructions  to  Ghent,  September  1.  Far  from  satisfactory 
in  themselves,  these  new  terms  put  the  British  in  the  awk- 
ward position  of  having  retreated  from  an  ultimatum.  The 
American  commissioners  were  quick  to  take  advantage  of 
this  weakness.  They  refused  to  treat  on  the  proposed  new 
basis  of  uti  possedetis,  that  is  to  say  the  situation  then  exist- 
ing. Under  these  circumstances  the  duke  of  Wellington 
was  asked  if  he  would  go  to  America.  He  expressed  his 
willingness,  but  declared  that  nothing  could  be  accomplished 
while  the  Americans  held  the  lakes,  and  said  that  England 
was  not  justified  by  the  military  situation  in  demanding  any 
territory.  The  ministry  once  more  receded,  and  offered  to 
negotiate  on  the  basis  of  status  quo  ante  helium,  or  the  con- 
dition before  the  war.  Indeed,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  they 
could  do  anything  else.  If  they  doubted  the  support  of 
public  opinion  in  demanding  important  posts  and  a  buffer 
state,  they  could  scarcely  expect  it  in  fighting  for  the  aj>- 
parently  trivial  bits  of  American  territory  which  they  were 
holding  in  1814. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  American  commissioners  found  that 
in  insisting  on  an  adjustment  of  maritime  law  they  ran  into 

„   , .      .  the  stone- wall  of  British  determination.     For- 

Mantune  law  ,       ,  .  .  ,    , 

tunately,  however,  they  were  mstructed  from 

America,  where  Madison  was  oppressed  by  the  impending 
British  attack  on  New  Orleans,  the  harrying  of  the  coast 
and  burning  of  Washington,  and  the  prospect  of  the  Hart- 
ford convention,  to  omit  such  clauses  from  the  treaty  if 
necessary. 

With  these  points  out  of  the  way,  negotiations  progressed 


PEACE  185 

rapidly.  On  the  question  of  fisheries,  it  is  true,  the  Amer- 
ican commission  divided.  Adams  and  Russell  wished  to  re- 
state the  terms  of  1783,  which  meant  that  the    _,.  .    . 

....  Fishenes  ver- 

British  right  to  navigate  the  Mississippi  must  sus  the  Mis- 
be  conceded  also.  Clay,  mindful  of  the  use- 
fulness of  that  river  to  the  British  fur-traders,  and  afraid 
that  such  a  right  would  be  used  by  Great  Britain  to  back  a 
claim  for  territorial  access  to  the  Mississippi  by  pushing 
south  the  northern  boundary  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  was 
unwilling  to  admit  the  privilege.  Finally,  at  Gallatin's 
suggestion,  both  points  were  omitted,  and  on  December  24, 
1814,  the  treaty  was  signed. 

Great  triumph  of  American  diplomacy  as  the  treaty  was 
in  the  light  of  the  British  instructions,  yet,  considered  from 
the  point  of  view  that  the  Americans  began  the  '  Gains  and 
war  to  obtain  satisfaction  for  what  they  con-  bosses 
sidered  infractions  of  maritime  law,  it  registered  a  defeat,  i 
It  is  more  important,  however,  to  note  that  from  1815  until 
the  present  year  (1914),  Great  Britain  was  at  war  with 
European  powers  for  only  three  years  (1853  to  1856),  and 
so  the  treaty  marked  the  end  of  our  suffering  as  neutrals 
from  her  exactions  for  a  hundred  years.  The  West  more 
nearly  obtained  what  it  wanted.  The  treaty  provided: 
"The  United  States  engage  to  put  an  end,  immediately  after 
the  ratification  of  the  present  treaty,  to  hostilities  with  aU 
the  tribes  or  nations  of  Indians,"  on  the  basis  of  1812,  if 
they  should  agree.  No  provision  guaranteed  these  bound- 
aries, however,  and  though  the  United  States  continued  to 
press  them  westward,  Great  Britain  never  after  meddled  in 
the  matter.  The  Indian  power  east  of  the  Mississippi  was 
broken,  and  never  again  within  the  United  States  did  any 
Indians  play  a  part  as  a  factor  in  American  diplomacy.  The 
general  restoration  of  property,  moreover,  included  the  rais- 
ing of  the  United  States  flag  over  the  post  of  Astoria,  al- 
though the  property  title  to  it  had  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  British  Northwestern  Company,  to  be  absorbed  later 


sy 


186  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

into  the  Great,  or  Hudson  Bay,  Company.    By  this  recogni-  v/ 
tion  was  added  a  third  link  to  our  claim  to  Oregon. 

The  treaty  provided  also  for  the  settlement  of  the  numer- 
ous points  of  dispute  that  had  arisen  regarding  the  exact 
Boundary  location  of  the  boundary  between  Canada  and 

commissions  ^^  United  States.  Once  more,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  Jay  treaty,  these  questions  were  to  be  determined  by 
semi-judicial  process, — that  is,  by  commissions  of  two  mem- 
bers each,  or,  if  the  commissions  failed  to  agree,  by  arbitra- 
tion. Four  such  commissions  were  arranged  for.  The  first 
one  was  to  divide  the  islands  in  Passamaquoddy  Bay,  in  "^ 
submitting  one  of  which.  Moose  island,  to  question,  the 
Americans  suffered  the  only  defeat,  so  far  as  details  were 
concerned,  in  the  framing  of  the  treaty.  This  commission 
worked  satisfactorily  on  the  whole,  although  the  final  water 
boundary  was  not  determined  until  an  arbitration  of  1908. 
Another  commission  ultimately  fixed  the  boundary  from  ^ 
the  crossing  of  the  forty-fifth  parallel  and  the  St.  Lawrence 
through  Lake  Huron.  The  problems  of  the  boundary  from 
the  St.  Croix  to  the  St.  Lawrence  and  from  Lake  Huron  to 
the  Lake  of  the  Woods  proved  too  complicated;  the  com- 
missions charged  with  them  failed  to  agree,  and  subsequent 
arbitration  was  unsuccessful.  Nevertheless,  another  long 
step  had  been  taken  in  clearing  up  the  ambiguities  and 
vagueness  of  the  treaty  of  1783. 

From  the  peace  of  Ghent  the  United  States  emerged,  not 
a  "great  power"  in  the  conventional  sense,  but  a  nation  of 
Our  position  in  assured  position.  Thereafter  our  strength  was 
^^^^  suflBcient  for  our  defence,  and  our  safety  ceased 

to  depend  on  the  oscillations  of  the  European  balance  of 
power.  The  way  was  open  for  us  to  enter  into  the  European 
N  ti  ai  •  t  system  as  a  participating  member,  or  to  pursue 
ence  and  terri-  our  own  path  without  serious  molestation. 
There  were  just  as  many  unsettled  stretches  of 
our  boundary  as  in  1783,  but  their  vagueness  was  now  an  ad- 
vantage to  our  growing  power  rather  than  a  danger.    The 


PEACE  187 

area  of  dispute,  moreover,  had  been  pushed  back  and  our  ter- 
ritory was  much  more  self -sufficing  than  it  had  been.  We  had 
secured  the  outlet  of  our  greatest  river,  and  we  actually  pos- 
sessed the  mouths  of  nearly  all  those  flowing  from  our  terri- 
tory into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  great  western  expanse  of 
the  Louisiana  Purchase  assured  us  that  the  Mississippi  was 
destined  to  become  what  a  river  should  be,  a  magnet  to  unite 
and  not  a  boundary  to  divide.  Had  we  rested  where  we  were 
in  1815  our  destiny  as  a  great  nation  would  have  been  cer- 
tain; but  we  were  already  pushing  our  claims  across  the 
mountains  to  the  Pacific,  and  it  required  no  great  prophetic 
power  to  foresee  that  our  forty-five  degrees  of  longitude 
'vould  irresistibly  grasp  the  almost  uninhabited  ten  degrees 
)f  the  Pacific  slope. 

Our  commerce  for  years  had  been  abnormal,  and  was  for 
the  moment  almost  swept  from  the  seas;  international  law 

Tiad  been  so  strained  and  broken  by  twenty     _.  , 

~  ''       Commerce  and 

years  of  ceaseless  strife  that  one  might  have  international 
feared  that  two  centuries  of  development  in 
the  regulation  of  mternational  relationships  would  be  lost 
and  anarchy  return.  A  world-wide  readjustment  must  fol- 
low the  overthrow  of  Napoleon,  and  we  must  share  in  it. 
Fortunately,  we  were  increasingly  producing  things  that 
other  nations  needed,  besides  affording  a  growing  market 
for  their  products.  Fortunately,  too,  we  entered  into  the 
new  era  of  negotiation  free  from  entangling  agreements,  and 
with  a  remarkably  consistent  record  of  action  in  the  past 
from  which  we  could  develop  policies  for  the  future. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

COMMERCE  AND  BOUNDARIES 

The  period  from  the  treaty  of  Ghent  to  the  inauguration 
of  Jackson  is  notable  for  the  continuity  and  the  brilliancy  of 
The  diplomat-  our  diplomatic  service.  In  1817  Monroe,  hav- 
ic  service  j^^g  jjggjj  secretary  of  state,  became  President. 

Unsuccessful  in  all  his  early  diplomatic  undertakings  except 
the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  which  was  in  no  wise  due  to  him, 
he  had  nevertheless  an  experience  dating  back  to  1793,  and 
he  showed  improvement.^ 

But,  although  the  responsibility  was  Monroe's,  the  burden 
fortunately  fell  on  John  Quincy  Adams.  As  a  boy  Adams  had 
Characteristics  known  the  diplomatic  circles  of  Paris  and  St. 
of  Adams  Petersburg.    From  1795  to  1801  he  had  con- 

ducted negotiations  with  England,  Holland,  Prussia,  and 
Sweden.  At  the  close  of  his  work  at  Ghent,  he  became  minis- 
ter to  Great  Britain,  to  return  home  in  1817  as  secretary 
of  state,  an  office  which  he  retained  until  his  elevation  to  the 
presidency  in  1825.  Although  perhaps  not  intended  by 
nature  for  a  career  in  diplomacy,  by  intellect  and  industry 
he  forced  himself  ahead  of  all  his  contemporaries  and  made 
fundamental  contributions  to  American  diplomacy  on  a 
par  with  those  of  Franklin,  Washington,  his  father  John 
Adams,  and  Hay.  Unprofitably  obstinate  and  exacting, 
and  without  personal  charm,  he  had  a  more  comprehensive 
view  of  our  national  future  than  any  of  his  associates,  a 
view  somewhat  obscured  in  later  life,  it  is  true,  when  his 
emotions  were  stirred  by  his  opposition  to  slavery  and  his 
imagination  by  his  fear  of  the  slavocracy.  His  chief  opi>onent 
*  Monroe,  Writings,  7  vols,  N.  Y.,  1898-1903. 
188 


COMMERCE  AND  BOUNDARIES  189 

was  George  Canning,  after  1822  foreign  minister  of  Great 
Britain.      Both    players    of    consummate    ability,    Adams 
showed  perhaps  more  genius.  Canning  more 
adaptability.     If  neither  definitely  triumphed 
over  the  other,  at  least  neither  lost  tricks;  each  won  when 
he  held  the  cards.^ 

Of  subordinates,  Gallatin  gained  golden  opinions  during 
his  mission  to  France  from  1816  to  1823,  and  served  as 
minister  to  England  in  1826  and  1827.^    Clay,     ^^^^ 
as  Adams  remarks,  had  been  much  influenced 
by  his  residence  abroad  on  the  peace  commission.    With  his 
ready  adaptability  he  had  added  a  polish  of  manner  to  his 
natural  magnetism,  and  had  acquired  interest 
in  foreign  affairs  and  a  broad,  if  somewhat 
superficial,  knowledge  of  them.      Disappointed  at  not  re- 
ceiving the  state  department  in   1817,  he  was  for  years 
a  thorn  in    the    side   of    the    administration;    but  during 
his    service    as    secretary    of    state,  from    1825    to    1829, 
he    was    a    sympathetic    coadjutor    of    Adams.      Richard 

Rush  and  Rufus  King,  ministers  to  England    „    ,      ,„. 

,  ,   ,  ,  Rush  and  King 

from   1817  to   1825,   were  highly  competent 

representatives  of  the  country.^     In  general,  indeed,  the 

service  had  begun  to  attract  men  of  a  high  class,  and  the 

administration  was  willing  to  employ  them. 

This  condition  was  both  a  cause  and  a  result  of  the  higher 

standing  which  the  United  States  had  taken  in  the  world's 

estimation.     Perhaps  no  one  thing  had  con-    Enhanced 

tributed  more  to  this  added  prestige  than  the    P^®stige 

glorious,  though  apparently  futile,  record  of  our  navy  in  the 

war.    Not  since  the  French  Revolution  beheaded  the  naval 

oflBcers  of  the  old  regime  had  the  British  found  rivals  able  to 

stand  before  them  on  any  basis  approaching  equality.    The 

'  J.  Q.  Adams,  Memoirs.  12  vols.,  Phila.,  1874-77.    H.  W.  V.  Temperley, 
Life  of  Canning,  London,  1905. 

*  Gallatin,  Writings.  3  vols.,  Phila.,  1879. 

*  Richard  Rush,  Memoranda  of  a  Residence  at  the  Court  of  London.  Phila- 
^phia,  1833;  C.  R.  King,  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Rufus  King,  6  vols. 


190  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

successful  naval  duels  fought  by  the  Constitution,  the  Wasp, 
and  the  United  States,  to  say  nothing  of  the  battles  on  the 
lakes,  amazed  Europe.  England  sought  to  minimize  this 
wnpression  by  pointing  to  inequalities  in  the  strength  of  the 
vessels,  and  by  claiming  the  crews  as  renegade  Englishmen; 
but  she  failed  to  shake  their  effect.  The  potential  strength 
of  the  American  navj%  and  the  actual  strength  of  the  mer- 
chant marine  on  which  it  rested,  gained  us  a  hearing  at  every 
court.  ^ 

The  problems  that  engaged  the  attention  of  the  govern- 
ment during  this  period  were  less  vital  than  those  which 
Decline  of  occupied  our  diplomacy  before  1815,  and  conse- 

Commerce  quently  attracted  less  public  interest.     To  a 

large  degree  our  long-sought  isolation  had  been  attained. 
The  European  situation  was  also  less  absorbing,  and  our 
growth  had  rendered  us  less  malleable  to  European  intrigues. 
Moreover,  Jefferson's  restrictive  policy  had  hastened  the 
same  natural  process  here  which  Napoleon's  continental 
system  had  brought  about  in  Europe.  Manufacturing  had 
developed.  We  were  less  dependent  upon  foreign  imports, 
and  our  own  markets  consumed  a  greater  proportion  of  our 
agricultural  products.  We  were  approaching  more  nearly 
to  an  economic  equilibrium,  and  commerce  was  not  so  im- 
portant to  us  as  it  had  been.  Our  diplomacy  was  less  in- 
teresting and  less  vital,  and  it  was  conducted  under  less 
pressure. 

The  treaty  of  Ghent  had  so  rigidly  excluded  contentious 
matters  that  many  subjects  were  left  to  the  future.  This 
Continuation  was  on  the  whole  to  the  advantage  of  the 
witlf*^reat°"  United  States.  In  fact,  the  statesmen  of  the 
Britain  rising   generation,   conscious   of   our   steadily 

growing  power  and  not  confronted  by  the  pressing  necessity 
of  the  Confederation  and  early  constitutional  periods,  were 
usually  ready  to  let  issues  drag,  confidently  believing  that 

» C.  F.  Adams,  "Wednesday,  August  19,  1812,  6:30  p.  m.  the  Birth  of  a 
World  Power,"  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1913,  xviii.  513-521. 


COMMERCE  AND   BOUNDARIES  191 

time  was  working  with  them.  The  settlement  of  many  of 
these  problems,  however,  was  not  long  delayed;  for  the  treaty 
proved  to  be  not  the  end  of  agreement,  but  merely  the  first 
step  toward  it. 

In  1817  Bagot,  the  British  minister  at  Washington,  and 
Richard  Rush,  the  acting  secretary  of  state,  exchanged 
notes  dealing  with  the  navigation  of  the  Great  use  of  the 
Lakes.  This  simple  arrangement  provided  for  ^*^®' 
the  maintenance  of  small  and  equal  armed  forces  by  the  two 
powers.  Although  revocable  at  six  months'  notice,  it  has, 
adjusted  to  meet  the  changing  conditions  of  ship-construction 
and  revenue  patrol,  lasted  to  the  present  time.^ 

A  disagreement  arose  over  the  interpretation  of  the  treaty 
of  Ghent.  The  Americans  claimed  that  its  provision  for  the 
return  of  property  of  all  kinds  included  slaves,  indemnity  for 
many  of  whom  had  been  taken  on  board  by  "*''®^ 
British  war  vessels  in  the  Chesapeake  and  elsewhere;  Great 
Britain,  on  the  contrary,  maintained  that  they  ceased  to  be 
slaves  on  entering  a  British  war  vessel  and  so  could  not  be 
returned.  By  a  convention  of  1818  this  question  was  sub- 
mitted to  a  true  arbitration  by  the  emperor  of  Russia,  who 
decided  that  we  could  claim  indemnification  but  not  restitu- 
tion. In  accordance  with  this  decision,  a  new  claims  conven- 
tion was  framed  in  1822,  by  which  we  ultimately  received 
nearly  a  million  and  a  quarter  dollars  in  compensation.  The 
demand  for  the  restitution  of  slaves  taken  at  the  close  of  the 
Revolution  was  not  pressed. 

A  more  disturbing  question  was  that  of  the  status  of 
previous  agreements  between  the  two  nations.  The  effect  of 
a  war  upon  earlier  treaties  is  a  subject  which  Effect  of  war 
had  not  then,  and  indeed  has  not  yet,  been  o°*r«»ti«s 
reduced  to  rule.  The  courts  of  this  country  and  of  others 
have  continued  to  enforce  provisions  respecting  individual 
rights  established  under  earlier  treaties,  though  this  does  not 

*  J.  M.  Callahan,  Agreement  of  1817;  Reduction  of  Naval  Forces  upon  the 
American  Lakes,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc,  Report,  1895,  pp.  369-392. 


192  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

include  a  recognition  of  the  power  to  create  fresh  rights  from 
the  provisions  of  an  earlier  treaty  after  a  war  has  intervened. 
Again,  many  treaties  contain  provisions  relating  to  conduct 
during  hostilities  which  would  be  meaningless  were  they 
supposed  to  lapse  with  a  declaration  of  war.  Special  priv- 
ileges and  arrangements,  on  the  other  hand,  are  commonly  un- 
derstood so  to  lapse.  In  discussing  this  problem,  Adams  was 
particularly  anxious  to  obtain  recognition  of  the  rights  and 
privileges  accorded  to  American  fishermen  on  the  coast  of 
British  America  by  the  treaty  of  1783.  The  British  held  that 
these  clauses  had  ceased  to  operate;  consequently  fifteen 
hundred  New  England  vessels  previously  employed  in  this 
occupation  were  now  barred  from  it.  Adams  could  not 
press  his  point  as  he  might  have  wished;  for  we  on  our  part 
treated  as  void  the  permanent  clause  of  the  Jay  treaty  giving 
mutual  privileges  in  the  fur  trade,  by  passing,  April  29,  1816, 
an  act  forbidding  licences  for  trade  with  the  Indians  to  any 
except  United  States  citizens,  unless  by  special  permission 
of  the  President.  Adams  attempted  to  draw  a  distinction 
between  the  two  treaties,  on  the  ground  that  the  first  "was 
not,  in  the  general  provisions,  one  of  those  which,  by  the 
common  understanding  and  usage  of  civilized  nations,  is  or 
can  be  considered  as  annulled  by  a  subsequent  war."  This 
Lord  Bathurst  denied;  but  he  admitted  that  this  treaty, 
"like  many  others,  contained  provisions  of  different  charac- 
ter— some  in  their  own  nature  irrevocable,  and  others  of  a 
temporary  character." 

Upon  this  basis  the  convention  of  1818  dealt  with  the 
question.  The  "right"  of  Americans  to  fish  off  the  Banks  of 
Convention  f  Newfoundland,  "acknowledged"  by  the  treaty 
1818  and  the  of  1783,  remained  acknowledged;  the  "liber- 
ties," however,  were  treated  as  void,  and  a 
substitute  arrangement  was  entered  into.  This  contract 
gave  us  the  right  to  take  fish  within  the  three-mile  limit  on  | 
the  coast  of  Labrador  and  certain  specified  coasts  of  New-  i 
foundland,  and  to  use  for  drying  fish  the  same  shores  so  long  I 


COMMERCE  AND  BOUNDARIES  193 

as  they  remained  unsettled.  Our  fishermen  might  also  use 
the  settled  harbors  "for  the  purpose  of  shelter  and  of  repair- 
ing damages  therein,  of  purchasing  wood,  and  of  obtaining 
water,  and  for  no  other  purpose  whatever."  But,  runs  the 
treaty,  "they  shall  be  under  such  restrictions  as  may  be 
necessary  to  prevent  their  taking,  drying  or  curing  fish 
therein,  or  in  any  other  manner  whatever  abusing  the  priv- 
ileges hereby  reserved  to  them." 

Under  this  convention,  which  is  still  in  force,  the  American  ^ 
fishermen  at  once  resumed  their  occupation.     In  spite  of 
its  apparently  liberal  provisions,  however,  the     ^  . 

document  proved  to  be  a  Pandora's  box  of  lems  of  the 
discords,  and  its  ambiguities  have  been  sources 
of  dispute  almost  to  the  present  day.  There  were  stretches 
of  coast  where  we  wished  to  fish  which  were  not  included  in 
the  treaty  definition.  Here  we  certainly  could  not  encroach 
within  the  three-mile  limit,  but  it  was  not  certain  what  the 
three-mile  limit  meant.  Great  Britain  insisted  that  a  number 
of  bays,  even  though  their  mouths  exceeded  six  miles  across, 
were  closed  waters;  and  we  desired  to  use  the  Gut  of  Canso, 
separating  Nova  Scotia  from  the  island  of  Cape  Breton, 
although  it  was  less  than  six  miles  broad.  The  important, 
almost  necessary,  privilege  of  purchasing  bait  was  not  men- 
tioned in  the  treaty  and  was  often  denied,  as  was  that  also  of 
using  the  harbors  for  transshipment  of  fish  from  one  vessel 
to  another. 

The  local  port  regulations  admitted  of  being  made  very 
burdensome,  and  the  spirit  to  make  them  so  developed,  for 
the  rivalry  between  American  and  Canadian  Fishermen's 
fishermen  became  constantly  keener.  Hereto-  "^""®^ 
fore  the  Canadians  had  had  the  best  of  it,  for  the  most 
important  common  market  for  both  countries,  the  British 
West  Indies,  had  been  regulated  to  their  advantage.  Now 
the  United  States  was  developing  into  the  most  important 
market,  and  here  the  Americans  had  the  aid  of  tariff  protec- 
tion.   They  also  received  bounties  from  the  national  govern- 


194  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ment,  as  an  offset  to  the  duty  on  the  salt  they  used  and  In 
recognition  of  the  fisheries  as  a  "nursery  of  seamen."  The 
less  fortunate  Canadians  were  eager  to  embarrass  the  Ameri- 
cans by  disagreeable  regulations,  but  they  were  not  unwilling 
to  sell  them  fish,  upon  which  many  Americans  unblushingly 
collected  bounties  and  which  they  sold  at  prices  enhanced  by 
the  tariff.^ 

A  somewhat  similar  question,  which  can  hardly  be  said 
ever  to  have  risen  to  the  surface  of  diplomacy,  related  to  the 

annuities   granted  by  the  United   States,   in 
Indian    claims  i«        x     i-        i       i 

payment  for  Indian  lands,  to   certam  tribes 

which  subsequently  removed  to  Canada.  Although  paid 
before  the  war,  the  annuities  were  discontinued  afterwards, 
and  are  now  (1914)  the  subject  of  arbitration. 

The  most  important  unsettled  question,  however,  though 
not  of  so  immediate  concern  as  the  fisheries,  was  that  of 
Northwestern  boundary.  At  the  "most  northwestern  point 
boundary  ^f  ^^ie  Lake  of  the  Woods"  the  dividmg  line 

between  the  two  nations  vanished  into  thin  air.  The  direc- 
tion of  the  treaty  of  1783  to  continue  a  line  westward  until 
it  struck  the  Mississippi  could  not  be  carried  out,  as  such  a 
line  would  not  strike  the  Mississippi.  Perhaps  the  most 
logical  thing  would  have  been  to  draw  the  shortest  line  to  that 
point,  but  there  was  no  entirely  obvious  course.  Moreover, 
the  matter  had  been  further  complicated  by  our  purchase  of 
Louisiana,  which  had  no  northern  boundary.  Finally,  how- 
ever, the  two  questions  were  combined  and  settled  in  the 
convention  of  1818,  by  the  dropping  of  a  line  due  south  from  I 
the  termination  of  the  boundary  to  the  forty-ninth  parallel, 
along  which  it  continued  westward  to  the  "Stony,"  or,  as  we' 
say.  Rocky  Mountains.  This  adjustment  was  eminently 
satisfactory,  as  it  gave  us  almost  exactly  the  natural  drainage  y 
basin  of  the  Mississippi,  which  practically  constituted  our 
claim  by  the  Louisiana  purchase.    Although  some  commun- 

^  Raymond  McFarland,  A  History  oj  the  New  England  Fisheries,  New 
York,  1911. 


COMMERCE  AND  BOUNDARIES  195 

ities  along  the  northern  border  might  to-day  be  somewhat 
better  accommodated  had  the  natural  line  been  followed,  the 
national  area  would  not  be  noticeably  different,  and  the 
national  temper  would  have  been  many  times  tried,  and 
might  have  been  lost,  in  the  attempt  to  locate  it.  Astro- 
nomical boundaries  have  the  advantage  of  being  ascer- 
tained by  mechanical  rather  than  by  human  instruments, 
although,  as  we  shall  discover,  astronomers  may  themselves 
go  wrong. 

The  obscuration  of  the  Mississippi  by  this  line,  which  left 
it  entirely  within  United  States  territory,  gave  a  curious  and 
final  twist  to  the  problem  of  its  navigation,     _. 
until   then   a   perennial   question.      Had   the    tion    of   the 
Mississippi  taken  its  rise  in  British  territory, 
the  clause  of  the  treaty  of  1783  giving  Great  Britain  its  free 
use  must  probably  have  been  interpreted  as  on  a  par  with 
that  giving  us  the  "right"  to  fish  on  the  Banks.    As  the  river 
lay  wholly  in  our  territory,  however,  we  successfully  asserted  y 
that  the  clause  in  question  lapsed  with  the  one  that  gave  us 
fishing  "liberties."     Subsequent  discovery,  it  is  true,  has 
shown  that  the  Milk  river  and  a  few  other  branches  of  the 
Missouri  do  rise  in  Canada;  but  their  navigation  will  scarcely 
serve  to  revive  the  question,  although  their  use  for  irrigation 
is  perhaps  not  without  diplomatic  significance. 

In  the  same  convention  a  fourth  link  was  added  to  our 
claim  to  the  Oregon  country  by  Great  Britain's  recognition 
of  our  pretensions  to  it.  Neither  side  ac-  joint  occupa- 
knowledged  more  than  the  fact  that  the  other  *^°°  °^  ^'^s**"  ^ 
had  a  claim,  and  it  was  agreed  that  the  subjects  of  both  might 
for  ten  years  jointly  use  the  whole  region. 

With  the  convention  of  1818  practically  all  the  immediate 
and  special  questions  between  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  had  been  put  in  process  of  settlement.     Permanent 
The  issues  that  remained  were  for  the  most  part    *^^"®8 
in  the  nature  of  permanent  conflicts  of  interest  and  opinion* 
which  do  not  admit  of  final  determination. 


196  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Of  these,  commercial  intercourse  was  the  most  important. 
The  commercial  problem  of  diplomacy  was  now  less  than 
Commercial  previously  one  of  opening  up  markets  for  our 
conditions  goods.     Our  fish,  that  bone  of  contention,  we 

were  coming  to  eat  ourselves;  most  of  the  rest  were  raw 
materials  eminently  desired  by  other  countries.  England 
had  a  small  duty  on  our  cotton,  but  it  was  soon  removed 
because  of  internal  policy.  The  foreign  products  that  we 
handled,  as  tea  from  Asia,  occasioned  more  difficulty.  The 
main  problem,  however,  was  to  protect  and  encourage  the 
employment  of  our  vessels.  For  years  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States,  the  former  under  the  protection  of  her  navy, 
the  latter  as  the  sole  important  neutral,  had  almost  monop- 
olized the  world's  shipping.  Both  suffered  from  the  peace. 
The  neutral  trade  had  been  a  constant  source  of  embarrass- 
ment, but  now  there  was  no  neutral  trade.  Our  feelings  were 
relieved,  but  we  suffered  in  pocket.  The  vessels  of  other 
countries  came  out  of  their  seclusion,  and  their  governments 
sought  to  encourage  and  favor  them.  One  result  of  this 
general  revival  of  interest  in  navigation  was  that  at  length, 
and  with  difficulty,  international  cooperation  was  brought  to 
bear  on  the  Barbary  states,  till  by  degrees  that  pest  was 
wiped  out  and  the  Mediterranean  was  opened  to  all  nations. 
We  did  not  join  in  the  cooperation,  which  was  under  the 
direction  of  the  quadruple  alliance;  but  we  sent  a  squadron 
there,  and  we  shared  the  advantages.^ 

Our  method  of  favoring  the  merchant  marine  rested  on 
Jefferson's  idea  of  commercial  discrimination.  It  was  em- 
Commercial  bodied  in  what  was  called  a  policy  of  reciprocity 
policy  which  was  based  on  an  act  of  March  3,  1815,  / 

providing  for  the  abolition  of  all  discriminations  against/ 
foreign  vessels  in  our  ports  in  the  case  of  those  nations  who 
would  reciprocally  abolish  their  discriminating  duties.  The 
execution  of  this  policy  was  to  be  by  means  of  diplomacy.  On 
this  basis,  a  convention  was  in  the  same  year  arranged  with 
1  Moore,  American  Diplomacy,  63-130. 


COMMERCE  AND  BOUNDARIES  197 

Great  Britain  which  included  her  European  possessions  and 
enumerated  ports  in  the  East  Indies,  but  which  applied  only 
to  goods  that  were  the  produce  of  the  respective  countries 
or  colonies  involved.  In  1822  a  somewhat  similar  conven- 
tion was  arranged  with  France.  In  1826  a  treaty  with  Den- 
mark, in  1827  treaties  with  the  Hanse  towns,  Hamburg, 
Liibeck,  and  Bremen,  and  with  the  kingdoms  of  Sweden  and 
Norway,  and  in  1828  a  treaty  with  Prussia  opened  up  com- 
plete reciprocity  in  all  kinds  of  goods.  By  an  act  of  1828 
the  President  was  authorized  to  abolish  such  discriminating 
dues  by  proclamation  alone  in  the  case  of  any  country  where 
he  should  become  convinced  that  a  similar  freedom  was 
offered  to  American  vessels.  Under  this  law  successive  proc- 
lamations gradually  admitted  one  country  after  another  to 
reciprocity.  The  discriminations  of  1789  disappeared,  but 
with  them  disappeared  also  the  countervailing  discrimina- 
tions of  other  countries. 

One  demand  was  for  an  agreement  concerning  British 
North  America.  With  the  extinction  of  the  permanent 
clauses  of  the  Jay  treaty  vanished  the  right  The  St.  Law- 
which  it  gave  to  Vermont  and  northern  New  "^'^^ 
York  to  take  their  goods  to  Montreal  and  Quebec.^  The 
loss  of  this  privilege  did  not  destroy  the  trade,  which  con- 
tinued to  be  allowed  under  British  regulations  till  1822;  but 
no  permanent  agreement  could  be  reached.  Great  Britain 
wished  to  blend  the  matter  with  the  general  question  of 
colonial  trade;  the  United  States  insisted  on  our  natural 
right  to  navigate  to  the  sea  a  river  on  which  we  bordered. 
We  were  as  unable  to  obtain  a  recognition  of  this  principle 
from  Great  Britain  as  we  had  been  to  secure  the  assent  of 
Spain  in  the  case  of  the  Mississippi,  and  a  deadlock  ensued. 
Fortunately,  the  completion  of  canals  from  Lake  Champlain 
to  the  Hudson  and  from  Lake  Erie  to  the  Erie  canal  un- 
bottled  those  districts,  and  so  diminished  the  importance 
of  the  question. 

*  Schuyler,  American  Diplomacy,  282-291. 


\/ 


198  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

The  old  question  of  trade  with  the  West  Indies  continued 
to  be  the  most  vexing  issue  between  the  two  governments. 
The  British  Here  again  it  was  our  shipping  and  not  our 
West  Indies  exports  that  caused  trouble.  Under  the  reci- 
procity convention  of  1815  British  vessels  brought  British 
goods  to  the  United  States,  took  aboard  United  States  prod- 
ucts needed  in  the  West  Indies,  and  there  exchanged  them 
for  island  products  which  they  took  to  England.  The  Amer- 
ican ships,  on  the  contrary,  were  in  general  barred  from  the 
islands,  and  even  in  the  direct  trade  with  England  they  felt 
the  competition  of  the  British  vessels,  which  in  the  greater 
flexibility  of  their  opportunity  enjoyed  a  substantial  ad- 
vantage. 

Though  loath  to  do  so,  the  United  States  submitted  to 
the  exclusion  from  the  trade  between  the  colonies  and  Great 
Policy  of  the  Britain,  but  she  insisted  on  the  privilege  of 
United  States  carrying  on  trade  between  the  colonies  and 
countries  mutually  foreign.  Believing  that  her  products 
were  so  essential  to  the  existence  of  the  West  Indian  colonies 
that  she  could  force  her  owti  terms  by  prohibiting  trade  there 
entirely,  she  passed  acts  to  that  effect  in  1818  and  1820,  with  y 
the  qualification  that  the  President  was  to  suspend  them 
when  he  was  convinced  that  their  object  had  been  attained. 
In  1822  they  were  in  part  suspended  pending  further  nego- 
tiations under  a  new  British  act. 

Meanwhile,  under  the  leadership  of  Huskisson,  who  in 
1823  became  president  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  Great  Britain 
Change  in  Brit-  was  undergoing  a  change  of  heart,  or  at  least 
ish  pohcy  q£  mind,  on  the  subject  of  the  navigation  laws. 

The  old  system  was  breaking  down,  but,  like  all  other  British 
institutions,  it  did  not  break  down  suddenly.  The  ultimate 
result,  ultimate  that  is  for  this  period,  of  the  change  in  British 
jMjlicy  was  reached  in  the  acts  of  June  27  and  July  5,  1825, 
which  opened  the  colonies  to  the  direct  trade  of  all  nations, 
that  is,  to  trade  in  the  products  of  the  colony  and  of  the  na- 
tion to  which  the  vessel  employed  belonged.     The  traffic 


COMMERCE  AND  BOUNDARIES  19D 

between  the  colonies  and  Great  Britain  was  retained  as 
"coasting  trade"  for  British  vessels,  as  was  all  indirect  trade, 
as  for  instance,  that  in  China  tea  by  way  of  New  York. 
Enjoyment  of  the  benefits  of  the  acts  was  to  depend  upon 
reciprocal  advantages  granted  to  Great  Britain  within  the 
year. 

These  terms  seemed  to  offer  an  opportunity  for  a  final 
settlement,  but  the  United  States  would  not  take  them  as 
they  stood,  insisting  on  the  right  to  take  _^  , 
British  West  Indian  goods  to  all  countries  ex- 
cept Great  Britain.  Accordingly,  the  year  having  expired 
before  an  agreement  was  reached.  Great  Britain  withdrew  her 
offer.  Adams  thereupon  let  the  acts  of  1818  and  1820  go  once 
more  into  operation.  The  West  Indian  trade  was  therefore 
again  absolutely  closed,  as  to  both  products  and  shipping. 
Moreover,  with  the  greater  eflBciency  of  governmental  action, 
the  laws  were  now  so  vigorously  enforced  that  there  was  less 
commercial  intercourse  between  the  United  States  and  the 
islands  than  ever  before,  whether  in  peace  or  in  war. 

More  important  than  these  negotiations  with  Great  Brit- 
ain concerning  commerce  were  those  with  Spain  in  regard 
to  boundaries.  When  in  1815  the  Spanish  Disputes  with 
monarchy  reemerged  from  the  blanket  of  ^P*"* 
French  and  English  control,  it  found  itself  confronted  by 
issues  with  the  United  States  which  would  have  excused  a 
war  had  it  been  in  a  position  to  undertake  one.  Although 
Spain  held  title  to  West  Florida,  we  occupied  most  of  the 
province;  furthermore,  though  Spain  now  accepted  the 
validity  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  its  western  limits  were 
still  undetermined.  We,  on  our  part,  insisted  upon  the 
execution  of  a  claims  convention  framed  in  1802,  we  were 
fully  of  a  mind  to  keep  West  Florida,  and  were  equally  de- 
termined to  obtain  East  Florida. 

Our  claim  to  the  latter  territory  was  inherently  grounded 
in  that  "Manifest  Destiny"  which  was  to  play  so  important 
a  part  in  our  history.    More  concretely,  it  was  based  on  the 


200  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

argument  that  Spain  was  not  able  to  take  care  of  the  coun- 
try,— on  the  self-constituted  right  of  the  stronger  nations 
United  States  of  the  world  to  demand  and  enforce  the 
claims  elimination  of  international  nuisances,  an  idea 

which  succeeded  "Manifest  Destiny"  as  the  chief  diplomatic 
slogan  of  "imperial"  statesmen.  This  argument  found  its 
justification  in  the  use  of  East  Florida  by  the  British  during 
the  war  of  1812,  the  use  of  Amelia  island  just  south  of  Georgia 
by  Spanish  American  privateers  until  a  later  period,  and  the 
incursions  of  Florida  Indians  into  the  United  States  after 
cattle  and  slaves. 

The  negotiations  were  conducted  at  Washington  by 
Adams  with  Don  Luis  de  Onis,  whose  titles  fill  nine  lines 
.   .  of  the   treaty.     They   were   assisted   by  the 

French  minister,  Baron  Hyde  de  Neuville  to 
whose  tact  success  was  in  part  due.  The  United  States  em- 
phasized its  views  in  1817  by  ordering  the  temporary  occupa- 
tion, for  the  suppression  of  piratical  privateering,  of  Amelia 
island  on  the  one  side  and  Galveston  on  the  other.  More 
important  were  the  orders  given  to  General  Andrew  Jackson, 
commanding  the  southern  department,  to  follow  across  the 
border,  and  chastise  in  their  homes,  any  Indians  marauding 
United  States  territory.  Jackson,  misconceiving  the  scope 
of  his  orders,  invaded  Florida  in  the  winter  of  1818,  and  not 
only  dealt  with  the  Indians  but  seized  the  Spanish  forts  of 
St.  Marks  and  Pensacola,  and  hanged,  after  a  court-martial, 
two  Englishmen,  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister,  who  were  ac- 
cused of  assisting  the  Indians.^ 

This  episode,  which  under  other  circumstances  might  have 

embroiled  us  with  both  Spain  and  England,  Adams  used  to 

quicken  the  negotiation.     Knowing  that  the  latter  country 

did  not  care  to  trouble  itself  over  two  cosmopolitan  adven- 

*  H.  B.  Fuller,  The  Purchase  of  Florida,  its  History  and  Diplomacy,  Cleve- 
land, 1906;  James  Schouler,  Historical  Briefs  (New  York,  1896),  "Monroe 
and  the  Rhea  Letter";  R.  C.  H.  Catterall,  A  French  Diplomat  and  the  Treaty 
with  Spain,  1819,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1905,  i.  21;  Frances  Jackson, 
Memoir  of  Baron  Hyde  de  Neuville,  St.  Louis,  1913. 


COMMERCE  AND  BOUNDARIES  201 

turers,  he  set  up  the  claim  that  they  had  expatriated  them- 
selves by  their  activities.  To  De  Onis  he  wrote:  "If,  as  the 
commanders  both  at  Pensacola  and  St.  Marks  Adams  de- 
have  alleged,  this  has  been  the  result  of  their  **"^'  Jackson 
weakness  rather  than  their  will;  if  they  have  assisted  the 
Indians  against  the  United  States  to  avert  their  hostilities 
from  the  province  which  they  have  not  suflBcient  force  to 
defend  against  them,  it  may  serve  in  some  measure  to  ex- 
culpate, individually,  those  officers;  but  it  must  carry  demon- 
stration irresistible  to  the  Spanish  government,  that  the  right 
of  the  United  States  can  as  little  compound  with  impotence 
as  with  perfidy,  and  that  Spain  must  immediately  make 
her  election,  either  to  place  a  force  in  Florida  adequate  at 
once  to  the  protection  of  her  territory,  and  to  the  fulfillment 
of  her  engagements,  or  cede  to  the  United  States  a  province, 
of  which  she  retains  nothing  but  the  nominal  possession,  but 
which  is,  in  fact,  a  derelict,  open  to  the  occupancy  of  every 
enemy,  civilized  or  savage,  of  the  United  States,  and  serving 
no  other  earthly  purpose  than  as  a  post  of  annoyance  to  them." 
Meantime  the  settlement  of  the  western  boundary  was 
under  discussion.  We  claimed  to  the  Rio  Grande,  on  the 
basis  of  French  exploration  under  La  Salle.  The  Texas 
Since,  however.  La  Salle  went  there  by  mis-  ^"^stion 
take,  and  was  intent  upon  leaving  as  rapidly  as  possible 
when  he  was  murdered,  the  claim  was  lacking  in  convincing 
force.  A  slightly  stronger  basis  for  our  claim  is  found  in 
Napoleon's  instructions  to  Victor  in  1802  to  occupy  to  that 
river,  but  this  instruction  did  not  control  Spain.  Spain, 
on  her  part,  claimed  to  the  watershed  of  the  Mississippi,  a 
limit  which  would  have  brought  her  close  to  its  mouth  and 
made  her  an  inconvenience  if  not  a  menace  to  its  navigation. 
De  Neuville  suggested  that  Spain  give  up  Florida  and  that 
Adams  compromise  to  the  westward.  This  the  latter  was 
unwilling  to  do,  but  he  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  Monroe 
and  others,  and,  after  discussing  nearly  every  river  of  the 
coast,  accepted  the  Sabine.    Curiously,  this  boimdary  gave 


202  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

us  more  nearly  what  we  had  purchased  than  any  other  would 
have  done ;  for  although  there  had  never  been  a  western  bound- 
ary to  Louisiana,  the  most  western  French  fort  had  been  at 
Natchitoches,  about  forty  miles  east  of  the  Sabine,  and  the 
most  eastern  Spanish  post  had  been  Adaes,  between  Natchi- 
toches and  the  Sabine.^  The  Sabine,  moreover  had  been 
agreed  upon  as  a  temporary  military  boundary  in  1806. 

In  return  for  the  cession  of  the  Floridas  we  released  Spain 
from  all  claims  under  the  convention  of  1802,  which  had  just 
Terms  of  the  been  renewed,  and  agreed  to  assume  the  pay- 
treaty  ment  of  them  to  the  amount  of  five  million 
dollars.  The  treaty  resembled  that  relating  to  the  purchase 
of  Louisiana,  in  providing  that  "The  inhabitants  of  the 
territories  which  His  Catholic  Majesty  cedes  to  the  United 
States,  by  this  treaty,  shall  be  incorporated  in  the  Union  of 
the  United  States,  as  soon  as  may  be  consistent  with  the 
principles  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  admitted  to  the 
enjoyment  of  all  the  privileges,  rights,  and  immunities  of  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States." 

To  Adams's  mind,  the  most  important  provision  of  the 
treaty  was  that  which  described  the  boundary  between  the 
Boundary  to  United  States  and  the  possessions  of  Spain 
the  Pacific  north  of  the  Sabine.     This  line  zigzagged  by 

rivers  and  parallels  of  latitude,  until  it  followed  the  forty- 
second  parallel  to  the  Pacific.  Instead,  therefore,  of  com- 
pleting the  bounding  of  Louisiana,  it  departed  from  that 
purchase  and,  running  westward,  created  the  first  inter- 
national boundary-line  that  touched  the  western  ocean. 
It  thus  added  a  fifth  link  to  our  claim  to  Oregon. 

The  treaty  was  signed  February  22,  1819,  but  its  ratifica- 
tion was  delayed  both  in  the  United  States,  because  of  op- 
position  to  the  so-called  surrender  of  Texas, 
and  in  Spain;  so  that  ratifications  were  not 
finally  exchanged  until  February  22,  1821. 

>  Bolton,  H.  E.,  Texas  in  the  Middle  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  (1915), 
S6ff. 


CHAPTER    XVII 
THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE » 

The  elevation  of  Joseph  Bonaparte  to  the  throne  of  Spain 
in  1808  snapped  the  worn  bands  that  held  her  American  colo- 
nies. Miranda  was  correct  in  his  diagnosis  of  spanish- 
sentiment  in  Spanish  America.  Innumerable  American 
causes,  local  and  general,  preventable  and  in- 
evitable, had  long  nourished  a  discontent  that  but  awaited 
an  opportunity  to  manifest  itself.  In  1812  Miranda,  who 
had  of  late  been  making  his  headquarters  in  the  United 
States,  lost  his  liberty  in  a  tragic  effort  to  start  the  blaze  in 
his  home  province  of  Venezuela.  In  the  same  year  a  more 
successful  beginning  was  made  at  Buenos  Ayres  by  leaders 
who  still  professed  loyalty  to  the  Spanish  nation,  which  also, 
with  the  fostering  aid  of  England,  was  resisting  the  Bonapar- 
tist  dynasty.  When,  however,  in  1815  Ferdinand  VII  was 
restored,  this  loyalty  disappeared;  Buenos  Ayres  never  per- 
mitted the  exercise  of  his  power,  and  soon  the  flames  of 
revolt  were  sweeping  over  the  continent.  In  1822  the  con- 
flagration raging  northward  from  Buenos  Ayres  met,  in 
Peru,  that  which  Bolivar  had  kindled  in  Venezuela  from  the 
ashes  of  Miranda's  movement.  In  1821  Mexico  had  thrown 
off  the  yoke;  and  there  was  left  of  the  Spanish  empire  almost 
nothing  except  an  army  in  the  heights  of  the  Andes  which 
was  to  succumb  in  1824,  and  the  islands  of  Cuba  and  Porto 
Rico.   Brazil  separated  from  Portugal  in  1822. 

To  the  European  mind  this  outbreak  seemed  a  continua- 
tion of  the  revolution  that  had  begun  in  the  United  States  and 
had  swept  through  Europe  under  the  leadership  of  the  French. 

*  D.  C.  Gilman,  James  Monroe,  revised  ed.,  Boston,  etc.,  [1900].  The 
appendix  contains  a  bibliography  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  to  1897. 

203 


204  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Brazil,  indeed,  established  an  empire;  but  Spain's  former 
possessions  broke  up  into  federal  republics  based  on  the 
European  model  of  the  United  States.    In  1820  the  move- 

revolutions  ment  seemed  to  rebound  to  Europe,  and  insur- 

rections and  revolts  broke  out  in  Spain  herself,  in  Naples, 
in  Sardinia,  and  in  Greece. 

This  time,  however,  revolution  found  monarchy  organized 
to  resist  it.  September  26,  1815,  there  had  been  signed  at 
The  Holy  Al-  Paris,  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  Czar  Alex- 
^^^^  ander,  the  so-called  Holy  Alliance,  by  which 

Russia,  Austria,  and  Prussia  united  to  defend  religion  and 
morality,  and,  what  they  believed  to  be  the  only  sure  founda- 
tion for  them,  government  by  divine  right.  While  the  Holy 
Alliance  of  itself  did  little,  it  inspired  with  its  principles  the 
quadruple  alliance,  of  which  France  was  a  member  and  with 
which  England  sometimes  cooperated,  as  in  the  joint  demon- 
stration against  the  Barbary  pirates.  In  1821  the  meeting 
of  the  allies  at  Troppau  authorized  Austria  to  quench  the 
revolts  in  Italy,  and  it  was  done.  In  1822  the  meeting  at 
Verona  commissioned  France  to  restore  the  Spanish  mon- 
archy, and  that  task  was  accomplished  in  1823. 

The  Congress  of  Verona  resolved  "that  the  system  of 
representative  government  is  equally  incompatible  with  the 
European  in-  monarchical  principles  as  the  maxim  of  the  sov- 
tervention  ereignty  of  the  people  is  with  the  divine  right  " ; 

and  the  members  engaged,  "mutually  and  in  the  most 
solemn  manner,  to  use  all  their  eflForts  to  put  an  end  to  the 
system  of  representative  governments  in  whatsoever  country 
it  may  exist  in  Europe,  and  to  prevent  its  being  introduced  in 
those  countries  where  it  is  not  yet  known."  It  is  to  be 
observed  that  the  qualifying  clause  "in  Europe"  applies  to 
the  suppression  of  representative  government  where  it  then 
existed.  It  does  not  apply  to  the  countries  into  which  its 
future  introduction  should  not  be  allowed.  This  precise 
reading  of  a  phrase  which  was  probably  carefully  framed 
leaves   the   United   States   unthreatened,  but  it  seems  to 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  205 

imply  a  purpose  to  interfere  in  Spanish  America.  Nor  was 
there  any  reason  why  European  statesmen  should  recognize 
the  Atlantic  as  a  dividing  line.  Ideas  crossed  it  all  too 
readily  for  their  taste,  and  they  had  always  looked  upon  the 
whole  world  of  European  culture  as  one.  It  was  the  rumor, 
also,  that  France  expected  reward  for  her  services  to  Spain  in 
the  shape  of  a  Mexican  kingdom  for  one  of  her  princes,  or  in 
the  cession  of  Cuba,^  Besides,  Russia  was  certainly  advanc- 
ing along  the  northwest  coast,  and  might  find  cause  and 
power  to  demand  California  from  a  grateful  Spain. 

Great  Britain,  although  she  had  opposed  Revolution  as 
exemplified  in  France,  was  as  little  in  sympathy  with  Divine 
Right.  She  was  alarmed  at  the  disturbance  Great  Britain 
in  that  delicate  adjustment,  the  balance  of  *"**  ^^'"" 
power  in  Europe,  which  the  alliance  of  all  the  great  powers 
brought  about.  Her  special  interests,  too,  differed  from  those 
of  continental  Europe.  If  the  Spanish- American  revolutions 
of  1810  had  not  saved  her  from  bankruptcy,  as  Napoleon 
believed,  they  had  at  any  rate  opened  a  rich  and  long-sought 
opportunity  for  wealth.  If  the  dreams  of  Hawkins,  of  the 
speculators  in  the  South  Sea  Bubble,  of  the  colonists  to 
Darien,  were  perhaps  not  fully  realized,  they  at  least  became 
substantial.  Ferdinand  VII,  after  his  restoration,  though 
profuse  in  his  rewards  to  his  protector  Wellington,  was  less 
obviously  grateful  to  the  nation  that  had  sent  Wellington 
to  help  him.    He  restored  the  old  colonial  system.^ 

No  longer  bound  by  any  ties  of  consideration  for  Spain, 
Great  Britain  was  unwilling  to  let  Spanish-American  trade 
slip  through  her  fingers.  She  had  no  territorial  ambitions;  in 
a  free  competition  she  would  gain  the  trade  which  was  her 
principal  object.    Consequently  she  looked  with  pleasure  on 

*  Marquis  de  Chateaubriand,  Oeuvres  complHes  (12  vols.,  Paris,  1865-73), 
X.  359,  etc. 

2  J.  R.  Seeley,  The  Expansion  of  England,  Boston,  1883,  and  later  editions; 
Montagu  Burrows,  History  of  the  Foreign  Policy  of  Great  Britain,  New 
York,  1895;  Viscount  Castlereagh,  Memoirs  and  Correspondence,  etc.  (liJ 
vols.,  London,  1850-53),  vii.  257-456,  etc. 


206  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  progress  of  the  revolution,  one  of  the  impulses  of  which 
was  the  desire  to  do  business  with  her.  England's  interests  , 
tain  ^^^  ^^^  moral  convictions  generally  coincide,  / 
and  Spanish  and  she  has  never  spared  her  blood  to  advance 'i 
them  both.  English  volunteers,  therefore, 
flocked  to  the  banners  of  the  revolutionary  leaders.  Admiral 
Cochrane  commanded  the  fleet,  practically  a  British  one, 
which  turned  the  tide  on  the  Pacific  coast,  and  a  British 
legion  was  one  of  Bolivar's  strongest  weapons.^  In  1819  the 
government  passed  a  neutrality  act,  ordering  its  subjects  to 
stand  aloof;  it  did  not  recognize  the  independence  of  the  new 
states,  but  its  sympathy  was  well  known,  and  when  Canning 
became  foreign  minister,  in  1822,  he  made  the  question  his 
leading  interest.  England  would  object  to  any  action  which 
might  close  the  ports  of  Spanish  America  to  her,  she  would 
object  to  the  acquisition  of  Cuba  by  France,  and  to  the  exten- 
sion of  Russian  territory.  How  she  would  object  was  not 
known. 

For  the  United  States  the  situation  was  a  difficult  one. 
Our  republican  sympathies  were  aroused  by  the  vision  of  a 
g  ^  .  people  shaking  off  the  yoke  of  a  European 
the  United  country.  Our  pride  was  touched  by  an  appar- 
ent effort  to  imitate  our  methods.  In  1811  both 
houses  of  Congress  resolved  "that  they  beheld  with  friendly 
interest  the  establishment  of  independent  sovereignties  by  the 
Spanish  provinces  of  America."  In  1810  Joel  Poinsett  was 
sent  to  Buenos  Ayres  "to  ascertain  the  real  condition  of  the 
South  American  peoples,  as  well  as  their  prospects  of  suc- 
cess." His  report  published  in  1818  was  unfavorable;  but  we 
maintained  an  agent  at  that  city,  and  Clay  made  his  sym- 
pathy for  the  movement  his  chief  political  instrument  in 
attacking  the  administration.  In  1818  trade  with  Spanish 
America  was  authorized.^     Adventurers  threw  themselves 

*  Winsor,  America,  vol.  viii. 

*  F.  L.  Paxson,  The  Independence  of  the  South  American  Republics,  Phila* 
delphia,  1903;  C.  J.  Still6,  The  Life  and  Services  of  Joel  R.  Poinsett,  PhiUr 
delphia,  1888. 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  207 

into  the  cause  of  the  revolutionists.  In  fact  our  concern  in 
the  cause  did  not  stop  with  the  Atlantic.  Dr.  Samuel  Howe 
joined  the  forces  of  the  Greeks;  and  in  1824  Webster  delivered 
an  oration  in  their  behalf.  Sympathy  with  revolution  was  not 
unassociated  with  dread  of  the  forces  of  oppression.  Par- 
ticularly was  Roman  Catholicism  coming,  in  the  popular 
mind,  to  be  connected  with  Divine  Right,  and  the  European 
support  of  the  American  missions  of  that  church  was  for 
many  years  regarded  as  an  insidious  attack  on  our  institu- 
tions. 

To  this  popular  interest  in  Spanish-American  affairs  the 
administration  obviously  could  not  give  free  rein  without 
sacrificing  the  Spanish  treaty,  which  was  at  Sympathy  ver- 
this  time  being  negotiated.  Yet  we  could  not  bus  neutrality 
ignore  a  situation  which  filled  the  Caribbean  with  Spanish 
and  Spanish-American  warships  and  privateers,  and  with 
pirates  who  were  taking  advantage  of  the  new  flags.  These 
vessels  did  not  respect  the  rule  of  free  ships,  free  goods,  and 
some  of  them  did  not  respect  any  rule  at  all.  As  a  maritime 
nation  we  were  bound  to  recognize  the  divergence  from  the 
normal,  but  to  induce  Spain  to  make  her  cessions  we  must 
at  the  same  time  preserve  the  fairest  appearance  of  neu- 
trality. We  were,  in  fact,  confronted  by  a  new  aspect  of 
neutrality  which  has  troubled  us  often  enough  since,  namely, 
our  duty  in  a  neighboring  contest  of  forces  less  strong  than 
our  own.  In  1815  the  President  issued  a  neutrality  proclama- 
tion, and  in  1817  Congress  passed  a  new  neutrality  act, 
which,  amended  in  1818,  set  a  new  and  higher  standard  of 
national  obligations. 

Fearful  of  having  his  hand  forced  by  Congress  under  the 
leadership  of  Clay,  Adams,  in  December,  1817,  wrote  to  his 
friend  Alexander  Everett  furnishing  him  with  neutrality  ver- 
the  gist  of  a  scathing  indictment  of  the  new  re-  ■"'  '•co«»»ition 
publics  which  he  hoped  he  would  put  in  form  for  the  news- 
papers.^   He  was  not,  as  he  explained  later  to  the  cabinet, 

»  Letters  to  Everett,  1811-1837,  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1905,  xi.  88-116. 


208  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

willing  to  see  the  new  governments  fall,  but  they  were  not 
going  to  fall,  and  our  record  must  be  clear;  the  European 
powers  were  attempting  peaceful  mediation,  which  we  must 
allow.  In  March,  1818,  however,  he  told  the  cabinet  that, 
since  the  Holy  Alliance  had  had  a  free  opportunity  to 
attempt  a  peaceful  adjustment  and  had  failed,  as  he  had  be- 
lieved it  would,  we  must  not  commit  ourselves  against  recog- 
nition of  the  new  republics,  for  we  should  ultimately  recog- 
nize them.  At  the  same  time,  feeling  confident  that  England 
sympathized  with  our  position,  he  assured  her  minister  that 
we  would  cooperate  with  her  in  preserving  the  independence 
of  the  states,  though  not  in  alliance.  He  had  divined  the 
separation  of  Great  Britain  from  the  allies,  and  he  sought 
to  widen  the  breach.  From  that  date  our  recognition  of  the 
new  republics  hung  on  the  Florida  treaty,  and  it  was  not 
till  March  8,  1822  after  the  final  ratifications  had  been  ex- 
changed, that  the  President  recommended  it  to  Congress. 
Recognition  did  not,  of  course,  mean  a  departure  from  neu- 
trality, which  we  still  professed.  It  was  in  this  situation, 
with  our  Florida  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire,  without  having 
by  our  acts  given  the  allies  any  handle  for  interference,  and 
with  a  comfortable  assurance  as  to  the  position  of  England, 
that  we  awaited  whatever  action  might  be  taken  when  the 
pacification  of  Europe  was  complete. 

The  enthusiasm  of  many  of  our  statesmen  for  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  had  been  dampened  by  other  considera- 
Our  reversion-  tions  than  those  of  our  relations  with  Spain, 
ary  interests  Ever  since  our  beginnings  as  a  nation  certain 
portions  of  Spanish  America  had  been  earmarked  as  ulti- 
mately ours:  the  Floridas,  Texas,  and  certainly  Cuba — it 
was  unnecessary  to  define  exactly.  As  early  as  1790  we  con- 
sidered the  question  of  asserting  our  reversionary  interest 
in  the  Floridas,  and  from  1808  we  were  prepared  to  assert 
it  in  Cuba.  Afraid  that  that  island  might  fall  either  to 
France  or  to  England,  Jefferson  wrote  to  Gallatin,  May  17, 
1808:  "I  shall  sincerely  lament  Cuba's  falling  into  any  hands 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  209 

but  those  of  its  present  owners.  Spanish  America  is  at 
present  in  the  best  hands  for  us,  and  'Chi  sta  bene,  non  si 
muove  should  be  our  motto.'"  In  April,  1809,  he  wrote  to 
Madison  that  Napoleon  might  let  us  have  Cuba  "  to  prevent 
our  aid  to  Mexico  and  the  other  provinces.  That  would  be  a 
price,"  he  added,  "and  I  would  immediately  erect  a  column 
on  the  southernmost  limit  of  Cuba,  and  inscribe  on  it  a  Tie 
plus  ultra  as  to  us  in  that  direction.  .  .  .  Cuba  can  be 
defended  by  us  without  a  navy,  and  this  develops  the  prin- 
ciple which  ought  to  limit  our  views."  We  were  clear  that 
we  could  not  with  equanimity  see  Cuba  taken  by  either 
France  or  England;  but  how  inconvenient  also  would  it  be 
should  that  island,  or  indeed  Texas  and  possibly  California, 
fall  from  the  hands  of  Spain,  out  of  which  we  could  so  honor- 
ably rescue  them,  only  to  assume  an  independence  which 
it  would  be  sacrilege  for  us  to  violate!  These  views  were 
embodied  by  Adams  in  a  dispatch  to  Nelson,  our  minister 
to  Spain,  April  28,  1823.  They  have  constituted  the  rift 
in  the  lute  of  our  Spanish-American  relations  which  has 
until  to-day  prevented  those  republics  from  dancing  to 
our  piping. 

To  the  situation,  already  complex,  another  element  was 
added  by  Russia's  independent  action.  Her  traders,  coming 
south  from  Alaska,  had  in  1816  established  a  The  Russian 
fort  m  what  is  now  California.  In  1821  the  ^^^^an^e 
czar  issued  a  ukase,  or  proclamation,  giving  to  a  Russian 
company  exclusive  right  to  territory  as  far  south  as  the 
fifty-first  parallel,  and  excluding  foreigners  from  the  sea 
for  a  distance  of  one  hundred  Italian  miles  from  the  coast. 
The  Russian  minister.  Baron  de  Tuyll,  also  informed  Adams 
that  his  sovereign  would  not  recognize  the  independence 
of  Spanish  America,  and  on  November  16,  1823,  communi- 
cated to  him  a  manifesto  of  the  czar,  as  mouthpiece  of  the 
Holy  Alliance,  setting  forth  the  advantages  of  Divine  Right 
and  the  inadequacy  of  republics.  The  ukase  was  as  dis- 
tasteful to  Great  Britain  as  to  us,  and  the  ministers  of  the 


210  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

two  countries  were  ordered  to  cooperate  in  remonstrance. 
The  manifesto  was  our  own  affair.^ 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Adams  received  from  Rush, 
our  minister  at  London,  a  proposal  from  Canning.  The 
Canning's  latter  conceived  that  it  was  hopeless  for  Spain 

^^^'  to  try  to  recover  her  colonies,  but  he  was  not 

opposed  to  an  amicable  arrangement  between  them  and  the 
mother  country;  the  question  of  the  recognition  of  their 
independence,  he  said,  was  one  of  time  and  circumstance. 
Great  Britain,  he  declared,  did  not  aim  at  the  possession  of 
any  portion  of  Spain's  territory  herself,  but  she  could  not  with 
indifference  see  the  transfer  of  any  portion  of  it  to  another 
power.  He  informed  Rush  that  he  had  received  unofficial 
notice  that  a  proposal  would  be  made  "for  a  Congress  [of 
the  allied  nations],  or  some  less  formal  concert  and  consulta- 
tion, especially  upon  the  affairs  of  Spanish  America."  If 
the  United  States  acceded  to  his  views,  a  declaration  to 
that  effect,  concurrently  with  England,  would,  he  thought, 
be  "the  most  effectual  and  the  least  offensive"  mode  of 
making  known  their  joint  disapprobation  of  the  suggested 
interference  of  Europe  in  the  affairs  of  America. 

This  proposal  reached  Washington  October  9,  1823,  and 
at  once  precipitated  one  of  the  most  critical  cabinet  discus- 
Cabinet  dis-  sions  in  our  history.  There  can  now  remain 
cussion  jjQ  doubt  that  the  policy  adopted  was  that 

continually  and  aggressively  urged  by  Adams.  Monroe  was 
at  first  in  favor  of  accepting  the  advance.  Adams  argued 
that  England  and  the  United  States  did  not  stand  on  an 
equal  basis,  because  we  had  recognized  the  Spanish-American 
republics  and  she  had  not,  because  we  did  want  portions  of 
Spanish  America,  and,  most  significantly,  because  we  were  the 
most  interested  party.  His  attempt  to  put  the  question  "  to  a 
test  of  right  and  wrong"  reads  curiously  in  view  of  his 
dispatch  to  Nelson  regarding  Cuba;  and  his  objection  to  co- 

^  Georg  Heinz,  Die  Beziehungen  zvoischen  Russland,  England  und  Nordr 
amerika  im  Jahre  1823,  Berlin,  1911. 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  211 

operation  on  the  ground  that  it  was  contrary  to  our  policy  of 
abstaining  from  entangling  alliances  seems  hardly  consistent 
with  the  union  of  American  and  British  interests  at  St.  Peters- 
burg. Yet  this  latter  point  really  constituted  the  chief  ground 
of  opposition  to  Canning's  proposal;  it  restruck  the  note  of 
isolation  sounded  by  John  Adams,  Washington,  and  Jeffer- 
son. The  negotiation  with  Russia  might  be  defended  on  the 
basis  that  the  territory  threatened  by  Russia  was  legally 
in  the  joint  occupation  of  the  two  countries;  but  to  cooperate 
in  a  matter  of  this  importance  and  publicity,  where  not  spe- 
cial interest  but  general  American  policy  was  at  stake,  was 
to  throw  isolation  overboard,  to  admit  that  Great  Britain 
was  a  partner  in  American  affairs.  Moreover,  cooperation 
was  not  essential.  Since  Great  Britain  was  moved  by  per- 
manent interests,  these  would  not  change  because  we  refused 
to  join  her.  The  British  fleet  would  still  stand  between 
Spanish  America  and  united  Europe.^ 

The  exclusion  of  cooperation  with  Great  Britain  carried 
with  it  the  use  of  Canning's  idea  of  a  self-denying  ordinance 
as  the  basis  of  objection  to  the  proposed  inter-  „  .  .  ^ 
ference.  It  was  necessary  to  find  a  different  Monroe  Doc- 
one,  and  that  employed  was  none  other  than 
an  extension  of  the  very  policy  of  isolation  because  of  which 
we  refused  to  cooperate  with  Great  Britain.  This  policy 
was  extended  beyond  the  primary  idea  that  we  as  a  nation 
should  not  be  involved  in  European  wars;  it  was  extended 
beyond  Madison's  instruction  to  Monroe  that  we  ought  to 
begin  to  broach  the  idea  that  the  whole  Gulf  Stream  is  our 
waters;  it  was  extended  to  include  the  whole  of  both  the 
American  continents.  As  a  basis  for  this  extension,  and  at 
the  same  time  as  an  answer  to  the  czar's  defence  of  Divine 
Right,  there  was  inserted  in  the  President's  message  a  declara- 
tion that  the  political  systems  of  Europe  and  America  were 
different  and  incompatible.    "Our  policy  in  regard  to  Europe, 

^W.  C.  Ford,  "John  Quincy  Adams  and  the  Monroe  Doctrine,"  Amer. 
Hist.  Review.  1902,  vii.  676-696,  viii.  28-52. 


212  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

which  was  adopted  at  an  early  stage  of  the  wars  which  have 
so  long  agitated  that  quarter  of  the  globe,  nevertheless  re- 
mains the  same,  which  is,  not  to  interfere  in  the  internal 
concerns  of  any  of  its  powers;  to  consider  the  government  de 
facto  as  the  legitimate  government  for  us.  .  .  .  But  in  regard 
to  those  [the  American]  continents  circumstances  are  emin- 
ently and  conspicuously  different.  It  is  impossible  that  the 
allied  powers  should  extend  their  political  system  to  any 
portion  of  either  continent  without  endangering  our  peace 
and  happiness;  nor  can  anyone  believe  that  our  southern 
brethren,  if  left  to  themselves  would  adopt  it.  .  .  ,"  This 
policy  forced  Monroe  to  leave  out  of  his  message  a  recom- 
mendation for  the  recognition  of  revolutionary  Greece,  as 
that  would  have  been  an  interference  in  European  affairs; 
yet  the  stand  taken  was  so  obviously  but  a  stretching  of  our 
oldest  policy,  of  the  movement  begun  by  our  own  Revolution, 
that  it  was  heartily  approved. 

So  far  the  policy  outlined  dealt  with  the  right  of  the  settled 
portions  of  the  American  continents  to  choose  their  own 
End  of  coloniz-  governments;  it  remained  to  deal  with  the 
mg  era  Russian  advance  on  the  unsettled  northwest 

coast.  On  this  point  Monroe  announced  that  "the  occasion 
has  been  judged  proper  for  asserting,  as  a  principle  in  which 
the  rights  and  interests  of  the  United  States  are  involved, 
that  the  American  continents,  by  the  free  and  independent 
condition  which  they  have  assumed  and  maintain,  are  hence- 
forth not  to  be  considered  as  subjects  for  future  coloniza- 
tion by  any  European  powers."  The  era  of  claim-making  / 
was  past;  in  the  future  boundaries  were  to  be  found,  not 
made. 

The  confidence  with  which  these  bold  declarations  were 
made  in  Monroe's  message  of  December  2,  1823,  rested  more 
European  in-  on  the  efficiency  of  the  British  navy  than  on 
terrentton  ^^j.  q,^^^  strength.     At  the  same  time,  it  is 

evident  that  in  theory  they  bore  as  heavily  on  England  as  on 
the  powers  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance,  in  actual  fact  even  v 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  21S 

more  heavily,  for  Great  Britain  was  more  interested  in  Amer- 
ica than  they  were,  was  in  fact  as  great  an  American  power 
as  we  ourselves.  Thus  to  use  for  one's  own  purposes  the 
resources  of  a  rival  power,  while  yielding  nothing  to  her  y 
rivalry,  is  daring;  but,  if  justified,  it  is  the  highest  manifesta- 
tion of  the  diplomatic  art.  In  this  case  Adams  proved  to  be 
as  safe  as  he  believed  himself  to  be.  Even  before  Monroe's 
announcement,  on  October  9,  France  informed  England  that 
she  would  not  endeavor  to  obtain  territory  in  America  and 
did  not  consider  that  Spain  had  any  opportunity  to  regain 
hers.^ 

While  the  message  did  not,  therefore,  contribute  to  the 
defeat  of  united  Europe,  it  did  enable  us  to  gain  a.  succes 
d^estime  in  the  Russian  negotiation.  The  czar  check  to  Rus- 
was  not  sufliciently  interested  in  the  north-  sia's  expansion 
west  coast  to  inconvenience  himself  over  it.  He  refused 
the  bribe  of  California  which  Mexico  offered  for  a  recogni- 
tion of  her  independence.  Willing  to  yield  to  the  combined 
protest  of  England  and  the  United  States,  he  was  actually 
more  favorable  to  the  latter  in  spite  of  her  form  of  govern- 
ment, because  of  the  traditional  Russian  desire  to  build  up 
anywhere  a  rival  to  England's  merchant  marine.  When, 
therefore.  Canning  withdrew  from  cooperation  with  us  be- 
cause "the  principle  laid  down  with  respect  to  colonization 
in  the  speech  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  (to  which 
Great  Britain  does  not  assent)  must  be  so  particularly  dis- 
pleasing to  Russia,"  the  czar  took  the  opportunity  to  con- 
clude a  treaty  with  us  before  he  did  with  Great  Britain. 
This  treaty,  signed  in  1824,  was  entirely  satisfactory  to  us. 
By  fixing  the  parallel  of  54°  40'  as  the  southern  limit  of  Rus- 

1  A.  C.  Coolidge,  The  United  States  as  a  World  Power  (New  York,  1908), 
95-120;  J.  A.  Kasson,  Evolution  of  the  Constitution  .  .  ,  and  History  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine,  Boston,  etc.,  1904;  T.  B.  Edington,  The  Monroe  Doctrine, 
Boston,  1904;  W.  S.  Robertson,  The  Beginnings  of  Spanish-American  Diplo- 
macy, in  Turner  Essays  (New  York,  1910),  231-267;  J.  H.  Kraus,  Monroe- 
docktrin,  in  ihren  Beziehungen  zur  amerikanischen  Diplomatie  und  zum  Volker' 
recht. 


214  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

sian  America,  it  checked  her  expansion  and  thus  added  a; 
sixth  link  to  our  claim  to  Oregon.^  I 

Canning's  withdrawal  from  cooperation  in  the  Russian 
negotiation  was  the  result  of  a  thorough  discontent  with 
Canning's  the  whole  doctrine  of  Monroe's  message,  which 

opposition  asserted  the  primacy  of  the  United  States  in 

American  affairs.  It  was  not  for  this  that  he  was  bringing 
"a  new  world  into  existence";  and,  rightly  claiming  that 
Monroe's  message  was  but  the  prelude  to  an  active  anti- 
English,  or  at  least  Pan-American,  policy  on  our  part,  he 
at  once  entered  into  a  contest  with  Adams  for  the  leadership 
of  Spanish  America.  In  1823  his  instructions  to  his  com- 
missioners to  the  various  states  direct  their  attention  to 
danger  from  France,  those  of  1824  to  danger  from  the  United 
States.  On  January  16,  1824,  his  Mexican  commission  re- 
ported, "Hence  the  Mexicans  are  looking  anxiously  around 
them  in  quest  of  an  alliance  with  one  of  the  great  maritime 
powers  of  Europe,  and  if  they  should  be  disappointed  in  their 
hopes,  they  will  ultimately  be  forced  to  throw  themselves  into 
the  arms  of  the  United  States."  ^ 

The  fears  of  Canning  and  the  hopes  of  Adams  were  equally 
aroused  when,  in  1825,  after  Adams  had  been  elected  to  the 
Adams's  am-  presidency  and  Clay  had  become  his  secretary 
bitions  ^^  state,  the  Spanish  American  powers  extended 

to  us  an  invitation  to  meet  them  in  the  congress  to  be  held 
at  Panama.  Adams  at  once  accepted  the  invitation,  and 
announced  to  our  Congress  that  he  would  commission  minis- 
ters to  attend.  Canning  wrote:  "The  other  and  perhaps 
still  more  powerful  motive  of  my  apprehension  is  the  ambi- 
tion and  ascendency  of  the  United  States  of  America.  It  is 
obviously  the  policy  of  that  government  to  connect  itself 
with  all  the  powers  of  America  in  a  general  Transatlantic 
League,  of  which  it  would  have  the  sole  direction.    I  need 

*  "Correspondence  of  the  Russian  Ministers  in  Washington,  1818-1825," 
Anur.  Hist.  Review,  1918,  xviii.  309-345,  637-562. 

*  Temperley,  Canning,  chs.  viii.-x. 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  215 

only  say  how  inconvenient  such  an  ascendency  may  be  in 
time  of  peace,  and  how  formidable  in  case  of  war."  Again 
he  wrote  that  Great  Britain  would  not  object  to  a  Spanish- 
American  league;  "but  any  project  of  putting  the  United 
States  of  North  America  at  the  head  of  an  American  Con- 
federacy, as  against  Europe,  would  be  highly  displeasing  to 
your  government  .  .  .  and  it  would  too  probably  at  no  very 
distant  period  endanger  the  peace  both  of  America  and  of 
Europe."  ^ 

At  this  point  Canning  had  the  best  cards,  and  he  played 
them  with  a  shade  more  skill  than  Adams  did  his.  The  latter 
had  made  a  point  by  granting  the  first  recog-  Adams  versus 
nition  to  Spanish  America;  Canning,  however,  Canning 
rightly  judged  his  own  later  recognition  the  more  potent. 
December  17,  1824,  he  wrote  of  this  act,  "  The  deed  is  done, 
the  nail  is  driven,  Spanish  America  is  free,  and  if  we  do  not 
mismanage  our  affairs  badly,  she  is  English."  Of  the  two 
countries,  England  was  able  to  exert  the  greater  influence 
with  Spain  to  secure  her  recognition  of  the  independence  of 
her  former  colonies,  and  she  also  had  more  capital  for  the^^ 
loans  needed  by  both  government  and  people.  Canning 
referred  to  such  investments  in  Buenos  Ayres  as  not  "mere 
commercial  speculations."  Mr.  Hervey,  the  commissioner 
in  Mexico,  wrote  home,  March  30,  1824,  "Without  the  tem- 
porary aid  aflForded  by  Mr.  Staples,  the  government  would 
have  labored  under  the  greatest  embarrassment,  and  must 
indeed  have  stopped  payment  altogether."  For  an  attempt 
to  guarantee  this  loan  Mr.  Hervey  was  recalled,  but  he  him- 
self believed  that  his  recall  was  due  to  "the  peculiar  circum- 

1  British  Public  Record  Office,  Foreign  Office  Records,  Mss.,  Mexico, 
iii.,  iv.,  vi.;  also  Colombia  and  Buenos  Ayres.  In  regard  to  mediation,  in  1826 
and  1827,  between  Buenos  Ayres  and  Brazil  regarding  Montevideo,  Can- 
ning instructs  his  minister:  "As  to  taking  part  with  either  side  in  the  con- 
test your  Lordship  cannot  too  peremptorily  repress  any  expectation  of  that 
nature.  .  .  .  There  is  much  of  the  Spanish  character  in  the  inhabitants  of 
the  colonial  establishments  of  Spain;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  Spanish 
character  more  striking  than  its  impatience  of  foreign  advice,  and  its  sus* 
picion  of  gratuitous  service." 


216  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

stances  which  have  given  publicity  to  correspondence  marked 
with  the  Stamp  of  Secrecy."  How  great  was  the  financial 
opportunity  is  indicated  by  the  plan  of  the  Mexican  Con- 
gress to  Open  bids  for  a  canal  across  the  isthmus  of  Tehuan- 
tepec. 

Still  more  important  than  the  need  of  money,  which  Eng- 
land alone  could  supply,  was  the  fact  that  Great  Britain  and 

.  -  Spanish  America  were  commercially  supple-  ^ 

Britain's  in-  mentary  to  each  other,  the  one  a  manufactur- 
ing country,  the  other  a  producer  of  raw  ma- 
terials. While  the  United  States  could  use  some  South 
American  tropical  products,  there  was  nothing  which  she 
could  supply  in  return  more  cheaply  than  could  Great  Britain. 
Adams's  obstinacy,  too,  was  somewhat  apparent  in  his  com- 
mercial negotiations  with  the  new  powers;  he  was  extremely 
loath  to  admit  any  deviation  from  Our  usual  policies.  The 
Spanish-American  republics  wished  to  retain  the  right  to 
discriminate  in  their  commercial  relations  between  Spain 
and  other  countries,  in  hope  of  thus  buying  recognition  of 
their  independence.  Adams  would  make  no  treaties  except 
on  the  basis  of  most  favored  nation,  while  Canning  was, 
within  limits,  complaisant.  The  latter,  however,  had  his 
troubles  also,  because  of  his  insistence  on  the  suppression 
of  the  slave  trade.  As  a  result,  the  year  1829  found  us  enjoy- 
ing commercial  treaties  only  with  Central  America,  Brazil, 
and  Colombia,  while  England  had  them  with  Buenos  Ayres, 
Colombia,  Brazil,  and  Mexico. 

Meanwhile  Congress  had  been  debating  the  proposition 
to  send  ministers  to  Panama.  The  administration  finally 
Difficulties  in  won,  and  the  delegates  were  sent;  but  the  delay 
thI'uSed*''  caused  them  to  be  too  late,  and  the  oppor- 
States  tunity  did  not  come  again.     The  instructions 

growing  out  of  the  debate,  however,  make  it  doubtful  if 
their  presence  would  have  been  profitable,  for  the  United 
States  was  not  prepared  to  assume  the  lead  in  the  direction 
toward  which  the  ambitions  of  the  new  republics  tended. 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  217 

Their  great  purpose  was  to  free  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  from 
Spain;  but  as  this  plan  was  directly  opposed  to  our  wishes, 
our  ministers  were  instructed  not  to  discuss  it.  Canning, 
quick  to  see  his  advantage,  wrote,  March  18,  1826,  that, 
while  Great  Britain  also  preferred  the  existing  state  of  things, 
"  So  far  from  denying  the  right  of  the  new  states  of  America 
to  make  a  hostile  attack  upon  Cuba  ...  we  haye  uniformly 
refused  to  join  the  United  States  in  remonstrating  with 
Mexico  against  the  supposed  intention.  .  .  .  We  should  in- 
deed regret  it,  but  we  arrogate  to  ourselves  no  right  to  control 
the  operations  of  one  belligerent  against  another.  The  govr 
emment  of  the  United  States,  however,  professes  itself  of  a 
different  opinion,  ..."  He  adds:  "Neither  England  nor 
France,  could  see  with  indifference  the  United  States  in  oc- 
cupation of  Cuba."  On  October  15,  1826,  he  wrote:  "The 
general  influence  of  the  United  States  is  not,  in  my  opinion, 
to  be  feared.  It  certainly  exists  in  Colombia,  but  it  has  been 
very  much  weakened  even  there  by  their  protests  against  the 
attack  on  Cuba." 

It  was  still  farther  weakened  among  the  racially  mixed 
population  of  Spanish  America,  which  was  marching  under 
the  banner  of  universal  emancipation,  by  the  influence  of 
widespread  publication  which  the  debate  over  ^^^^^ 
the  Panama  congress  gave  to  our  racial  prejudices,  nota-t 
bly  the  opposition  of  a  strong  element  among  us  to  negro 
emancipation,  particularly  in  Cuba,  and  our  unwilling- 
ness to  sit  in  the  congress  with  delegates  from  the  negro 
states  of  Hayti  and  the  Dominican  Republic. 

The  plan  for  a  United  States  hegemony  of  the  Americjan 

continent,   therefore,   fell  before  the  greater  resources  bf 

England,  and  because  of  our  divided  policies,     tj  »«   «       < 

England  continued  until  the  present  genera-    the   Monroe 
..        .  .  •  1  J       •  J  Doctrine 

tion  to  enjoy  commercial  predommance  and  a 

certain  political  leadership.     Those  policies,  however,   to 

which  Monroe's  message  was  confined — the  separation  of 

the  American  and  European  spheres  of  influence,  and  the 


/ 


218  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

closing  of  the  era  of  colonization — were  grounded  on  facts, 
permanent  interests,  and  the  waxing  strength  of  the  United 
States.  Although  not  incorporated  in  law,  either  national 
or  international,  they  have  stood.  Europe  has  actually  re- 
spected the  territorial  integrity  and  political  independence 
of  the  Americas,  and  our  people  have  until  to-day  em- 
braced as  one  of  their  most  cherished  ideals  the  statement  of 
Monroe's  policy,  founded  as  it  was  on  their  fundamental 
desire  to  pursue  untrammelled  the  course  of  their  own  de- 
velopment and  to  hold  Europe  at  ocean's  length.  Possibly 
its  association  with  the  venerable  and  non-contentious  figure 
of  Monroe  gave  it  quicker  and  more  general  hold  on  the 
public  mind  than  if  it  had  taken  its  name  from  its  real  author, 
the  belligerent  Adams.  From  time  to  time  the  mantle  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  has  been  spread  over  additions  and  in- 
terpretations, till  the  name  now  stands  for  much  that  was 
not  imagined  at  its  announcement.  It  is  possible  that,  by 
tending  to  crystallize  our  ideas,  it  has  in  the  long  run  hamp- 
ered our  adjustment  to  conditions;  for  national  interests  are  , 
only  relatively  permanent,  and  their  relationship  with  one( 
another  changes  constantly.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  how- 
ever, of  the  advantage  that  it  was  to  us,  in  the  period  of 
untutored  democracy  upon  which  we  were  just  entering, 
to  have  out  a  sheet  anchor  of  fixed  and  respected 
policy. 

In  the  fifteen  years  between  1815  and  1830  our  territory 
had  been  further  consolidated  by  the  acquisition  of  Florida, 
A  rfi  h  great  reaches  of  our  boundary  had  been  de- 
ments, 1816  to  fined,  and  our  claims  to  a  Pacific  coast  line  had 
been  vastly  strengthened.  We  had  opened  the 
world  so  far  as  it  interested  us  to  our  exports  and,  with 
the  exception  of  the  British  West  Indies,  to  our  shipping. 
We  had  passed  the  crisis  of  the  Spanish-American  revolution 
in  such  a  way  that  the  probability  of  European  interference 
in  our  affairs  was  diminished  rather  than  increased,  as  it  had 
at  one  time  seemed  likely  to  be.    Russia  was  eliminated 


THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  «19 

as  a  potential  American  power.  Threads  had  been  tied  to- 
gether, disagreements  healed  or  bandaged,  and  our  national 
experience  had  been  crystallized  into  a  policy  to  guide  future 
manifestations  of  the  national  will. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  AND  THE 
SLAVE  TRADE 

By  1815  diplomacy  had  ceased  to  shape  poHtics;  after  1830  / 
politics  began  to  shape  diplomacy.     With  Jackson,  "shirt- 
Change  of  per-     sleeve"  diplomacy  began,  but  it  did  not  reach 
sonnel  j|.g  ggnith  till  after  the  Civil  War.    The  most 

important  change  in  personnel  took  place  in  the  state  de- 
partment itself:  in  1833  only  two  old  officials  remained;  it 
was  the  most  nearly  complete  break  ever  made  in  the  con- 
tinuity of  that  staff.  This  weakening  of  the  central  adminis- 
tration was  accompanied  by  a  remanning  of  the  diplomatic 
corps  that  was  quite  as  sweeping.  Appointments  were  now 
eagerly  sought,  and  there  were  few  more  satisfactory  methods 
of  paying  political  debts.  Many  choices  were  not  without 
merit,  but  for  the  most  part  they  reflected  the  general  tend- 
ency of  politics  to  rely  on  mediocrity.  Still  more  apparent 
was  the  lack  of  familiarity  with  European  conditions,  which 
was  the  product  of  our  realized  isolation.  Less  than  the 
men  of  1775,  with  their  colonial  interest  in  "home"  affairs, 
many  of  them,  like  the  Pinckneys,  with  an  English 
education,  did  the  new  ministers  understand  world  poli- 
tics. 

Of  the  secretaries  of  state  for  the  next  fifteen  years,  Van 
Buren  was  tactful  and  suave,  but  in  diplomacy  colorless. 
Van  Buren,  Louis  McLane  was  without  distinction.  Ed- 
ingstonf  For-^'  ward  Livingston  was  every  inch  a  diplomat,  but 
^y*^  his  service  was  cut  all  too  short  by  his  death.* 

Forsyth,  who  served  Jackson  and  Van  Buren  for  seven  years, 
was  skilful  and  had  had  experience,  but  he  left  no  impress. 
*  C.  H.  Hunt,  Life  of  Edward  Livingston,  New  York,  1864. 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,   BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    221 

Legar§  and  Upshur  together  were  in  office  only  about  a  year. 
Webster  and  Calhoun  are  the  only  really  great  names,  and 
they,  properly,  are  remembered   for  other    thmgs.    They 
serve  in  fact  to  illustrate  two  of  the  more  general  weak- 
nesses of  the  whole  service.     Webster  handled  cases;  the 
adaptation  of  a  general  policy  to  the  whole 
field  of  diplomacy  he  did  not  attempt.    He  was 
primarily  a  lawyer,  only  incidentally  a  diplomat.    Hardly  any 
one   was  primarily  a  diplomat,  or  primarily    Literary  ap- 
mterested  in  diplomacy.     When  a  President    P«"^*™«°t8 
wished  to  gain  applause,  he  appointed  an  author,  like  James 
Fenimore  Cooper  or  Washington  Irving,  who  was  expected 
to  repay  the  nation  by  writing  a  book.    Of  all 
the  statesmen  of  the  time,  Calhoun  was  prob- 
ably the  best  endowed  for  diplomatic  work,  but  he  sacrificed 
diplomacy  to  politics.    The  only  really  great  American  who 

was  greatly  interested  in  diplomacy  was  Henry    .„^ 
fx-n  1  1  •  •    1    •  •  Wneatoii 

Wheaton,  who   spent  this  period  m   various 

German  posts.    Performing  perfectly  the  difficult,  but  not 

very  important,  tasks  allotted  him,  he  devoted  his  leisure  to 

the  cognate  study  of  international  law.^    He  was  recalled  in 

1845,  and  the  fruit  of  his  preparation  was  never  gathered  by 

the  nation. 

The  rank  and  file  of  the  service  possessed  characteristics 
similar  to  those  of  the  chiefs,  except  that  some  of  Jackson's 
appointments,  as  that  of  John  Randolph  to  _.  .  ^ 
Russia  and  of  Butler  to  Mexico,  were  con-  and  consular 
spicuously  bad,  and  Tyler's  on  the  whole  con- 
spicuously good.  During  this  period  both  the  diplomatic 
and  the  consular  service  grew  rapidly  in  numbers.  An  at- 
tempt to  improve  the  consular  system  was  made  in  1833; 
but  it  failed,  and  the  staff  continued  to  decline  in  quality. 

In  spite  of  these  defects,  it  remains  true  that  American 

^  See  his  History  of  the  Law  of  Nations,  New  York,  1845;  and  his  Elements 
of  International  Law,  Philadelphia,  1836,  which  has  been  many  times  edited 
and  brought  up  to  date. 


222  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

diplomacy,  although  its  wheels  creaked  and  rumbled,  ac- 
complished its  main  ends.     This  attainment  was,  however, 

e-     .•  •*_     t     due  more  to  situation  than  to  merit.    We  had 
Simplicity    of  1     •      1     /-,  T.  .     • 

the   American     only  one  strong  general  rival,  Great  Bntam, 

^^  °°  and    with    her,    after    years    of    controversy, 

Webster  finally  dealt.  The  other  countries  with  whom  we 
had  intimate  relationships  were  too  weak  to  make  our  errors 
painful  to  us.  American  commerce  was  simpler  than  it 
had  been,  consisting  more  and  more  of  the  exchange  of  our 
non-competitive  agricultural  products  for  manufactures 
which  other  nations  were  anxious  to  sell  us.  Such  direct 
commerce  needs  much  less  governmental  protection  than  the  ] 
carrying  trade,  which  had  previously  been  of  so  much  greater 
relative  importance,  or  than  the  disposal  of  competitive  j 
goods  such  as  we  now  produce. 

Jackson,  like  Jefferson,  found  the  diplomatic  board  for 
the  moment  almost  swept  clean  of  complications.  Yet,  as 
British  West  Jefferson  had  been  able  to  reap  some  glory 
Indies  from  a  new  handling  of  the  Barbary  question, 

so  Jackson  scored  an  early  triumph  by  restoring  trade  with 
the  British  West  Indies.  Van  Buren,  as  senator,  had  opposed 
Adams  on  that  point,  claiming  that  he  was  too  stiff  in  main- 
taining non-essentials,  a  fault  which  was  certainly  Adams's 
characteristic  weakness.  He  promptly  instructed  McLane, 
our  new  minister  to  Great  Britain,  to  assure  the  British 
government  that  with  the  change  of  administration  in  the 
United  States  had  come  a  change  of  policy,  and  to  offer  to 
renew  trade  on  the  basis  of  the  British  acts  of  1825.  Great 
Britain  was  complaisant,  and  by  proclamation  this  long-  { 
vexed  question  was  finally  settled  on  terms  that  gave  the 
United  States  complete  freedom  of  direct  trade,  but  not  of  1 
trade  between  the  islands  and  British  territory.  Van  Buren 
failed  to  win  the  plaudits  for  which  he  had  hoped,  owing  to  , 
his  unusual  and  improper  reference  to  domestic  politics  in  a 
dispatch  intended  to  be  read  to  a  foreign  minister.^ 

*  E.  M.  Shepard,  Martin  Van  Buren  (Boston,  etc.,  1900),  chs.  vi.-viL 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    22S 

Partly  as  a  result  of  the  same  greater  flexibility,  the  for- 
mation of  commercial  treaties  with  Spanish  America  now  pro- 
ceeded more  rapidly;  in  1831  one  was  made  The  Mediter- 
with  Mexico,  in  1832  one  with  Chili,  compacts  '*"«*" 
with  Peru,  Bolivia,  and  Venezuela  followed  in  1836,  and  one 
with  Ecuador  in  1839.  Probably  the  policy  of  the  adminis- 
tration had  less  to  do  with  the  framing  of  our  first  treaties 
with  Mediterranean  powers  than  had  the  general  ameliora- 
tion of  commercial  conditions,  especially  the  final  quelling  of 
the  Barbary  pirates  after  the  capture  of  Algiers  by  the 
French  in  1830.  At  all  events,  treaties  were  made  with  the 
Ottoman  empire  in  1830,  with  Greece  in  1837,  Sardinia  in 
1838,  and  the  Two  Sicilies,  or  Naples,  m  1845.  In  1840  a 
first  treaty  was  made  with  Portugal.  In  1833  a 
roving  commission  to  Edmund  Roberts  resulted 
in  our  first  Asiatic  treaties, — one  with  Muscat  and  one  with 
Siam.  In  1842  we  officially  expressed  an  interest  in  Hawaii, 
and  in  1844  our  first  treaty  with  China  was  concluded.  This 
latter  was  relatively  satisfactory  from  a  commercial  point  of 
view,  for  it  opened  the  five  ports  of  Kwang-Chow,  Amoy, 
Fuchow,  Ningpo,  and  Shanghai  to  commerce  and  residence 
and  elaborately  regulated  trade.  It  did  not  open  the  way 
to  missionary  enterprise. 

Throughout   the   period   the   policy   of   reciprocity   was 

actively  pursued.    In  so  far  as  the  employment  of  vessels 

was  concerned  it  was  embodied  in  most  of  the    „    .      .^ 
.  .  Reciprocity 

treaties  already  mentioned,  and  it  was  m  some 

cases  extended  to  reciprocity  of  customs  dues.  By  a  con- 
vention of  1831:  "The  wines  of  France,  from  and  after  the 
exchange  of  the  ratifications  of  the  present  convention,  shall 
be  admitted  to  consumption  in  the  States  of  the  Union  at 
duties  which  shall  not  exceed  the  following  rates,"  and  "the 
proportion  existing  between  the  duties  on  French  wines  thus 
reduced,  and  the  general  rates  of  the  tariff  which  went  into 
operation  the  first  of  January,  1829,  shall  be  maintained,  in 
case  the  Government  of  the  United  States  should  think  proper 


224  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

to  diminish  those  general  rates."  France  in  return  agreed  to 
establish  the  same  duties  on  long  staple  cotton  as  on  the  short 
staple,  if  carried  in  French  or  American  vessels,  and  in  "con- 
sideration of  this  stipulation,  which  shall  be  binding  on  the 
United  States  for  ten  years,  the  French  government  abandons 
the  reclamations  which  it  had  formed  in  relation  to  the 
eighth  article  of  the  treaty  of  cession  of  Louisiana." 

This  last  clause  was  in  settlement  of  a  dispute  regarding 
the  significance  of  the  "most  favored  nation"  provision, 
*'  Most  fa-  which  affected  our  whole  reciprocity  campaign, 
vored  nation "  Nearly  all  our  treaties  were  on  this  basis.  If 
thereby  every  nation  on  such  terms  with  us  were  to  enjoy 
every  favor  granted  to  any  nation,  our  bargaining  power 
would  be  much  reduced,  John  Quincy  Adams  had  argued  j 
with  France  that  it  applied  only  to  favors  freely  granted,  not 
to  special  concessions  given  in  exchange  for  other  special 
favors.  This  interpretation  was  incorporated  into  our 
treaty  with  Mexico  in  1832,  which  qualified  the  "most 
favored  nation"  clause  by  providing  that  the  nations  mu- 
tually, "shall  enjoy  the  same  [favors]  freely,  if  the  concession 
was  freely  made,  or  upon  the  same  conditions,  if  the  conces- 
sion was  conditional."  ^ 

The  most  important  commercial  negotiations  were  those 
conducted  in  Germany  by  Henry  Wheaton.  At  the  very 
German  trea-  end  of  the  period  he  secured  the  abolition,  by 
^^^  numbers  of  the  sovereign  German  states,  of  the 

droit  d'aubaine,  or  tax  on  estates  of  foreigners,  and  of  the 
droit  de  detraction,  or  tax  on  emigration.  Meantime  he  was 
working  for  commercial  reciprocity  on  the  basis  of  Adams's 
interpretation  of  the  "most  favored  nation,"  which  he  may 
be  said  to  have  incorporated  into  international  law.  In  1840 
he  arranged  a  treaty  with  Hanover.  Most  of  the  other  North 
German  states  were  united  in  the  Zollverein,  or  customs 
union,  of  which  Prussia  was  the  head.    This  group  of  states 

^Max  Farrand,  "The  Commercial  Privileges  of  the  Treaty  of  1803," 
Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1902,  vii.  494-499. 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    225 

consumed  half  of  our  tobacco  crop  and  much  of  our  rice. 
In  1838  Wheaton  secured  a  reduction  m  the  duty  on  rice. 
Our  tariff  of  1842,  however,  incited  retaUation,  and  in  1844  he 
made  a  new  arrangement  on  a  reciprocal  basis.  By  this 
agreement  the  United  States  was  to  impose  only  rates  fixed 
in  the  treaty  on  certain  products  of  the  ZoUverein,  which  in 
return  was  to  reduce  to  a  stipulated  rate  its  duties  on  tobacco 
and  lard,  to  forego  its  contemplated  increase  in  the  tax  on 
rice,  and  to  impose  no  duty  at  all  on  raw  cotton.  These 
provisions  were  to  apply  only  to  direct  trade  in  German  or 
American  vessels. 

This  treaty,  commercially  very  favorable,  was  in  1844 
recommended  by  President  Tyler  to  the  Senate.  Rufus 
Choate  reported  for  its  committee  on  foreign  «  •  x.  ^ 
affairs:  "The  Committee  .  .  .  are  not  pre-  Zoiiverein 
pared  to  sanction  so  large  an  innovation 
upon  ancient  and  uniform  practice  in  respect  of  the  depart- 
ment of  government  by  which  duties  on  imports  shall  be 
imposed.  .  .  .  The  .  .  .  committee  believe  that  the  general 
rule  of  our  system  is  indisputably  that  the  control  of  trade 
and  the  function  of  taxation  belong,  without  abridgment  or 
participation,  to  Congress."  Calhoun,  who  was  secretary  of 
state,  maintained  on  the  other  hand  that  such  rate-making, 
whether  by  treaty  or  by  international  agreement,  was  a  well- 
established  practice:  "The  only  question  it  is  believed  that 
was  ever  made  was,  whether  an  act  of  Congress  was  not 
necessary  to  sanction  and  carry  the  stipulations  making  the 
change  into  effect,"  Many  considerations  intervened,  such 
as  the  unpopularity  of  Tyler  and  the  Whig  objections  to 
any  lowering  of  the  customs  rates;  and  the  treaty  was  re- 
jected. Constitutionally  the  episode  is  of  importance,  be- 
cause the  Senate,  moved  by  outside  considerations  and  for 
once  forgetting  its  esprit  de  corps,  put  itself  on  record  as 
supporting  the  contention  of  the  House  as  to  the  limitations 
on  the  treaty-making  power. ^ 

^  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  Re-ports  (Senate  Doc.,  56  Cong. 


v/ 


226  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

A  more  exciting  occupation  than  that  of  commercial 
negotiation  was  that  of  gunning  for  claims.  These  claims 
Claims  trea-  were  of  two  classes.  One  kind  had  arisen,  and 
****  continued  to  grow,  from  the  disturbed  condi- 

tion of  Spanish  America.  Revolution  had  already  become 
chronic  and  American  citizens  and  their  property  were  often 
in  the  way,  often  in  fact  were  actively  involved  on  one  side 
or  the  other.  Recognition  of  the  resulting  claims  for  dam- 
ages was  obtained,  and  indemnity  provided  for,  in  treaties 
with  Texas  in  1838,  Mexico  in  1839,  and  Peru  in  1841. 
The  other  class  of  claims  was  grounded  on  the  maltreat- 
ment of  American  shipping  during  the  Napoleonic  wars. 
Such  claims  made  the  basis  of  a  treaty  with  Denmark  in  1830, 
with  France  in  1831,  with  the  two  Sicilies  in  1832,  and  with 
Spain  in  1834.  With  the  addition  of  Portugal  in  1851  the 
list  was  complete  and  the  slate  clean.  Our  claims  against 
Great  Britain  had  been  wiped  out  by  the  war. 

The  signing  of  the  treaty  with  France  did  not,  however, 
secure  immediate  payment  of  claims.  On  the  contrary,  its 
Claims  treaty  execution  involved  us  in  the  only  strictly 
with  France  diplomatic  embroglio  which  aroused  public 
interest  between  1829  and  1840.  Although  rising  at  one  time 
to  a  point  at  which  even  sane  men  expected  war,  the  affair 
must  in  reaUty  be  considered  as  opera  bouffe  rather  than 
drama.  The  king  and  peers  of  France  constitutionally 
agreed  that  the  nation  would  pay  us,  for  the  release  from  all 
our  claims  for  seizure  and  destruction  of  property,  five 
million  dollars  in  six  annual  instalments;  but  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  as  our  House  of  Representatives  has  so  often 
done,  refused  to  grant  the  money.  Jackson  mentioned  the 
matter  to  Congress  in  1833,  and  sent  Livingston  as  minister 
to  France,  especially  charged  with  obtaining  payment. 
It  is  said  that  an  intimation  came  from  France  that  Jackson 

2  sess..  No.  231,  pt.  8),  viii.  86-37,  June  14,  1844.  Cf.  S.  M.  Cullom,  Fifty 
Yeara  of  Public  Service  (Chicago,  1911),  368-374;  and  E.  S.  Corwin,  National 
Supremacy,  New  York,  1913. 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    227 

had  better  assume  a  stronger  tone  in  his  next  message,  of 
1834;  at  any  rate,  he  did  so.  In  seven  pages  he  discussed  the 
question  with  all  his  peculiar  frankness.  "Our  institutions," 
said  he,  "are  essentially  pacific.  Peace  and  friendly  inter- 
course with  all  nations  are  as  much  the  desire  of  our  govern- 
ment as  they  are  the  interest  of  our  people.  But  these 
objects  are  not  to  be  permanently  secured  by  surrendering 
the  rights  of  our  citizens  or  permitting  solemn  treaties  for 
their  indemnity,  in  cases  of  flagrant  wrong,  to  be  abrogated  or 
set  aside."  ^ 

Interpreting  this  as  a  threat  of  war,  French  public  opinion 
went  up  in  the  air.  The  government  of  Louis  Philippe, 
conciliatory  but  dependent  on  public  opinion,  war  clouds 
was  forced  to  prepare  for  war.  French  fleets  **^*"* 
sailed  for  our  coasts.  The  French  Chamber,  with  a  charac- 
teristic Gallic  touch,  voted  the  money,  but  would  not  pay  it 
until  an  apology  for  Jackson's  message  was  tendered.  The 
French  minister  at  Washington  was  recalled,  and  Livingston 
was  given  his  passports.  Our  government  maintained  that  a 
presidential  message  was  a  domestic  document  and  hence 
neither  justified  official  umbrage  nor  allowed  official  ex- 
planation. John  Quincy  Adams,  now  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  and  chairman  of  its  committee  on  foreign 
affairs,  supported  Jackson  and  reported  in  favor  of  retaliatory 
legislation,  thereby  losing  an  election  to  the  Senate  from 
Whig  Massachusetts.  In  the  Senate,  the  placating  Clay 
delayed  war  preparation  and  caused  conciliatory  resolutions 
to  be  adopted. 

In  his  next  annual  message,  December  7,  1835,  Jackson 
explained  that  of  the  year  before.  "The  conception,"  said 
he,  "that  it  was  my  intention  to  menace  or  Reconciliation 
insult  the  Government  of  France  is  as  un-  ^tliFf*nc« 
founded  as  the  attempt  to  extort  from  the  fears  of  that  na- 
tion what  her  sense  of  justice  may  deny  would  be  vain  and 

^  Richardson,  Messages  of  the  Presidents,  iii.  126-223;  A.  Danzat,  Du  rdle 
det  chambres  en  matiere  de  traites  intemationatix. 


228  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ridiculous."  After  some  demur  and  an  informal  mediation 
by  Great  Britain,  this  explanation  was  accepted  by  France 
as  satisfactory,  relations  were  resumed,  and  payment  was 
made.  For  this  result  the  credit  was  claimed  by  the  friends 
of  Adams,  of  Clay,  and  of  Jackson.  It  certainly  belonged 
to  whoever  made  the  happy  suggestion  of  explaining  one 
domestic  document  by  another.  If  presidential  messages 
are  not  to  be  considered  as  international  declarations,  we 
neither  insulted  France  nor  apologized;  our  honor  was  secure. 
If  they  are  to  be  so  considered,  whatever  insult  the  first 
contained  was  atoned  for  in  the  second,  and  French  honor 
was  satisfied. 

Meanwhile  our  always  existing  difficulties  with  Great 
Britain  were  again  approaching  a  head:  they  seem  to  re- 
Northeastem  quire  lancing  about  every  quarter  of  a  century, 
boundary  /pj^^  most  important  of  these  concerned  the 

boundary  between  the  crossing  of  the  St.  Lawrence  by  the 
forty-fifth  parallel,  and  a  line  drawn  due  north  from  the 
source  of  the  St.  Croix.  The  treaty  of  1783  provided  that 
this  line  run  "to  the  Highlands;  along  the  said  Highlands 
which  divide  those  rivers  that  empty  themselves  into  the 
river  St.  Lawrence,  from  those  which  fall  into  the  Atlantic 
Ocean."  The  question  arose  as  to  whether  the  St.  John, 
emptying  into  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  flowed  into  the  Atlantic 
ocean  in  the  sense  of  the  treaty.  If  it  did,  then  the  highlands 
referred  to  were  those  dividing  its  waters  from  the  tributarieis 
of  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  quite  near  the  latter;  if  not,  the 
highlands  would  be  those  separating  its  valley  from  those  of 
the  rivers  of  Maine.  About  twelve  thousand  square  miles 
were  involved.  The  British  contended  for  the  second  inter- 
pretation, holding  that  the  intention  had  been  to  divide  the 
river  basins,  and  that  this  line  would  give  them  the  whole 
of  the  St.  John  valley.  The  Americans  claimed  that  the 
treaty  had  attempted  to  define  a  line  already  existing, — 
the  southern  boundary  of  Quebec  as  defined  by  the  proclama- 
tion of  1763,  in  which  the  highlands  were  expressly  men- 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    229 


NORTHEASTERN 
BOUNDARY  CONTROVERSIES 

Scale  of  Miles 


10  6  0 


M«WI>CV<OIli  9MiX  BIT  tO»« 


70* 


68* 


230  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tioned  as  running  to  the  Bay  of  Chaleurs,  and  so  were  un- 
doubtedly the  northern  chain. 

The  dispute  was  somewhat  clouded  by  the  hundred-and- 
fifty-year-old  dispute  between  Massachusetts  and  French 
Border  diffi-  Acadia,  which  British  New  Brunswick  now 
culties  claimed  to  represent,  and  by  the  presence  of 

an  old  French  fief,  Madawaska,  situated  in  the  middle  of 
the  district  and  granted  by  the  governor  of  Canada  in  1683. 
This  settlement  had  unfortunately  been  overlooked  by  the 
United  States  census  of  1810.  Obviously  it  had  never  de 
facto  been  a  part  of  Massachusetts,  as  the  United  States 
claimed  the  whole  region  had  been  de  jure.  In  the  thirties 
the  district  was  no  longer  overlooked.  In  1831  a  riot  fol- 
lowed an  attempt  on  the  part  of  Maine  to  hold  an  election 
in  Madawaska,  and  later  the  British  planned  a  road  through 
the  region,  connecting  Halifax  and  Quebec.  Lumberjacks 
of  the  two  nations  began  to  clash.  In  1838  and  1839  occurred 
the  "Restook  war,"  in  the  valley  of  the  Aroostook,  a  branch 
of  the  St.  John.  Congress  authorized  the  President  to  call 
out  the  militia  and  to  accept  fifty  thousand  volunteers,  and 
gave  him  ten  million  dollars  credit.  Maine  voted  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  for  forts.  General  Scott  was  sent 
to  the  frontier.  In  1839  a  modus  Vivendi  was  arranged  by 
the  governors  of  Maine  and  New  Brunswick:  "That  the 
civil  posse  of  Maine  should  retain  possession  of  the  valley  of 
the  Aroostook,  the  British  denying  their  right;  the  British 
authorities  retaining  possession  of  the  valley  of  the  Upper 
St.  John,  Maine  denying  their  right."  The  difficulty  seemed 
the  more  serious  because,  although  in  1827  Gallatin  had  suc- 
ceeded in  arranging  an  arbitration,  the  result  had  proved 
unsatisfactory.  The  arbiter,  the  king  of  the  Netherlands, 
had  suggested  a  compromise  and  both  parties  had  rejected 
his  suggestion.  Subsequent  attempts  at  arbitration  or  com- 
promise had  equally  failed. 

Although  the  most  important,  this  was  not  the  only  un- 
settled portion  of  the  boundary  line.    The  highlands  once 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    231 

agreed  upon,  the  line  was  to  descend  to  the  "North-western 
most  head  of  Connecticut  river."  What  was  the  "North- 
western most  head"?  There  were  several  Minor  bound- 
that  might  with  no  great  stretch  of  the  con-  ^  disputes 
science  be  so  described.  About  one  hundred  thousand  acres 
were  in  dispute.  More  annoying,  because  a  preventable 
error,  was  the  fact,  discovered  by  one  of  the  commissions 


NOETHWE8TEBNMOST  HEAD  OP  CONNECTICUT  RIVER 

under  the  treaty  of  Ghent,  that  the  forty-fifth  parallel  had 

been  incorrectly  surveyed  in  1774  and  the  report  ever  since 

had  been  accepted.    The  error  was  not  great,  but  the  tipping 

of  the  parallel  northward  as  it  went  west  had  given  us  Rouses 

Point,  which  commanded  the  outlet  of  Lake  Champlain, 

and  upon  which  we  had  built  a  costly  fortress.    This  was  now 

found  to  be  in  territory  properly  British.'^ 

^  J.  F.  Sprague,  The  North  Eastern  Boundary  Controversy  and  the  Aroostook 
War,  Dover,  Me.,  [1910];  W.  F.  Ganong,  Evolution  of  the  Boundaries  of  the 


233 


AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 


These  disputes  were  rendered  the  more  serious  by  the  situ- 
ation in  Canada  and  the  attitude  of  the  United  States  toward 
The  Canadian  it.  The  years  from  1837  to  1840  mark  a  period 
insurrection  ^f  unrest  in  that  colony.  There  were  French 
Canadian  movements  and  Republican  movements  to  throw 
oflF  British  rule.  Until  the  report  of  Lord  Durham,  in  1839, 
Great  Britain  was  not  decided  in  her  attitude.    In  the  United 


73f30' 


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r/Au  ujfJKCt^rro 


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vro  AS  Boi/AfOAMY  1^ 


JS*L. 


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Rous<* 

NEW   YORK 


VERMONT 


74' 


TtXi' 


BOUSES  POINT  CONTBOVEBSY 

States  there  was  sympathy  for  the  revolution  and  hope  of 
annexation.  Once  more  confronted  by  the  question  of  neu- 
trality, the  government  on  the  whole  did  its  best,  and  did 
well.  In  1838  Congress  strengthened  the  neutrality  law  by 
giving  the  collectors  of  customs  power  to  prevent  the  de- 
parture of  military  expeditions  when  there  was  "probable 
cause  to  believe"  they  intended  to  violate  neutrality.^ 

Before  the  government  could  bring  its  force  to  bear  on  the 
frontier,  however,  the  Niagara  river  had  been  the  scene  of 
actual  hostilities.  In  1837  forces  equipped  in 
New  York  gathered  on  Navy  island,  in  Ameri- 
can waters,  and  were  supplied  from  the  United  States  by  the 
little  steamer  Caroline.  On  December  26  a  party  of  Canadian 
militia  crossed  the  river,  boarded  the  Caroline^  and  sent  her 

Province  of  New  Brunswick,  Royal  Soc.  of  Canada,  Trans.,  1901,  vii.  sec.  ii. 
139-449. 

^  William  Kingsford,  History  of  Canada  (10  vols.,  London,  1888-98),  x. 
430-457;  Shepard,  Van  Buren,  350-356;  House  Exec.  Docs.,  25  Cong.,  t 
seas..  No.  74. 


The  Caroline 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    233 

drifting  and  afire  over  the  falls.  In  the  scrimmage  one  Amer- 
ican was  killed.  The  excitement  which  this  violation  of  our 
territory  caused  among  the  border  population,  already  afire 
with  sympathy  for  the  Canadian  movement,  was  intensified 
by  a  new  episode  which  grew  out  of  it.    In  1840  Alexander 

McLeod,  a  Canadian,  boasted  in  a  New  York     „  ,    ^ 

McLeod 
saloon  that  he  had  been  of  the  boardmg  party 

and  had  killed  the  American.  He  was  at  once  arrested  and 
put  on  trial  for  murder.  The  British  government  demanded 
that  he  be  released  on  the  ground  that  whatever  he  had  done 
had  been  done  under  orders.  The  United  States  replied  that 
he  was  being  tried  in  a  state  court  and  that  the  national  gov- 
ernment could  not  interfere.  Webster,  who  became  secretary 
of  state  in  March,  1841,  wrote  to  President  Tyler  in  July, 
that  "Hunters'  Lodges"  were  organized  along  the  border 
from  Maine  to  Wisconsin,  that  they  were  said  to  number  ten 
thousand  members  and  to  desire  war  with  Great  Britain, 
that  they  were  likely  to  attempt  violence  against  McLeod, 
and  that,  if  a  "  mob  should  kill  him,  war  would  be  inevitable 
in  ten  days."  ^ 

The  coming  in  of  Webster  at  this  juncture  was  fortunate, 
and  it  happily  coincided  with  the  new  British  ministry  of 

Sir  Robert  Peel,  favorably  inclined  to  a  settle-    „  ^ 

.  Webster 

ment  with  the  United  States.     Webster  was 

well  known  to  the  ministry,  which  sent  Lord  Ashburton  over 

to  treat  with  him.    The  latter  was  a  member  of  the  firm  of 

Baring  Brothers,  his  wife  was  an  American,  and  he  p)ersonally 

knew  Webster,  to  whom  he  wrote  truly,  January  2,  1842, 

"The  principal  aim  and  object  of  that  part  of  my  life  devoted 

to  public  objects  during  the  thirty-five  years  that  I  have  had 

a  seat  in  one  or  the  other  House  of  Parliament,  has  been  to 

impress  on  others  the  necessity  of,  and  to  promote  myself, 

peace  and  harmony  between  our  countries."     Under  such 

pleasing  auspices  the  settlement  was  undertaken,  but  the 

mutual  friendliness  and  good  fellowship  did  not  prevent  either 

1  Daniel  Webster,  Letters  (ed.  C.  H.  Van  Tyne,  New  York,  1902),  233. 


SS4  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

party  from  sturdily  maintaining  his  case,  or  from  withholding 
from  the  other  evidence  which  he  believed  to  be  damaging  to 
his  own  position.^ 

The  McLeod  affair  was  for  Webster  to  arrange.  Great 
Britain  was  right  about  it,  but  our  national  government 
Settlement  of  was  without  authority  to  interfere.  Webster 
and  **  Caroline  followed  the  trial  with  great  interest,  used  his 
*ff*ir  influence  with  the  state  government,  and  was 

not  uninfluential  in  obtaining  the  final  discharge  of  McLeod, 
although  he  was  dissatisfied  with  the  form  which  it  took — ■ 
the  acceptance  of  an  alibi.  He  also  saw  to  it  that  precisely 
such  cases  should  not  arise  in  the  future,  by  securing  an  act 
of  Congress  providing  that  a  subject  of  a  foreign  power  on 
trial  in  a  state  court  might  be  brought  into  a  United  States  /" 
court  on  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  dismissed  if  the  latter 
court  judged  proper.^  The  Caroline  affair  was  settled  by  an 
exchange  of  notes.  Webster  admitted  that  such  a  violation 
of  our  territory  was  permissible  if  necessary  for  self-defence, — 
we  could  not  well  take  the  opposite  view  considering  our 
several  invasions  of  Spanish  Florida, — ^but  he  denied  the 
necessity  in  this  case.  Lord  Ashburton  maintained  that 
the  necessity  had  existed,  but  nevertheless  apologized. 

The  boundary  controversies  were  settled  by  a  treaty  of 
August  9,  1842.  Webster  and  Ashburton  abandoned  the 
Webster-Ash-  attempt  to  discover  the  boundary  intended  in 
burton  treaty  j^gg^  ^j^j  agreed  to  foUow  the  suggestion  of 
the  king  of  the  Netherlands  and  compromise.  To  compro- 
mise, however,  meant  the  giving  up  of  territory  without  first 
ascertaining  whether  we  had  title  to  it  or  not.  It  is  conceiv- 
able that,  when  the  territory  in  question  is  part  of  a  state, 
this  exceeds  the  constitutional  power  of  the  national  gov- 
ernment.   It  was  at  any  rate  necessary  to  recognize  Maine, 

*  E.  D.  Adams,  "Lord  Ashburton  and  the  Treaty  of  Washington,"  Amcr. 
Hist.  Review,  1912,  xvii.  764-782;  J.  W.  Foster,  A  Century  of  American 
Diplomacy  (Boston,  etc.,  1901),  282-286. 

*  Daniel  Webster,  Writings  and  Speeches  (National  edition,  18  vols., 
Boston,  1903),  xi.  247-269;  United  States  Statutes,  27  Cong.,  2  sess.,  ch.  257. 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    235 

which  was  officially  represented  at  the  conference  and  of- 
ficially compensated  by  a  provision  of  the  treaty.    Although 
Maine  assented  to  the  terms,  it  is  possible  that  her  dislike 
for  the  settlement  cost  Webster  his  last  chance  for  the  presi- 
dency in  1852.     Massachusetts  was  also  involved,  having 
retained,  when  she  permitted  the  erection  of  Maine  into  a 
separate  state,  the  ownership  of  certain  lands.    She  too  was 
represented  and  recognized.^    The  compromise  divided  the 
region  disputed  between  Maine  and  New  Brunswick  in  such 
a  way  as  to  give  the  former  the  valley  of  the  Aroostook  and 
the  southern  part  of  the  valley  of  the  upper  St.  John.    Both  \ 
nations  were  admitted  to  equal  use  of  the  St.  John  for  the  j 
purpose  of   logging.     This  arrangement  gave   the   United  j 
States  7,015  miles  and  Great  Britain  5,012,  a  settlement  a  I 
Uttle  less  favorable  to  us  than  that  suggested  by  the  king  j 
of  the  Netherlands.    Our  contention  as  to  the  head  of  the  i 
Connecticut  river  was  allowed,  and  the  old  incorrect  loca-  / 
tion  of  the  parallel  of  45    was  allowed  to  stand,  as  so  many 
vested  rights  would  be  disturbed  by  moving  it.    The  line  of  \ 
the  boundary  from  Lake  Huron  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  ' 
which  the  Ghent  commission  had  not  completed,  was  also 
drawn.     Thus  at  length,  in  1842,  the  northern  boundary! 
provided  by  the  treaty  of  1783  was  reduced  to  intelligible 
terms,  except  where  it  was  frankly  departed  from.    The  few 
disputes  that  have  since  arisen  have  been  of  a  minor  char- 
acter and  seem  now  all  to  be  settled. 

The  treaty  also  revived  and  expanded  the  extradition 
article  of  the  Jay  treaty,  which  had  expired  by  limitation  in 
1808.    As  it  did  not  yet,  however,  cover  em-     „ 
bezzlement,  "  gone  to  Canada  "  was  for  many 
years  the  epitaph  of  the  dishonest  American  who  had  been 
found  out. 

On  one  subject  with  which  it  dealt  the  treaty  proved  un- 
satisfactory.    This  was  the  slave  trade,  which  had  been 

^  Report  and  Resolves  in  relation  to  the  North-eastern  Boundary  (Massachu- 
setts  General  Court;  Senate  Doc.,  No.  67),  Boston,  [1838]. 


i/ 


236  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  subject  of  a  dispute  that  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  had 
been  growing  more  acute.  In  1807  Great  Britain,  as  the  result 
of  a  long  philanthropic  agitation,  abolished 
the  trade  as  respected  her  own  subjects.  Once 
having  repudiated  it  herseK,  she  was  moved  by  every  motive, 
philanthropic  and  philistine,  to  secure  its  abolition  elsewhere. 
While  it  continued  anywhere,  not  only  were  her  citizens  de- 
prived of  its  profits,  but  her  colonies  were  hampered  by  the 
competition  of  other  regions  where  the  slave  supply  was 
plentiful  and  cheap.  Thus  the  wily  Castlereagh  and  the 
beneficent  Clarkson  together  urged  abolition  before  Euro- 
pean congresses. 

Civilized  public  sentiment  was  ready  for  the  movement, 
at  least  when  unaffected  by  special  considerations.  Den- 
Difficulty  of  mark  had  preceded  Great  Britain  in  1802,  the 
suppression  United  States  followed  in  1808,  Sweden  in 
1813,  France  in  1815;  Spain  and  Portugal  yielded  to  financial 
and  other  inducements  in  1817.  The  trade  soon  became 
illegal  among  all  so-called  Christian  powers.  Sub  rosa, 
however,  it  continued  to  exist.  It  was  necessary  for  a  na- 
tion to  possess  a  navy  and  the  will  to  achieve,  if  she  were  to 
prevent  adventurers,  either  of  her  own  or  of  other  nation- 
alities, from  misusing  her  flag.  So  long  as  slavery  existed  in 
Brazil,  Cuba,  and  Porto  Rico,  and  the  southern  states  of 
our  country,  the  rewards  of  the  trade  were  sufficient  to  induce 
men  to  engage  in  it  despite  the  law  and  even  in  the  face  of 
considerable  risk. 

During  the  last  years  of  the  Napoleonic  wars  England  had 
almost  stopped  the  trade  by  using  her  belligerent  right  of 
Great  Brit-  search.  With  peace,  however,  this  right  van- 
ain's  policy  ished,  and  her  navy  saw  the  flags  of  other  na- 
tions fraudulently  used  to  protect  a  fraudulent  traffic  and 
were  impotent  to  interfere.  Her  great  admiralty  judge. 
Sir  William  Scott,  declared  in  the  case  of  Le  Louis,  1817, 
that  the  slave  trade  was  not  piracy,  and  that  no  right  of 
search  existed.    Great  Britain,  therefore,  sought  to  obtain  a 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    237 

general  agreement  to  a  mutual  right  of  search  or  visit  in 
times  of  peace;  but  although  she  succeeded  in  making  such 
arrangements  with  Spain  aind  Portugal,  she  failed  to  obtain 
them  from  the  Holy  Alliance  in  1818  and  again  in  1822.  As 
the  greatest  naval  power,  she  would  obviously  profit  much 
by  a  regulation  that  would  give  her  navy  in  time  of  peace 
almost  as  effective  a  police  power  over  the  ocean  as  it  exer- 
cised in  time  of  war,  including  a  rich  harvest  of  prize  money. 
Interest  combined  with  the  highest  ideals  of  patriotism  and 
altruism  to  press  her  to  the  attainment  of  her  goal. 

In  the  United  States  these  ideals  stood  in  a  rivalry  which 
grew  year  by  year  more  bitter.  We  had  agreed  in  the  treaty 
of  Ghent  that  both  the  contracting  parties  Attitude  of  the 
should  use  "  their  best  endeavors  to  accom-  ^'"**<1  States 
plish"  the  abolition  of  the  slave  trade.  An  act  of  Congress 
of  May  15,  1820,  declared  the  slave  trade  piracy,  and  a 
growing  element  among  the  people  of  the  North  urged  a 
continuation  of  this  policy  of  exterminating  a  trade  which 
had  already  been  branded  by  all  the  European  world.  The 
nationalist  spirit,  however,  was  not  prepared  to  permit 
Great  Britain  to  police  our  flag,  to  renew  in  time  of  peace 
those  practices  which  had  in  time  of  war  driven  us  to  fight. 
In  the  case  of  the  Antelope,  in  1825,  John  Marshall  denied 
that  our  law  of  1820  made  the  trade  piracy  in  the  interna- 
tional sense,  or  gave  other  nations  any  rights  over  our  vessels, 
however  employed.  Between  1823  and  1825  Congress  dis- 
cussed the  subject  of  cooperating  with  Great  Britain  on  the 
subject.  Adams,  though  forced  by  a  resolution  of  Congress 
to  negotiate  on  the  basis  of  a  mutual  right  of  search,  was 
personally  opposed.  He  wrote  to  Gallatin:  "The  admission 
of  a  right  for  the  officers  of  foreign  ships  of  war  to  enter  and 
search  the  vessels  of  the  United  States  in  time  of  peace,  under 
any  circumstances  whatever,  would  meet  with  universal 
repugnance  in  the  public  opinion  of  the  country."  The  con- 
vention drawn  up  by  Rush  and  Canning  in  1824  was  rejected 
as  unsatisfactory,  and  when  Webster  and  Ashburton  met 


tS8  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

we  had  not  yet  come  to  an  understanding  with  Great  Britain. 
The  United  States  was  so  lax  in  the  enforcement  of  her  own 
law  that  much  of  the  trade  was  carried  on  under  the  protec- 
tion of  her  flag,  and  some  of  it  in  American  vessels. 

This  main  diflBculty  was  augmented  by  questions  arising 
from  our  domestic  maritime  slave  trade.  Vessels  carrying 
DomMtie  iUt*  slaves  from  one  of  our  Atlantic  ports  to  the 
*"*•  gulf    states   were   often   forced   by   stress   of 

weather  or  other  circumstances  into  British  West  Indian 
ports.  In  1831  and  1833  slaves  from  the  Comet  and  Encomium 
were  released  and  freed  by  the  British  authorities  there. 
During  the  Van  Buren  administration  indemnity  was  paid  in 
these  cases,  on  the  ground  that,  as  slavery  was  permitted  in 
the  islands  the  principle  of  British  law  that  slaves  on  reaching 
British  territory  or  war  vessels  became  free  did  not  apply 
there.  When,  however,  in  August,  1834,  the  British  West 
Indian  slaves  were  freed,  the  application  of  the  principle  was 
extended  to  those  islands.  New  cases  occurred,  as  those  of 
the  Enterprise  and  Hermosa,  and  satisfaction  was  refused. 
The  most  important  was  that  of  the  big  Creole,  in  1841,  whose 
cargo  of  slaves  arose,  killed  a  passenger,  took  possession  of  the 
ship,  and  made  the  port  of  Nassau.  Those  guilty  of  the 
murder  were  executed  and  the  remainder  freed. 

These  cases  aroused  great  excitement  in  the  United  States. 
In  1840  Calhoun  secured  the  passage  by  the  Senate  of  resolu- 
Caihetm'i  tions  declaring  that  a  vessel  "  in  time  of  peace, 

proyodtioiM  engaged  in  a  lawful  voyage,  is,  according  to  the 
laws  of  nations,  under  the  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  the  state 
to  which  her  flag  belongs,"  and  that,  if  forced  "by  stress  of 
weather,  or  other  unavoidable  cause  "  into  the  port  of  another 
friendly  power,  "she  could,  under  the  same  laws,  lose  none 
of  the  rights  appertaining  to  her  on  the  high  seas."  In  his 
ipeech  defending  these  resolutions  he  laid  down  the  doctrine 
that  the  constitution  made  it  the  duty  of  the  national  govern- 
ment, solely  charged  with  the  foreign  relations  of  every  state, 
|o  defend  before  the  world  the  institutions  of  every  state; 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    9S9 

that  the  protection  of  the  domestic  slave  trade  was  a  matter 
of  national  obligation,  and  not  of  choice. 

These  positions  would  seem  so  reasonable  and  clear  aa 
hardly  to  need  statement,  but  public  opinion  was  blurred  by 
an  apparent  similarity  with  another  case  which  L'AmitUi 
during  1840  was  being  argued  by  John  Quincy  ***• 
Adams  in  the  supreme  court.  Thb  case  concerned  the 
Spanish  vessel,  VAmistad,  engaged  in  the  Spanish  domestic 
slave  trade,  whose  cargo  revolted  and  which  was  brought  into 
a  United  States  port.  As  it  developed  that  these  negroes  had 
been  recently  and  illegally  captured,  it  was  held  that  they 
were  not  properly  slaves,  but  free  persons  kidnapped,  and 
they  were  restored  to  Africa.  It  is  possible  that  in  strictness 
we  should  have  turned  the  whole  case  over  to  the  Spanish 
authorities;  but  the  distinction  between  these  facts  and  those 
involved  in  the  Creole  case,  in  which  the  negroes  were  without 
doubt  legal  slaves  by  the  laws  of  Virginia  and  of  the  United 
States,  was  sufficient  to  bar  its  use  as  a  precedent.* 

Webster  entered  upon  the  discussion  of  these  problema 
with  little  apparent  enthusiasm.  In  a  letter  to  Lord  Ash- 
burton  enclosing  his  statement  of  the  Creole  case,  he  said 
"  Using  the  words  of  Walter  Scott  when  he  sent  one  of 
his  works  to  his  publisher — I  send  you  my  e  **i  —  •  «# 
Creole — D — n  her."  No  agreement  was  reached  th«  Cr**!* 
as  to  this  and  the  other  vessels,  until  after 
his  return  to  office  under  Fillmore;  then,  in  185S,  a  claima 
convention  submitted  the  matter  to  arbitration,  and  Great 
Britain  paid  indemnity.  More  important  was  the  question 
of  making  arrangements  for  the  more  effectual  suppression 
of  the  slave  trade.  Great  Britain  was  as  insistent  as  ever  on 
some  such  provision.  The  United  States  was  as  loath  as  it 
had  been  under  Adams  to  permit  the  British  navy  to  search 
our  vessels.  Finally,  at  the  suggestion  of  President  Tyler 
there  was  incorporated  into  the  treaty  a  plan  for  the  main* 

^  W.  E.  B.  DuBois,  Suppression  of  the  African  Slave-trade  (New  Yor^ 
etc.,  1896),  131-146, 162-167;  Schuyler,  American  Diplomacy,  ck.  r. 


240  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tenance  by  the  two  powers  of  a  joint  squadron  off  the  coast 
of  Africa. 

This  agreement  was  promptly  attacked  by  Lewis  Cass, 
our  minister  to  France,  on  the  ground  that  Great  Britain 
had  not  definitely  admitted  that  she  did  not 
the  quintuple  possess  the  right  of  search,  and  hence  that  she 
*  would  in  all  probability  actually  exercise  it. 

His  fears  had  been  excited  by  the  attempt  of  that  power  in 
1842  to  effect  a  quintuple  agreement  by  joining  with  her 
Austria,  Prussia,  France,  and  Russia  for  such  a  mutual 
right.  On  the  basis  of  this  powerful  support  he  believed  that 
Great  Britain  would  assert  the  right  as  established  inter- 
national law.  Cass  therefore  wrote  a  pamphlet  attacking  the 
proposal,  and,  acting  without  instructions,  protested  to  the 
French  prime  minister,  Guizot,  and  secured  the  defeat  of  the 
British  plan,  France  finally  adopting  the  American  scheme 
of  a  joint  squadron.  In  this  action  he  was  endorsed  by 
Webster,  and  was  supported  by  an  article  written  by  Henry 
Wheaton,  entitled  "An  Inquiry  into  the  Validity  of  the 
British  Claim  to  a  Right  of  Visitation  and  Search."  ^ 

Nevertheless,  by  1849  Great  Britain  had  secured  treaties 
with  twenty-four  nations,  all,  except  those  with  the  United 
G  t  B  'tain  ^^^^^^  ^^^  France,  permitting  a  mutual  right  of 
yields  visita-  search.  With  this  great  weight  of  international 
support  behind  her,  she  justified  Cass's  fears  by 
acting  upon  a  claim,  not  indeed  to  search,  but  to  visit  any 
vessel  suspected  of  the  traffic  in  order  to  ascertain  its  na- 
tionality, a  course  to  which  she  was  provoked  by  the  facts 
that  otherwise  any  vessel  flying  the  American  flag  was 
immune,  and  that  most  vessels  used  that  flag  in  places  where 
American  war-ships  were  not  to  be  found.  If  the  vessel 
visited  was  not  American,  we  did  not  suffer;  but  when,  as 
often  happened,  it  was  ours,  we,  with  our  special  sensitiveness 
to  such  liberties  taken  with  our  flag,  resented  the  visit  and 

^  Daniel  Webster,  Works  (ed.  Edward  Everett,  6  vols.,  Boston,  1851), 
V.  78-150;  A.  C.  McLaughlin,  Life  of  Lewis  Cass  (Boston,  1891),  174-192. 


RECIPROCITY,  CLAIMS,  BOUNDARIES,  ETC.    241; 

became  increasingly  angry.  Finally  in  1858,  Cass  himself 
having  become  secretary  of  state,  the  issue  was  forced,  and 
the  British  government,  with  the  advice  of  its  law  oflScers, 
admitted  that  no  right  of  visitation  existed.^ 

The   American   government   thus   successfully   met   the 
attempt  of  Great  Britain  to  continue  in  time  of  peace  a 
practice  which  we  had  unsuccessfully  resisted    The  conflict  of 
in  time  of  war.    It  is  uncontestably  true  that    **^**^* 
in  accomplishing  this  object  we  delayed  the  abolition  of  the 
slave  trade  to  which  we  stood  committed.    It  was  a  question 
of  conflict  between  the  national  ideal  of  the  freedom  of  our 
flag,  strengthened  later  by  the  rising  pro-slavery  movement, 
and  the  ideal  of  humanitarianism.    With  the  outburst  of  the 
Civil  War  the  latter  element  got  the  upper  hand  in  the 
national  government,  and  in  1862  Seward  ar-     _  .      ... 
ranged  a  treaty  providing  for  a  limited  mutual    manitarian 
right    of    search,    but    protectmg    American 
interests  by  a  provision  for  mixed  courts  to  try  the  cases. 
Seward  said  that,  had  such  a  treaty  been  made  in  1808,  there 
would  have  been  no  Civil  War;  but  Seward  was  apt  to  be 
h3T)erbolic  in  expression. 

The  achievements  of  the  period  from  1829  to  1844  were  the 
final  settlement  of  the  difficulties  growing  out  of  the  Na- 
poleonic wars,  and  the  passing  of  another  mile-  The  period 
stone  in  the  adjustment  of  our  relationships  1829  to  1844 
with  Great  Britain.  The  latter  transaction  was  a  conven- 
tional agreement,  in  which  it  is  doubtful  if  Webster  did  as 
well  as  John  Quincy  Adams  would  have  done.  The  former 
was  the  work  of  Jackson,  whose  fearless,  mannerless  method 
of  procedure  marks  the  dominance  of  the  frontier  element  in 
political  life;  it  was  not  in  accordance  with  rule,  but  it  was 
characteristic  and  it  was  effective.  More  was  done  for  the 
furtherance  of  commerce  than  one  would  have  expected  from 
the  ruling  elements  in  the  United  States  at  that  time.  To  no 
small  extent  this  progress  must  be  considered  as  due  to  the 
1  McLaughlin,  Lewis  Cass,  323-330. 


t4f  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

presence  on  our  staff  of  a  man  of  Henry  Wheaton's  pre- 
eminent ability;  but  a  factor  still  more  important  lay  in  the 
character  of  the  commerce  itself,  now  almost  wholly  non- 
competitive and  universally  desired.  The  period  as  a  whole, 
however,  would  be  barren  were  it  considered  in  relation  to 
mctual  achievements  alone.  Its  chief  interest  lies  in  the  rise 
of  new  problems  which  it  left  for  the  future  to  solve. 


CHAPTER    XIX 
EXPANSION 

In  a  report  to  the  Mexican  Congress  in  1830,  the  secretary 
of  foreign  affairs,  Lucas  Alaman,  analyzed  the  process  of 
American  expansion:  ^  Alanum'f 

"The  United  States  of  the  North  have  been  JSiriilm  *L- 
going  on  successfully  acquiring,  without  awak-  P»n«io* 
ening  public  attention,  all  the  territories  adjoining  theirs. 
Thus  we  find  that,  in  less  than  fifty  years,  they  have  suc- 
ceeded in  making  themselves  masters  of  extensive  colonies 
belonging  to  various  European  Powers,  and  of  districts,  still 
more  extensive,  formerly  in  the  possession  of  Indian  tribes, 
which  have  disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth;  proceed- 
ing in  these  transactions,  not  with  the  noisy  pomp  of  con- 
quest, but  with  such  silence,  such  constancy,  and  such  uni- 
formity, that  they  have  always  succeeded  in  accomplishing 
their  views.  Instead  of  armies,  battles,  and  invasions,  which 
raise  such  uproar,  and  generally  prove  abortive,  they  use 
means  which,  considered  separately,  seem  slow,  ineffectual, 
and  sometimes  palpably  absurd,  but  which  united,  and  in 
the  course  of  time,  are  certain  and  irresistible. 

"They  commence  by  introducing  themselves  into  the 
territory  which  they  covet,  upon  pretence  of  commercial 
negotiations,  or  of  the  establishment  of  colonies,  with  or 
without  the  assent  of  the  Government  to  which  it  belongs. 
These  colonies  grow,  multiply,  become  the  predominant 
party  in  the  population,  and  as  soon  as  a  support  is  found  in 
this  manner,  they  begin  to  set  up  rights  which  it  is  im];>o»< 
sible  to  sustain  in  a  serious  discussion,  and  to  bring  forward 
ridiculous  pretensions,  founded  upon  historical  facts  which 
1  House  Exec.  Docs.,  25  Cong.,  2  sess..  No.  851,  pp.  S12-S22. 
£43 


244  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

are  admitted  by  nobody.  .  .  .  These  extravagant  opinions 
are,  for  the  first  time,  presented  to  the  world  by  unknown 
writers;  and  the  labor  which  is  employed  by  others,  in  offer- 
ing proofs  and  reasonings,  is  spent  by  them  in  repetitions 
and  multiplied  allegations,  for  the  purpose  of  drawing  the 
attention  of  their  fellow-citizens,  not  upon  the  justice  of  the 
proposition,  but  upon  the  advantages  and  interests  to  be 
obtained  or  subserved  by  their  admission, 

"Their  machinations  in  the  country  they  wish  to  acquire 
are  then  brought  to  light  by  the  appearance  of  explorers, 
some,  of  whom  settle  on  the  soil,  alleging  that  their  presence 
does  not  affect  the  question  of  the  right  of  sovereignty  or 
possession  to  the  land.  These  pioneers  excite,  by  degrees, 
movements  which  disturb  the  political  state  of  the  country 
in  dispute.  .  .  .  When  things  have  come  to  this  pass,  which 
is  precisely  the  present  state  of  things  in  Texas,  the  diplo- 
matic management  commences:  the  inquietude  they  have 
excited  in  the  territory  in  dispute,  the  interests  of  the  colo- 
nists therein  established,  the  insurrections  of  adventurers 
and  savages  instigated  by  them,  and  the  pertinacity  with 
which  the  opinion  is  set  up  as  to  their  right  of  possession, 
become  the  subjects  of  notes,  full  of  expressions  of  justice 
and  moderation,  until,  with  the  aid  of  other  incidents,  which 
are  never  wanting  in  the  course  of  diplomatic  relations,  the 
desired  end  is  attained  of  concluding  an  arrangement  as 
onerous  for  one  party  as  it  is  advantageous  to  the  other." 

In  the  History  Teachers'  Magazine  for  February,  1914, 
Dr.  Jameson  of  the  Carnegie  Institution  analyzed  the 
Process  of  ex-  natural  history  of  American  expansion.  He 
pansion  omitted  the  stage  of  diplomatic  claim-making 

by  the  United  States  and  added  the  final  step, — ^that  of 
popularizing  annexation  by  arousing  our  fears  that  some 
other  power  would  annex  if  we  did  not.  Otherwise  these  two 
analyses  harmonize  completely,  except  that  Alaman  finds 
the  motive  force  in  the  malevolent  scheming  of  the  govern- 
ment, Dr.  Jameson  in  the  working  of  natural  forces.    Al- 


EXPANSION  245 

though  the  process  described  is,  not  entirely  realized  in  every 
case,  and  has  not  always  been  crowned  with  success,  it  may 
well  be  used  as  a  basis  for  the  study  of  the  development  of 
our  interests  in  the  territory  of  the  Indian  tribes,  in  the 
Natchez  district,  West  Florida  and  East  Florida,  Texas, 
Oregon,  California,  Nicaragua,  Cuba,  Hawaii,  Samoa,  the 
Philippines,  Panama,  and  even  Mexico. 

From  the  time  of  the  Florida  treaty,  in  1819,  germination 
began  which  was  to  result  in  the  addition  of  several  of  these 
branches  to  the  mother  trunk.  The  imagina-  Frontier  char- 
tion  of  the  pioneer  had  already  passed  the  ^cteristics 
limits  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  and,  unrestrained  by  its 
western  bounds,  had  begun  to  busy  itself  with  the  lands  be- 
yond. The  Americans  engaged  in  these  movements  were  sim- 
ilar to  those  who  took  the  field  in  the  long  struggle  for  the 
Ohio  valley,  except  that  unlike  them  they  were  character- 
ized by  a  loyalty  to  the  United  States  that  at  times  over- 
rode their  immediate  material  interest.  At  this  period  the 
diplomatic  problem  never  took  the  form  of  defending  our 
own  undisputed  territory,  as  it  had  from  1783  to  1815;  rather, 
it  was  a  matter  of  struggling  for  disputed  regions,  as  in  the 
case  of  Oregon,  or  for  those  undeniably  belonging  to  other 
nations,  as  in  the  case  of  Texas  and  California.  The  issue 
was  never  so  vital  to  our  existence  as  was  the  struggle  for 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and  it  only  intermittently  held 
the  attention  of  the  public  or  of  most  political  leaders. 

The  signing  of  the  Florida  treaty  was  immediately  fol- 
lowed by  the  rush  of  far-sighted  speculators  into  Texas. 
Linking  the  old  order  with  the  new.  General  Texan  colon- 
Wilkinson  joined  the  number.  These  men  were  *^*^ 
attracted  by  the  fact  that  now  for  the  first  time  could  secure 
land  titles  be  obtained  in  that  region  of  which  the  ownership 
had  previously  been  so  uncertain.  They  were  attracted,  too, 
by  the  Spanish  land  system,  which  was  based  on  the  principle 
of  granting  favors  to  managers,  or  empresarios,  who  on  their 
part  guaranteed  to  introduce  a  specified  number  of  colonists. 


246  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Nothing,  except  possibly  bribes,  had  to  be  paid  down,  and 
the  terms  were  such  that  land  could  be  offered  to  the  in- 
dividual settler  at  twelve  and  a  half  cents  an  acre,  as  against 
the  United  States  price  of  a  dollar  and  a  quarter.^ 

Mexico,  succeeding  Spain,  continued  the  same  liberal 
policy.  No  less  anxious  than  Spain  had  been  during  the  Con- 
Mexico's  federation  to  people  her  frontiers,  she  encour- 
liberality  aged  the  incoming  settler  by  an  absence  of 
curiosity  concerning  his  religion,  by  allowing  the  importa- 
tion of  slaves  from  the  United  States,  and  by  an  almost 
entire  governmental  neglect.  In  return  for  his  land  the 
settler  had  only  to  accept  Mexican  citizenship. 

This  halcyon  period  did  not  last  long,  for  Great  Britain 
was  pressing  upon  Mexico  an  anti-slavery  policy.  In  1823 
gradual  emancipation  was  adopted,  in  1824 
importation  of  slaves  was  prohibited.  In  1825 
and  1827  Adams,  who  as  secretary  of  state  had  resented  the 
failure  to  insist  on  our  claim  to  Texas,  now  as  President  at' 
tempted  to  cover  the  error  by  purchasing  the  country.  He 
urged  Mexico  to  sell  all  or  part  of  the  region  between  the 
Sabine  and  the  Rio  Grande,  using  the  same  line  of  argument 
he  had  employed  with  Goulburn  in  1815  concerning  the  Indian 
buffer  state,  and  with  de  Onis  in  1819  concerning  Florida. 
He  pointed  out  that  the  American  settlers  would  never  submit 
to  Mexican  authority,  that  the  natural  progress  of  American 
settlement  could  not  be  stopped  by  paper  bonds.  "These 
immigrants,"  said  he,  "will  carry  with  them  our  principles 
of  law,  liberty,  and  religion,  and,  however  much  it  may  be 
hoped  they  might  be  disposed  to  amalgamate  with  the  ancient 
inhabitants  of  Mexico,  so  far  as  political  freedom  is  concerned, 
it  would  be  almost  too  much  to  expect  that  all  collisions 
would  be  avoided  on  other  subjects.  .  .  .  These  collisions 
may  insensibly  enlist  the  sympathies  and  feelings  of  the 
two  Republics  and  lead  to  misunderstandings."  Mexico 
had  better  now,  he  urged,  accept  compensation  for  territory 
'  G.  P.  Garrison,  Texas;  a  Contest  of  Civilizations,  Boston,  etc.,  1903. 


EXPANSION  247 

which  she  would  soon  lose  without  it.  Adams's  arguments 
were  emphasized  by  the  proclamation  of  the  "Fredonian 
republic"  in  1826.  Although  this  proved  to  be  a  premature 
movement,  since  the  Americans  were  not  yet  "the  predomi- 
nant party  in  the  population,"  it  nevertheless  foreshadowed 
what  their  grumblings  at  the  anti-slavery  policy  of  the  gov- 
ernment, which  was  as  yet  unenforced  in  Texas,  would  lead 
to  when  the  settlers  became  strong.^ 

Impelled  by  these  facts,  by  the  warnings  of  Ward,  the 
British  minister,  and  by  its  Cassandra,  Alaman,  the  Mexican 
government  changed  its  policy.  In  1826  it  Alarms  and 
forbade  the  importation  of  colonists  from  coter-  "c^»"»o»" 
minous  nations;  after  1828  it  encouraged  the  formation  of 
colonies  on  the  border  composed  of  persons  not  from  the 
United  States;  in  1827  it  joined  the  territory  of  Texas  to 
the  state  of  Coahuila  to  keep  the  former  under  better  con- 
trol; in  1829  it  declared  the  immediate  emancipation  of 
slaves;  and  jBnally,  in  1830,  it  prohibited  immigration  from 
the  United  States.  The  first  actual  manifestation  of  this 
policy  in  Texas  itself  was  the  establishment  of  Mexican 
military  posts  in  1831.  Immediate  revolt  followed,  and 
separation  would  probably  have  resulted,  had  not  the  re- 
volting Texans  combined  with  Santa  Anna,  who  was  con- 
ducting a  simultaneous  revolution  in  another  part  of  Mexico 
to  defend  the  constitution  against  President  Bustamante. 
The  two  movements  triumphed  in  1832,  and  for  a  moment 
the  Texans  posed  as  Mexican  patriots,  defenders  of  the 
Mexican  constitution. 

Meantime  the  colonists  began  to  be  succeeded  by  the 
"explorers"  mentioned  by  Alaman,  men  drawn  to  Texas  not 
only  by  the  cheapness  and  richness  of  the  soil,  but  by  the 
prospect  of  military  glory  and  political  advancement  in  the 

iSir  H.  G.  Ward,  Mexico  in  1825-7;  L.  G.  Bugbee,  "Slavery  in  Early 
Texas,"  Political  Science  Quarierly,  1898,  xiii.  389-413,  648-668;  John  and 
Henry  Sayles,  A  Treatise  on  the  Laws  of  Texas  relating  to  Real  Estate,  2  vols., 
St.  Louis,  1890-92. 


248  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

conflict  which  it  did  not  require  great  acumen  to  foresee 
Foremost  among  them  was  Samuel  Houston,  the  picturesque 
Houston  and  governor  of  Tennessee,  who  in  1829  had  pictur- 
Jackson  esquely  vanished  from  that  position,  to  be  dis- 

covered later  living  among  the  Indians  on  the  Texan  border. 
A  friend  and  proteg6  of  Jackson,  he  occasionally  visited 
Washington.  Undoubtedly  the  two  talked  of  the  future  of 
Texas,  which  both  expected  to  become  part  of  the  United 
States.  There  is  no  evidence  or  probability  that  there  was 
collusion  between  them  to  hasten  that  movement,  or  in- 
deed that  Houston  himself  did  hasten  it.  Nevertheless,  his 
appointment  by  Jackson,  in  1833,  to  negotiate  with  certain 
Indian  tribes  in  the  region  introduced  him  commandingly  to 
the  Texans  when,  in  1835,  they  felt  the  imperative  need  of  a 
leader. 

Santa  Anna  tired  of  the  constitution  that  he  had  revived, 
and  overthrew  it.  In  the  civil  war  which  followed,  the  Tex- 
Texas  declares  ans  took  the  losing  side,  and  soon  found  them- 
independence  selves  the  sole  armed  supporters  of  the  Mexicrn 
constitution.  Thrown  thus  upon  their  own  responsibility, 
they  could  draw  upon  the  experience  of  scores  of  groups  of 
Americans  similarly  situated.  Their  first  step  was  to  or- 
ganize a  committee  of  safety,  then  they  called  a  convention, 
and  finally,  in  1836,  after  halting  for  a  moment  with  a  dec- 
laration of  independence  from  the  state  of  Coahuila,  they 
declared  their  entire  separation  from  Mexico,  established  a 
republic,  and  chose  Houston  as  commander-in-chief. 

Ever  since  1830  "unknown"  writers  had  been  exciting 

the  interest  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  in  the  affairs 

^.      .       of  Texas,  and  now  the  first  and  ablest  of  the 
Sjrmpathy    in  •         o        i  *         • 

the  United         empresanos,  Stephen  Austm,  came  as  ambas- 

Stfltes 

sador  to  the  people  to  solicit  aid.  The  tragic 
and  heroic  stories  of  the  Alamo  and  Goliad,  with  the  death 
of  David  Crockett,  the  ideal  frontier  hero  of  the  time,  roused 
sympathy  for  the  Texans  and  hatred  for  the  Mexicans. 
During  this  period  there  were  always  thousands  of  Americans 


EXPANSION  249 

spoiling  for  a  fight,  and  in  this  instance,  as  in  most  other 
cases,  sympathy  was  not  the  only  fuel  relied  on  to  kindle 
the  flames.  Those  who  came  to  the  rescue  were  promised 
not  glory  and  gratitude  alone,  but  land  as  well, — three  hun- 
dred and  twenty  acres  for  three  months'  service,  twice  that 
amount  for  six  months,  four  times  as  much  for  a  year.  The 
war  fever  spread  over  the  southern  states,  and  with  decreas- 
ing violence  as  far  north  as  New  York.  Thousands  volun- 
teered to  assist  their  late  fellow-countrymen,  whom,  after 
an  interval  of  Mexican  citizenship  and  one  of  independence, 
they  expected  to  welcome  into  what  was  now  the  "Old** 
Union.  ^ 

As  individuals,  companies,  regiments,  and  even  fleets  left 
the  country,  either  crossing  the  frontier  on  the  road  from 
Natchitoches  to  Nacogdoches  or  sailing  from  p  ^ 
New  Orleans,  their  departure  was  triumphantly  tion  of  neu- 
heralded  by  the  press.  Yet,  when  the  collectors 
of  customs  were  asked  to  enforce  the  neutrality  act,  they 
explained  that  they  could  discover  no  organized  expeditions, 
but  only  ships  with  individual  passengers  and  cargoes  of 
arms.  It  was  not,  indeed,  till  1838  that  the  law  authorizing 
them  to  detain  vessels  on  "probable  cause"  was  enacted. 
Still,  a  nation  is  responsible  if  its  laws  are  not  suflScient,  and 
Mexico  had  good  reason  to  complain.  The  record  of  the 
administration,  however,  was  clear,  its  orders  were  correct, 
and  probably  no  administration  could  have  repressed  the 
determination  of  the  people  to  aid  Texas. 

If  the  responsibility  for  this  volunteer  assistance  rested 
fundamentally  upon  the  people,  the  executive  was  more 
directly  responsible  for  the  action  of  its  agents.  Gaines  and  the 
In  the  sprmg  of  1836,  when  Santa  Anna  was  ^^'^^ 
sweeping  northward  over  Texas  and  Houston  was  retreating 
before  him,  the  frontier  of  the  United  States  was  disturbed 
by  rumors  of  impending  Indian  outrages  to  the  southeast 

1 G.  L.  Rives,  The  United  States  and  Mexico,  1821-1848,  2  vols..  New  York, 
1913. 


250  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

among  the  Seminole,  and  to  the  west  along  the  Mexican  or 
Texan  border.  General  Gaines  was  authorized  to  call  out 
militia  to  aid  the  regular  army,  and  to  take  proper  measures 
to  defend  our  citizens  on  both  frontiers,  even  to  occupying 
Nacogdoches,  a  Mexican  town,  but  within  territory  to  which 
the  United  States  maintained  a  rather  fantastic  claim.  This 
town  occupied  an  important  strategic  position,  for  it  was  at 
the  junction  of  the  coast  and  inland  roads  through  Texas. 
Gaines  so  far  deviated  from  his  instructions  as  to  concentrate 
on  the  Texan  border,  paying  little  attention  to  Florida,  and 
in  July  he  occupied  Nacogdoches.^ 

This  occupation  had  no  actual  effect  on  the  Texan  move- 
ment, for  the  crucial  and  final  battle  of  independence  had  been 
Jackson  and  won  by  Houston  at  San  Jacinta  on  April  20. 
Games  Nevertheless,  the  Mexican  minister  withdrew 

from  Washington  by  way  of  protest.  Here  again  the  ad- 
ministration was  able  to  show  a  clear  record.  It  repri- 
manded Gaines  for  calling  more  militia  than  was  needed 
to  the  western  frontier;  and,  although  it  justified  the  occupa- 
tion of  Nacogdoches  as  necessary  for  self-defence,  it  ordered 
the  town  to  be  evacuated  now  that  danger  from  the  Indians 
had  passed.  When  we  remember,  however,  that  Gaines  knew 
he  was  acting  under  a  President  who  had  been  elected,  if  not 
because  of,  at  any  rate  in  spite  of,  a  similar  over-interpretation 
of  orders  to  defend  the  frontier  by  entering  foreign  territory, 
and  that  Jackson  knew  that  Gaines  had  that  knowledge,  it  is 
hard  to  escape  the  belief  that  an  excess  of  zeal  was  expected 
of  him.  Gaines's  misfortune  was  that  his  action  came  too  late 
to  be  significant. 

As  the  Nacogdoches  episode  reminds  one  of  the  invasions  of 
Florida  before  annexation,  so  the  whole  conduct  of  the 
Texan  affair  seems  like  a  less  able  imitation  of  Adams's  han- 
dling of  that  question.    Jackson's  administration  had  for  years 

*  H.  von  Hoist,  Constitutional  and  Political  History  of  the  United  States 
(8  vols.,  Chicago,  187&-92),  ii.  548-714;  T.  M.  Marshall,  A  History  of  the 
Western  Boundary  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  1819-18^1,  Berkeley,  1914. 


EXPANSION  251 

been  carrying  hand  in  hand  negotiations  for  the  purchase  of 
Texas  and  for  the  settlement  of  American  private  claims 
against  Mexico.  Adams  had  secured  acknowl-  jackson  and 
edgment  of  the  claims  in  the  first  place,  and  ^<^*™^ 
had  paid  for  the  territory  by  assuming  them;  during  the 
negotiations  he  had  preserved  neutrality  between  Spain  and 
her  revolting  colonies.  On  December  21,  1836,  Jackson, 
having  received  the  report  of  a  special  agent  sent  to  in- 
vestigate the  condition  of  Texas,  left  the  question  of  the 
recognition  of  the  new  republic  to  Congress  with  the  words, 
"Prudence,  therefore,  seems  to  dictate  that  we  should  still 
stand  aloof  ...  at  least  until  the  lapse  of  time  or  the  course 
of  events  shall  have  proved  beyond  cavil  or  dispute  the 
ability  of  the  people  of  that  country  to  maintain  their 
separate  sovereignty."  On  February  6,  1837,  he  sought  to 
bring  the  question  of  claims  to  an  issue  by  a  message  one 
stage  more  advanced  than  that  which  led  to  trouble  with 
France — that  is,  by  recommending  reprisals.  At  the  same 
time  he  was  discussing  unofficially  with  Santa  Anna,  who  was 
at  Washington,  and  with  the  Texan  representatives,  a  re- 
newed proposal  of  purchase. 

The  plan  was  too  delicate  for  its  originators  to  carry  out 
and  broke  down  altogether.  Mexico,  with  a  persistent  de- 
termination to  reconquer  Texas,  refused  to  sell.  Congress 
decided  that  one  more  solemn  demand  for  jus-  Policy  of  Con- 
tice  be  made  upon  Mexico  for  our  claims  before  ^®^' 
reprisals  should  be  authorized,  but  voted  recognition  of  the 
Texan  republic.  With  the  strings  thus  tangled,  the  proposal 
to  secure  Texas  from  Mexico  became  impracticable. 

Promptly  upon  recognition  the  new  republic  made  formal 
a  request  for  annexation  which  had  already  been  in- 
formally presented.  This  request  at  once  Annexation 
revealed  those  fundamental  differences  which  ^^^^^^°^ 
were  threatening  the  United  States  with  disunion.  Monroe 
had  in  1819  refused  to  press  our  claims  to  the  region  because 
of  the  effect  which  such  action  might  have  upon  our  national 


252  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

existence  at  a  time  when  passions  were  inflamed  by  the 
struggle  of  pro-  and  anti-slavery  forces  over  the  Missouri 
question.  Those  forces  were  in  1837  and  1838  more  bitter 
than  ever  before.  Webster  wrote,  May  7,  1836:  "We  are  in  a 
peck  of  troubles  here,  and  I  hardly  see  our  way  through.  My 
greatest  fear  at  present,  is  of  a  war  about  Texas.  .  .  .  This 
whole  subject  appears  to  me  to  be  likely  to  bring  into  our 
politics  new  causes  of  embarrassment,  and  new  tendencies  to 
dismemberment."  John  Quincy  Adams,  who  in  1819  had 
been  unwilling  to  give  up  our  chance  to  Texas,  now,  in  a 
speech  running  from  June  15  to  July  8,  1838,  put  all  his 
IK)wers  into  opposition  to  the  acceptance  of  annexation. 
He  believed  as  firmly  as  Alaman  did  that  our  whole  move- 
ment into  the  region  was  a  conspiracy;  the  only  difference 
was  that  Alaman  believed  it  a  conspiracy  of  the  government 
and  included  Adams  among  the  conspirators,  whereas  Adams 
believed  it  a  conspiracy  of  the  "Slavocracy"  supported  by 
Jackson.  Van  Buren,  to  whom  the  decision  came  upon  his 
succession  to  the  presidency  in  1837,  was  not  inclined,  in  the 
face  of  a  divided  opinion  at  home,  to  press  the  question  of 
annexing  territory  still  claimed  by  Mexico;  and  the  party 
managers  were  unwilling  to  take  up  an  issue  that  was  sure  to 
divide  their  organizations.  The  question  of  annexation  was 
dropped.^ 

Texas  was  therefore  left  to  shift  for  herself,  a  juvenile 
republic  with  American  frontier  energy  and  a  dash  of  Spanish 

braggadocio.  She  quickly  accumulated  a  navy 
independent        and  a  debt.     Always  at  war  with  Mexico, 

hostilities  were  intermittent.  Her  soldiers 
when  unfortunate,  as  when  captured  in  an  expedition  against 
Santa  Fe,  remembered  their  United  States  origin  and  often 
sought  its  intervention.  At  other  times  they  threatened  to 
plant  their  banners  in  the  halls  of  the  Montezumas,  to  annex 

^  G.  P.  Garrison,  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  Republic  of  Texas,  Amer. 
Hist.  Assoc.,  Reports,  1907,  vol.  ii.,  1908,  vol.  ii.;  also  his  "First  Stage  of  the 
Movement  for  the  Annexation  of  Texas,"  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1904,  x.  72-96. 


EXPANSION  253 

California,  and  become  a  transcontinental  nation.  Though 
ever  prepared  for  and  expecting  annexation  to  the  United 
States,  they  nevertheless  grew  contented  with  independence. 
Indeed,  the  actual  disadvantages  were  not  great;  when  the 
history  of  Texas  is  compared  with  that  of  one  of  our  states  at 
the  same  stage,  as  Arkansas,  the  difference  is  not  apprecia- 
ble.i 

Internationally  there  were  even  advantages  in  her  position. 
In  1837  France  recognized  her  independence  and  Great 
Britain  accorded  trading  privileges  to  her.  Texas  and 
The  latter  country  delayed  recognition  until  Great  Britain 
1842,  but  negotiation  was  constant.  Texas  and  Great 
Britain  were  commercially  complementary :  the  one  produced 
cotton,  the  other  manufactured  it.  Great  Britain,  while 
anxious  for  political  reasons  to  prevent  the  United  States 
from  acquiring  the  long  Texan  coast  line  which  would  give 
command  of  the  gulf  of  Mexico,  was  equally  unwilling  to  see 
Texas  fall  under  the  United  States  tariff  system,  again  after 
1842  dominated  by  the  manufacturing  interests  of  the  North. 
She  also  wanted  to  secure  an  independent  source  of  cotton 
supply.  The  Texans,  on  their  part,  realized  that  Great 
Britain's  influence  in  Mexico  was  potent,  and  that  she  might 
exert  it  to  secure  Mexican  recognition  of  the  new  republic. 
It  was,  indeed,  largely  by  her  good  offices  that  an  amnesty 
was  in  1843  arranged  between  the  two  countries. 

The  element  of  discord  was  slavery.  Texas  assented  to  a 
treaty  on  the  maritime  slave  trade  which  granted  a  mutual 
right  of  search,  but  she  maintained  slavery  and  slavery  in 
the  overland  slave  trade  with  the  United  '^"" 
States.  A  strong  English  public  opinion  resented  the  crea- 
tion of  a  new  slave-holding  republic  out  of  the  free  territory 
of  Mexico.  Lord  Aberdeen,  the  British  minister  of  foreign 
affairs,  July  31,  1843,  instructed  his  representative  in  Mexico 
to  urge  the  Mexican  government  to  make  the  "absolute 

*  E.  D.  Adams,  British  Interests  and  Activities  in  Texas,  1838-18^6,  Balti- 
more 1910;  J.  H.  Smith,  The  Annexation  of  Texas,  New  York,  191  J, 


254  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

abolition  of  the  principle  of  slavery"  a  condition  of  her  final 
recognition  of  Texan  independence.  In  August,  1843,  in 
reply  to  a  question  by  Lord  Brougham  as  to  the  attitude  of 
the  government  toward  slavery  in  Texas,  he  said  that  his 
unwillingness  to  tell  what  was  being  done  "did  not  arise 
from  indifference,  but  from  quite  a  contrary  reason."  This 
reply  naturally  aroused  interest  in  the  United  States.  The 
retention  of  slavery  might  prevent  a  harmonious  understand- 
ing between  Great  Britain  and  Texas;  but,  should  slavery  be 
abolished,  their  interests  would  be  cemented  together,  as 
against  the  United  States,  by  the  strongest  ties.  The  fear  of 
British  influence  was  spurring  the  United  States  to  renewed 
interest  in  annexation. 

Texas  was  not  the  only  fruit  that  hung  ripe,  unpicked,  and 
threatened  by  alien  hands  in  1843.    In  1795  Fauchet  had 

,  .  ^  written    of    the    explorations    of    Alexander 

Jomt    occu-  .      . 

pancy  of  Ore-  McKenzie  in  the  Oregon  country.  "If  this 
*^°"  discovery  is  followed  up,"  said  he,  "the  English 

will  hasten  without  doubt  to  forestall  the  Americans  by 
establishments  to  put  them  in  a  position  to  secure  possession 
of  this  important  point."  Neither  government,  however, 
seemed  disposed  to  press  the  matter.  In  1818  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  had  agreed  to  a  joint  occupancy  for 
ten  years,  and  by  1828  this  agreement  had  been  continued 
indefinitely,  but  made  terminable  by  a  year's  notice.  Spain 
and  Russia  had  been  eliminated  from  the  question  by  their 
treaties  with  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  and  by 
the  same  treaties  the  bounds  of  the  territory  we  jointly 
occupied  had  been  fixed  by  the  parallels  of  42°  on  the  south 
and  54°  40'  on  the  north. ^ 

Although  American  vessels  frequented  the  coast,  and 
Astoria  had  been  founded  in  1811,  the  use  of  the  territory 

*  H.  H.  Bancroft,  Oregon,  i,  vols.,  San  Francisco,  1886-88;  Robert  Green- 
how,  Memoir,  Historical  and  Political,  on  the  North-west  Coast  of  North  Am' 
erica,  Washington,  1840;  Sir  Travera  Twiss,  The  Oregon  Territory,  New  York, 
etc..  1846. 


EXPANSION  255 

under  the  joint  occupancy  fell  at  first  chiefly  to  Great  Britain, 
represented  by  the  Hudson  Bay  Company.  The  only  posts 
for  many  years  were  its  fur-trading  establish-  Early  interest 
ments,  and  the  only  settlements  those  of  its  "*  Oregon 
retired  French-Canadian  trappers;  the  only  government  was 
that  of  its  factor,  Dr.  McLaughlin.  During  the  twenties  our 
government  concerned  itself  somewhat  with  the  subject. 
A  Virginian  representative,  John  Floyd,  sought  to  have  Con- 
gress secure  our  rights  by  the  formation  of  military  establish- 
ments, and  Monroe  recommended  such  action  in  his  message 
of  1824.  With  the  retirement  of  Floyd  in  1829,  however,  the 
matter  dropped  out  of  public  notice. 

That  basis  of  actual  occupancy  which  always  seems  to 
be  necessary  in  order  to  arouse  a  genuine  interest  in  such 
questions  in  the  United  States  was  furnished  The  mission- 
by  a  new  type  of  pioneer.  The  wave  of  mis-  "^  movement 
sionary  impulse  whose  beginning  was  marked  in  1819  by 
Bishop  Heber's  hymn  "From  Greenland's  Icy  Mountains" 
touched  all  Christian  organizations;  it  started  anew  the 
attempt  to  Christianize  the  world.  In  such  movements,  as  in 
other  things,  there  are  fashions,  and  among  the  most  popular 
subjects  for  conversion  in  the  thirties  was  the  American 
Indian.  A  series  of  events  attracted  the  missionary  interest 
to  Oregon.  Various  American  denominations  sent  mis- 
sionaries to  the  region,  till  by  1840  not  only  were  there  some 
seventy  or  eighty  Americans  in  the  country,  but  the  raising 
of  the  money  which  sent  and  kept  them  there  had  aroused  a 
widespread  popular  interest.  Oregon  had  become  a  house- 
hold word.^ 

This  renewed  interest  was  naturally  reflected  in  the  gov 
ernment.     In  1835  Lewis  F.  Linn  appeared  as  senator  from 
Missouri,  the  state  which,  by  means  of  the  river  of  the  same 
name,  was  most  closely,  or  rather  least  distantly,  connected 
with  Oregon.    He  at  once  made  himself  champion  of  the  new 

^R.  E.  Speer,  Missions  and  Modem  History,  2  vols..  New  York,  etc., 
[1904]. 


256  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

country  by  bringing   in  a  bill  to  organize  the  Columbia 

river  region  as  Oregon  territory.     The  bill  itself  was  re- 

,    ,       ported  adversely;  but,  as  ten  thousand  copies 
Renewed     in-     *^„    ,  '       .       .,  ,    .  i  ^     i 

terest  in  Ore-    of  the  report  were  distributed,  it  proved  to  be 

^°°  a  new  organ  for  arousing  popular  attention. 

In  1840  a  squadron  under  Captain  Wilkes  was  sent  to  visit 
the  coast;  in  1842  Tyler  called  attention  to  the  problem; 
and  in  the  same  year,  Adams,  as  chairman  of  the  house  com- 
mittee on  foreign  affairs,  urged  the  sending  of  a  special 
mission  to  Great  Britain  to  negotiate.  Linn  pressed  his  bill 
offering  a  square  mile  of  land  to  every  settler.  Benton  said 
of  it:  "I  now  go  for  vindicating  our  rights  on  the  Columbia, 
and  as  the  first  step  toward  it,  passing  this  bill,  and  making 
these  grants  of  land,  which  will  soon  place  thirty  or  forty 
thousand  rifles  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains." 

While  the  material  reason  for  immediate  legislation  was  the 
desire  for  land  titles,  which  could  not  be  secured  until  the 
British  and  question  of  sovereignty  was  determined,  there 
valries  in  Ore-  developed  a  further  motive  to  hasten  action. 
8°"  The  same  impulse  which  moved  Protestant 

American  denominations  to  enter  the  Oregon  field  stirred  the 
church  of  Rome  also.  French  Canadian  priests,  under  the 
protection  of  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  were  active  there, 
and  in  their  work  with  the  Indians  were  more  successful 
than  the  Protestants.  Their  American  rivals,  therefore, 
scented  a  great  conspiracy  of  the  priests,  the  Hudson  Bay 
Company,  and  the  British  government  to  drive  the  Amer- 
icans out  of  Oregon  and  secure  it  for  Great  Britain,  and  en- 
deavored from  1839  onward  to  impress  their  views  on  the 
government  at  Washington.^ 

The  degree  to  which  popular  interest  had  been  stimulated 

was  shown  in  1842,  when  an  Indian  agent,  sent  out  to  treat 

'  W.  I.  Marshall,  Acquisition  of  Oregon  and  the  long  suppressed  Evidence 
about  Marcus  Whitman,  2  vols.,  Seattle,  1911;  E.  G.  Bourne,  The  Legend  of 
Marcus  Whitman,  in  his  Essays  in  Historical  Criticism  (New  York,  1901), 
8-109;  Joseph  Schafer,  Oregon  Pioneers  and  American  Diplomacy,  in  Turner 
Essays,  35-55. 


EXPANSION  257 

with  the  tribes  of  the  region,  was  joined  as  he  went  west 
from  Washington  by  nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  prospec- 
tive settlers.  In  the  spring  of  1843,  other  Settlement  of 
groups  of  emigrants  from  Missouri,  Arkansas,  Oregon 
Illinois,  and  neighboring  states  began  promptly,  without  pre- 
concert, to  direct  themselves  toward  Independence,  the 
starting-point  for  the  long  journey  to  the  Pacific.  With 
wagons  labelled  "For  Oregon,"  and  with  all  their  possessions, 
about  a  thousand  came  together  and  pushed  on  to  their 
goal.  In  Oregon  they  found  a  self-formed  provisional  gov- 
ernment of  the  American  settlers,  begun  in  1841  and  per- 
fected in  the  spring  of  1843.  When,  in  1844,  the  French 
Canadians  and  British  took  a  hand  in  this  government, 
Oregon,  Uke  Texas,  was  ready  for  picking.  The  difficulty 
lay  in  the  rival  British  claims,  and  in  the  inability  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  to  agree  upon  a  division  of 
territory. 

More  desirable  in  the  minds  of  many  than  either  Texas 
or  Oregon  was  the  California  country.    Although  it  was  an 

undisputed  portion  of  the  Mexican  republic,     „  ,.,     , 
,  ,  ,    ,  Cahfonua 

the  same  elements  were  nevertheless  present 

here  as  in  other  regions,  but  in  different  proportions.  Settlers 
from  the  United  States  were  few.  There  were  some  mer- 
chants on  the  coast,  merchant  vessels  touched  its  ports,  and 
after  1843  some  pioneers  came  down  from  Oregon.  Few  as 
they  were,  however,  they  were  not  without  importance,  for 
the  Mexican  population  itself  was  so  inconsiderable  that  it 
would  take  but  a  small  influx  of  Americans  to  make  the  latter 
the  "predominant  party."  In  1844  the  British  consuls  at 
Tepic  and  Monterey  wrote  of  the  rapid  American  emigration 
to  the  coast. ^ 

The  interest  of  Great  Britain  in  California  was  keen. 

British  subjects  as  well  as  Americans  were  resident  there, 

in  1842  a  consul  had  been  sent  to  Monterey,  and  a  British 

naval  officer  had  been  commissioned  to  investigate  condi- 

» Paullin  and  Paxon,  Guide,  178-187. 


258  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tions.  In  1844  the  British  consuls  reported  that  a  speedy- 
separation  from  Mexico  was  inevitable.  Already  Great  Bri- 
Great  Britain  tain  had  been  asked  if  she  would  aid  a  revolu- 
and  California  ^.j^j^^  g^^^j  ^-^e  foreign  oflSce  had  considered  the 
possibility  of  California's  putting  herself,  when  free,  "under 
the  protection  of  any  other  power  whose  supremacy  might 
prove  injurious  to  British  interests."  In  1845  the  foreign 
oflSce  tendered  its  advice  to  Mexico  with  regard  to  the  safety 
of  California.  Great  Britain,  it  was  said,  desired  that  Cali- 
fornia remain  Mexican,  she  feared  that  France  might  secure 
it,  and  still  more  that  it  might  fall  to  the  United  States. 

The  latter  country  was  awake  to  the  situation,  or  at  least 
to  a  situation.  Here  again  she  believed  that  Great  Britain 
_      J.  .    .       not  only  barred  her  way  but  sought  the  prize. 

States  and  In  1842  an  American  squadron  was  sent  to  the 
California  i  j  t  i  e  i.   x' 

coast,  and,  on  a  false  rumor  of  war  between 
the  United  States  and  Mexico,  seized  Monterey;  an  act  for 
which,  of  course,  apologies  were  tendered.  From  1842  Cap- 
tain Fremont  was  in  and  about  the  region  at  the  head  of  a 
formidable  exploring  expedition  of  United  States  troops. 

The  government,  moreover,  was  considering  the  ques- 
tion. In  1842  Waddy  Thompson,  our  minister  to  Mexico, 
wrote  to  Webster  expatiating  on  the  desirability  of  annexing 
California.  "Our  Atlantic  border,"  he  urged,  "secures  us 
a  commercial  ascendency  there.  With  the  acquisition  of 
•Upper  Calif orniai  we  should  have  the  same  ascendency  on 
the  Pacific.  ...  I  believe  that  this  [the  Mexican]  govern- 
ment would  cede  to  us  Texas  and  California,  and  I  am  thor- 
oughly satisfied  that  this  is  all  we  shall  ever  get  for  the  claims 
of  our  merchants  in  this  country."  Webster  authorized  a 
negotiation:  "You  will  be  particularly  careful,"  he  wrote 
to  Thompson,  "not  to  suffer  the  Mexican  Government  to 
suppose  that  it  is  an  object  upon  which  we  have  set  our  hearts, 
or  for  the  sake  of  which  we  should  be  willing  to  make  large 
remuneration.  The  cession  must  be  spoken  of  rather  as  a 
convenience  to  Mexico,  or  a  mode  of  discharging  her  debts.'* 


EXPANSION  259 

Possibly  our  willingness  to  use  our  pecuniary  claims  to  secure 
the  cession  of  California  made  us  the  more  ready  to  accept 
the  rumored  statements  that  Great  Britain  was  endeavoring 
to  do  the  same.^  On  April  4,  1844,  B.  E.  Green  wrote  to 
Calhoun  that  California  was  organized  for  independence. 

The  year  1844,  therefore,  found  three  great  diplomatic 
problems  pressing  for  solution.  Different  as  they  were  in 
their  details,  they  all  concerned  the  acquisition  Diplomacy  and 
of  new  territory,  and  they  were  all  urged  not  P*''**'*^* 
only  as  desirable  in  themselves  but  as  necessary  to  check  the 
advance  of  British  interests.  Of  the  three,  that  relating  to 
Texas  was  in  itself  the  least  difficult;  for  after  eight  years  of 
independence,  and  an  independence  that  was  recognized 
by  the  leading  nations  of  Europe,  Mexico's  claim  to  her  ter- 
ritory had  nothing  to  rest  upon.  The  reason  why  Texas 
was  still  out  of  the  United  States  was  not  diplomatic,  but 
political;  it  lay  in  the  institution  of  slavery.  Her  problem 
could  not  be  solved  without  a  linking  of  diplomacy  and 
politics  such  as  there  had  not  been  since  1815. 

^  J.  S.  Reeves,  American  Diplomacy  under  Tyler  and  Polk  (Baltimore, 
1907),  100-102. 


CHAPTER    XX 

ANNEXATION 

When  Tyler  succeeded  to  the  presidency  he  privately  an- 
nounced his  determination  to  annex  Texas.     His  secretary 

^  ,    .  of  state,  Webster,  however,  was  unenthusiastic, 

Tyler's    nego-  .  i  .n  mi 

tiation  with        and   no   action   was   taken   till    1843.     Then 

Webster  resigned.  Tyler  was  at  this  time  un- 
connected with  either  political  party;  he  had  nothing  to  lose 
by  a  disturbance  of  political  conditions,  and  he  decided  to 
press  the  matter.  He  was  still  delayed,  however,  by  the 
death  of  Webster's  successor,  Hugh  S.  Legare,  after  six 
weeks'  service;  but  the  next  secretary,  Abel  P.  Upshur,  took 
the  negotiation  seriously  in  hand.  It  was  conducted  in  se- 
crecy, with  the  ostensible  purpose  of  preventing  speculation 
in  Texan  securities.  The  Texan  administration,  with  Hous- 
ton at  the  head,  was  slow  to  take  the  bait.  It  feared  that 
the  treaty  might  be  rejected  by  our  Senate,  and  Texas  thus 
be  left  in  an  embarrassing  position,  an  objection  that  Upshur 
met  by  arguments  which  appear  to  have  been  more  satisfying 
to  Texas  than  they  could  have  been  to  his  own  conscience. 
The  treaty  drawn  up,  there  remained  the  question  as  to  the 
status  of  Texas  between  the  signing  of  the  treaty  and  its 
acceptance  by  the  Senate.  This  would  be  Mexico's  last 
chance,  her  amnesty  with  Texas  would  be  at  an  end.  Great 
Britain  would  no  longer  stand  in  the  way  of  hostile  action, 
and  the  probability  was  that  she  would  at  least  reek  her 
anger  on  the  frontier,  if  not  her  vengeance  on  the  nation. 
At  this  point  Upshur  was  killed.^ 

In  seeking  to  replace  him,  Tyler's  primary  object  was  to 
obtain  political  strength,  for  the  diplomatic  task  was  almost 
*  Reeves,  American  Diplomacy  under  Tyler  and  Polk. 
260 


ANNEXATION  261 

finished.  Unfortunately  for  him,  however,  he  was  brought 
by  the  intervention  of  friends  to  ofiFer  the  position  to 
John  C.  Calhoun,  probably  of  all  his  genera-  _^.  .  _ 
tion  the  man  most  capable  of  diplomatic  great-  comes  secre- 
ness,  but  one  whose  name  alone  was  sufficient 
to  defeat  the  treaty,  and  who  did  not  leave  his  name  to 
work  alone.  Calhoun,  having  obtained  by  inquiry  the  opin- 
ion that  both  the  Texas  and  the  Oregon  question  could  be 
settled,  accepted  the  office. 

On  April  11,  1844,  he  answered  the  question  as  to  the  pro- 
tection of  Texas  during  the  discussion  of  the  treaty,  by  the 
following  note:  "During  the  pendency  of  the  t  tv  f  - 
treaty  of  annexation,  the  president  would  deem  nexation  con- 
it  his  duty  to  use  all  the  means  placed  within 
his  power  by  the  constitution  to  protect  Texas  from  all 
foreign  invasion."  An  enumeration  of  these  powers  might 
have  been  less  impressive  than  the  general  statement  of 
them;  but  the  latter  proved  sufficient  for  its  purpose,  and 
on  April  12  the  treaty  was  signed. 

Calhoun  came  into  office  with  a  firm  conviction  of  a  pur- 
poseful policy  of  aggrandizement  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain. 
He  wrote  to  Francis  Wharton,  May  28,  1844:  _^,  , 
"As  to  myself,  I  am  of  the  impression,  if  we  views  of  Great 
shall  have  the  foUy  or  wickedness  to  permit 
Great  Britain  to  plant  the  lever  of  her  power  between  the 
U.  States  and  Mexico,  on  the  Northern  shore  of  the  Gulph 
of  Mexico,  we  give  her  a  place  to  stand  on,  from  which 
she  can  [brave?]  at  pleasure  the  American  Continent  and 
control  its  destiny.  There  is  not  a  vacant  spot  left  on  the 
Globe,  not  excepting  Cuba,  to  be  seized  by  her,  so  well  cal- 
culated to  further  the  boundless  schemes  of  her  ambition 
and  cupidity.  If  we  should  permit  her  to  seize  on  it,  we 
shall  deserve  the  execration  of  posterity.  Reject  the  treaty, 
and  refuse  to  annex  Texas,  and  she  will  certainly  seize  on  it. 
A  treaty  of  alliance  commercial  and  political  will  be  forthwith 
proposed  by  Texas  to  her,  and  I  doubt  not  accepted.    This 


262  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

for  yourself."  On  April  29,  1844,  he  had  received  a  letter 
from  a  Texan  friend  announcing:  "We  are  all  prepared  if 
we  are  spurned  again  from  the  Union  to  enter  into  a  com- 
mercial free  trade  treaty  with  G.  B.  and  France  on  a  guar- 
anty of  our  Independence  which  we  can  now  have  and  the 
advantages  it  promises  us  in  the  cotton  trade  renders  it  very 
desirable."  With  free  trade  the  United  States  would  lose 
its  market  for  manufactured  goods  in  Texas.  The  Texan 
planters,  supplied  with  low-priced  British  goods,  could 
produce  more  cheaply  than  those  of  the  United  States. 
Texas  would  therefore  draw  away  from  us  population  and 
wealth,  and,  backed  by  the  British  navy,  become  our  political 
as  well  as  economic  rival. ^ 

Although  having  to  his  hand  such  nationalistic  argu- 
ments, based  on  a  sincere  conviction,  which  would  have 
Lord  Aber-  been  absorbed  by  most  of  our  population  on 
deen's  note  suspicion,  Calhoun  chose  to  rest  his  case  on 
totally  different  grounds.  He  found  among  Upshur's  papers 
a  letter  of  Pakenham,  the  British  minister  at  Washington, 
enclosing  a  note  from  Aberdeen  written  in  answer  to  a  re- 
quest from  Edward  Everett,  our  minister  at  London,  by  di- 
rection of  Upshur,  for  an  explanation  of  Aberdeen's  state- 
ment in  the  House  of  Lords  concerning  his  interest  in  the 
question  of  Texan  slavery.  Aberdeen,  admitting  an  interest 
in  Texas,  denied  that  Great  Britain  had  any  "occult  de- 
sign .  .  .  even  with  reference  to  slavery  in  Texas."  He 
said,  however,  that  it  was  well  known  that  Great  Britain 
wished  to  see  slavery  abolished  "throughout  the  world. 
But,"  he  added,  "the  means  which  she  has  adopted  and  will 
continue  to  adopt,  for  this  human  and  virtuous  purpose,  are 
open  and  undisguised.  .  .  .  The  Governments  of  the  slave- 
holding  states  may  be  assured  that,  although  we  shall  not 
desist  from  those  open  and  honest  efforts  which  we  have 
constantly  made  for  procuring  the  abolition  of  slavery  .  .  . 

*  Calhoun,  Correspondence,  ed.  J.  F.  Jameson,  Amer.  Hiat.  Assoc.,  Rep. 
1899.  vol.  ii. 


ANNEXATION  263 

we  shall  neither  openly  nor  secretly  resort  to  any  measures 
which  can  tend  to  disturb  their  internal  tranquillity,  or 
thereby  to  affect  the  prosperity  of  the  American  Union." 

This  note,  though  cleverly  guarded  in  its  language  at 
essential  points,  was  substantially  untrue,  for  it  was  intended 
to  appear  to  deny  the  rumor  that  Great  Britain  was  urging 
Mexico  to  insist  upon  abolition  in  Texas  as  a  condition  of 
recognizing  her  independence.  It  was  also  discourteous  in  its 
reference  to  our  established  domestic  institutions.  The 
disclaimer  of  any  intention  to  disturb  our  "internal  tran- 
quillity "  could  certainly  not  be  accepted  by  our  government 
on  its  face  value :  we  could  scarcely  allow  Great  Britain  to  be 
a  judge  of  what  would  create  such  a  disturbance.  When  a 
nation  deliberately  asserts  a  policy  of  meddling  with  the  rest 
of  the  world,  other  nations  have  a  right  to  demand,  not 
general  assurances  as  to  her  methods,  but  explicit  itemization. 

Lord  Aberdeen's  note  came  to  Calhoun  both  as  a  confirma- 
tion of  suspicion  and  as  an  instrument  of  action.  He  at  once 
engaged  Pakenham  in  a  correspondence  grow-  Calhoun- 
ing  out  of  it,  which  afterwards  formed  his  case  correspoiS- 
before  the  Senate  for  the  support  of  the  treaty.  *°'^® 
He  stated  that  upon  hearing  of  the  avowed  determination  of 
Great  Britain  to  attempt  the  abolition  of  slavery  throughout 
the  world,  the  United  States  had  to  consider  her  own  safety; 
since,  therefore,  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  Texas  would 
imperil  the  internal  tranquillity  of  the  nation,  a  treaty  of 
annexation  had  been  arranged  as  the  only  means  of  prevent- 
ing such  a  misfortune.  To  Aberdeen's  expressed  hope  for 
abolition  in  the  United  States  he  replied  .by  an  argument 
designed  to  show  that  emancipation  would  prove  a  national 
calamity.  He  did  not  even  refrain  from  making  use  of  the 
hackneyed  comparison  between  the  American  slaves  and  the 
British  laboring  classes.^ 

Calhoun's  statement  that  Aberdeen's  note  had  caused  the 
making  of  the  treaty  was,  of  course,  imtrue.     Essentially, 
*  Calhoun,  Works,  vols,  iv.-v. 


264  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

however,  it  represented  the  truth,  for  the  note  put  into  defi- 
nite public  form  rumors  that  had  been  coming  to  his  ears. 
Critique  of  particularly  from  the  London  letters  of  his  con- 
Calhoun's  case  fidant,  Duff  Green,  who  quoted  the  assertion  of 
the  Texan  representative,  Ashabel  Smith,  that  England  would 
guarantee  a  loan  to  Texas  to  pay  the  expenses  of  emancipa- 
tion. To  Calhoun,  though  not  to  the  President,  the  main 
motive  for  action  lay  in  the  danger  to  slavery.  His  defence  of 
slavery  as  an  institution  has  been  criticised,  and  perhaps  in 
form  is  open  to  criticism;  but  Aberdeen's  remarks  on  the 
subject  demanded  some  answer.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
Calhoun  believed  in  the  case  as  he  presented  it.  He  wrote  to 
James  H.  Hammond,  May  17,  1844:  "There  is  not  a  doubt 
in  my  mind,  that  if  Texas  should  not  now  be  annexed,  she 
is  lost  to  our  Union.  The  Senate  has  been  furnished  with 
evidence  to  that  effect,  perfectly  conclusive." 

The  defect  in  Calhoun's  argument  was  that  his  reasoning 
was  logical  rather  than  political,  and  that  his  logic  did  not 
Failure  of  Cal-  reach  to  his  conclusion.  His  basis  was  that  of 
houn's  case  j^jg  slave-trade  resolutions, — the  obligation  of 
the  national  government  to  protect  any  institutions  of  any 
state.  His  second  step,  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  national 
government  to  protect  the  internal  tranquillity  of  the  state, 
was  just  as  soimd;  it  had  been  used  by  Dana  in  1809  in 
reference  to  the  South  when  he  was  discussing  trade  with 
the  negro  state  of  Hayti.  His  slip  came  in  asserting  that 
the  one  method  of  performing  these  duties  was  the  annexation 
of  Texas.  The  national  government  has  discretion  as  to 
methods,  and  annexation  was  not  the  only  one  possible.  The 
fact  is,  Calhoun  was  so  anxious  to  fix  the  doctrine  of  national 
protection  upon  the  country  that  his  eagerness  blinded  him 
to  this  weakness  in  his  logic.  He  sacrificed  Texas  to  political 
theory. 

The  unpopularity  of  Tyler  and  the  fear  of  the  slavery  issue 
brought  to  the  front  by  Calhoun  combined  to  defeat  the 
treaty.     Annexation,  however,  could  no  longer  be  held  off. 


ANNEXATION  265 

Wiser  politicians  took  it  up  and  changed  the  basis  of  argu- 
ment. In  a  strong  letter  Jackson  roused  the  public  apprehen- 
sion of  England's  political  ambitions,  and  the  Defeat  of  the 
Democratic  convention  had  the  good  sense  to  *^®**y 
unite  northern  with  southern  interests  by  joining  Oregon  with 
Texas.  Referring  to  our  lost  settlement  at  Astoria  and  our 
claim  to  Texas  abandoned  in  1819,  the  convention  resolved, 
"That  our  title  to  the  whole  of  the  territory  of  Oregon  is 
clear  and  unquestionable;  that  no  portion  of  the  same  ought 
to  be  ceded  to  England  or  any  other  power;  and  that  the  re- 
occupation  of  Oregon  and  the  reannexation  of  Texas  at  the 
earliest  practicable  period  are  great  American  questions." 

The  election  of  the  Democratic  candidate,  James  K.  Polk, 
was  accepted  as  a  national  mandate  in  favor  of  annexation. 

But,  if  annexation  was  to  come,  many  believed     ,         ^     t. 

*'  Annexation  by 

that  it  must  come  quickly.  Texas  was  now  the  joint  resolu- 
scene  of  a  dramatic  contest  between  the  Amer- 
ican representative.  Duff  Green,  specially  sent  to  hold  the 
republic  in  line,  and  Elliot  and  Saligny,  the  British  and 
French  representatives  respectively,  who,  backed  by  their 
governments,  had  dropped  the  slavery  question  and  were 
promising  recognition  by  Mexico  on  condition  of  a  promise 
by  Texas  to  maintain  her  independence.  In  order  to  hasten 
action  by  the  United  States,  it  was  proposed  that,  since  a 
two-thirds  majority  for  a  treaty  could  not  be  secured  in  the 
Senate,  annexation  be  brought  about  by  a  joint  resolution  of 
the  two  houses.  The  constitutionality  of  such  a  method  was 
at  least  obscure,  for  previously  the  power  to  annex  had  been 
implied  from  that  to  make  treaties.  The  constitutional  argu- 
ment, however,  played  little  part  in  the  discussion  of  the 
main  question,  which  absorbed  most  of  the  session  from 
December,  1844,  to  March,  1845.  At  length,  on  March  1, 
the  resolution  was  passed,  but  added  to  it  was  a  curious 
amendment  allowing  the  President  either  to  proceed  with 
annexation  by  the  authority  thereby  given  or  to  negotiate  a 
treaty. 


266  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

This  double-headed  proposition  was  accepted  by  a  bal- 
ancing number  of  senators  with  the  understanding  that  the 
Tyler  annexes  whole  matter  would  be  left  to  Polk  for  settle- 
Texas  ment,  and  with  the  purpose  that  he  should 
find  himself  fully  empowered  to  act  quickly.  Tyler,  however, 
anticipated  action  by  Polk  by  dispatching  a  messenger  to 
Texas  announcing  that  she  might  enter  the  union  on  the 
terms  of  the  joint  resolution.  Polk  acquiesced  in  the  accom- 
plished fact,  and  the  centre  of  interest  shifted  from  Washing- 
ton to  Texas.^ 

The  proposal  to  Texas  was  that  she  be  admitted  as  a  state,  i 
with  such  government  as  should  be  adopted  by  the  people! 
Struggle    for      and  assented  to  by  the  United  States.     This 
Texas  plan,  in  contrast  with  Calhoun's  treaty,  which 

resembled  previous  annexation  treaties  in  merely  providing 
for  admission  to  statehood  at  some  future  time,  virtually 
constituted  an  enabling  act,  pushing  statehood  one  step 
further  forward.  It  provided  that  Texas  should  hold  her 
public  lands  for  the  payment  of  her  debt;  whereas  Calhoun 
had  agreed  that  the  United  States  would  receive  the  lands  and 
pay  the  debt.  The  question  of  boundary  it  left  open  to  / 
settlement  by  the  United  States.  It  further  provided  that 
Texas  was  not  to  be  divided  into  more  than  four  states,  of  j 
which  those  north  of  the  parallel  of  36°  30'  should  not  permit  i 
slavery, — ^points  for  which  there  were  no  equivalents  in  the 
Calhoun  treaty.  The  president  of  Texas,  Anson  Jones,  re- 
ceived the  proposal  with  dignity.  He  encouraged  Elliot  to 
press  Mexico  for  recognition,  and  when  the  Texan  convention 
met,  July  4,  1845,  he  offered  it  the  alternatives  of  independ- 
ence, recognized  by  Mexico  on  condition  that  it  be  main- 
tained and  with  the  special  friendship  of  Great  Britain  and 
France,  or  annexation.  Without  hesitation  the  convention 
chose  the  latter,  and  in  December  Texas  became  a  state  of 
the  Union.  Although  chagrined  at  the  result.  Great  Britain 
and  France  were  nevertheless,  as  they  had  indeed  repeatedly 
1 T.  H.  Benton,  ThiHy  Years'  View,  2  vols.,  New  York,  1854-56. 


ANNEXATION  267 

declared,  not  prepared  to  resist  forcibly;  hence  nothing  now 
remained  necessary  for  a  complete  settlement  of  the  question 
but  acceptance  by  Mexico.^ 

Polk  came  into  office  with  the  intention  of  securing  Texas, 
Oregon,  and  California.  To  the  accomplishment  of  this 
formidable  task  he  brought,  not  great  intellec- 
tual  ability,  but  an  iron  will,  a  directness  of 
purpose,  and  a  conviction  of  the  morality  of  his  intentions 
inherited  from  his  Scotch-Presbyterian  ancestry, — ^just  the 
equipment  for  the  man  of  action  after  discussion  has  cleared 
and  defined  the  issue. ^  He  found  the  first  part  of  his 
three-fold  undertaking  practically  finished,  and  he  ac- 
cepted the  results.  Of  the  two  remaining  tasks,  the 
Oregon  controversy,  of  which  the  details  had  been  worked 
out  by  Gallatin  in  1827,  had  just  been  still  more  closely 
defined  in  a  correspondence  between  Calhoun  and  Paken- 
ham.^ 

In  these  letters  the  British  practically  acknowledged  our 
title  from  the  forty-second  parallel  to  the  south  bank  of  the 
Columbia,  and  we  practically  acknowledged  The  Oregon 
their  rights  north  of  the  forty-ninth  parallel,  question 
Within  the  undistributed  middle  lay  Puget  Sound  and  the 
tip  of  Vancouver  island.  Both  countries  claimed  Spanish 
recognition  of  their  claims,  the  British  by  the  Nootka  Sound 
convention  of  1790,  we  by  our  treaty  of  1819.  By  discovery 
and  exploration  we  had  the  stronger  claim  to  the  Columbia 
valley,  the  British  to  that  of  the  Fraser.  In  actual  settle- 
ments Great  Britain  had  held  the  advantage;  but  the  United 
States  was  gaining,  though  most  of  her  settlers  sought  the 
valley  of  the  Willamette,  a  southern  branch  of  the  Colum- 
bia. In  1844  Aberdeen  offered  to  arbitrate,  but  the 
United  States  refused. 

'  Anson  Jones,  Memoranda  and  Official  Correspondence  relating  to  the  Re- 
public  of  Texas,  New  York,  1859. 

» J.  K.  Polk,  Diary,  ed.  M.  M,  Quaife,  4  vols.,  Chicago,  1910. 
*  Calhoun,  Works,  vol.  v. 


268 


AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 


Calhoun  expected  that  Polk  would  request  his  continuance 
in  the  position  of  secretary  of  state,  but  Polk  failed  to  do  so, 
Polk's  Oregon  for  his  views  differed  fundamentally  from  those 
poUcy  q£  Calhoun.     Calhoun  feared  both  the  inten- 

tions and  the  power  of  Great  Britain,  he  believed  that  she 
could  and  would  maintain  her  views  by  force.     He  was  of 


OREGON  BOUXDABY  CONTROVERSIES 


that  generation  of  American  statesmen  who,  confident  in  our 
growing  strength,  preferred  to  leave  such  disputes  open, 
trusting  to  the  future.  Polk  intended  to  settle  the  question  at 
once,  and  chose  as  his  secretary  James  Buchanan,  a  man  of 
like  mind. 

The  latter  offered  Great  Britain  the  line  of  49°,  which  had 
been  satisfactory  to  Calhoun.  Upon  its  rejec- 
tion, which  had  been  anticipated,  Polk  took  up 
the  question  in  his  message  of  December,  1845. 
Referring  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  he  was  the  first  "^ 
President  to  revive,  he  said:  "It  should  be  distinctly  au- 


Polk  revives 
the  Monroe 
Doctrine 


ANNEXATION  269 

nounced  to  the  world  as  our  settled  policy  that  no  future 
European  colony  or  dominion  shall  with  our  consent  be 
planted  or  established  on  any  part  of  the  North  American 
continent."  He  rejected  the  idea  of  any  balance  of  power  as 
applied  to  America.  Finally  he  asked  Congress  to  authorize 
the  termination  of  the  joint  occupancy  with  a  year's  notice, 
as  provided  in  the  convention  of  1828.  He  declared  that  our 
title  "to  the  whole  Oregon  Territory"  had  already  been 
"asserted,  and,  as  is  believed,  maintained  by  irrefragable 
facts  and  arguments." 

Congress  debated  the  proposal  with  unusual  seriousness 
and  ability.  Polk's  views  found  an  echo  in  a  style  of  ex- 
pansionist oratory  new  to  the  country  and  not  Oregon  policy 
confined  to  Congress.  The  phrase  "Fifty-  o^  Congress 
four-forty  or  fight"  rang  through  the  land.  Calhoun  and 
Webster,  on  the  other  hand,  pleaded  for  moderation,  express- 
ing their  belief  that  the  President's  policy  would  result  in 
war,  and  that  war  would  end  in  the  loss  of  Oregon  to  the 
British  fleet.  In  the  end  the  President  was  authorized  to  give 
notice  of  the  termination  of  the  joint  occupancy;  but  this 
notice  was  to  be  joined  with  the  declaration  that  it  was 
hoped  that  the  step  would  lead  to  a  speedy  amicable  adjust- 
ment of  the  differences  between  the  two  governments, — an 
apparent  invitation  for  a  proposal  of  compromise. - 

The  British  government  was  still  under  the  leadership  of 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  whose  friendliness  to  the  United  States 
had  resulted  in  the  Webster-Ashburton  treaty.  «...  ,. 
It  was,  indeed,  the  same  government  whose 
machinations,  real  and  exaggerated,  in  Texas  and  Cali- 
fornia had  been  so  effectively  used  in  furthering  Texan 
annexation.  The  desire  of  Great  Britain  to  prevent 
that  annexation,  however,  had  been  no  more  inimical 
than   the   desire    of    a    merchant    to    secure    a    new   cus- 

^  See  speeches  by  Calhoun  and  Webster  in  their  Works;  also  Joseph  Schaf  er, 
"The  British  Attitude  toward  the  Oregon  Question,  1815-1846,"  Amer, 
Bist.  Review,  1911,  xvi.  273-«94. 


270  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tomer  rather  than  let  him  go  to  a  rival.  Her  methods 
in  the  use  of  her  influence  with  Mexico  had  perhaps  been 
"unfair";  but  if  these  did  indicate  a  slight  moral  obliquity, 
and  if  Aberdeen's  letter  on  slavery  was  lacking  in  tactfulness, 
such  lapses  did  not  come  from  any  hostility  or  from  a  failure 
to  realize  that  the  friendship  of  the  United  States  was  more 
important  to  Great  Britain  than  that  of  any  other  country 
on  the  American  continent.  Great  Britain  was  looking  after 
her  own  interests  to  be  sure,  but  her  ministers,  Aberdeen  and 
Peel,  were  friendly  to  the  United  States.  Their  friendship, 
moreover,  was  greatly  stimulated  in  1846  by  the  fact  that 
both  nations  were  just  taking  the  first  steps  in  the  new  policy 
of  free  trade,  which,  if  persisted  in,  would  cement  their 
destinies  by  an  ever-increasing  bond  of  trade. 

The  British  government,  therefore,  having  previously 
ascertained  that  its  proposal  would  not  be  contumaciously 
Oregon  agree-  rejected,  offered  to  compromise  on  the  forty- 
"*°*  ninth  parallel  to  the  strait  of  Georgia,  and 

thence  to  the  ocean,  with  the  right  of  free  navigation  on  the 
Columbia.  This  was  more  than  Great  Britain  had  ever 
before  offered,  though  less  than  the  United  States  had  ex- 
pressed its  willingness  to  accept.  It  gave  us  Puget  Sound,  it 
gave  Great  Britain  the  tip  of  Vancouver  island,  thus  dis- 
tributing the  best  harbors  on  the  northwest  coast.  Polk 
accepted  this  proposal  as  a  basis,  and  a  treaty  was  drawn  up. 
Before  concluding  it,  however,  Polk  endeavored  to  relieve 
himself  of  responsibility  for  compromising  in  a  case  in  which 
he  had  asserted  our  title  to  the  whole  to  be  "clear  and  un- 
questionable," by  resorting,  as  has  so  seldom  been  done,  ^ 
to  the  "advice"  of  the  Senate.  That  body  advised  signing, 
and  thereby  practically  committed  itself  to  ratify  the  treaty, 
which  was  promptly  done  in  June,  1846. 

Thus  was  settled  the  last  stretch  of  our  northern  boundary, 
although  the  division  of  the  smaller  islands  caused  more 
trouble,  which  was  adjusted  by  arbitration  in  1871.  Polk's 
bluster  and  the  wild  speeches  in  Congress  probably  made 


ANNEXATION  271 

some  difference  in  the  result.  Whenever  we  have  encoun- 
tered Great  Britain  we  have  been  obliged  to  compromise, 
but  bluff  on  our  part  has  often  hastened  agree-  _, 
ment.  The  Ime  decided  upon  was  a  reasona-  issue  in  Ore- 
ble  one,  and,  after  the  following  of  the  forty- 
ninth  parallel  to  the  Rockies  in  1818,  was  probably  inevita- 
ble, regardless  of  claims  or  of  diplomacy.  The  protrusion  of 
Vancouver  island  south  of  forty-nine  was  disagreeable,  but 
on  general  principles  the  island  was  best  considered  as  a 
whole.  In  rousing  popular  agitation  Polk  was  playing  with 
fire;  it  was  a  typical  example  of  "shirt-sleeve"  diplomacy. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  continuance  of  the  joint  occupancy  in 
the  face  of  the  actual  settlement  of  the  region  might  well  have 
given  rise  to  frontier  squabbles  more  dangerous  than  the 
whiff  of  spread-eagle  oratory. 

On  April  28,  1846,  Polk  accepted  the  British  offer  as  to 
Oregon,  subject  to  the  consent  of  the  Senate;  on  May  11  he 
advised  war  with  Mexico.     The  conjunction     ^    .  . 

of  the  events  was  fortunate,  but  probably  not  Texan  annexa- 
vital,  for  Great  Britain  had  already  signified 
her  intention  not  to  support  Mexico.  At  Polk's  inauguration 
the  war  had  not  been  expected  by  those  best  informed. 
Webster  wrote  to  his  son,  March  11,  1845,  that  Mexico  would 
doubtless  "be  very  angry"  over  the  annexation  of  Texas, 
but,  he  added,  "that  she  will  plunge  at  once  into  a  war, 
though  it  is  possible,  is  as  yet  not  thought  probable,  by  the 
best  informed  here.  .  .  .  Mr.  Polk  and  his  cabinet  will 
desire  to  keep  the  peace." 

Although  Mexico  withdrew  her  minister,  as  she  had  done 
in  1837,  she  did  not  rush  into  war.  There  existed,  however, 
at  the  outset  a  question  that  required  careful  The  Texas 
handlmg  on  the  part  of  the  United  States.  As  ^<»^'^^ 
usual,  we  had  annexed  not  territory  alone,  but  a  boundary 
controversy.  The  Mexican  territory  of  Texas  had  been 
bounded  to  the  south  by  the  Nueces  river;  the  republic  of 
Texas  had  actually  occupied  the  south  bank  of  this  river;  the 


272 


AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 


constitution  of  Texas  described  the  national  boundary  as  the 
Rio  Grande  to  its  source,  and  thence  northward  to  the  forty- 
second  parallel.  This  constitutional  boundary,  which 
swept  in  Mexican  settlements  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Rio 
Grande  near  its  mouth,  together  with  the  important  post  of 
Santa  ¥k  in  New  Mexico,  had  been  jBxed  in  order  to  provide  a 
basis  for  compromise.  Calhoun  had  recognized  its  lack  of 
actuality,  and  the  joint  resolutions,  seeking  to  avoid  any  such 
difficulty  as  had  arisen  with  Maine  two  years  before,  had 


^ven  the  United  States  power  to  settle  the  boundary.  Mean- 
time, the  question  as  to  the  protection  of  Texas  until  her 
formal  admission,  which  could  not  be  consummated  till 
December,  1845,  came  up.  Calhoun,  after  the  rejection  of 
his  treaty,  had  promised  such  defence  as  the  President  could 
give  while  negotiations  were  in  process;  but  this  did  not  mean 
much.  Polk  was  in  an  easier  position;  for  the  United  States 
had  assented  to  the  annexation,  but  until  July  4, 1845,  Texas 
had  not.  During  the  interval  he  wished  to  send  troops,  but 
President  Jones  said  they  were  not  necessary.    When  Texas 


ANNEXATION  273 

accepted  our  ofiPer  this  difficulty  was  removed,*  and  Polk 
could  do  as  he  wished. 

On  June  15,  1845,  Polk  ordered  General  Taylor  to  "select 
and  occupy,  on  or  near  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte,  such  site  as 
will  consist  with  the  health  of  the  troops,  and  Taylor  in 
will  be  best  adapted  to  repel  invasion,  and  to  '^®^*8 
protect  what,  in  event  of  annexation,  will  be  our  western 
frontier."  Against  this  order  our  representative  in  Texas, 
A.  J.  Donelson,  protested  on  the  ground  that,  since  Texas  had 
previously  accepted  a  truce  leaving  Mexico  in  possession  of 
the  north  bank  of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  had  evinced  a  dis- 
position to  settle  the  question  by  negotiation,  things  might, 
"to  say  the  least  ...  be  left  by  the  United  States  in  the 
same  condition."  On  July  8  Taylor  was  ordered  not  to  inter- 
fere with  existing  Mexican  military  establishments  in  the 
disputed  region,  "unless  a  state  of  war  should  exist."  On 
August  30  he  was  instructed  as  follows:  "The  assembling 
of  a  large  Mexican  army  on  the  border  of  Texas,  and  cross- 
ing the  Rio  Grande  with  a  considerable  force,  will  be  regarded 
by  the  executive  as  an  invasion  of  the  United  States,  and  the 
commencement  of  hostilities.  An  attempt  to  cross  the  river 
with  such  a  force  will  also  be  considered  in  the  same  light." 
It  was  obviously  the  intention  of  the  administration  to 
insist  upon  the  Rio  Grande  boundary,  at  least  near  the 
coast.  It  was  not,  however,  till  January  17,  1846,  that 
Taylor  was  explicitly  ordered  to  the  Rio  Grande. 

During  the  same  period  Polk  was  endeavoring  to  open  an 
approach  to  negotiation  with  Mexico.  An  agent,  Parrott, 
accompanied  the  withdrawing  Mexican  minis-  siidell's  in- 
ter, and  in  June  reported  that  Mexico  would  ^tractions 
not  go  to  war  over  Texas.  Polk  thereupon  appointed  John 
Slidell  minister  to  Mexico.  He  was,  first  of  all,  to  warn 
Mexico  of  the  insidious  designs  of  foreign  nations  and  of  our 

^  Rives,  The  United  States  and  Mexico;  William  Jay,  Review  of  the  Causes 
and  Consequences  of  the  Mexican  War,  Boston,  etc.,  1849;  C.  H.  Owen,  The 
Justice  of  the  Mexican  War,  New  York,  etc.,  1908. 


274  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

determination  to  prevent  them.  Then  he  was  to  insist  upon 
the  payment  of  the  claims  of  American  citizens,  which  had 
been  recognized  by  a  convention  of  1839  but  which  re- 
mained unpaid.  Realizing  the  financial  inability  of  Mexico, 
the  government  instructed  Slidell,  "Fortunately  the  joint 
resolution  of  Congress  for  annexing  Texas  to  the  United 
States  presents  a  means  of  satisfying  these  claims,  in  perfect 
consistency  with  the  interests  as  well  as  the  power  of  both 
republics."  The  indisputable  character  of  the  Texan  claim 
to  the  Rio  Grande  near  its  mouth,  was  to  be  asserted;  but 
a  question  concerning  the  right  to  New  Mexico  was  ad- 
mitted, and  Slidell  was  authorized  to  oflFer  to  assume  claims 
for  five  million  dollars  in  return  for  the  title  to  that  ter- 
ritory. 

The  most  important  portion  of  the  instructions,  however, 
referred  to  the  reopening,  but  in  a  new  spirit,  of  the  question 
Polk  and  Cali-  in  regard  to  California  which  Thompson  and 
fomia  Webster  had  broached  in  1843.     Under  the 

pressure  of  events  the  situation  there  was  rapidly  ripening. 
Rumors  of  revolt  were  multiplying,  and  Polk  did  not  seek  to 
blast  the  growth.  In  October,  1845,  Larkin,  our  consul  at 
Monterey,  was  instructed:  "Whilst  the  president  will  make 
lio  eflFort  and  use  no  influence  to  induce  the  Californians  to 
become  one  of  the  free  and  independent  states  of  this  Union, 
yet  if  the  people  should  desire  to  unite  their  destiny  with 
ours,  they  would  be  received  as  brethren,  whenever  this  can 
be  done  without  affording  Mexico  any  just  cause  of  com- 
plaint." Lieutenant  Gillespie  was  sent  to  confer  with  Larkin, 
Commodore  Stockton  was  ordered  to  report  with  his  squad- 
ron at  Monterey,  and  Fremont  was  exploring  California. 

In  the  midst  of  these  happenings,  Slidell  was  instructed  to 
call  the  attention  of  Mexico  to  the  fact  that  she  had  small 
Mexico  and  chance  of  maintaining  her  hold  upon  California, 
California  ^^^  ^j^g^^  Great  Britain  and  France  were  both 

ambitious  to  obtain  it.  He  was  to  say  that  the  United  States 
would  never  permit  its  cession  to  either  of  these  powers,  but 


ANNEXATION  275 

would  herself  pay  Mexico  liberally  for  possession, — from 
twenty  to  twenty-five  million  dollars  according  to  the  inclu- 
sion or  the  exclusion  of  the  peninsula  of  Lower  California. 
Polk  was  himself  determined  to  secure  at  least  the  bay  of 
San  Francisco. 

With  such  instructions  Slidell  arrived  in  Mexico.  The 
government  of  that  country  was  expecting  the  United  States 
to  explain  the  annexation  of  Texas;  that,  to  its  siidell  in 
mind,  was  the  primary  question.  Accordingly,  Mexico 
it  refused  to  treat  except  with  a  commissioner  sent  for  that 
express  and  sole  purpose.  As  a  fresh  revolution  was  in 
progress,  Slidell  awaited  the  result,  hoping  for  reception  by 
the  new  government.  Paredes,  the  successful  contestant, 
was,  however,  more  hostile  than  Herrera,  whom  he  had  turned 
out.  He  at  length  did  what  had  been  so  often  surmised  with- 
out foundation, — offer  California  to  Great  Britain  to  hold  as 
a  security  for  a  loan.  When  the  offer  reached  her,  however, 
she  declined;  the  security  was  no  longer  Mexico's  to  offer. 
Toward  Slidell  he  pursued  the  policy  of  his  predecessor  by 
persistently  refusing  to  receive  him,  till  by  the  middle  of 
March  Slidell  gave  up  hope  of  accomplishing  anything  on  the 
existing  basis  of  facts  and  returned  to  the  United  States. 

Polk  and  Buchanan  had  long  before  reached  this  decision, 
and  determined  to  change  the  facts.    The  change  was  to  be 

not   in  the   instructions   themselves   but   the    _. 

,      ,      -  .         ,  -J,,  ,  Tuning  war 

method  of  pressmg  them.  War  was  to  be  rec- 
ommended. Such  drastic  action,  however,  must,  to  receive 
popular  support,  have  been  preceded  by  a  patient  negotiation 
such  as  to  their  minds  Slidell  had  just  carried  out.  It  should 
also  come  after  a  settlement  of  the  Oregon  question,  not  be- 
cause Polk  expected  war  with  Great  Britain,  but  because  the 
possibility  of  such  a  war  would  serve  to  enhearten  Mexico  and 
diminish  the  moral  effect  which  he  hoped  would  follow  his 
threat.  Both  these  conditions  being  fulfilled,  on  Saturday, 
May  9,  the  decision  was  taken,  although  there  was  still  reason 
to  fear  the  reception  of  the  message  by  Congress. 


276  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

On  Sunday  news  arrived  at  Washington  from  Taylor  on 

the  frontier.    Since  January  he  had  been  in  camp  on  the 

Rio  Grande,  "right  in  the  enemy's  country, 

**  ^Oygf  exists "  t/  V 

and  actually  occupying  their  corn  and  cotton 
fields,"  as  one  of  his  oflBcers  wrote.  Mexico  took  the 
attitude  that  this  occupation  constituted  war.  On  April  24 
Paredes  declared,  "Hostilities  then  have  been  commenced 
by  the  United  States";  but  he  disclaimed  the  right  to 
declare  war  until  the  Mexican  Congress  assembled.  The 
tinder  was  ready,  however:  on  April  26  Mexican  and 
United  States  troops  met  and  fought.  It  was  of  this 
encounter,  that  Polk  heard.  It  afforded  a  more  appealing 
if  not  more  solid  cause  for  war  than  the  failure  of  negoti- 
ation. Contrary  to  his  usage,  therefore,  he  prepared  his 
message  on  Sunday,  and  sent  it  to  Congress  the  next  day. 
May  11,  1846.  "  The  cup  of  forbearance  had  been  ex- 
hausted even  before  the  recent  information  from  the  frontier 
of  the  Del  Norte.  But  now,  after  reiterated  menaces,  Mexico 
has  passed  the  boundary  of  the  United  States,  has  invaded 
our  territory  and  shed  American  blood  upon  the  American 
soil  .  .  .  war  exists,  and,  notwithstanding  all  our  efforts  to 
avoid  it,  exists  by  the  act  of  Mexico  herself." 

Polk  regarded  war  not  as  an  object,  but  as  a  means:  he 
believed  that  his  ends  could  be  obtained  without  fighting. 
Polk  and  Having  deprived  Mexico  of  the  hope  of  British 

Santa  Anna  assistance,  he  entered  into  negotiations  with 
Santa  Anna,  the  exiled  Mexican  hero,  who  was  in  Havana. 
On  June  7  Commander  Alexander  Slidell  MacKenzie,  who 
had  been  sent  to  confer  with  him,  reported  that  he  had  ex- 
plained to  Santa  Anna  the  President's  intentions  as  to  bound- 
aries and  other  questions,  and  that  Santa  Anna  had  expressed 
his  friendship  for  the  United  States  as  well  as  his  enlightened 
views  for  the  government  of  Mexico,  and  had  given  certain 
advice  with  regard  to  General  Taylor's  movements.  Ac- 
cordingly the  United  States  allowed  Santa  Anna  to  pass  the 
blockade,  and  watched  with  pleasure  his  rapid  success  in 


ANNEXATION  277 

establishing  himself  in  control  of  Mexico.  She  anticipated 
a  speedy  ending  of  hostilities,  and  a  prompt  and  happy 
negotiation  with  the  new  Mexican  government.  Santa 
Anna,  however,  on  gaining  power,  sought  to  establish  it 
upon  the  only  basis  on  which  it  could  continue  to  exist:  he 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  national  forces  to  resist  the 
United  States.  Thus  we  not  only  were  at  war  but  were  also 
obliged  to  fight. 

On  May  13,  1846,  Buchanan  proposed  in  the  cabinet  that 
our  announcement  to  foreign  nations  of  the  fact  that  we 
were  at  war  with  Mexico  be  accompanied  by    -.  - 

a  declaration  that  we  would  acquire  nothing  Guadaloupe 
but  the  Rio  Grande  boundary.  Polk,  however,  *  ^^ 
refused  to  sanction  such  a  promise.  "I  will  not  tie  up  my 
hands  by  any  such  pledge,"  he  declared.  "In  making  peace 
with  our  adversary,  we  shall  acquire  California,  New  Mexico, 
and  other  further  territory,  as  an  indemnity  for  this  war, 
if  we  can."  In  accordance  with  these  ideas,  Nicholas  P. 
Trist,  chief  clerk  of  the  state  department,  was  in  April,  1847, 
commissioned  to  accompany  the  army  and  to  make  peace 
whenever  he  got  the  chance.  Santa  Anna  twisted  him  about 
his  fingers  throughout  the  summer,  and  in  the  autumn  Polk 
recalled  him.  The  successes  of  the  army,  however,  rendered 
Santa  Anna's  intrigues  useless,  except  as  a  means  of  securing 
money  for  himself.  When,  September  14,  1847,  the  city  of 
Mexico  fell,  the  whole  of  Mexico  became  demoralized  and 
its  government  became  anxious  to  negotiate.  Trist,  although 
having  now  no  official  position,  nevertheless  negotiated  a 
treaty  at  Guadaloupe  Hidalgo  on  February  2,  1848. 

By  the  time  this  document  reached  the  United  States  that 
country  was  a  hustings  for  the  discussion  of  war.  Those 
who  opposed  it  and  its  conduct  and  its  pur-  Anti-war  feel- 
poses  were  of  the  better-educated  class;  they  "^ 
possessed  the  greater  literary  ability;  they  produced  careful 
briefs,  studied  histories,  and  imperishable  satires,  and  their 
voices  have  outlasted  those  of  their  opponents.    The  loudest 


278  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

voices  at  the  time,  however,  and  the  most  popular  pens, 
were  those  that  became  more  and  more  imbued  with  the  war 
spirit.    A  clamor  for  the  whole  of  Mexico  arose. 

The  "Hard"  faction  of  the  New  York  Democracy  said 
of  the  war:  "It  is  no  more  than  the  restoration  of  moral 
Expansionist  rights  by  legal  means";  the  field  for  work  is 
feeling  "opened  to  us  by  the  conduct  of  Mexico,  and 

such  moral  and  legal  means  are  offered  for  our  use.  Shall  we 
occupy  it?  Shall  we  now  run  with  manly  vigor  the  race  that 
is  set  before  us?  Or  shall  we  yield  to  the  suggestions  of  a 
sickly  fanaticism,  or  sink  into  an  enervating  slumber?  .  .  . 
We  feel  no  emotion  but  pity  for  those  whose  philanthropy, 
or  patriotism,  or  religion,  have  led  them  to  beheve  that 
they  can  prescribe  a  better  course  of  duty  than  that  of  the 
God  who  made  us  all."  Nor  was  the  feeling  sectional.  The 
National  Era,  an  antislavery  organ,  favored  the  absorption 
of  Mexico,  state  by  state.  From  England,  George  Bancroft, 
our  minister,  wrote  to  Buchanan:  "People  are  beginning 
to  say  that  it  would  be  a  blessing  to  the  world  if  the  United 
States  would  assume  the  tutelage  of  Mexico," — the  first 
appeal  of  the  British  investor  for  United  States  protection. 
Buchanan  himself  in  cabinet  discussion  said,  "We  must 
fulfill  that  destiny  which  Providence  may  have  in  store  for 
both  countries." 

With  this  rising  wave  of  enthusiasm  Polk  had  no  sym- 
pathy. From  the  beginning  his  purpose  had  been  to  annex 
Texas,  Oregon,  and  California,  and  so  his  pur- 
pose remained.  He  would  not  imperil  what  he 
had  won,  by  waiting  for  the  doubtful  result  of  the  next  elec- 
tion. Distasteful  and  irregular  as  Trist's  conduct  had  been, 
and  his  negotiations  feeble  and  even  improper,  Polk  seized 
upon  his  treaty  as  the  only  means  of  bringing  a  prompt  end 
to  the  war  and  of  checking  projects  of  further  conquest.  He 
sent  it  to  the  Senate  on  February  21,  1848,  recommending 
the  striking  out  of  one  article;  on  March  10  it  was  accepted^ 
against  the  vote  of  Webster,  who  wished  to  acquire  no  ter- 


ANNEXATION  279 

litory  at  all,  and  of  Hannegan  of  Indiana,  who  wanted  all 

Mexico. 

The  treaty  gave  us  Texas  to  the  Rio  Grande,  New  Mexico 

including  Arizona,  and  California,  with  the  free  navigation 

of  the  Colorado  and  other  rivers.    Mexicans  re-    ^ 

.    .        .       ,  11-  1  Terms  of  peace 

mammg  m  the  ceded  territory  were  to  become 

incorporated  into  the  United  States.  We  agreed  to  pay 
Mexico  fifteen  million  dollars,  to  exonerate  her  from  all  claims 
of  American  citizens  up  to  the  date  of  the  treaty,  and  our- 
selves to  satisfy  such  claims  to  the  extent  of  three  and  a 
quarter  million  dollars.  Two  articles  were  of  special  interest, 
the  seventeenth,  which  specifically  provided  for  the  revival 
of  the  treaty  of  commerce  of  1831,  and  the  twenty-first, 
which  in  a  lame  and  hesitating  manner  introduced  into  our 
diplomacy  the  idea  of  permanent  arbitration. 

With  the  acceptance  of  this  treaty  the  third  great  acces- 
sion of  territory  within  three  years  had  been  consummated. 
In  each  case  movements  long  germinating  had  Poik's  accom- 
reached  fruition.  Texas  was  over-ripe,  Oregon  P^ishment 
at  practical  maturity,  California  was  hastened  by  the  hot- 
house influence  of  the  other  two.  Polk,  the  "dark  horse," 
whom  "no  one  knew"  at  the  time  he  was  nominated,  had 
pushed  through  with  relentless  energy  and  indiflFerent  skill 
the  most  ambitious  diplomatic  program  with  which  any 
President  had  ever  entered  oflSce.  It  is  evident  that  his 
task  had  consisted,  not  in  the  delicate  manipulation  of  con- 
flicting interests,  but  in  the  constant  reiteration  of  the  will 
of  a  dominant  power. 


CHAPTER    XXI 
DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861 

Exhilarated  by  our  annexations,  we  no  longer,  in  the 
period  between  the  Mexican  and  Civil  wars,  feared  Europe. 
The  star  of  empire  had  crossed  the  Atlantic. 
"European  monarchies"  had  become  "effete." 
They  were  still  malevolent,  but  it  was  no  longer  necessary 
for  us  to  defer  crises.  Our  hour  had  struck;  destiny  indi- 
cated our  line  of  march.  Expansion  had  become  a  national 
conviction;  the  American  continents  would  become  united, 
not  under  our  influence,  but  under  our  flag. 

This  belief  in  expansion,  however,  was  not  imperialism. 

Our  faith  in  the  universal  applicability  of  our  political  sys- 

,.,     .        tern  was  as  strong  as  ever.     The  Spanish- 
Repubhcamsm      .  .  .      i       .  ,   •  i 

Americans  were  to  be  incorporated  into  the 

Union,  not  to  be  subject  to  it.  For  a  time,  indeed-^  our  ardent 
republicanism,  no  longer  forced  to  be  on  the  defensive,  seemed 
likely  to  involve  us  in  a  policy  of  interference  in  Europe.  The 
revolutions  of  1848  stirred  us  almost  as  much  as  had  the  first 
French  revolution  or  that  of  Spanish  America.  The  Demo- 
cratic Convention  of  that  year  resolved  "that,  with  the  recent 
development  of  this  grand  political  truth  of  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people  and  their  capacity  and  power  for  self-govern- 
ment" which  was  "prostrating  thrones  and  erecting  republics 
on  the  ruins  of  despotism  in  the  Old  World,"  it  felt  a  renewed 
duty  to  defend  liberty  at  home.  This  was  extremely  discreet, 
and  our  action  was  confined  to  a  prompt  recognition  of  the 
new  government  of  France,  and  the  sending  of  our  first 
diplomatic  representative  to  the  Papal  States  in  appreciation 
of  the  liberal  sentiments  with  which  Pius  IX.  came  into  the 
pontificate.    When,  however,  in  1851,  Louis  Kossuth  came 

280 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      281 

to  this  country  with  the  avowed  object  of  securing  aid  for 
a  new  struggle  in  Hungary  designed  to  established  repub- 
licanism and  independence,  sympathy  seemed  about  to 
plunge  us  into  European  politics.  It  may  have  been  for- 
tunate for  us  that  Polk  had  recently  revived  our  interest  in 
the  Monroe  Doctrine;  but  it  was  probably  the  fundamental 
popular  conception  on  which  the  doctrine  rested  that  held 
us  in  check  and  caused  the  enthusiasm  which  Kossuth 
aroused  to  exhaust  itself  in  champagne  and  oratory. 

Our  expansionist  spirit,  self-limited  by  the  ocean  and 
based  on  republicanism,  was  also  non-military.  Seward,  most 
genial  of  expansionists,  said  in  1860  at  St.  Paul  ,  .,  .  .^ 
that  he  saw  Russia  and  Great  Britain  building  versus  im- 
on  the  Arctic  Ocean  and  in  Canada  the  out- 
posts of  his  own  country,  and  that  he  expected  that  the 
future  capital  of  our  expanded  native  land  would  be  in  the 
valley  of  Mexico;  but  he  continued  to  assert  what  he  had 
said  in  1846,  "I  would  not  give  one  human  life  for  all  the  con- 
tinent that  remains  to  be  annexed."  The  action  of  Congress, 
moreover,  continued  to  be  based  on  the  principle  that  the 
army  should  be  just  sufficient  to  maintain  order  on  the 
frontier  and  the  navy  to  protect  our  merchant  marine.  Pres- 
ident Pierce's  first  message  does  show  a  tendency  to  stretch 
the  principle  to  cover  a  substantial  increase  in  the  navy,  but 
the  most  ardent  of  the  expansionists,  Buchanan,  showed  no 
appreciation  of  a  connection  between  a  policy  of  expansion 
and  prepared  military  strength.  Destiny  was  to  furnish 
her  own  instruments,  of  which  the  peaceful  infiltration  of 
armed  American  immigrants  was  the  chief. 

That  this  popular  conviction  did  not  materialize  during 
this  period  into  actual  acquisition  is  in  part  due  to  external 
obstacles,  and  in  part  to  the  fact  that  diplo-     .^  . 

macy  was  not  only  subordinated  to  politics     politics  on  di- 
but  was  even  actively  employed  for  political    p*'™*'^^ 
ends.    Politicians  and  statesmen  alike  endeavored  to  relieve 
the  pressure  of  the  conflict  over  slavery  by  pointing  to  ques- 


282  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tions  which  would  rouse  a  national  interest;  they  feared  those 
subjects  that  would  embitter  sectionalism.  Webster  wrote 
in  regard  to  a  grandiloquent  dispatch  which  he  had  sent  to 
Hiilseman,  the  Austrian  representative,  that  his  purpose  was 
to  "touch  the  national  pride  and  make  a  man  feel  sheepish 
and  look  silly  who  should  speak  of  disunion."  The  habit  of 
making  stump  speeches  in  diplomatic  documents  became 
common;  Everett  made  his  in  a  declaration  against  European 
interference  in  Cuba,  Marcy  his  on  the  case  of  Martin 
Koszta.  Diplomatic  policies,  therefore,  stood  always  at- 
tendant upon  those  of  politics  and  fared  as  secondary  inter- 
ests always  do. 

Of  the  men  who  directed  affairs,  Buchanan  was  the  most 
conspicuous.     Secretary  of  state  under  Polk,  minister  to 

„    .  Great  Britain  from  1853  to  1856,  and  President 

Buchanan  ,  i      i      i  • 

from  1857  to  1861,  he  had  experience  and  con- 
siderable dialectic  skill.    He  had  also  purpose;  oblivious  of  the 
necessity  of  domestic  policies,  he  made  expansion  his  pro- 
gram, and  himself  the  leader  of  the  movement.     He  lacked 
force,  however,  to  push  his  policies  to  conclu- 
sion or  even  to  an  issue.^    President  Pierce  was 
a  lesser  light  of  the  same  group.    Of  the  secretaries  of  state, 
Clayton  is  remembered  chiefly  for  his  treaty 
with   Bulwer,   which   has    proved  to  be  our 
most    entangling    agreement   with   a   foreign   power   since 
Webster,  our  first  treaties  with  France.     Webster  and 

Everett  Everett  were  both  worthy  of  the  reputation 

of  the  office,  though  neither  particularly  enhanced  his  own. 
Cass,    under    Buchanan,    had    already    made 
his  career  and  now  added  to  it  merely  his 
extinction  of  Great  Britain's  claim  to  the  right  of  visitation.^ 
William  L.  Marcy,  serving  under  Pierce,  caused  a  ripple 
of  amusement  and  annoyance  by  his  famous  circular  order 

*  James  Buchanan,  Works,  ed.  J.  B.  Moore,  12  vols.,  Philadelphia,  etc., 
1908-11. 
'  McLaughlin,  Lewis  Cass. 


/ 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      283 

of  June  1,  1853,  that  all  our  representatives  were  to  confine 
their  sartorial  ambitions  to  "the  simple  costume  of  an  Amer- 
ican citizen."  The  diplomatic  uniforms  which  „ 
had  been  developed  by  the  practice  of  our  min- 
isters were  accordingly  discarded  for  trousers  and  frock  or 
evening  coats;  we  became  sans  culottes.  The  long-lived  joke 
about  the  American  minister  who  was  mistaken  for  a  waiter 
was  soon  born.  With  this  exception,  Marcy  was  not  trivial; 
he  became  more  fully  secretary  of  state,  more  conversant 
with  the  whole  field  of  our  diplomacy,  and  more  universally 
active  in  dealing  with  it  than  had  any  secretary  since  John 
Quincy  Adams. 

During  the  fifties  there  were  rumblings  of  administrative 
reform  along  many  lines,  but  there  was  neither  the  will  to 
perform  nor  the  evolution  of  any  practicable  _^. 
scheme.  In  1856  a  general  act  was  passed  and  consular 
systematizing  the  whole  diplomatic  service. 
The  positions  were  graded,  salaries  were  fixed,  fees  were 
regulated,  and  a  method  of  control  was  outlined.  Never- 
theless, appointments  grew  to  be  more  and  more  at  the  mercy 
of  politics  and  more  and  more  unsuitable.  Most  notorious 
was  that  of  Pierre  Soule  to  the  court  of  Spain,  in  the  face  of 
the  fact  that  his  personal  history,  to  say  nothing  of  his  per- 
sonal characteristics,  was  sure  to  produce  trouble.  The  ex- 
pansion of  our  commerce  began  to  arouse  a  special  interest 
in  our  consular  service,  with  the  result  that  in  1856  an  act 
was  passed  providing  for  the  appointment  of  twenty-five 
"consular-pupils,"  who  were,  on  showing  themselves  com- 
petent, to  be  promoted.  This  act  was  repealed  in  1857,  but 
it  indicated  a  desire  to  release  that  service  from  the  perils 
of  rotation  in  office.^ 

Commerce,  though  but  lamely  supported  by  our  consuls, 

was  flourishing  without  interfering  with  our  isolation.    Our 

exports  still  consisted  of  non-competitive  products,  but  in 

bulk  these  had  increased  beyond  expectation.     The  growth 

1  Fish,  Th  Civil  Service  and  the  Patronage,  13&-140,  183. 


284  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

of  cotton  production  and  of  its  consumption  in  Europe  had 
made  that  commodity  one  of  the  leading  features  of  inter- 
Character  of  national  trade.  Europe  had  passed  the  point 
our  commerce  ^f  self -sufficiency  in  food  supply,  and  drew 
more  and  more  from  our  farms.  The  development  of  our 
manufactures  rendered  a  corresponding  increase  in  our  im- 
ports unnecessary,  and  for  the  first  time  the  balance  of  direct 
trade  was  in  our  favor.  The  indirect  trade  was  of  steadily 
diminishing  significance;  our  exports  of  foreign  goods  in  1836 
amounted  to  about  fifteen  per  cent  of  our  total  exports,  in 
1856  to  about  five  per  cent  only.  This  did  not  mean  that 
we  imported  fewer  of  such  articles  of  trade  as  Chinese  silks 
and  teas;  it  meant  that  we  kept  them. 

This  commercial  prosperity  was  shared  by  the  merchant 
marine.  Seventy-five  per  cent  of  our  imports  and  exports 
Merchant  were  carried  in  American  vessels,  and  owing 

marme  ^^  ^j^^  bulky  character  of  the  exports,  this  meant 

an  immense  tonnage.  By  1860  we  had  surpassed  Great 
Britain,  Maintained  since  1828  on  a  basis  of  equal  treat- 
ment as  to  port  and  customs  regulations  in  the  case  of  nearly 
all  countries,  our  merchant  marine  was  also  fostered  by  the 
government,  which  not  only  continued  the  bounties  on  fish- 
ing but  inaugurated  in  1846  a  short-lived  policy  of  subsidies 
to  assist  in  our  competition  for  the  fast-mail  traffic.  The 
subsidies  were,  however,  discontinued  before  the  end  of  this 
period.^ 

Chiefly,  however,  the  energy  of  the  government  was  dis- 
played in  preparing  the  way  for  commerce  by  means  of  di- 
Commercial  plomacy.  Between  1845  and  1861  the  United 
treaties  States  continued  her  policy  of  making  Amer- 

ican commerce  respected  by  enforcing  the  claims  of  her 
citizens,  mainly  for  injuries  to  person  and  property  received 
in  Spanish- American  countries.  The  integrity  of  commerce 
she  better  assured  by  the  formation  of  extradition  treaties 
with  most  of  the  German  states,  Austria,  France  with  whom 
1  Coman,  Industrial  Bistory,  264-266. 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      285 

a  first  treaty  on  the  subject  had  been  made  in  1843,  Sweden 
and  Norway,  Colombia,  and  the  Two  Sicilies.  First  treaties 
of  commerce  were  made  in  Europe  with  Belgium,  Mecklen- 
burg-Schwerin,  Oldenburg,  and  Switzerland;  in  Spanish 
America  with  the  Argentine  Republic  and  Paraguay,  as  well 
as  with  Bolivia  and  Peru,  which  had  now  separated,  and 
with  Costa  Rica,  Guatemala,  and  Salvador,  which  had  for- 
merly been  included  in  our  general  treaty  with  Central 
America.  In  the  near  East  we  made  a  first  treaty  with 
Persia. 

The  most  important  commercial  treaty  was  that  nego- 
tiated by  Marcy,  in  1854,  with  Great  Britain  in  behalf  of 
Canada.  Some  disputed  problems  regarding  Reciprocity 
the  fisheries  were  submitted  to  adjudication,  ^^  Canada 
which  in  most  cases  resulted  in  interpretations  favorable  to 
us.  The  reciprocal  rights  of  inshore  fishing  and  of  free  im- 
port of  fish  intentionally  offset  each  other,  as  the  first  was 
in  our  favor,  the  second  an  advantage  to  Canada.  It  also 
reciprocally  exchanged,  subject  to  a  reservation  of  rights, 
the  navigation  of  Lake  Michigan  by  the  British  for  that  of 
the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  canals  between  the  Great  Lakes 
and  the  ocean  by  the  Americans.  The  arrangement  was 
for  twelve  years.  ^ 

The  most  interesting  field  for  diplomatic  effort,  however, 
was  the  Pacific.  That  ocean  was  filled  with  our  shipping. 
The  whale  fishery  was  at  its  height,  whale  oil  Trade  in  the 
was  the  most  prized  illuminant,  and  we  were  the  ^^^^^ 
foremost  nation  in  the  pursuit.  The  whalers,  often  three  years 
away  from  home,  were  forced  to  frequent  the  islands  and 
coasts  of  the  whole  ocean,  and  the  American  flag  became 
everywhere  familiar.  Amid  these  sturdy  little  craft  shifting 
nervously  about,  following  their  quarry,  passed  the  superb 
clippers,  whose  voyages,  never  deviating,  from  New  York  to 

^  Chalfant  Robinson,  A  History  of  Two  Reciprocity  Treaties  [New  Haven, 
1904];  C.  D.  Allin  and  G.  M.  Jones,  Annexation,  Preferential  Trade,  and 
Reciprocity,  Toronto,  [1912]. 


286  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Canton  could  be  measured  almost  to  the  day,  to  whom  disas- 
ter was  a  word  almost  unknown.  Sailing  with  the  others  to 
the  Horn,  but  then  hugging  the  west  coast  of  South  America, 
had  lately  come  the  nondescript  fleet  bearing  adventurers 
to  the  newly  discovered  gold  mines  of  California.  From 
the  Isthmus  up,  the  number  increased,  and  the  Caribbean 
was  livelier  than  ever  with  vessels  carrying  from  the  Isthmus 
to  the  United  States  the  goods  brought  down  to  its  Pacific 
ports,  and  to  the  Isthmus  those  from  the  United  States  des- 
tined for  California.  The  occasional  wrecking  of  American 
vessels  on  the  ocean  coasts,  as  in  Japan,  the  employment  of 
islanders  (Kanakas)  on  our  vessels,  and  the  use  of  Kanakas 
and  Chinese  labor  on  the  Pacific  slope  added  material  for 
diplomacy. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  these  growing  in- 
terests fructifying  into  treaty  relations.  In  1849  a  first 
Treaties  with  treaty  of  friendship  and  commerce  was  made 
Pacific  powers  ^^^.j^  ^j^^  kingdom  of  Hawaii,  in  1850,  one 
with  the  sultan  of  Brunei  in  Borneo.  In  1856  a  new  treaty 
was  made  with  Siam.  In  1858  a  treaty  with  China  very 
much  increased  the  opportunities  in  that  empire  which  had 
been  offered  to  us  by  the  treaty  of  1844.  In  particular  it 
granted  religious  freedom  in  China,  and  provided  that  "any 
person,  whether  citizen  of  the  United  States  or  Chinese 
convert,  who,  according  to  these  tenets,  peaceably  teach  and 
practice  the  principles  of  Christianity,  shall  in  no  case  be 
interfered  with  or  molested."  In  1854  a  treaty  opened  up 
the  tightly  closed  islands  of  Lew  Chew;  but  most  important 
of  all  was  that  made  in  the  same  year  by  Commodore  Mat- 
thew Perry  with  the  empire  of  Japan,  which,  till  then  closed 
for  generations  to  the  outside  world,  dates  its  new  life  from 
that  event.  This  treaty  was  followed  by  others  in  1857  and 
1858,  the  ratification  of  these  last  being  exchanged  with  a 
pomp  and  circumstance  at  Washington,  by  a  special  embassy 
from  Japan,  which  did  much  to  arouse  popular  interest. 

A  more  special  endeavor  of  American  diplomacy  during 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      287 

this  period  was  to  establish  the  principle,  to  which  we  were 
now  fully  committed,  of  the  free  use  of  international  rivers 
and  narrow  waterways.  One  of  the  most  im-  Free  use  of 
portant  of  such  straits  was  the  sound  between  waterways 
Denmark  and  Sweden,  for  the  passage  of  which  Denmark 
charged  dues.  About  one  hundred  of  our  vessels  passed 
through  every  year,  paying  on  an  average  about  ^  .  . 
a  thousand  dollars  apiece.  Against  this  we  had 
long  protested,  and  finally  in  1855  we  abrogated  our  treaty  with 
Denmark.  Our  action  was  widely  approved,  and  Denmark 
herself  suggested  a  convention  to  discuss  the  matter.  She 
finally  agreed  to  give  up  her  right  or  claim  upon  the  payment 
of  a  lump  sum,  of  which  our  share  was  about  a  million  dollars. 
We  declined  thus  to  recognize  the  existence  of  her  right  by 
paying  for  its  surrender,  and  in  1857  established  our  point 
in  a  new  treaty  by  which  we  agreed  to  pay  about  four  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  in  consideration  of  Denmark's  service 
in  lighting  and  buoying  the  channel.  Meantime  we  were 
urging  the  countries  of  South  America  to  open  to  the  world 
the  navigation  of  La  Plata  and  its  branches  South  Amer- 
and  of  the  Amazon,  broad  streams  flowing  ^cannvers 
past  several  countries,  and  the  former  indeed  the  only  outlet 
for  Paraguay  and  for  most  of  Bolivia.  These  two  countries 
were  naturally  willing  to  accede  to  our  principle,  and  in  1853 
the  Argentine  Republic  opened  the  Parana  and  Uruguay, 
the  essential  feeders  of  La  Plata.  Brazil,  however,  remained 
obdurate,  and  was  the  centre  of  an  active  diplomatic  pres- 
sure throughout  the  period.^ 

Analogous  to  this  subject  was  our  controversy  with  Great 
Britain  as  to  the  limits  of  marine  territorial  jurisdiction  within 
bays  more  than  six  miles  across.     The  ques-     «   -x. 
tion  was  brought  up  by  the  seizure  of  our  fish-    ritorial  juris- 
ing  vessels  within  such  bays,  and  in  1853  was 
submitted  to  arbitration.     The  decision  was  on  the  whole 

1  Schuyler,   American  Dtplomaq/,   265-366;  T.  J.   Page,   La  Plata,  the 
Argentine  Confederation,  and  Paraguay,  New  York,  1859. 


288  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

in  our  favor,  thus  marking  another  step  toward  the  freeing 
of  the  world's  waters  for  general  use. 

Prevalence  and  expectation  of  peace  on  our  part  did  not 
cause  us  to  lose  our  interest  in  the  international  law  of  war. 
International  In  1854,  indeed,  we  again  became  a  neutral 
cooperation  owing  to  the  Crimean  war  between  Russia  and 
Great  Britain,  France,  Sardinia,  and  Turkey.  As  usual,  our 
shipping  was  involved;  J.  M.  Forbes  of  Boston  made  a  for- 
tune by  helping  provision  Sevastopol.  The  enlistment  of 
British  subjects  resident  in  America  violated  our  position  as  a 
neutral,  and  led  to  a  long  controversy  between  Marcy  and  the 
British  minister,  Crampton,  whom  we  ultimately  dismissed. 
Whenever  possible,  we  endeavored  to  advance  our  views  as 
to  the  rights  and  duties  of  neutrality  in  our  general  treaties, 
and  we  made  two  specially  on  the  subject,  one  with  Russia 
in  1854  and  one  with  the  Two  Sicilies  in  1855.  Yet,  though 
we  had  long  desired  an  international  agreement  on  such 
matters,  we  refused  to  co-operate  in  the  most  hopeful  move- 
ment which  had  ever  appeared.  In  the  Declaration  of  Paris 
of  1856,  by  which  the  principal  nations  of  the  world  agreed 
to  our  long-maintained  doctrine  that  free  ships  make  free 
goods,  that  neutral  goods  in  enemies'  ships  are  free,  and  that 
blockades  to  be  legal  must  be  effective,  we  refused  to  join. 
Marcy  gave  as  his  reason  our  desire  to  exempt  from  capture 
all  private  property  at  sea,  except  when  used  in  violating 
the  laws  of  blockade  and  of  contraband.  We  also  objected 
to  the  first  article  of  the  Declaration,  which  abolished  pri- 
vateering. With  our  large  merchant  marine  and  small  navy, 
it  would  have  been  a  disadvantage  to  us  to  surrender  the 
right  of  commissioning  our  private  vessels,  unless  we  were 
compensated  by  the  freedom  of  movement  in  time  of  war 
which  the  principle  of  immunity  of  enemies'  goods  in  enemies' 
vessels  would  give.  Nevertheless,  the  Declaration  marked 
an  important  step  toward  that  view  of  neutral  rights  upon 
which  we  had  always,  except  perhaps  while  Pickering  was 
secretary  of  state,  insisted. 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,  1848-1861       289 

The  position  of  our  naturalized  citizens  began  to  be  so 
important  as  to  force  our  statesmen  to  adjust  our  legal 
theories  the  better  to  protect  them.  The  rising  gx^^^  # 
tide  of  immigration  which  the  lessening  of  the  uraKzed  dti- 
European  food  supply  and  revolutions,  indus- 
trial and  political,  were  impelling,  and  our  redoubled  pros- 
perity was  attracting  to  our  shores,  now  that  ocean  transpor- 
tation was  more  rapid,  brought  up  the  question  with  almost 
every  country  in  Europe.  The  fact  that  these  naturaUzed  citi- 
zens had  votes  made  the  question  political.  The  seizure  of 
Martin  Koszta,  a  Hungarian  revolutionist  who  had  declared 
his  intention  of  becoming  an  American  citizen,  in  Turkish 
waters  by  an  Austrian  war  ship  brought  the  problem  to  a 
head  in  1854.  Urged  to  drastic  action  by  Congress,  Marcy 
cleverly  based  his  case  on  accepted  international  law,  but  he 
added  generous  phrases  on  American  citizenship,  and  he  se- 
cured the  return  of  Koszta.  The  public  believed  he  had  es- 
tablished a  precedent  for  the  theory  that  one  of  man's  inalien- 
able rights  is  that  of  changing  his  nationality.  All  party 
platforms  began  to  contain  assertions  that  it  is  "the  duty 
of  the  United  States  to  afford  ample  and  complete  protection 
to  all  its  citizens,  whether  at  home  or  abroad,  and  whether 
native  or  foreign."  Nevertheless  nothing  tangible  was  ac- 
complished. Foreign  nations  still  clung,  though  with  differing 
modifications,  to  the  theory  of  indefeasible  allegiance,  and 
our  own  government  was  not  committed  to  the  opposite.^ 

While  these  problems  of  the  past  and  the  future  were  not 
neglected,  the  special  task  of  this  period  received  due  at- 
tention. With  the  extension  of  our  population  pj^y^Qj  ^f 
to  the  Pacific  coast,  the  question  of  transpor-  transcontinen- 
tation  between  the  East  and  the  new  West 
assumed  an  importance  almost  as  great  as  that  of  an  outlet 
for  the  Mississippi  valley  had  possessed  until  the  purchase 
of  Louisiana.  Our  territory  was  continuous,  but  the  titanic 
bulk  of  the  Rockies,  the  aridity  of  the  western  plains,  and 
^  Moore,  American  Di-plomacy,  168-199. 


290  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  vastness  of  the  distances  rendered,  not  indeed  communi- 
cation, but  trajQBc  by  our  own  roads  impossible.  All  the  easier 
routes  lay  in  foreign  countries,  and  to  secure  the  use  of  them 
was  the  duty  of  diplomacy. 

The  favorite  idea  of  the  later  fifties  was  that  of  a  railroad. 
Experts  decided  that  the  best  line  was  to  the  south,  involving 
Gadsden  the  use   of  Mexican  territory;   but  to  trust 

*''***y  such  an   enterprise,  which  must  be  launched 

with  government  aid,  to  the  protection  of  that  still  distracted 
nation  seemed  impossible.    Finally,  by  the  manipulation  of  / 
a  boundary  dispute  and  a  liberal  use  of  money,  a  treaty/ 
was  arranged  in  1853  by  James  Gadsden  which  granted  us  i 
the  territory  needed  in  northern  Mexico,  in  return  for  a  pay-  1 
ment  of  ten  million  dollars.    By  the  same  treaty  we  secured 
the  equal  use,  even  for  the  passage  of  troops,  of  the  isthmus  >/ 
of  Tehuantepec,  over  which,  the  earlier  plan  for  a  canal 
having  been  given  up,  it  was  hoped  to  run  a  railroad. 

A  real  transcontinental  railroad,  however,  was  during 
this  period  merely  a  rather  wild  hope.  The  more  practical 
Importance  of  improvement  of  the  situation  lay  in  a  canal 
American  across  one  of  the  narrower  isthmuses,  as  that 

isthmuses  Qf  Panama  or  of  Nicaragua,  entirely  outside 

of  our  own  territory.  Even  as  things  were,  the  greater  bulk 
of  our  commerce  and  travel  from  coast  to  coast  passed  over 
these  isthmuses,  and  its  protection  was  a  national  obliga- 
tion. 

The  importance  of  these  points  at  which  the  two  great 
oceans  approached  each  other  so  closely  had  been  appreciated 
Formulation  of  from  the  time  of  their  discovery;  it  had  been 
our  policy  more  and  more  appreciated  as  it  became  clear 

that  except  here  the  two  continents  stretched  continuous 
and  immense  from  the  Arctic  ice  almost  to  that  of  the  Ant- 
arctic. Charles  V  had  considered  the  possibility  of  a  canal. 
Miranda  had  envisaged  their  international  status,  and, 
liberal  with  his  paper  kingdom,  had  offered  them  to  the  free 
use  of  commerce.    Clay,  in  his  instructions  to  the  delegates 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      291 

to  the  Panama  Congress,  had  said  of  the  isthmus  there,  "The 

benefits  of  it  ought  not  to  be  exclusively  appropriated  to  any 

one  nation,  but  should  be  extended  to  all  parts  of  the  globe." 

We  did  not  quite  venture  to  claim  this  as  a  right  analogous 

to  that  of  navigating  narrow  waterways;  but  the  principle 

was  similar,  and  formed  the  basis  of  our  policy. 

To  turn  this  policy  into  action,  desire  for  immediate  use 

was  necessary.     Our  first  step  was  to  draft  a  treaty  with 

New  Granada  or  Colombia  in  1844,  after  the    ^ 

_.  .  .  Guarantee     of 

Oregon  migration  had  begun.     Tliis  arrange-    the    neutrality 

ment  was  never  accepted,  and  another  treaty 
was  drawn  up  in  1846.  It  provided  absolute  equality  of  use 
for  the  commerce  and  the  citizens  of  both  countries;  "and," 
it  went  on,  "in  order  to  secure  to  themselves  the  tranquil 
and  constant  enjoyment  of  these  advantages,  and  as  an  es- 
pecial compensation  for  the  said  advantages — the  United 
States  guarantee,  positively  and  efficaciously,  to  New  Gran- 
ada— the  perfect  neutrality  of  the  before-mentioned  isthmus, 
with  the  view  that  the  free  transit  from  the  one  to  the  other 
sea  may  not  be  interrupted — and,  in  consequence,  the 
United  States  also  guarantee,  in  the  same  manner,  the  rights 
of  sovereignty  and  property  which  New  Granada  has  and 
possesses  over  the  said  territory."  Polk  defended  this  guar- 
antee on  the  ground  that  the  interests  of  the  United  States 
were  highly  involved,  that  capital  would  not  be  invested 
without  such  security,  and  that  New  Granada  would  not 
grant  us  the  needed  rights  on  other  terms. ^ 

With  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California  and  the  influx  of 
population  that  followed,  the  situation  became  more  press- 
ing, and  a  canal  seemed  an  immediate  prob-     The    Nicara- 
ability.    The  advantages  of  the  route  through    ^*°  ''°"*® 
Nicaragua  over  that  at  Panama  were,  however,  coming  to  be 

1  W.  F.  Johnson,  Four  Centuries  of  the  Panama  Canal,  New  York,  1906; 
J.  H.  Latane,  The  Diplomatic  Relations  of  the  United  States  and  Spanish 
America  (Baltimore,  1900),  176-220;  L.  M.  Keasbey,  The  Nicaragua  Canal 
and  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  New  York,  etc.,  1896. 


292  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

strongly  urged.^  By  the  organizing  ability  of  Commodore 
Vanderbilt,  that  route  came  to  be  the  more  frequented,  and 
arrangements  for  its  protection  became  necessary.  At  this 
point  we  once  more  encountered  our  constant  rival.  Great 
Influence  of  Britain.  She  must  supply  a  portion  at  least 
Great  Britain  q£  ^j^g  capital  required,  and  she  was  in  the  pos- 
session of  certain  special  interests  that  seemed  to  many  in 
1849  to  give  her  control  of  the  situation.  Of  these  the  first 
was  the  settlement  of  Belize,  now  British  Honduras,  an  an- 
cient logwood-cutting  establishment  with  elastic  boundaries. 
Englishmen  also  were  living  on  the  islands  of  the  Bay  of  Hon- 
duras. Moreover,  Great  Britain  had  a  protectorate,  vague 
but  of  long  standing,  over  the,  considering  the  trouble  they 
gave  for  forty  years,  appropriately  named  Mosquito  Indians. 
Since  these  Indians  were  claimed  as  subjects  by  Nicaragua, 
the  situation  was  similar  to  that  which  would  have  existed 
in  the  United  States  when  Great  Britain  was  intriguing  with 
our  Indians,  had  the  United  States  been  as  weak  as  Nicar- 
agua was.  The  Indians  professed  to  own  the  mouth  of  the 
St.  Juan  river,  the  first  step  in  the  overland  journey;  in  1848 
the  British  seized  its  port,  Greytown,  as  Mosquito  territory.^ 
Under  these  circumstances,  Clayton  began  negotiations 
with  Sir  Henry  Lytton  Bulwer.  Fearing  a  British  protest, 
Clayton-  he  failed  to  press  treaties  made  without  gov- 

Bulwer  treaty  ernment  authorization  by  our  representatives 
in  Nicaragua  and  Honduras  which  promised  us  exclusive 
rights  there,  and  considered  himself  fortunate  to  have  the 
matter  taken  up  on  a  basis  of  equality.  On  April  14,  1850, 
Clayton  and  Bulwer  agreed  to  a  treaty  which  provided  that 
neither  the  United  States  nor  Great  Britain  was  to  exercise 
any  exclusive  control  over  any  canal  that  might  be  con- 
structed, that  no  fortifications  should  be  erected  to  command 

'  D.  K.  Pangbom,  "A  Journey  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco  in  1850," 
Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1903,  ix.  104-115. 

*  I.  D.  Travis,  History  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  Treaty,  Michigan  Political 
Science  Assoc.,  Publications,  1900,  iii.  No.  8. 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      293 

it,  and  that  neither  party  should  colonize  or  assume  or  exer-  / 
cise  dominion  over  any  part  of  Central  America.     The  ' 
prospective  canal  was  to  be  absolutely  neutral,  even  in  case  of 
war  between  the  two  countries;  and  this  neutrality  was  mu- 
tually guaranteed,  other  nations  being  invited  to  join  in  / 
maintaining  it.    These  general  principles  were  also  extended 
to  all  the  other  isthmuses  of  the  region. 

The  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  was  at  once  attacked  as  a  viola- 
tion of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Buchanan  declared  that  it 
established  the  doctrineagainst  ourselves  rather  The  Clajrton- 
than  against  European  governments.  The  and^Uie  Mon- 
Democratic  platform  of  1856  said,  "We  can,  "«  Doctrine 
under  no  circumstances,  surrender  our  preponderance  in  the 
adjustment  of  all  questions  arising  out  of  [interoceanic  com- 
munication]." Though  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether 
John  Quincy  Adams  would  thus  have  admitted  Great  Britain 
to  equal  partnership,  it  may  be  observed  that  the  invidious- 
ness  of  this  partnership  might  have  been  somewhat  amel- 
iorated had  other  nations  accepted  the  invitation  to  join  in 
the  guarantee.  Adams's  second  and  more  practical  objection 
to  cooperating  with  Canning  in  1823  had  been  that  his  own 
country  wished  to  acquire  territory  and  Canning's  did  not. 
In  Clayton's  case,  the  long-expressed  intention  of  the  United 
States  was  to  acquire  nothing  which  all  the  nations  of  the 
globe  could  not  share  with  us,  the  free  use  of  the  isthmus 
and  its  improvement.  Subsequently  we  changed  our  minds 
on  this  latter  point,  and  the  treaty  became  an  obstacle. 

The  fundamental  question  was,  however,  lost  sight  of 
through  the  irritating  failure  of  Great  Britain  to  live  up  to 
the  spirit  of  the  treaty.  Clayton  acknowledged,  p  «  r  tral- 
before  ratification,  that  Belize  should  not  be  American  ne- 
regarded  as  part  of  Central  America, — a  sensi- 
ble decision,  as  this  was  one  of  Great  Britain's  oldest  Amer- 
ican settlements.  This,  however,  did  not  content  England, 
who  continued  to  uphold  and  extend  her  interests  in  the 
region  that  was  undoubtedly  covered  by  the  term  Central 


294 


AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 


America.  She  continued  to  exercise  her  protectorate  over 
the  Mosquitoes  and  began  to  organize  a  government  in  the 
Bay  Islands.  In  so  doing  she  was  not  even  justified  by  any 
deep-laid  scheme  of  villainy,  it  was  mere  needless  trouble- 
making.  Her  excuse,  that  the  self-denying  section  of  the 
treaty  was  prospective  and  not  mandatory,  could  not  bear 
examination  in  light  of  the  text  of  the  treaty,  "assume  or 


ISTHMIAN  CONTROVERSIES 


exercise  dominion  over."  Webster  and  Everett  handled  the 
case  over  delicately,  and  Great  Britain  continued  in  posses- 
sion of  what  she  claimed  were  her  rights.  Pierce  sent  Bu- 
chanan to  England  charged  with  the  matter,  but  in  the  opin- 
ion of  the  latter  the  decision  to  treat  Canadian  questions 
separately  at  Washington  rendered  a  settlement  impossible. 
The  incoming  of  Lord  Palmerston  as  Prime  Minister  in  1855, 
brought  an  English  administration  prone  to  indulge  in  the 
art  of  bluff  into  opposition  with  an  American  administration 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      295 

with  similar  characteristics.  The  nervous  feared  war,  though 
neither  side  intended  to  fight.  The  American  bluff  won,  as 
has  usually  been  the  case  in  games  of  that  character  with  the 
mother  country.  In  1856  Buchanan's  successor,  Dallas,  ar- 
ranged with  Lord  Clarendon  that  Great  Britain  should  with- 
draw her  protectorate  of  the  Mosquitoes  and  surrender  her 
control  of  the  Bay  islands  which  were  to  become  a  practically 
independent  state,  though  nominally  under  Honduras,  and 
that  the  boundary  of  Belize  should  be  definitely  fixed.  This 
convention  was  not  formally  accepted;  but  in  1860  Great 
Britain  acted  upon  its  terms,  and  Buchanan,  in  his  annual 
message  of  the  same  year,  announced  his  satisfaction.* 

The  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  lying  between  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain,  referred  only  to  their  joint  policy 

toward  any  isthmian  canal  that  might  be  con-     _.      _    ^    * 
*'  ®      .  The  extent  of 

structed.  Arrangements  for  construction,  and  our  accom- 
for  the  protection  of  traffic  before  the  canal 
was  built,  must  be  made  with  the  several  countries  concerned. 
Under  the  protection  of  the  Colombian  treaty  of  1846  a  rail- 
road was  built  over  the  Panama  route  in  1856,  an  arrangement 
that  proved  reasonably  satisfactory  and  drew  the  trade  from 
Nicaragua.  Since,  upon  investigation,  the  project  of  a  canal 
seemed  too  immense  an  undertaking  to  be  practicable,  it  was 
dropped,  and  diplomacy  went  little  farther.  A  treaty  was 
made  with  Nicaragua  in  1856,  but  was  not  ratified.  With 
Honduras,  whose  isthmus  presented  another  possible  thor- 
oughfare, none  was  made.  Up  to  the  Civil  war,  therefore, 
the  achievements  of  diplomacy  toward  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  transcontinental  transit  consisted  of  the  formu- 
lation of  a  policy,  with  the  securing  of  the  free  use  of  Panama 
for  our  commerce  and  travel,  of  Tehuantepec  for  commerce, 
travel,  and  troops,  and  of  a  route  for  a  railroad  through  the 
Gadsden  Purchase. 

^  The  best  account  of  this  episode  is  that  in  Anglo-American  Itthmian 
Diplomacy,  1815-1914,  by  M.  W.  Williams,  1914. 


296  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

It  was  not,  however,  upon  these  routine  problems  and 
these  solid  accomplishments  that  public  attention  centred. 
Interest  in  ex-  but  upon  what  proved  at  the  time  to  be  the 
pansion  will-o'-the-wisp  of  expansion.     The   first   in- 

stance  arose  from  the  chaos   of  the  Mexican  war.     On 
April  29,  1848,  Polk  informed  Congress  that  the  government 
of  Yucatan,  which  claimed  to  be  independent  of 
Mexico,  was  in  deadly  peril  from  Indians  and 
requested  protection  and  annexation,  that  similar  appeals 
had  been  sent  to  Great  Britain  and  Spain.    He  declared  that 
action  by  those  powers  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  Mon-  V 
roe  Doctrine,  and  that  to  prevent  it  we  must  ourselves  assume 
the  burden.    Although  nothing  came  of  this  proposition,  for 
Mexico  and  Yucatan  became  reconciled,  it  is  nevertheless 
of  interest  because  Polk  made  use  of  it  to  add  the  first  corol-  / 
lary  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine, — namely,  our  duty  to  occupy  ^ 
territory  if  necessary  to  prevent  the  introduction  of  the 
European  political  system, — and  to  enunciate  the  principle 
of  the  white  man's  burden.^ 

Equally  futile  were  the  not  entirely  haphazard  attempts  of 

William  Walker,  between  1855  and  1858,  to  secure  control  of 

„,  Nicaragua  and  bring  it  into  the  United  States. 

Nicaragua  ...  ,  .  . 

Again  it  is  the  comment  of  the  President  which 

renders  the  matter  interesting.  January  7,  1858,  Buchanan 
announced  to  Congress:  "It  is  beyond  question  the  destiny 
of  our  race  to  spread  themselves  over  the  continent  of  North 
America,  and  this  at  no  distant  day  should  events  be  per- 
mitted to  take  their  natural  course.  The  tide  of  emigrants 
will  flow  to  the  south,  and  nothing  can  eventually  arrest  its 
progress.  If  permitted  to  go  there  peacefully.  Central  Amer- 
ica will  soon  contain  an  American  population  which  will  con- 
fer blessings  and  benefits  as  well  upon  the  natives  as  their 
respective  Governments  .  .  .  whilst  the  different  transit 
routes  across  the  Isthmus  .  .  .  will  have  assured  protec- 

^  Calhoun,  Works,  iv.  478-479;  Eligio  Anacona,  Historia  de  Yucatan  deade 
la  Spoca  mas  remota,  iv.  15-170;  W.  O.  Scroggs,  Filibusters  and  Financiers 
(New  York,  1916). 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      297 

tion.  .  .  .  Had  one-half  the  number  of  American  citizens 
who  have  miserably  perished  in  the  first  disastrous  expedi- 
tion of  General  Walker  settled  in  Nicaragua  as  peaceful 
emigrants,  the  object  which  we  all  desire  would  ere  this 
have  been  in  a  great  degree  accomplished."  ^ 

Buchanan  was  not  unaware  that  Mexico  lay  between  the 
United  States  and  Central  America.  In  1848  he  had  come  to 
sympathize  with  the  popular  desire   for   all  . 

Mexico.  As  President,  he  looked  with  distress 
upon  her  growing  disorder,  and  despaired  of  her  ability  to 
govern  herself.  In  1859  he  said,  "She  is  now  a  wreck  upon 
the  ocean,  drifting  about  as  she  is  imi)elled  by  different  fac- 
tions." Foreign  vultures  were  awake.  Our  claims  had  again 
accumulated.  He  recommended  that  he  be  granted  author- 
ity to  take  possession  of  "  a  suflSlcient  portion  of  the  remote 
and  unsettled  territory  of  Mexico,  to  be  held  in  pledge." 
Congress,  however,  failed  him. 

Marcy's  treaty  of  annexation  with  Hawaii,  in  1854,  raised 
still  another  point,  by  tacitly  including  those  islands  within 
the  sphere  of  influence  of  the  American  con-    „ 
tinents.     Although  the  treaty  did  not  succeed, 
we  continued  to  maintain  the  principle  of  a  dominant  in- 
fluence over  the  group. 

The  chief  treasure  that  we  sought,  however,  was  the  pearl  of 
the  Antilles,  Cuba.  In  1848  it  seemed  to  many  that  the  period 
had  arrived,  predicted  in  Adams's  instructions 
to  Nelson  in  1823,  when  the  annexation  of  Cuba 
to  our  Federal  republic  had  become  "indispensable  to  the 
continuance  and  integrity  of  the  union  itself,"  when  we  could 
cease  our  constant  ward  of  Spain's  sovereignty  and  grasp 
the  prize  ourselves.  The  position  of  the  island,  though  per- 
haps not,  as  was  often  asserted,  essential  to  the  navigation 
of   the   Mississippi,  nevertheless   strategically  commanded 

'  J.  P.  Rhodes,  History  of  the  United  States  (7  vols..  New  York,  1893-1906), 
ii.  242,  288-290.  A  good  account,  as  are  his  descriptions  of  other  diplomatic 
episodes  from  1850  to  1877. 


298  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

much  of  our  commerce.  The  existence  of  slavery  was  an 
inducement  to  annexation  sentiment  in  the  South,  and  the 
fear  of  emancipation  in  Cuba  by  English  influence  affected 
thousands  now  as  it  had  Calhoun  in  the  case  of  Texas.  This 
sectional  interest,  however,  did  more  to  weaken  the  influence 
of  the  nationalistic  argument  in  the  North  than  to  strengthen 
the  cause  in  the  South.  From  1848  the  press  teemed  with 
articles  on  Cuba,  till  that  island  became  more  familiar  to 
Americans  than  any  other  portion  of  Spanish-America  ever 
has  been,  except  itself  again  forty  years  later,  and  Mexico 
since  the  recent  outbreak  of  revolution  there.  This  news- 
paper interest  rested  on  the  diplomatic  situation,  and  not 
on  actual  bonds  between  us  and  Cuba.  Of  tangible  relation- 
ships the  most  important  were  trade  and  the  fact  that  many 
Cubans  sent  their  sons  to  be  educated  in  the  United  States. 
The  real  reason  for  our  change  from  a  passive  to  an  aggres- 
sive policy  was  within  ourselves:  we  felt  able  to  handle  the 
question.^ 

During  the  next  twelve  years  three  methods  of  securing 
Cuba  were  conceived, — by  purchase  from  Spain,  by  conquest 
.  from  Spain,  or  by  annexation  after  a  real  or  a 

forced  revolution.  The  effort  to  apply  the  last 
of  these  means  was  naturally  the  work  of  individuals.  Fili- 
bustering became  the  fashion  of  the  day,  and  engaged  men 
of  social  and  political  standing.  The  Cuban  leader  was 
General  Narcisco  Lopez;  among  the  Americans  the  fore- 
most was  General  Quitman,  a  dashing  hero  of  the  Mexican 
war.  "Cuba  once  free,"  said  the  latter,  "the  regeneration 
of  Mexico  and  of  the  distracted  governments  to  the  south 
of  it  would  follow,  and  a  new  empire,  the  centre  of  the  world's 
production  and  commerce,  governed  by  the  great  principle 
of  unrestricted  free  trade,  would  soon  be  established."    Such 

*  A  bibliography  of  Cuba  has  been  published  (1898)  by  the  Library  of 
Congress,  as  is  customary  when  such  questions  assume  general  importance. 
There  are  similar  bibliographies  on  the  Interoceanic  Canal,  Hawaii,  Neutral- 
ity (1914),  etc.  The  most  nearly  complete  account  of  this  period  is  J.  M. 
Callahan,  Cuba  and  International  Relations,  Baltimore,  1899. 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,  1848-1861      299 

movements  were  widely  heralded  by  the  press,  and  in  New 
Orleans  and  New  York  expeditions  were  openly  fitted  out. 
Spain  was  naturally  alarmed.  We  assured  her  that  our 
neutrality  laws  would  be  enforced,  but  to  at  least  one  of  the 
invasions,  that  of  1849,  our  state  department  was  privy. 
This  attempt  failed,  as  did  that  of  1850,  in  which  many 
Americans  were  captured,  whose  fate  held  the  country  in 
suspense.  They  were  eventually  pardoned;  but  those  cap- 
tured during  the  unsuccessful  attempt  of  1851  were  shot  in 
cold  blood.  Nevertheless  in  1854  Lopez  led  a  final  band  to 
their  doom,  and  lost  his  own  life.  With  him  died  for  the  time 
the  attempt  to  revolutionize  Cuba. 

Alarmed  by  these  efforts,  in  1851  England  and  France 
ordered  their  navies  to  prevent  the  landing  of  unauthorized 
vessels  in  Cuba,  and  requested  us  to  join  in  a  Everett's  dis- 
tripartite  agreement  to  secure  the  island  to  p**** 
Spain.  It  was  this  request  which  gave  Edward  Everett  his 
opportunity  for  a  dispatch  ringing  with  patriotism,  in  which 
he  asserted  the  primacy  of  our  interests,  our  determination  ^ 
that  no  foreign  power  should  succeed  Spain  in  possession 
of  the  island,  and  our  intention  to  regulate  our  own  conduct 
toward  it  as  we  thought  fit. 

The  failure  of  irregular  attempts  to  secure  it,  coupled  with 
the  assertion  of  our  interest  in  the  island  by  a  man  who 
could  certainly  not  be  regarded  as  a  pro-slavery  advo- 
cate, turned  attention,  if  it  needed  turning,  to  acquisition 
by  more  regular  means.  In  1848  Buchanan  had  offered  to 
buy  it  from  Spain.  In  1852  it  was  proposed  to  link  its  an- 
nexation with  that  of  Canada  as  a  Democratic  campaign  is- 
sue; but  the  second  half  of  this  proposition  was  too  risky,  and 
without  some  sop  to  the  North  Cuba  was  not  suited  to  ap- 
peal to  a  nation  sectionalized  as  we  were  at  that  time.  The 
proposal  was  therefore  dropped  and  expansion  was  left  out 
of  the  platform. 

This  fact,  however,  did  not  prevent  the  new  administration 
from  taking  it  up.    Buchanan  advised  Pierce  to  make  Cuban 


300  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

annexation  the  distinctive  measure  of  his  administration,  and 
wished,  as  secretary  of  state,  to  have  the  handhng  of  it. 
Pierce,  preferring  to  gain  the  glory  himself,  sent 
Buchanan  to  England,  and,  unfortunately  for 
his  purposes,  chose  Marcy  as  secretary.  In  his  inaugural  he 
announced  his  purpose.  "The  policy  of  my  administration," 
he  declared,  "will  not  be  controlled  by  any  timid  forebodings 
of  evil  from  expansion.  Indeed,  it  is  not  to  be  disguised  that 
our  attitude  as  a  nation  and  our  position  on  the  globe  render 
the  acquisition  of  certain  possessions  not  within  our  jurisdic- 
tion eminently  important  for  our  protection." 

In  the  spring  of  1854  Pierce  seemed  likely  to  win  Cuba 
by  conquest.  The  Black  Warrior,  a  United  States  merchant 
Black  Warrior  steamer  engaged  in  the  Cuban  trade,  was 
*^*^  seized  by  the  Spanish  customs  officials  for  a 

trifling  violation  of  some  new  port  regulation.  Marcy  in- 
structed Soule,  our  minister  in  Spain,  to  demand  three  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  damages.  Meantime  the  island  au- 
thorities withdrew  from  their  position,  restored  the  vessel, 
and  returned  to  their  former  rules.  Before  this  news,  unas- 
sisted by  cable,  reached  Spain,  however,  Soule  had  acted. 
Intent  on  bringing  about  war,  he  presented  his  demand  as 
an  ultimatum  to  be  answered  in  forty -eight  hours.  His  note, 
nicely  calculated  to  arouse  all  the  Spanish  pride  and  obstinacy, 
produced  its  result,  for  the  answer  met  the  tone  of  the  de- 
mand with  an  eloquent  refusal.  Straightway  public  opinion 
in  the  United  States,  just  quieted  from  the  episode  itself, 
again  took  fire.  General  Quitman,  now  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  moved  that  the  neutrality  laws  be  sus- 
pended and  our  fighting  spirit  let  loose.  Marcy,  however, 
realizing  that  the  situation  did  not  warrant  war,  instructed 
Soulfe  to  take  no  further  steps  in  the  matter.^ 

It  was  decided  to  undertake  the  formulation  of  a  com- 
plete program.   Distrustful  of  Soul6,  Marcy  wrote  to  him  that 

*  H.  L.  Janes,  "The  Black  Warrior  Affair,"  Amer.  Hist.  Review,  1907, 
xii.  280-298. 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      301 

the  President  thought  that  "weight  and  perhaps  efficiency" 
would  be  gained  if  "two  other  of  our  most  distinguished 
citizens"  should  be  associated  with  him.  Renewed  ne- 
These  two  were  James  Buchanan,  minister  to  goti^t^ons 
Great  Britain,  and  John  Y.  Mason,  minister  to  France.  A 
revolution  in  Spain  seemed  to  offer  an  occasion,  and  in  the 
Fall  after  the  Black  Warrior  affair  the  three  met  at  Ostend 
to  formulate  a  policy. 

This  took  the  form  of  the  "Ostend  Manifesto,"  a  declara-  (. 
tion  setting  forth  that  the  position  of  Cuba  made  its  acquisi-  1 
tion   necessary   to   the    United    States.      We     Ostend  Mani- 
should  offer  Spain  one  hundred  and  twenty  ,  *®^*° 
millions  for  it.    If  she  refused  the  offer,  "it  will  then  be  time  / 
to  consider  the  question,  does  Cuba  in  the  possession  of; 
Spain  seriously  endanger  our  internal  peace  and  the  existence^ 
of  our  cherished  union."    This,  it  was  urged,  was  actually 
the  case,  because  emancipation  was  threatened  by  the  over-  ^ 
whelming  influence  of  Great  Britain  on  Spain.    The  situation 
was  similar  to  that  which  existed  when  emancipation  was 
threatened  in  Texas,  but  it  was  more  serious  because  of  the 
number  of  the  Cuban  negroes;  emancipation  meant  "African- 
ization," which  would  be  a  constant  incentive  to  negro  revolt 
in  the  United  States.     "Then,  by  every  law,  human  and 
divine,"  concluded  the  manifesto,  "we  shall  be  justified  in 
wresting  it  from  Spain  if  we  possess  the  power;  and  this  upon 
the  very  same  principle  that  would  justify  an  individual  in 
tearing  down  the  burning  house  of  his  neighbor  if  there  were 
no  other  means  of  preventing  the  flames  from  destroying  his 
own  home."    It  was  another  combination  of  the  arguments 
of   "manifest  destiny"   and  international  nuisance  which 
were  becoming  so  familiar  to  us. 

The  force  of  these  arguments  was,  however,  counteracted 
in  the  United  States  by  the  development  of  the  slavery 
struggle.  Politicians  and  statesmen  alike  were  divided  be- 
tween the  possibility  of  distracting  public  attention  from  in- 
ternal conflict  by  pointing  the  way  to  national  glory,  and  the 


302  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

fear  that  the  sections  would  divide  all  the  more  quickly  in 
fighting  for  the  spoils.  Spain  refused  to  sell,  the  foreign  min- 
Cuba  and  ister  declaring  that  "to  part  with  Cuba  would 

slavery  j^g  ^^  pg^j.|.  ^j^j^  national  honor."    Yet  Marcy 

would  not  follow  the  policy  of  the  manifesto,  and  Congress 
during  the  next  administration  steadily  refused  to  endorse 
Buchanan's  earnest  plans  for  action. 

An  attempt  was  made  to  inject  the  subject  into  the  cam- 
paign of  1860.    Both  branches  of  the  Democracy  declared 

,     in  favor  of  annexation,  upon  terms  "honorable 
Expansion  and  ,  . 

the  failure  of  to  US  and  just  to  Spain."  Although  forced  out 
compromise  t   .->  •         j*  •  -l        j.t.        • 

of  the  campaign  discussions  by  other  issues, 

it  reappeared  conspicuously  between  December,  1860,  and 
March,  1861,  in  the  deliberations  over  the  question  of  com- 
promise. In  fact,  it  was  the  universal  belief  that  we  were 
destined  to  absorb  the  country  to  the  south  of  us,  or  at  least 
that  the  question  of  such  absorption  would  continue  to  be 
pressed,  that  created  the  final  obstacle  to  compromise.  The 
sections  were  able  to  agree  upon  the  status  of  slavery  in  all 
our  then  existing  territory,  but  not  upon  that  in  future 
annexations  to  the  south. 

One  dominant  fact  characterizes  the  period  from  1844 
to  1860, — ^the  national  territory  had  expanded  about  fifty 
Territorial  ex-  per  cent.  The  result  was  our  possession  of  a 
pansion  region    consolidated    and    self-contained,    so 

situated  that  we  could  never  have  a  neighbor,  unless  with 
European  connections,  strong  enough  to  cause  us  anxiety, 
and  giving  us  outlet  on  both  oceans.  To  this  diplomacy 
had  contributed  but  little.  The  people  had  expanded,  diplo- 
macy was  expected  merely  to  justify  and  confirm  their  ac- 
tion. This  it  had  done  with  decided  success.  Never  before 
had  our  boundary  been  so  unquestioned;  only  at  the  ex- 
treme northwestern  corner  was  controversy  still  serious. 
In  its  attempt  to  extend  our  territory  beyond  the  limits 
of  actual  expansion,  however,  diplomacy  had  signally 
failed. 


y 


DIPLOMACY  AND  POLITICS,   1848-1861      803 

Commercially  our  eflForts  had  been  mainly  devoted  to 
securing  equality  of  rights  for  the  shipping  of  all  nations  on 
such  pathways  of  commerce  as  were  indis-  Commercial 
pensable  to  world  trade  but  yet  fell  territorially  *"" 
under  the  jurisdiction  of  some  one  power.  In  this  field  de- 
cided progress  had  been  made,  and  even  the  question  of 
isthmian  transit  seemed  solved.  The  opening  of  Japan  and 
the  increased  use  of  the  Pacific  had  presented  less  difficulty, 
and  our  success  had  been  even  more  marked  and  momentous. 

We  had  definitely  refrained  from  using  our  strength  to 
play  a  part  in  world  politics.  The  question  of  our  diplomatic 
quietude  seemed  to  rest  almost  wholly  with  Prospect  of 
ourselves.  Unless  we  decided  to  press  forward  P®"® 
our  territorial  expansion  beyond  the  limits  which  our  citizens 
actually  occupied,  the  only  important  question  that  remained 
was  that  of  establishing  the  status  of  our  naturalized  citizens 
when  abroad.  When  Lincoln  came  into  office  he  found,  as 
had  Jefferson  and  Jackson,  a  sky  which  seemed  to  be  almost 
clear  of  foreign  complications. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  CIVIL  WAR  ^ 

November  10,  1862,  Lincoln  wrote  to  Carl  Schurz,  "The 
administration  .  .  .  distributed  to  its  party  friends  as  nearly 

all  the  civil  patronage  as  any  administration 
diplomatic  ever  did."    This  was  certainly  no  exaggeration 

of  the  break  in  the  diplomatic  service  which 
the  triumph  of  the  Republican  party  brought  about.  Not 
only  were  those  found  in  office  Democrats,  but  a  very  large 
proportion  were  from  the  South;  for  Buchanan  had  aimed  to 
give  the  slave  states,  not  a  proportional  representation  in 
the  higher  civil  posts,  but  an  equality.  The  almost  complete 
change  in  personnel  was  less  important  than  the  change  in 
weight  and  character.  Until  1861  there  had  never  been  a 
time,  except  for  brief  periods  under  Jackson  and  Taylor,  when 
some  member  of  the  administration  had  not  been  possessed 
of  direct  experience  in  foreign  affairs.  From  1861  until 
John  Hay  became  secretary  of  state  in  1898  the  only  mem- 
bers of  any  administration  who  had  such  experience  were 
Carl  Schurz  under  Hayes,  and  Levi  P.  Morton  and  J.  W. 
Foster  under  Harrison.  While  there  continued  to  be  brilliant 
men  and  occasionally  accomplished  diplomats  in  foreign 
posts,  it  is  obvious  that  they  were  not  called  upon  to  share  in 
the  outlining  of  our  national  foreign  policy.  It  seems  also 
a  safe  conclusion  that  the  aggregate  of  ability  employed  in 

^  For  the  history  of  the  Civil  war,  historians  are  as  much  indebted  to 
the  late  Charles  Francis  Adams,  son  of  the  minister  to  Great  Britain  at 
that  time,  as  they  are  to  Henry  Adams,  another  son,  for  the  diplomacy  of 
the  Napoleonic  period.  His  researches  and  conclusions,  which  have  ap- 
peared in  many  essays,  will  shortly  be  combined  in  his  forthcoming  life  of 
his  father.  Rhodes's  History  of  the  United  States,  vols,  iii.-vii.  is  also  strong 
on  the  diplomatic  side. 

8M 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  305 

diplomacy,  relative  to  that  in  other  forms  of  politics,  was 
not  so  great  as  previously. 

Of  the  men  who  took  charge  in  1861,  Lincoln  was  not  only 
without  diplomatic  experience,  but  without  such  knowledge  of 
American  international  interests  as  most  public 
men  had  previously  possessed.  Fortunately  he 
knew  it,  and  seldom  intervened;  when  he  did,  it  seems  to  have 
been  in  all  cases  beneficially.  His  profound  understanding  of 
human  nature  reached  below  diverging  national  characteris- 
tics and  touched  the  common  basis  of  humanity.  In  a  crisis 
when  public  opinion  so  largely  controlled  the  international 
situation,  such  an  endowment  was  of  inestimable  value. ^ 

His  secretary  of  state,  William  F.  Seward,  was  one  of  the 
most  complex  personalities  of  his  perplexing  generation.  With 
an  absolute  conviction  of  the  ultimate  triumph 
of  what  he  believed  to  be  right,  he  was  perfectly 
ready  to  compromise  principle  for  temporary  convenience. 
Yet  he  was  never  content  to  let  Providence  work  alone,  but 
aided  it  with  all  the  finesse  of  which  his  astute  mind  was 
capable.  With  a  practicality  thus  genially  founded  in  philos- 
ophy, he  nevertheless  at  times  surrendered  himself  to  an 
intellectual  emotionalism  as  dangerous  to  a  man  of  his  re- 
sporisibiUty  as  it  is  useful  to  the  orator.  The  only  such  de- 
flection during  his  diplomatic  career  occurred  at  its  very 
opening.  Before  assuming  office  he  said,  in  an  address  to 
the  New  England  Society  of  New  York,  that  if  we  were  at- 
tacked by  a  foreign  power  "all  the  hills  of  South  Carolina 
would  pour  forth  their  population  to  the  rescue."  Becoming 
secretary,  he  advised,  on  April  1,  1861,  the  development  of 
quarrels  with  Great  Britain  and  France  as  a  means  of  re- 
storing unity  at  home.  Lincoln  made  no  comment,  but 
when,  on  May  21,  he  looked  over  the  draft  of  Seward's  dis- 

^  Abraham  Lincoln,  Complete  Works,  ed.  J.  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay, 
2  vols..  New  York,  1894;  Abraham  Lincoln,  a  History,  by  Nicolay  and  Hay, 
10  vols..  New  York,  1890;  Gideon  Welles,  Lincoln  and  Seward,  New  York, 
1874. 


306  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

patch  to  our  minister  in  England  incorporating  this  policy, 
he  took  the  sting  out  of  it.  He  cut  out  a  reference  to  "that 
hour"  when  we  should  "cease  to  be  friends,  and  become  once 
more,  as  we  have  twice  before  been  forced  to  be,  enemies  of 
Great  Britain";  in  the  description  of  her  conduct  he  changed 
"wrongful"  to  "hurtful";  and  he  added,  "This  paper  is  for 
your  own  guidance  only  and  not  to  be  read  or  shown  to  any 
one."  From  this  time  Seward's  handling  of  affairs  was 
always  competent  and  sometimes  masterly,  though  he  con- 
tinued to  evince  an  even  greater  penchant  for  writing  dip- 
lomatic notes  to  be  read  at  home  than  had  the  secretaries 
of  the  fifties.^ 

The  dispatch  of  May  21,  thus  modified  by  Lincoln,  was 
further  toned  down  by  our  minister,  who  wrote  that  he  "  tried 
to  act  up  to  [his]  instructions  at  the  same  time 
that  [he]  softened  as  well  as  [he]  could  the  sharp 
edges."  The  appointment  of  Charles  Francis  Adams  to  the 
court  of  St.  James  was  as  fortunate,  in  its  lesser  way,  as  the 
election  of  Lincoln  to  the  presidency.  Of  a  family,  education, 
and  manner  to  compel  the  respect  of  the  English,  he  had,  if 
not  the  genius  of  his  father  John  Quincy  Adams,  at  any  rate 
high  ability,  all  the  family  backbone  and  sturdy  Americanism, 
and  added  thereto  a  somewhat  greater  tact.  Treading  a 
path  where  any  slip  was  apt  to  lead  to  war,  and  where  many 
of  those  with  whom  he  associated  hoped  to  see  him  slip,  he 
maintained  himself  immune  from  criticism.  His  business  was 
to  see  that  nothing  happened,  and  his  career  was  marked  by 
many  important  things  that  failed  to  happen. 

Confiding  more  and  more  in  Adams  abroad,  Lincoln  and 
Seward  relied  at  home  chiefly  on  Charles  Sumner.    With  a 
background  of  foreign  travel  and  a  wide  Eng- 
lish acquaintance,  he  became  in  1861  chairman 
of  the  senate  committee  of  foreign  affairs,  a  post  which  he 
held  till  1871.     A  scholar,  with  some  knowledge  of  intema- 

1  Frederick  Bancroft,   The  Life  of  William  H.  Seward  (2  vols..  New 
York,  etc.,  1900),  vol.  ii. 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  307 

tional  law,  and  a  cultured  gentleman,  he  was  a  favorite  with 
the  foreign  diplomats  at  Washington,  who  found  him  the  most 
congenial  of  the  men  high  in  office.  Throughout  the  war  his 
advice  seems  to  have  been  sound  and  useful.^  As  important 
in  routine  matters  as  Sumner  on  critical  occasions  was  Wil- 
liam Hunter,  chief  clerk  of  the  state  depart-    „ 

Hunter 
ment.    Holding  office  from  1829  to  1886,  he 

contributed  a  continuity  of  knowledge  and  practice  the  value 

of  which  it  is  hard  to  exaggerate. 

On  April  12  this  new  administration  found  itself  confronted 

by  a  condition  of  domestic  hostility.    On  April  19,  without 

intending  to  do  so,  it  recognized  that  this  hostil-    _ 

T         1    •   M  X  Blockade 

ity  constituted  civil  war.    It  was  its  purpose  to 

treat  the  movement  as  a  rebellion,  a  purely  domestic  affair. 
The  first  essential,  however,  was  to  cut  off  the  hostile  states 
from  all  connection  with  the  outside  world.  Devoted  to  the 
raising  of  great  staple  crops,  the  South  purchased  many  of 
its  necessities  instead  of  producing  them;  its  commerce  cut 
off,  therefore,  exhaustion  would  be  but  a  matter  of  time. 
Secretary  Welles  thought  that  we  could  accomplish  this  end 
by  declaring  the  ports  closed;  but,  as  we  did  not  hold  the 
ports,  such  a  regulation  would  obviously  have  to  be  enforced 
at  sea.  Accordingly  the  cabinet  decided  upon  a  blockade, 
which  Lincoln  proclaimed  April  19.  In  the  leading  case, 
that  of  the  Amy  Warvnck,  our  own  supreme  court  declared 
that  this  blockade  could  rest  upon  no  other  basis  than  that 
of  a  change  of  status  in  the  South  making  it  enemy's  country, 
and  hence  that  the  government's  act  constituted  a  recogni- 
tion of  belligerency  or  a  state  of  war.  Upon  the  maintenance 
of  this  blockade  depended,  so  far  as  human  judgment  can 
tell,  the  success  of  the  attempt  to  restore  the  Union  by  arms. 
Its  effectiveness,  as  against  the  South,  depended  on  the  navy, 
as  against  foreign  nations,  upon  diplomacy.^ 

» Charles  Sumner,  Works  (15  vols.,  Boston,  1875-83),  vi.  153-242,  474- 
486;  "Letters  of  Richard  Cobden  to  Charles  Sumner,  1862-1865,"  Amer. 
Hist.  Review,  ii.  306-319. 

*  Gideon  Welles,  Diary  (3  vob.,  Boston,  etc.,  1911),  i.  165, 172  3. 


308  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

The  United  States  now  found  herself  in  the  reverse  of  the 
situation  that  she  had  occupied  during  the  Napoleonic  wars: 
Maintenance  she  was  now  interested  in  the  rights  of  bel- 
of  blockade  Ijgerents  rather  than  in  the  rights  of  neutrals. 
This  change  of  position  did  not  lead  to  a  change  of  policy, 
but  to  a  change  of  stress.  We  now  admitted,  as  we  had  pre- 
viously contended,  that  to  be  legal  a  blockade  must  be  effec- 
tively maintained  off  the  ports  blockaded.  Questions  of 
course  arose  as  to  the  definition  of  effective,  but  on  the  whole 
the  navy  relieved  the  diplomatic  department  of  any  great 
anxiety  on  this  point.  The  blockade,  at  least  after  1861, 
was  reasonably  efficient.^ 

Still,  it  was  not  proof  against  the  alert  blockade-runner 
willing  to  take  the  risk  of  capture.  It  became  the  custom  to 
Continuous  send  goods  to  and  from  the  Confederacy  by 
voyage  ^^y  ^^  nearby  neutral  ports,  as  Nassau  in  the 

British  Bahamas,  a  device  that  made  the  actual  running  of 
the  blockade  a  short  though  perilous  undertaking.  A  route 
still  safer  was  that  by  way  of  Matamoros,  a  Mexican  port 
just  opposite  Brownville  in  Texas,  but  communication  from 
this  distant  border  to  the  interior  of  the  Confederacy  was  so 
poor,  that  the  volume  of  such  trade  was  small.  To  meet 
this  situation  our  courts  evolved  a  doctrine  of  "continuous 
voyage,"  asserting  that,  if  the  ultimate  destination  of  the 
cargo  was  the  Confederacy,  the  vessel  carrying  it  might  be 
seized  even  on  a  voyage  between  two  neutral  ports,  as  Liver- 
pool and  Nassau.  This  doctrine  somewhat  resembled  that 
applied  by  Sir  William  Scott,  in  the  case  of  the  Essex,  to  our 
trade  between  the  French  West  Indies  and  France.  Its  ap~ 
plication  during  the  Civil  war,  however,  was  confined  to  the 
carrying  of  contraband.  Numerous  cases  occurred  in  the 
Nassau  trade,  as  those  of  the  Dolphin  and  the  Bermuda,  which 
resulted  in  the  condemnation  of  vessel  and  cargo.  In  the 
case  of  the  Springbok  the  cargo  was  condemned,  but  the  ship 

1  H.  L.  Wait,  "The  Blockade  of  the  Confederacy,"  Century,  1898,  xxxiv. 
914-928. 


y 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  809 

was  released  on  the  ground  that  there  was  no  "fraudulent 
connection  on  the  part  of  the  owners  with  the  ulterior  des- 
tination of  the  goods."  A  leading  case  was  that  of  the  Peter- 
hqff,  seized  on  its  way  to  Matamoros.  The  supreme  court 
released  the  vessel  on  the  plea  that  the  blockade  did  not  ap- 
ply to  the  inland  trade  from  Mexico  to  the  Confederacy; 
but  as  this  decision  was  not  rendered  till  1866,  it  did  not 
affect  the  conduct  of  the  war.  On  the  whole,  the  doctrine 
of  "continuous  voyage"  was  acknowledged  by  European 
powers  and  did  something  to  assist  in  the  maintenance 
of  the  blockade,  though  seizures  under  it  were  actually 
few. 

Our  purpose  now  being  to  prevent  commerce  rather  than 
to  prey  upon  it,  we  had  reason  to  regret  our  failure  to  adhere 
to  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  which  had  abolished  Declaration  of 
privateering  among  its  signers.  While  we,  in  ^'^ 
this  new  crisis,  made  use  of  our  merchant  marine  by  pur- 
chasing vessels  and  incorporating  them  into  the  navy,  Jef- 
ferson Davis,  on  his  part,  issued  commissions  to  privateers. 
Seward,  therefore,  promptly  announced  that  we  would  now 
adhere  to  all  the  rules  of  the  Declaration,  without  amend- 
ment. France  and  England,  however,  while  welcoming  our 
adhesion,  properly  reminded  us  that  these  rules  could  not 
be  held  to  apply  to  the  Confederacy,  whereupon  Seward, 
failing  in  his  purpose  to  have  the  Confederate  privateers 
declared  pirates,  withdrew  his  offer  to  join  in  the  agree- 
ment. 

On  the  important  question  of  the  belligerent  right  of 
search  our  position  was  developed  with  the  progress  of  the 
war.     On  the  other  hand,  we  firmly  insisted    ^  ,. 
from  the  beginning  on  a  rigid  interpretation    rights  and 
of  tha  duty  of  neutral  nations  to  prevent  their 
citizens  from  aiding  our  opponents.     With  regard  to  this 
duty,  however,  there  was  no  such  general  concurrence  of 
opinion  as  in  the  case  of  continuous  voyages,  and  the  issue 
was  left  to  the  course  of  diplomacy. 


310  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

As  the  main  purpose  of  the  national  diplomacy  was  to  pre- 
vent interference  with  the  blockade,  so  that  of  the  Con- 
Cotton  as  federate  diplomacy  was  to  break  it  up.  The 
'  ^"^^  situation  had  long  been  regarded  as  possible, 
and  the  South  faced  it  with  confidence.  In  the  twenties  it 
had  been  argued  that,  in  case  of  secession,  the  North  would 
blockade  the  southern  coast  but  that  European  demand  for 
southern  cotton  would  force  the  opening  of  the  ports.  Since 
then  cotton  had  grown  steadily  more  important  to  the  in- 
dustrial life  of  Europe,  till  by  1861  few  southerners  doubted 
that  cotton  was  "king."  Their  strength  lay  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  monopoly  of  a  necessity  of  life.  Complementary 
to  this  club  which  would  compel  Europe  to  intervene  was 
the  inducement  of  free  trade,  which  would  win  the  active 
friendship  of  some  great  maritime  power.  On  December  15, 
1860,  R.  Barnwell  Rhett,  of  whom  the  Times  correspondent, 
William  Russell,  said,  "Rhett  is  also  persuaded ■  that  the 
lord  chancellor  sits  on  a  cotton  bale,"  sought  an  interview 
with  the  British  consul  at  Charleston.  He  offered  a  recip- 
rocal freedom  of  trade  as  an  inducement  for  an  English 
alliance,  and  threatened  that  if  Great  Britain  made  difficul- 
ties the  South  would  seek  France.^ 

To  make  proper  use  of  such  weapons  demanded  a  high 
degree  of  diplomatic  skill.  This  the  South  did  not  evince. 
Jefferson  Davis  attempted  more  of  an  oversight  of  diplomacy 
than  Lincoln  did,  and  failed  to  show  either  Lincoln's  patience 
or  his  good  judgment.    His  secretaries,  R.  M.  T.  Hunter  and 

^  J.  D.  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Confederacy,  i  vols., 
Nashville,  1905;  M.  L.  Bonham,  The  British  Consuls  in  the  Confederacy, 
Columbia  University,  Studies,  xliii.  No.  3;  J.  M.  Callahan,  The  Diplomatic 
History  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  Baltimore,  1901,  and  his  Northern  Lake 
Frontier  during  the  Civil  War,  Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1896,  i.  335-359; 
J.  D.  Bulloch,  The  Secret  Service  of  the  Confederate  States  in  Europe,  2  vols.. 
New  York,  1884,  and  J.  R.  Thompson,  Diary  (accounts  of  Confederate 
naval  agents  in  England);  "Dispatch  from  the  British  Consul  [Robert 
Bunch]  at  Charleston  to  Lord  John  Russell,  [Dec.  15,]  1860,"  Amer.  Hist. 
Review,  1913,  xviii.  783-787;  J.  R.  Soley,  The  Blockade  and  the  Cruisert, 
N.  Y.,  1883. 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  311 

Judah  P.  Benjamin,^  were  both  able  men,  but  by  no  means 

of  the  first  rank.     James  M.  Mason  made  a  good  impression 

in  England  as  Confederate  commissioner  there,     confederate 

but  he  annoyed  her  government  by  undue  per-    diplomatic 

service 
sistence.     John  Slidell  in  France  apparently 

did  what  was  possible,  but  Paris  was  not  the  key  to  the 

situation  as  it  had  been  when  Franklin  had  served  there. 

The  accepted  method  of  making  diplomatic  use  of  cotton 
was  to  prevent  exportation  in  order  to  bring  pressure  to 
bear  upon  the  industrial  classes,  and  through  them  upon  the 
governments  of  Great  Britain  and  France.  This  policy, 
reminding  one  of  Jefferson's  embargo,  may  be  said  to  have  v 
been  enforced  with  rigor:  during  the  four  years  of  war  about 
half  a  million  bales  only  were  exported,  as  against  three 
million  bales  in  1861.  This  disparity,  however,  was  due 
more  to  the  Federal  navy  than  to  the  Confederate  govern- 
ernment,  for  during  most  of  the  war  that  government  despite  y 
its  policy  was  exporting  all  the  cotton  possible  in  order  to 
purchase  necessities.  On  the  whole,  however,  one  may  say 
that  the  cotton  argument  was  applied,  and  that  if  it  did  not 
succeed  failure  was  owing  to  defect  in  the  theory  rather  than 
in  the  detail  of  its  application. 

While  the  main  reliance  of  the  South  for  relief  from  the 
blockade  was  upon  foreign  intervention,  she  hoped  to  use 
her  cotton  actively  as  well.  In  fact,  Alexander  Conuncrce 
H.  Stephens  held  that  all  available  cotton  destroying 
should  be  purchased  by  the  government,  sent  to  Europe, 
held  for  scarcity  prices,  and  the  proceeds  employed  to  build 
a  fleet.  Davis  also  wished  a  foreign  built  fleet,  as  a  sub- 
sidiary weapon  against  the  North  and  because  of  the  weight 
he  believed  it  would  have  with  foreign  nations.  To  circum- 
vent the  neutrality  laws  of  the  great  ship-building  nation, 
Great  Britain,  by  technicality,  fraud,  or  favor,  became  the 
second  great  aim  of  the  diplomatic  force.  The  vessels  thus 
to  be  secured  were  to  be  heavy  fighting  craft  to  break  the 
^  Pierce  Butler,  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  Philadelphia,  [1907]. 


312  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

blockade  and  possibly  to  bombard  northern  ports,  and  fast 
steamers  to  harry  United  States  commerce.  The  latter 
were  to  supplement  the  crowd  of  private  ventures  which 
Davis  somewhat  too  optimistically  hoped  to  call  out  by  his 
oflFer  to  commission  privateers. 

Desirous  of  worrying,  yet  not  hopeful  of  destroying.  United 
States  commerce,  Davis  had  to  adopt  a  policy  with  reference 
jj  .  ,  J.  to  neutral  rights.  In  so  doing  he  decidedly 
toward  neu-  overplayed  his  hand.  His  great  card  was  in 
offering  immunity  to  neutral  ships,  at  the  same 
time  making  the  hazard  of  capture  to  United  States  vessels 
high.  This  would  drive  United  States  trade  into  the  hands 
of  British  vessels.  On  the  strength  of  this  favor  he  sought  to 
adhere  to  the  Declaration  of  Paris,  except,  however,  as  to 
the  abolition  of  privateering.  He  would  continue  to  use  his 
privateers  to  endanger  United  States  merchantmen,  arid 
yet  would  bind  Europe  to  insist  that  our  blockade  either  be 
impeccably  effective  or  be  raised.  The  first  result  that  he 
aimed  at,  the  transfer  of  our  commerce  from  our  own  to 
British  vessels,  was  largely  attained.  American  merchant- 
men were  forced  to  pay  high  insurance  rates  and  charge  ^ 
high  freights,  in  many  cases  their  owners  transferred  them 
by  actual  or  fraudulent  sale  to  the  British  flag.^  Great 
Britain,  however,  did  not  show  her  gratitude.  Insisting  that 
an  adhesion  to  the  Declaration  of  Paris  must  be  to  the  whole, 
she  did  not  consider  his  offer,  and  the  blockade  remained. 
In  1863,  obviously  provoked,  Davis  threatened  to  change  his 
regulations  and  allow  the  capture  of  enemies'  goods  in  neu- 
tral vessels.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  commerce  de- 
stroyers at  his  disposal  were  British-built,  largely  British- 
manned,  and  were  subsisting  in  British  ports,  his  threat  to 
turn  them  loose  on  the  British  merchant  marine  overreached 
the  limits  of  practical  diplomacy.    It  was  ignored,  nor  did 

^  The  old  French  practice  of  forbidding  such  transfer  of  ownership  to 
escape  risk,  has  been  generally  adopted  since  the  Civil  War.  The  United 
States  follows  this  rule  as  embodied  in  the  Declaration  of  London  of  1910. 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  31S 

he  act  upon  it.  Had  he  done  so,  the  Confederate  warships 
would  have  been  swept  from  the  ocean. 

The  field  of  contest  for  southern  and  northern  diplomacy 
was  practically  confined  to  Great  Britain.  Of  the  European 
powers,  Russia,  Germany,  Italy,  and  Den-  Attitude  of 
mark  were  friendly  to  the  North,  but  the  last  ^'^OP® 
two  were  not  substantially  important.  Germany  bought 
northern  bonds.  Russia  was  moved  not  only  by  her  tradi- 
tional desire  to  see  the  United  States  rival  Great  Britain  as 
a  maritime  power,  but  by  the  sympathy  which  her  humani- 
tarian czar,  Alexander,  the  liberator  of  the  serfs,  felt  for  the 
efforts  to  abolish  slavery.  Her  only  active  manifestation  of 
friendship,  however,  lay  in  the  visit  of  her  fleets  to  this  coun- 
try at  what  seemed  to  be  a  critical  moment,  September,  1863, 
— a  visit  undoubtedly  as  convenient  to  her  as  it  was  pleasing 
to  us.  In  fact,  the  only  nations  whose  policies  were  really 
interesting  at  this  time  were  the  maritime  powers,  France 
and  Great  Britain. 

Of  these,  France  was  distinctly  anxious  to  secure  the 

break-up  of  the  Union.    Louis  Napoleon  was  nursing  a  new 

last  plan  for  some  kind  of  French  colonial  empire    „ 

•      A  •         J-    •  •  ij         -a.  I,-  •     X         French  poUcy 

m  America;  division  would  assist  his  projects. 

He  would  have  welcomed  a  chance  to  take  part  in  the  war  on 
the  side  of  the  South,  to  renew  that  policy  of  liberating  na- 
tions which,  as  pursued  in  Italy,  had  conferred  a  lustre  on 
the  Second  Empire.  He  was,  however,  not  in  a  position  to 
disregard  Great  Britain  with  whom  he  was  cooperating;  for 
America  was  primarily  a  British  problem.^ 

The  leading  political  figure  in  England  at  the  time  was 
Lord  Palmerston,  the  prime  minister,  well  known,  to  use 
a  word  not  then  coined,  as  a  jingo.  He  was  English  public 
distinctly  favorable  to  the  South,  and  was  not  op""o>i 
loath  to  interfere.  His  foreign  secretary.  Lord  John  Russell, 
was  less  decided  in  his  sympathies  and  less  inclined  to  action. 

^  John  Bigelow,  Retrospections  of  an  Active  Life,  1817-79,  5  vols..  New 
York,  1909-13.    Bigelow  was  consul-general  at  Paris. 


314  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Both  recognized  the  necessity  of  waiting  upon  public  opinion. 
This  force,  more  potent  in  Great  Britain  than  in  any  other 
country  except  the  United  States,  and  more  complex  there 
than  with  us,  seemed  at  first  overwhelmingly  pro-southern. 

The  Times,  at  the  zenith  of  its  prestige,  if  not  of  its  power, 
was  outspoken,  and  it  represented  the  opinion  of  the  governing 
class.  The  Earl  of  Malmesbury  wrote,  May  23, 
1862:  "There  is  a  rumor  that  the  Confederates 
have  been  defeated  and  Beauregard  taken  prisoner,  which 
everybody  regrets.  The  feeling  for  the  South  is  very  strong 
in  society."  ^  This  was  due  partly  to  an  aristocratic  elation 
at  the  failure  of  democracy  and  partly  to  sympathy  with  the 
apparently  kindred  culture  of  the  plantation  aristocracy  of 
the  South.  Diplomatically  the  advantage  to  Great  Britain 
of  dealing  with  two  republics  in  place  of  one  was  keenly  ap- 
preciated. There  was  an  almost  imiversal  feeling  in  England 
that  the  South  could  not  be  subdued.  Edward  A.  Freeman, 
the  historian,  brought  out,  in  1863,  a  History  of  Federal 
Government  from  the  Foundation  of  the  Achaian  League  to  the 
Disruption  of  the  United  States.  It  was  obviously  important 
to  stand  well  with  a  new  nation  that  possessed  no  qualms 
about  using  British  manufactures,  an  argument  just  then 
pointed  by  the  passage,  in  the  national  Congress,  of  the 
highly  protective  Morrill  tariff. 

To  the  upholders  of  the  great  Whig  tradition,  which  from 
Burke  to  Trevelyan  has  so  emphatically  championed  our  own 
_. .  ,  ^  Revolution,  the  spectacle  of  the  North  attempt- 
mg  to  bmd  to  itself  a  reluctant  South  seemed  a 
new  contest  of  freedom  against  oppression.  To  them  Lincoln 
stood  in  the  place  of  George  III.  Many  of  this  faction,  to 
be  sure,  felt  that  individual  freedom  was  more  important 
than  collective,  and  would  have  favored  the  North  had  its 
object  been  emancipation;  but  that  object  was  expressly 
denied  by  Lincoln. 

*  Earl  of  Malmesbury,  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-minister  (2d  ed.,  2  vols.,  London, 
1884),  ii.  273,  May  23,  1862. 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  815 

The  Dissenters,  headed  by  John  Bright,  stood  almost 
alone,  at  the  beginning,  in  favor  of  the  North.  Strong  forces, 
however,  were  working  to  prevent  hasty  ac-  d-  ♦  d 
tion.  Bad  harvests  in  1860,  1861,  and  1862  mercantile 
caused  northern  wheat  to  be  more  essential  v 
than  southern  cotton.^  The  philosophic,  moreover,  saw  a 
possible  good  in  the  cutting-off  of  the  American  supply  of 
the  latter  commodity,  since  thereby  production  in  other 
parts  of  the  world  might  be  stimulated  and  England  thus  be 
relieved  of  her  dependence  on  whatever  power  possessed 
our  black  belt.  The  great  mercantile  class  seemed  to  profit 
more  by  the  continuance  of  war  than  it  could  hope  to  do  by 
participation  or  by  the  triumph  of  either  side.  Inasmuch 
as  British-built  ships  and  British  crews  were  already,  under 
the  Confederate  flag,  destroying  the  only  rival  merchant 
marine  in  existence,  the  risks  of  war  were  unnecessary.  These 
non-sentimental  arguments  favored  a  passive  policy.  The 
balance  of  opinion  thus  created  was  dangerous,  for,  since 
the  subject  did  not  appeal  to  the  average  Englishman  as 
one  of  such  importance  that  it  must  be  thought  through  to  a 
decision,  the  result  might  depend  upon  the  fortuitous  stress 
of  apparent  accident. 

England's  first  act  was  to  issue  May  13,  1861,  a  neutrality 
proclamation  recognizing  that  a  state  of  war  existed.     This 
step   certainly   seemed   to   be   called   for   by     _         , 
Davis's  invitation  to  privateers  and  Lincoln's     recognizes 
proclamation   of   blockade.      It   was    evident 
that  hostilities  would  take  place  at  sea  and  neutrals  be  in- 
volved.   Great  Britain  wished  "  to  bring  the  management  of 
it  within  the  rules  of  modem  civilized  warfare."   W.  E.  Foster 
sought  to  hasten  the  issuance  of  the  proclamation,  believing 
it  to  be  of  advantage  to  the  North.    Although  undoubtedly 
inevitable,  its  appearance  was  perhaps  a  little  hasty,  es- 
pecially in  view  of  the  fact  that  it  was  known  that  Adams 

1 E.  D.  Fite,  Social  and  Industrial  Conditions  in  the  North  during  the  Civil 
War  (New  York,  1910),  17-21. 


/ 


316  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

was  due  to  arrive  within  a  day  or  two  and  would  undoubt- 
edly expect  to  be  consulted.  The  news  of  England's  recog- 
nition of  belligerency  came  to  the  North  like  a  slap  in  the 
face.  Conscious  of  its  own  rectitude,  northern  opinion  had 
not  for  a  moment  contemplated  the  possibility  that  Great 
Britain  would  not  sympathize.  The  North  had  counted 
on  the  fact  that  we  were  fighting  to  free  the  slave  as  heavily 
as  the  South  had  counted  on  cotton.  The  leaders  of  opinion 
seemed  to  forget  that  their  government  had  asserted  that 
we  were  not  fighting  to  free  the  slave.  Indifference  in 
England  they  could  not  understand.  By  a  large  portion 
of  the  North,  Great  Britain's  assertion  of  neutrality  was 
as  little  credited  as  Washington's  similar  declaration  in 
1793  had  been  by  France  and  England.  Her  recognition 
of  belligerency,  taken  in  connection  with  the  tone  of  the 
British  press,  was  believed  to  indicate  an  intention  to  assist 
the  South. 

In  this  situation,  on  November  8,  1861,  Captain  Wilkes, 
commanding  the  San  Jacinto,  which  he  was  bringing  back  into 
,  home  waters,  heard  that  the  Confederate  com- 

missioners. Mason  and  Slidell,  were  sailing  from 
Havana  to  Europe  on  the  British  steamer  Trent.  Without  or- 
ders, he  "searched"  the  vessel,  took  off  the  commissioners,  and 
brought  them  to  Boston.  The  North  went  wild  with  an  un- 
reasoning joy.  But  the  mere  capture  of  the  two  men  could 
hardly  have  occasioned  the  lavish  outburst  of  oratorical  ex- 
uberance in  which  men  ordinarily  so  sane  as  Edward  Everett, 
R.  H.  Dana,  and  Governor  Andrew  indulged,  even  though 
southern  statesmen  were  supposed  to  be  possessed  of  some 
uncanny  power  of  turning  black  into  white.  The  rejoicing 
was  rather  due  to  the  satisfaction  of  getting  a  return  stroke 
against  England  for  her  belligerency  proclamation. 

The  British  government  had  already  considered  the  pos- 
sibility of  some  such  exercise  of  the  right  of  search.  British 
precedent,  coming  from  her  practice  during  the  conflict  with 
Napoleon,  was  favorable  to  its  broadest  extension.    Lor4 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  317 

Palmerston  had  asked  what  could  be  done  if  an  American  war 
vessel  stationed  itself  oflF  Southampton  to  intercept  all  out- 
going shipping,  and  the  law  officers  of  the  crown  „  . .  . 
could  find  no  answer.  Owing  to  the  develop- 
ment of  ocean  transportation  and  the  regularity  of  steam 
communication,  the  situation  was  very  different  from  what 
it  had  been  forty  years  before.  It  was,  of  course,  palpably 
absurd  to  imagine  any  belligerent  regularly  stationing  ves- 
sels to  query  every  channel  packet,  but  legally  it  seemed 
possible.^ 

When  a  specific  case  arose,  however,  it  was  obvious  that 
the  interference  could  not  be  tolerated.  Entering  the  cabinet 
meeting,  Lord  Palmerston  threw  down  his  hat  British  de- 
and  said,  "I  don't  know  whether  you  will  °^*"<*s 
stand  it,  but  I'll  be  damned  if  I  do."  He  hit  the  popular 
feeling;  all  England  was  ablaze  with  resentment.  Parlia- 
ment took  war  measures,  troops  were  ordered  to  Canada, 
and  Lord  Russell  wrote  a  ringing  demand  for  the  surrender 
of  the  commissioners  within  seven  days.  There  were  those, 
however,  who  labored  for  peace,  among  them  Prince  Albert, 
who,  when  consulted  by  the  queen,  modified  Russell's  dis- 
patch, as  Lincoln  had  Seward's. 

Fortunately,  in  the  absence  of  a  cable  these  national  out- 
bursts were  not  simultaneous  and  could  not  quickly  react 
on  each  other.    By  the  time  Russell's  ultima-    „  .  - 

tum  reached  the  United  States,  public  opinion  Mason  and 
there  had  cooled  by  its  own  reflection  and  by 
the  advice  of  men  like  Sumner.  The  administration  was 
anxious  to  get  out  of  the  scrape  if  it  could  do  so  without 
violating  the  national  sense  of  honor.  Appreciating  the  situ- 
ation, therefore.  Lord  Lyons,  the  British  minister,  presented 
Russell's  note  without  reference  to  its  being  an  ultimatum.^ 

^  T.  L.  Harris,  The  Trent  Affair,  Indianapolis,  1896;  R.  H.  Dana,  Trent 
Affair,  in  Wheaton's  Elements  of  International  Law,  8th  ed.,  1866,  pp.  644  ff.; 
C.  W.  Battine,  The  Crisis  of  the  Confederacy,  London,  1905. 

*  Lord  [T.  W.  L.]  Newton,  Lord  Lyons:  a  Record  of  British  Diplomacy, 
%  vols.,  London,  1913  (this  work,  however,  makes  little  use  of  Lyons's  enor- 


318  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

On  December  26,  Seward  replied  that  the  capture  of  the 
Trent  was  justified  by  the  fact  that  the  commissioners  were 
contraband  of  war  engaged  in  a  continuous  voyage  from  the 
Confederate  states;  that  Captain  Wilkes,  however,  had  failed 
to  conform  to  international  law  in  allowing  the  Trent  to 
proceed  and  thus  preventing  a  judicial  review  of  his  action; 
and  consequently  that  the  United  States  would  surrender 
Mason  and  Slidell.  In  this  affair,  Seward,  or  public  opinion 
coercing  Seward,  perhaps  lost  to  the  United  States  an  op- 
portunity for  securing  British  assent  to  our  nation-old  chal- 
Result  of  the  lenge  of  the  indiscriminate  extension  of  the 
Trent  affair  belligerent  right  of  search.  The  prompt  sur- 
render of  the  commissioners  on  the  ground  that  Captain 
Wilkes  had  exceeded  his  belligerent  powers  would  while 
conciliating  British  opinion,  at  the  same  time  have  obtained 
a  national  triumph.  Yet  the  actual  result  was  satisfactory 
in  that  it  prevented  war  if  it  did  not  restore  good  feeling. 
James  Russell  Lowell  put  in  the  mouth  of  Jefferson  Davis 
the  words : 

"  *T  wuz  a  beautiful  dream,  an'  all  sorrer  is  idle, — 
But  e/ Lincoln  icovld  ha'  hanged  Mason  an'  Slidell! 
They  ain't  o'  no  good  in  Eur6pean  pellices. 
But  think  wut  a  help  they'd  ha'  ben  on  their  gallowses! 
They'd  ha'  felt  they  wuz  truly  fulfillin'  their  mission. 
An',  oh,  how  dog-cheap  we'd  ha'  gut  Reecognition!" 

This  episode  over,  the  British  government  had  an  op- 
portunity to  deliberate  on  its  policy.  Its  next  step,  if  it 
Significance  of  Were  to  take  one,  would  be  recognition  of  the 
of  Sde^d-'^  independence  of  the  southern  Confederacy. 
*°*^*  Such  recognition  need  not  involve  hostilities 

with  us.  It  would  give  the  Confederacy  prestige,  which 
doubtless  could  be  cashed  in  the  form  of  a  loan;  but,  if  Great 
Britain  accompanied  her  recognition  with  an  assurance  of 
neutrality,  as  she  doubtless  would,  it  would  give  the  South 

mous  correspondence  within  the  United  States);  Edmund  Fitzmaurice, 
The  Life  of  .  .  .  Second  Earl  Granville,  1815-91  (3d  ed.,  2  vob.,  London, 
1905),  vol.  i. 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  819 

no  belligerent  rights  that  it  did  not  already  possess.  When 
France  acknowledged  our  independence  in  1778,  Great  Brit- 
ain considered  the  act  cause  for  war;  but  when  we  first,  and 
after  us  Great  Britain,  recognized  the  independence  of  the 
Spanish-American  states,  Spain  did  not  consider  it  cause  for 
war.  The  difference  lay  partly  in  the  fact  that  Spain  had 
less  chance  to  recover  her  colonies  than  Great  Britain  had, 
and  partly  in  the  relative  standing  of  the  nations.  In  the 
present  case,  the  United  States  was  not  prepared  to  acknowl- 
edge that  she  had  no  hope  of  recovering  the  South. 

Recognition  of  the  Confederacy  by  Great  Britain  must 
almost  inevitably  have  been  met  by  war  on  our  part.  Public 
sentiment,  already  bitter,  was  during  1862  England's  *t- 
constantly  exasperated  by  the  disastrous  ac-  ***"•*«  awaited 
tivity  of  the  Confederate  cruisers  built  in  Great  Britain  with 
what  we  considered  the  connivance  of  that  government. 
The  floating  of  a  Confederate  loan  in  the  spring  of  1863  was 
regarded  as  still  further  evidence  of  malintent.  After  the 
battle  of  the  Monitor  and  Merrimac  we  began  to  be  over- 
confident of  our  naval  strength;  even  Secretary  Welles  con- 
sidered himself  ready  for  the  British  navy.^  No  small  por- 
tion of  the  press  carried  a  chip  on  its  shoulder.  Regardless 
of  the  exigencies  of  the  military  task  already  before  us,  a 
controlling  fraction  of  the  North  undoubtedly  felt,  as  the 
West  had  felt  in  1812,  that,  if  it  was  obvious  that  we  had 
to  fight  Great  Britain,  we  might  as  well  do  so  openly; — that 
her  recognition  of  the  Confederacy  would  be  the  throwing 
down  of  the  glove.  The  ingrained  hatred  of  European 
interference  was  perhaps  still  more  fundamental.  Seward 
instructed  Adams  to  suspend  his  diplomatic  functions  in  the 
event  of  an  announcement  of  recognition. 

With  the  British  government  it  was  a  question  of  time 

and  circumstance.     In  November,  1861,  Adams  had  told 

Palmerston  that  the  North  would  probably  not  try  to  coerce 

a  hostile  population,  that  it  merely  wished  to  give  the  latent 

» Welles,  Diary,  i.  495. 


320  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Union  sentiment  in  the  South  opportunity  to  develop. 
The  defeat  of  McClellan  before  Richmond  in  July,  1862, 
Cabinet  pro-  seemed  to  show  that  this  attempt  had  failed. 
^"^  September  14,  Palmerston  wrote  to  Russell 

favoring  recognition.  Russell  replied  with  the  suggestion 
that  mediation  be  offered  first,  and  that  a  cabinet  meet- 
ing be  held  September  23  or  September  30  to  discuss  the 
matter.  Lord  Granville,  who  was  absent  with  the  queen, 
proposed  further  delay,  and  a  meeting  was  finally  arranged 
for  October.  Russell  set  to  work  on  the  preparation  of  a 
memoir  to  present  the  case  for  mediation  and  subsequent 
recognition. 

In  the  interval  W.  E.  Gladstone,  chancellor  of  the  ex- 
chequer, the  coming  man  but  many  years  junior  to  Palmerston 
and  Russell,  touched  on  the  subject  at  Newcas- 
tle. "There  can  be  no  doubt,"  said  he,  "that 
Jefferson  Davis  and  other  leaders  of  the  South  have  made  an 
army;  they  are  making,  it  appears,  a  navy,  and  they  have 
made  what  is  more  than  either,  they  have  made  a  nation." 
His  position  was  promptly  attacked  by  a  fellow  cabinet  mem- 
ber. Sir  George  Cornwallis  Lewis.  For  cabinet  members  in 
Great  Britain  thus  to  commit  themselves  on  subjects  which 
have  not  yet  been  decided  by  the  cabinet  as  a  whole,  and 
thus  to  differ,  is  not  unknown,  but  it  is  always  indiscreet. 
As  a  result  it  was  decided  that  recognition  could  wait  awhile, 
long  enough  to  allow  the  party  chiefs  to  assert  themselves  and 
to  discipline  Gladstone.   The  matter  was  dropped  for  the  time. 

The  cabinet  therefore  met  Parliament,  February  5,  1863, 
without  a  declared  policy.  Interest  thereupon  centred  in 
Parliamentary  an  attempt  to  force  its  hand  through  Parlia- 
discussion  ment.    A  member,  Mr.  Roebuck,  had  an  inter- 

view with  Napoleon,  who  urged  him  to  press  the  matter. 
On  June  30  he  introduced  a  motion  instructing  the  govern- 
ment "to  enter  into  negotiation  with  the  great  powers  of 
Europe  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  their  cooperation  in 
the  recognition  "  of  the  Confederacy. 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  321 

This  seeming  climax,  however,  is  deceptive;  the  real  crisis 
had  passed.  The  final  argument  had  always  been  in  the 
hands  of  the  North,  and  had  by  this  time  been  Emancipation 
made  effective.  Great  Britain  could  not  take  Proclamation 
action  perpetuating  slavery.  Universal  emancipation  out- 
weighed cotton.  With  the  advantage  of  its  sentimental  ap- 
peal, this  consideration  was  equally  strong  from  a  practical 
standpoint.  Between  1854  and  1860  the  northern  working- 
man  had  been  brought  over  from  a  passive  to  an  actual  op- 
position to  slavery,  by  insistence  on  the  economic  disadvan- 
tage to  free  laborers  of  competition  by  labor-owners.  The 
British  laboring-man  had  gone  through  his  education  earlier, 
with  such  effect  that  the  very  population  most  severely  hit 
by  the  cotton  famine,  the  operatives  of  the  Lancaster  mills, 
had  nevertheless  steadily  stood  by  the  North.  Supported 
through  their  distress  by  the  splendid  organization  of  British 
philanthropy,  they  found  their  situation  begin  to  improve 
with  the  coming  of  Indian  and  Egyptian  cotton  in  1863;  ^ 
and  if  they  had  any  doubt  as  to  the  purpose  of  the  North  it 
was  absolved  by  Lincoln's  preliminary  emancipation  proc- 
lamation of  September  22,  1862. 

Whether  this  proclamation  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
postponement  of  the  critical  cabinet  meeting  it  is  impossible 
to  say,  but  it  is  noticeable  that  the  news  of  it  Effect  of 
reached  England  between  the  calling  of  the  *°^<^p***°°' 
meeting  and  its  postponement.  Between  that  time  and 
June,  actual  emancipation  was  proclaimed,  January  1,  1863. 
Lincoln  did  not  allow  the  effect  of  the  proclamation  to  be 
lost  upon  English  opinion.  Throughout  the  war  he  and 
Seward  were  continually  sending  abroad  all  kinds  of  informal 
representatives  upon  all  sorts  of  missions.  The  influence  of 
John  Bigelow  on  the  French  press,  and  of  Thurlow  Weed 
on  the  English,  was  probably  not  great,  and  many  of  these 
roving  emissaries  caused  as  much  annoyance  to  Adams  as 
their  counterparts  had  given  to  Franklin  during  the  Revolu- 
^B..  A..  Amold,  History  of  the  Cotton  Famine,  London,  lS64i. 


322  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tion.  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  however,  was  a  real  ambassador 
to  the  people,  and  Lincoln  himself  wrote  a  public  letter  to  the 
working-men  of  London.  On  the  whole,  the  development  of 
a  pro-northern  sentiment  was  rather  by  a  raising  of  interest 
in  the  indifferent  or  the  uninformed  than  by  a  converting 
of  the  pro-southern  classes,  although  the  Whig  element  began 
to  turn.  Many  moderates  moreover,  were  decidedly  in- 
fluenced by  the  northern  victories  of  Gettysburg  and  Vicks- 
burg,  July  3  and  4,  1863.  It  was,  however,  on  July  13,  three 
days  before  the  news  of  these  victories  reached  England  that 
Roebuck,  realizing  the  change  in  the  balance  of  opinion, 
withdrew  his  motion.  It  was  Lincoln,  not  Grant  and  Meade, 
who  prevented  recognition. 

Even  with  the  crisis  past,  there  still  remained  a  twofold 
danger.  With  the  proceeds  of  their  loan  the  Confederates 
The  Laird  were  having  built  by  Laird,  the  great  British 

"  "itts  "  iron-master,  war  vessels,  rams  of  such  formid- 

able fighting  capacity  that  they  caused  the  sensitive  quills 
of  our  press  to  stand  erect  with  horror  as  they  saw  them, 
omnipresent,  destroying  our  poor  blockading  fleet,  laying 
the  Atlantic  coast  under  tribute,  and  ascending  our  rivers 
and  creeks  for  the  devastation  of  the  interior.  There  was 
more  chance,  however,  that  some  episode  would  arise  out  of 
their  building  that  would  tip  the  still  swaying  balance  of 
British  opinion,  or  would  impress  that  of  the  United  States 
as  an  act  of  war.  Adams,  with  growing  confidence,  pressed 
upon  Russell  the  duty  of  preventing  these  vessels,  whose 
progress  was  regularly  reported  in  the  newspapers,  from 
being  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  Confederacy.  Russell 
promised  to  investigate,  but  his  law  officers  discovered  that 
the  vessels  had  been  sold  to  a  French  firm,  and  that  there 
was  no  "evidence  capable  of  being  presented  to  a  Court  of 
Justice"  that  they  were  intended  for  the  Confederacy.  Ac- 
tually they  did  not  know  that  a  contract  existed  by  which 
the  French  firm  was  to  turn  them  over  to  Confederate  agents 
when  they  were  once  beyond  British  jurisdiction.    Adams, 


THE  CIVIL  WAR  828 

however,  rightly  believed  that  this  was  the  case.  On  Sep- 
tember 5,  therefore,  hearing  that  one  ship  was  about  to  de- 
part, he  wrote  to  Russell :  "  I  can  regard  it  no  otherwise  than 
as  practically  opening  to  the  insurgents  full  liberty  in  this 
Kingdom,  to  conduct  a  campaign  against  the  northern  sea- 
ports. ...  It  would  be  superfluous  in  me  to  point  out  to 
your  Lordship  that  this  is  war."  Russell  had  no  intention 
thus  to  provoke  war.  Two  days  before  Adams's  letter  was 
written  he  had  ordered  the  rams  detained.  This  closed  the 
episode;  the  rams  never  afterwards  were  within  reach  of  the 
Confederacy. 

With  September,  1863,  the  triumph  of  northern  diplomacy 
was  complete.  Davis's  next  message  to  the  Confederate 
Congress  is  a  petulant  admission  of  defeat.  Triumph  of 
Nevertheless,  the  Confederacy  did  not  give  up  *^*  North 
its  hope  of  foreign  aid  or  its  attempt  to  secure  it.  Alexander 
H.  Stephens  even  favored  abolishing  slavery  to  win  it.^  All 
subsequent  plans,  policies,  and  projects,  however,  were  ac- 
tually dependent  upon  military  success,  which  could  not 
come  on  any  grand  scale  without  foreign  aid,  without  the 
breaking  of  the  blockade.  The  situation  was  an  impasse. 
Chance  might  work  for  the  Confederacy,  but  no  diplomatic 
skill  would  avail  for  rescue. 

^  See  also  M.  D.  Conway,  Autobiography  (2  vols.,  Boston,  etc.,  1904), 
ch.  xxi. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

THE  CIVIL  WAR  AND  THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE 

From  the  date  of  President  Monroe's  message  of  1823  to 
the  Civil  war  there  had  been  no  new  European  colony  estab- 
Pra  tical  ffect  ^^^^^^  ^^  America,  no  transfer  of  territory  from 
of  the  Monroe  one  European  nation  to  another,  nor  had  any 
Doctrine  -•-<  i  i  •      i       i> 

liiUropean    i)ower  secured   real   control   oi   an 

American  State.    This  inactivity  had  not  been  due  to  any 

unwillingness  to  interfere,  or  even  to  a  lack  of  desire,  but  to 

a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  owing  to  its  position,  the  United 

States  was  actually  stronger  over  most  of  the  continental 

area  than  any  European  power  could  be,  and  that  her  friend-  v/ 

ship  was  more  valuable  than  the  spoils  that  might  be  snatched 

in  a  general  scramble  for  plunder. 

In  answering  questions  as  to  the  national  policy  asked  by 

the  governments  of  Argentina  and  Brazil  in  1825,  Clay  had 

_  ^  ^  ^.  been  careful  to  state  that  "our  declaration 
Interpretation 

of  the  Monroe  must  be  regarded  as  having  been  voluntarily 
Doctrine  j  j         j.  •  i   j 

made,  and  not  as  conveymg  any  pledge  or 

obligation  the  performance  of  which  foreign  nations  have  a 
right  to  demand."  Until  the  Mexican  war  our  policy  was 
negative,  and  we  avoided  entanglements  in  the  ever-changing 
complications  of  Spanish- American  politics.  This  left  a 
field  open  for  the  exercise  of  European  influence,  and  by 
mediation  and  advice  European  governments  sought  to 
gain  a  hold  without  actually  coming  into  collision  with  us. 
In  1827  Austria  and  Great  Britain  sought  to  arrange  peace  be- 
tween Brazil  and  Portugal;  in  1845  France  and  Great  Britain 
intervened  between  Buenos  Ayres  and  Montevideo.  After 
1845,  our  ministers  often  oflfered  to  mediate  in  such  disputes, 

324 


CIVIL  WAR  AND  MONROE  DOCTRINE     325 

but  without  any  strong  insistence  in  our  exclusive  right  to 
tender  such  good  offices. 

The  centre  of  European  interest  was  the  mouth  of  La 
Plata,  the  bone  of  contention  between  Argentina,  Brazil, 
and  Uruguay.  In  the  latter  country  French  ^  h  infl 
influence  was  strong,  and  from  1838  to  1849  ence  in  Uru- 
was  constantly  on  the  alert.  This  foothold 
was  seized  upon  with  vigor  by  the  second  French  republic 
in  1848,  and  Eugene  Guillemot  was  sent  to  represent  her. 
He  reported,  December  12,  1848,  "Two  opposed  elements 
contend  at  present  in  all  South  America,  the  local  element 
and  the  European.  .  .  .  Around  the  first  group  all  the 
tendencies,  stationary  and  retrograde  .  .  . ;  around  the  other, 
colonization,  expansion,  in  all  good  senses,  agricultural,  in- 
dustrial, and  commercial.  But  let  the  local  element  prevail, 
and  a  new  element,  influence,  and  perhaps  control,  the 
Anglo-American,  will  not  be  long  in  appearing  in  the  midst 
of  the  social  torpor,  if  not  anarchy,  and  will  produce  a 
complete  and  without  doubt  violent  renovation,  and  more 
or  less  our  exclusion  as  well  as  that  of  Europe." 

March  19,  1849,  Guillemot  advised  that  France  send  six 
thousand  troops  to  Montevideo:  "It  is  not  a  conquest  that 
France  will  make  for  herself,  it  will  be  only  a  Second  Re- 
vast  rendezvous  of  emigration  for  the  use  of  Monroe°  Doc- 
Europe  that  she  will  open,  .  .  .  South  Amer-  *""® 
ica  is  occupied  nearly  entirely  by  natives  of  Iberian  descent. 
A  fruitful  germ  of  our  nation  ought  to  be  deposited  among 
them,  and  if  some  day  the  Anglo-Americans  pretend  to  pass 
over  Panama  and  descend  towards  Cape  Horn,  it  is  well 
that  they  find  at  least  on  the  route  a  people  of  our  race,  not 
less  hardy  than  theirs,  which  may  serve  to  head  the  column 
of  the  others."  He  was  not  unmindful  of  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine, just  then  being  insisted  upon  by  Polk;  but  he  put  too 
much  stress  upon  its  temporary,  humanistic  element  of 
opposition  to  monarchy,  and  too  little  on  the  fundamental 
opposition  to  European  influence.    April  10,  1849,  he  wrote. 


326  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

"Let  France  declare  her  disinterested  views  in  the  matter, 
and  the  Americans  of  the  North  will  find  nothing  to  say, 
especially  as  republican  France  has  rights  other  than  those 
of  monarchical  France,  they  know  it  and  they  say  it."  No 
permanent  establishment  of  French  power  or  population 
came  from  this  program;  but  its  formulation  at  a  period 
when  the  French  people,  released  from  administrative  con- 
trol, found  opportunity  to  express  their  national  enthusiasms, 
shows  that  the  vision  of  an  American  empire  had  not  died.^ 

The  division  of  the  United  States  in  1861,  and  the  conse- 
quent paralysis  of  her  forces,  therefore  released  European 
Seward's  ad-  ambitions  and  projects  which  her  power  had 
justable  poUcy  repressed.  The  first  country  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  new  situation  was  Spain.  In  1861  either 
Spain  or  the  Spanish  authorities  in  Cuba  managed  by  some 
method  to  receive  from  the  Dominican  Republic,  the  eastern 
and  formerly  Spanish  portion  of  the  island  of  Santo  Domingo, 
a  request  for  annexation.  This  voluntary  reincorporation 
of  a  former  colony  raised  a  delicate  question  with  reference 
to  the  interpretation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine;  and  the  dif- 
ficulty was  increased  by  the  fact  that,  owing  to  southern 
opposition  to  the  recognition  of  a  negro  republic,  we  had 
never  been  on  terms  of  diplomatic  intercourse  with  the  island 
government  which  thus  determined  on  suicide,  although  we 
had  maintained  a  consul  there  for  most  of  the  period  since 
1800.  Nevertheless,  Seward  hesitated  not  a  moment  as 
to  the  applicability  of  our  traditional  policy.  April  2,  1861, 
he  wrote  to  the  Spanish  minister  at  Washington  that,  should 
Spain  sustain  this  action,  the  President  would  "be  obliged 
to  regard"  her  "as  manifesting  an  unfriendly  spirit  towards 
the  United  States,  and  to  meet  the  further  prosecution  of 
enterprises  of  that  kind  in  regard  to  either  the  Dominican 
Republic  or  any  part  of  the  American  continent  or  islands 

*  Eugene  Guillemot,  La  politique  et  Vavenir  de  la  France  dans  VAmerique 
du  Sud:  also  British  Public  Record  Office,  Foreign  Office  Records,  Bueno* 
Ayres,  1846. 


CIVIL  WAR  AND  MONROE  DOCTRINE     327 

with  a  prompt,  persistent,  and,  if  possible,  effective  resist- 
ance." Spain  disregarded  the  threat,  and  on  July  1,  1861, 
the  Spanish  minister  announced  to  Seward  the  annexation 
of  Dominica.  Carl  Schurz,  our  new  minister  in  Spain, 
asked  for  instructions,  and  in  August,  1861,  Seward  wrote 
to  him  that  circumstances  prevented  him  from  giving  a  def- 
inite answer.  This  change  of  tone  needed  no  explanation, 
but  it  illustrates  the  influence  of  the  Civil  war  on  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  In  refraining  from  answering  Schurz's  question, 
Seward  alike  saved  himself  from  offending  Spain  when  he 
had  not  the  power  to  awe  or  oppose  her,  and  left  open  the 
door  for  future  protest.  Meanwhile,  by  an  indirection  of 
statement,  he  attempted  to  lead  Spain  to  suppose  that  this 
tolerance  of  a  situation  which  we  had  so  often  declared  in- 
tolerable, was  due  to  her  "observance  of  the  blockade  and 
the  closing  of  Spanish  ports  to  the  insurgent  privateers." 
The  supreme  test  of  our  passivity  came  when,  in  1863,  war 
broke  out  between  the  Spanish  government  and  the  islanders. 
Seward  promptly  declared  our  neutrality.^ 

Although  Spain  was  interested  in  this  undertaking  to  the 
extent  of  sending  more  than  thirty  thousand  troops  to  the 
island,  the  task  of  maintaining  her  local  hold,     Spain  leaves 
in  spite  of  the  neutrality  of  the  United  States,    Dominica 
was  so  exhausting  that  in  1865  she  voluntarily  surrendered 
her  claim.    Spain's  attempt  at  reoccupation  seems  to  have 
been  part  of  a  general,  though  vacillating,  purpose  on  her 
part  to  take  advantage  of  our  weakness  in  order  to  inaugurate 
an  active  American  policy.    In  1864  she  went     Spain   and 
to  war  with  Peru,  and  some  of  her  representa- 
tives  claimed  that,  as  she  had  never  recognized  Peru's  inde- 
pendence, she  might  without  violation  of  any  established 
sovereignty  recover  the  Chincha  islands.     Seward,  more  at 
ease  than  in  1861,  ordered  our  minister  at  Madrid,  now 
G.  Koerner,  to  make  known  to  the  Spanish  government  that 

*  Carl  Schurz,  Speeches,  Correspondence,  and  Political  Papers  (6  vols. 
New  York,  etc.,  1913),  i.  185-205. 


328  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

we  could  not  accept  such  an  argument  or  "regard  with  m- 
difference"  an  attempt  at  re-annexation.  The  Spanish  gov- 
ernment disclaimed  any  idea  of  encroachment,  but  occupied 
the  islands,  and  in  1866  announced  that  it  might  take  posses- 
sion of  them  without  any  intention  of  acquiring  territory,  but 
merely  to  reimburse  itself  for  the  expense  of  the  war  by  the 
sale  of  guano.  It  was  now  too  late.  Our  new  minister  in 
Spain,  J.  P.  Hale,  was  instructed  that,  in  case  of  even  such 
a  temporary  occupation,  the  United  States  could  not  be 
expected  "to  remain  in  their  present  attitude  of  neutrality." 
The  Civil  war  was  over,  and  Spain  withdrew.  ' 

The  same  successive  adjustment  of  our  policy  to  circum- 
stance that  has  been  observed  in  the  case  of  Spain  is  to  be 

„        ,   ^  found  in  the  more  important  issue  of  the  ar- 

Second    Em-         ,    ,  •     nr     -  mi      i 

pire  and  tivity  of  France  m  Mexico.    The  latter  coun* 

try  was  the  scene  of  constant  revolution  and 
guerrilla  warfare.  The  claims  of  United  States  citizens  that 
in  Buchanan's  administration  had  seemed  to  him  to  warrant 
our  interference  were  paralleled  by  those  of  the  citizens  of 
all  other  foreign  nations  doing  business  there,  particularly 
those  of  Great  Britain,  France  and  Spain.  These  nations 
were  in  1860  moving  toward  interposition,  and  Buchanan, 
in  his  message  of  December  3,  1860,  regretted  that  we  had 
not  taken  action  earlier.  "We  should  thus,"  he  said,  "have 
been  relieved  from  the  obligation  of  resisting,  even  by  force 
should  this  become  necessary,  any  attempt  by  these  Govern- 
ments to  deprive  our  neighboring  Republic  of  portions  of  her 
territory — a  duty  from  which  we  could  not  shrink  without 
abandoning  the  traditional  and  established  policy  of  the 
American  people." 

In  1861  the  Mexican  Congress  voted  to  defer  the  payment 
of  interest  on  foreign  bonds;  whereupon  Great  Britain, 
Convention  of  France,  and  Spain  decided  that  action  must  be 
^°*^°°  taken.    They  invited  the  United  States  to  join 

them,  but  she  refused.  In  a  convention  signed  at  London, 
October  31, 1861,  they  decided  forcibly  to  demand  "more  ef- 


CIVIL  WAR  AND  MONROE  DOCTRINE     329 

ficacious  protection  for  the  persons  and  the  properties  of  their 
subjects,  as  well  as  the  fulfillment  of  obligations."  The  high 
contracting  parties  engaged  "not  to  seek  for  themselves  .  .  . 
any  acquisition  of  territory  ...  or  any  special  advantage, 
and  not  to  exercise  in  the  internal  affairs  of  Mexico  any  influ- 
ence of  a  nature  to  prejudice  the  right  of  the  Mexican  nation 
to  choose  and  to  constitute  freely  the  form  of  its  govern- 
ment." Nevertheless,  Schurz  wrote  to  Seward,  November  16, 
1861,  of  the  intriguing  rivalries  for  the  throne  of  Mexico. 
The  importance  of  the  movement  of  the  allies  was  indicated 
by  the  choice  of  General  Prim,  the  leading  man  in  Spain,  to 
head  it.  He  assured  Schurz,  before  embarking,  of  his  sym- 
pathy with  the  United  States. 

Once  in  Mexico,  the  allies  occupied  a  number  of  customs- 
houses  and  collected  the  duties,  but  in  April,  1862,  Spain  and 
England  made  an  arrangement  with  the  gov-  . 

ernment  and  withdrew.^  France  was  left.  French  ques- 
This  was  the  opportunity  for  which  Napoleon 
had  been  working.  His  basis  for  interference  was  not  so 
much  the  French  claims,  which  consisted  chiefly  of  bonds 
with  a  face  value  of  fifteen  million  dollars,  purchased  by  the 
firm  of  Jecker  for  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  from  an 
ephemeral  revolutionary  government,  as  the  hope  that  the 
Second  Empire  might,  by  carrying  out  the  French  national 
aspirations,  successfully  fulfill  the  colonial  vision  of  the 
First.  Morny,  Napoleon's  relative  and  confidential  adviser, 
believed  that  the  United  States  was  a  menace  to  Europe,  and 
wished  to  create  in  Mexico  an  empire  that  would  become 
the  protector  of  all  the  Latin  republics  and  with  them  con- 
stitute a  power  capable  of  resisting  us. 

With  such  views  in  mind.  Napoleon,  on  the  withdrawal  of 
the  other  powers,  presented  an  ultimatum  and  ordered  his 
army  on  to  the  city  of  Mexico.  Finding  no  stable  govern- 
ment with  which  to  treat,  the  French  commander  called  an 

^  H.  Leondaron,  "L'Espagne  et  la  question  du  Mexique,  1861-1862," 
Annales  des  Sciences  Politiquea,  1901,  xvi.  5&-95. 


330  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

assembly  of  Mexican  notables  to  deal  with  the  situation. 

Amid  the  confusion  of  local  factions  and  personal  rivalries 

_  ^  .  that  divided  the  land  there  ran  one  main 
Formation     of       . 

the  Mexican      line   of   division, — that   between   the   Church 
^  party  and  the  Liberal  party.    The  latter,  under 

Juarez,  was  in  the  field  fighting  the  French;  the  other  Na- 
poleon hoped  to  use  as  the  local  basis  for  French  influence. 
His  notables  were  chosen  with  that  end  in  view,  and  they 
proved  docile  to  his  leading.  Under  his  tutelage  they  de- 
cided that  an  empire  on  the  Napoleonic  plan  afforded  the 
best  basis  for  security,  and  asked  the  Archduke  Maximilian 
of  Austria,  to  rule  over  them.  Napoleon  calculated  on  estab- 
lishing in  America  an  empire  that  would  be  strong  and  yet 
dependent  upon  his  support,  and  on  gaining  in  Europe  the 
gratitude  of  the  pope  and  of  Austria.^ 

The  situation  thus  presented  to  us  was,  both  technically 
and  practically,  more  difficult  than  that  produced  by  Spain 
Danger  of  our  in  Dominica.  Technically  it  was  so  because 
situation  ^jjjg  ^g^g  jjq|.  g^  question  of  annexation,  but 

prima  facie  an  exhibition  of  popular  sovereignty.  Napoleon's 
was  plainly  the  guiding  hand,  yet  to  the  eye  the  marionette 
notables  moved  of  their  own  volition.  Practically  it  was 
more  dangerous  because  of  the  greater  strength  of  France. 
Spain  was  simply  no  longer  afraid  of  us,  of  France  we  our- 
selves were  fearful.  We  could  not  acquiesce  in  such  a  way  as 
to  find  our  hands  tied  after  the  war  was  over;  on  the  other 
hand,  if  we  protested  too  vigorously  we  should  not  only  be 
making  useless  threats,  but  might  give  Napoleon  an  excuse 
for  breaking  from  England's  lead  and  interfering  in  our  CivU 
war.  On  February  3,  1863,  he  offered  to  act  as  mediator 
between  the  North  and  South,  and,  when  the  North  firmly 
rejected  that  offer,  it  was  only  England's  influence  that  pre- 
vented his  recognition  of  the  Confederacy.  Napoleon  and  the 
Confederacy  mutually  cultivated  each  other;  Slidell  was  con- 

'  Lettre  d  M.  Duchon  Doris,  Bordeaux,  1864;  "'Mme.  Adam's  Reminia- 
cences,"  Nation,  1905,  Ixxxi.  521-522. 


CIVIL  WAR  AND  MONROE  DOCTRINE     331 

cemed  in  the  Napoleonic  attempt  to  influence  the  British 
ParHament  through  Roebuck;  Benjamin  attempted  to  bribe 
Napoleon  by  a  million  bales  of  cotton.  Almost  to  the  day 
of  Lee's  surrender  the  hope  of  Napoleon's  intervention  per- 
sisted in  the  South.  Of  Seward's  first  dispatch  on  the 
subject,  in  which  he  assured  France  of  our  neu-  Seward  and 
trality  in  her  war  with  Mexico,  and  with  refer-  Napoleon 
ence  to  the  new  empire  said  that  it  would  be  neither  easily 
established  nor  useful,  his  friend  Weed  wrote  to  him:  "Your 
dispatch  on  Mexican  matters  breaks  no  eggs.  It  makes  a 
record,  and  there,  I  hope,  you  are  at  rest."  Napoleon,  on 
hearing  that  Seward's  dispatch  had  arrived,  eagerly  asked  if 
there  had  been  a  protest.  Rather  annoyed  than  relieved 
by  its  mild  indefiniteness,  he  asked  that  we  follow  the  ex- 
ample of  the  powers  of  Europe  except  Russia,  by  recognizing 
Maximilian  as  emperor.  Seward  replied  that  he  imderstood 
there  was  still  opposition  to  the  Austrian,  and  that  he  should 
prefer  to  err  on  the  side  of  neutrality. 

Seward's  policy  of  avoiding  offence  to  France  and  yet  of 
leaving  the  future  unpledged,  was  undoubtedly  wise,  but 
in  pursuing  it  he  was  forced  to  deal  not  only  Seward  and 
with  Napoleon  but  with  our  own  newspapers  Congress 
and  with  Congress.  In  April,  1864,  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives unanimously  resolved  that  it  could  not  accord  with 
United  States  policy  to  acknowledge  a  monarchical  govern- 
ment established  under  the  auspices  of  any  European  power 
on  the  ruins  of  an  American  Republic.  The  French  foreign 
minister,  Drouyn  de  I'Huys,  learning  of  the  resolution, 
greeted  our  minister,  Dayton,  with  the  question,  "Do  you 
bring  us  peace  or  bring  us  war?"  He  brought  Seward's 
explanation  that  the  foreign  policy  of  our  country  was  di- 
rected by  the  President. 

The  close  of  our  war  left  us  masters  of  the  situation;  but 
the  task  of  getting  rid  of  Maximilian  was  a  delicate  one, 
for  there  was  the  chance  that  our  aroused  and  militant  pub- 
lic sentiment  would  force  Napoleon  into  war  to  defend  his 


332  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

prestige.  General  Grant  looked  on  the  whole  movement  as 
a  "direct  act  of  war,"  and  it  was  proposed  that  an  army 
Seward  and  of  our  volunteers,  Union  and  Confederate,  be 
the  army  reenlisted  across  the  Mexican  border  to  serve 

under  Juarez  in  driving  out  the  French.  General  Schofield 
was  detached  for  twelve  months  to  head  this  organiza- 
tion. 

Seward  met  this  dangerous  proposition  by  finesse.  He 
called  Schofield  to  him  and  asked  him  to  go  to  France  in- 
Seward  allows  stead.  "I  want  you  to  get  your  legs  under 
dipfoiMtic  *  Napoleon's  mahogany,"  said  he,  "and  tell  him 
victory  jjg  mugt  g^t  out  of  Mexico."     Schofield  did 

not  happen  to  dine  with  Napoleon,  but  Seward  informed 
France  that  peace  would  be  put  in  "imminent  jeopardy" 
by  the  further  retention  of  French  troops  in  Mexico.  Realiz- 
ing, however,  that  Napoleon,  by  reason  of  the  domestic  sit- 
uation in  France,  could  face  war  more  easily  than  a  confessed 
defeat,  Seward  gave  him  a  seeming  victory  by  assuring  him, 
February  12,  1866,  that  after  the  French  evacuation  the 
United  States  would  continue  the  same  neutrality  between 
Juarez  and  Maximilian  that  she  had  previously  preserved 
between  Juarez  and  the  French.  This  recognition  constituted 
a  triumph  of  French  diplomacy,  though  a  triumph  that  every 
one  knew  was  hollow,  for  Maximilian  could  not  stand  a  year 
unsupported  by  France.  Accepting  this  way  out,  so  wisely 
prepared  for  him,  de  I'Huys  replied.  "  We  receive  this  as- 
surance with  entire  confidence  and  we  find  therein  a  suflScient 
guarantee  not  any  longer  to  delay  the  adoption  of  measures 
intended  to  prepare  for  the  return  of  our  army."  ^ 

Hearing  of  the  probable  abandonment  of  Maximilian  by 
the  French,  his  countrymen  of  Austria  prepared  to  enlist 
an  army  for  his  defence.     Seward  promptly  directed  John 

*  C.  A.  Duniway,  Reasons  for  the  Withdrawal  of  the  French  from  Mexico, 
Amer.  Hist.  Assoc.,  Report,  1902,  i.  312-328;  Latane,  Diplomatic  Relations  of 
the  United  States  and  Spanish  America,  221-265;  Henry  Wheaton,  Elements 
of  International  Law,  8th  edition  by  R.  H.  Dana,  London,  etc.,  1866. 


CIVIL  WAR  AND  MONROE  DOCTRINE     333 

Lothrop  Motley,  our  minister  at  Vienna,  to  challenge  such 
an  attempt  peremptorily.  Motley,  the  least  satisfactory  of 
our  literary  appointments,  raised  many  diffi-  Seward  and 
culties  in  carrying  out  this  policy,  among  others  Austria 
that  it  did  not  harmonize  with  the  earlier  tone  which  we 
had  adopted.  Seward  replied,  "I  refrain  from  discussing 
the  question  you  have  raised,  whether  the  recent  instruc- 
tions of  this  department  harmonize  entirely  with  the  policy 
which  it  pursued  at  an  earlier  period  of  the  European  in- 
tervention in  Mexico."  Europe  understood,  if  Motley  did 
not,  that  the  close  of  our  war  had  changed  the  situation. 
Austria  promised  to  prevent  the  departure  of  the  volun- 
teers. 

The  American  residuum  of  European  interference  soon 
vanished  with  the  withdrawal  of  the  support  which  had 
brought  it  into  being.     Maximilian's  native    pate  of  Maxi- 
Mexican  forces  yielded  to  those  of  Juarez,  and     °"^*^ 
he  himself  was  captured.     Upon  learning  that  he  was  con- 
demned to  be  shot  in  the  back  as  a  traitor,  Austria,  France, 
and  Great  Britain  appealed  to  the  United  States  to  save 
him.    We  expressed  sympathy  and  recommended  clemency 
to  Juarez,  but  we  would  not  intervene  in  a  matter  domes- 
tically Mexican.    Maximilian  was  shot.    The  Monroe  Doc- 
trine was  once  more  established,  and  more  firmly  established ' 
than  it  was  in  1860,  for  it  had  practically  been  recognized; 
by  France,  Spain,  and  Austria.    The  Austrian  court,  however, 
has  never  since  been  an  altogether  pleasant  residence  for 
an  American  minister. 

That  Great  Britain  does  not  appear  in  this  crisis  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  seems  strange  to  many  critics.  Bernhardi 
wrote  in  1901:  "Since  England  committed  the  q  +  «  -x^^ 
unpardonable  blunder,  from  her  point  of  view,  and  the  Mon- 
of  not  supporting  the  Southern  States  in  the 
American  war  of  Secession,  a  rival  to  England's  world-wide 
empire  has  appeared  ...  in  the  form  of  the  United  States 
of  North  America."    In  part  this  apparent  neglect  of  oppor- 


334  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tunity  was  due  to  the  fact  that,  although  her  prime  minister 
was  jingoistic,  there  was  in  England  at  this  time  a  strong 
sentiment  that  colonies  were  unprofitable,  and  that  it  was 
the  universal  tendency  for  them  to  ripen  and  drop  from  the 
parent  tree.  Still,  Canning  himself  would  probably  not 
have  acted  otherwise.  What  Great  Britain  wanted  was 
commercial  opportunity,  and  of  that  the  independence  of 
Spanish  America  was  sufficient  guarantee  to  the  cheapest 
producer  in  the  world.  The  only  portions  of  America  that 
England  might  desire  were  Cuba  and  the  Isthmus;  but  the 
first  was  Spain's,  the  second  was  protected  by  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  treaty.  If  Great  Britain  showed  a  lack  of  enterprise 
in  not  pushing  her  interests  during  the  Civil  war,  at  least 
she  was  spared  recognizing  the  Monroe  Doctrine  at  its 
close. 

It  was  probably  more  nearly  a  deviation  from  British 
policy  to  allow  other  European  powers,  like  Spain  and  France, 
to  acquire  permanent  interests  in  America, 
and  European  On  that  point  England  had  been  in  agreement 
with  us  since  1823;  the  conflicts  between  us  had 
arisen  when  we  were  endeavoring  to  extend  our  interests. 
Her  acquiescence  in  this  case  was  due  to  her  practical  alliance 
with  Napoleon,  and  perhaps  to  a  well-justified  cynical  belief 
that  nothing  would  come  of  it. 

Just  after  the  war,  in  1867,  the  House  of  Representatives 
endeavored  to  hoist  Great  Britain  on  our  favorite  petard  by 
-^  declaring  that  the  organization  of  the  Domin- 

Doctrine  and      ion  of  Canada,  the  union  of  the  several  British 

provinces,  constituted  such  a  change  of  status  \l 
in  American  affairs  as  to  constitute  a  violation  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.     The  failure  of  the  administration  to  urge  this 
forced  interpretation  upon  Great  Britain  deprived  her  of  an 
opportunity  of  replying  to  it. 

In  1870  Grant  gave  expression  to  a  corollary  of  the  Doc-  \ 
trine  which  had  for  some  time  been  recognized:  "Hereafter  I 
no  territory  on  this  continent  shall  be  regarded  as  subject  to  1 


CIVIL  WAR  AND  MONROE  DOCTRINE     335 

transfer  to  a  European  power;"  that  is  even  by  one  European 
power  to  another.  In  fact,  from  1823  to  the  present  day 
the  only  violation  of  this  principle  has  been  Grant's  corol-^ 
the  unimportant  cession  of  the  island  of  Saint  Monroe  Docl 
Bartholomew  by  Sweden  to  France  in  1878.^     *^«  I 

»  Coolidge,  The  United  States  aa  a  World  Power,  113. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 
THE  AFTERMATH  OF  THE  CIVIL  V^AR 

The  resolution  protesting  against  the  formation  of  the  Do- 
minion of  Canada  was  indicative  of  a  feeling  of  hostility  to 
Anti-British  Great  Britain  which  was  the  most  absorbing 
sentiment  ^^^^^  ^^  ^^j.  diplomacy  from  18C5  until  1871. 

Based  primarily  upon  our  disappointment  at  England's  lack 
of  sympathy  with  the  national  government  during  that 
struggle,  nourished  by  the  frank  unfriendliness  of  a  large 
section  of  the  English  press  and  much  of  her  literature,  it 
found  many  substantial  issues  which  gave  occasion  for  its 
expression. 

The  direct  loss  that  we  sustained  by  the  depredations  of 
the  Confederate  commerce-destroyers,  which  Great  Britain's 
-        j^.  lax    interpretation    of    neutrality    allowed    to 

merchant  range  the  ocean  to  the  very  end  of  the  war, 

was  less  than  the  indirect  loss  which  they 
caused  by  imperilling  aU  vessels  bearing  the  American  flag. 
Eight  hundred  thousand  tons  of  American  shipping  were 
transferred  to  foreign  flags,  chiefly  that  of  Great  Britain,  and 
what  was  left  to  us  found  itself  hampered  by  almost  prohib- 
itory insurance  rates.  Both  these  sores  were  kept  open  and 
irritated  by  the  failure  of  the  American  merchant  marine  to 
rise  again.  Its  decline,  which  was  due  to  a  variety  of  causes 
unrelated  to  the  war,  had  begun  about  1857.  The  most  im- 
portant was  the  introduction  of  iron  ships,  which  could  be 
more  cheaply  constructed  in  Great  Britain.  To  the  natural 
advantages  which  that  country  possessed  was  added  our 
protective  tariff  system,  which  increased  the  cost  of  our 
ship-building  without  being  able  to  offer  any  compensatory 
protection  to  the  ship-owners,  engaged  as  they  were  in  a  free 

336 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR    337 

international  competition.  Quite  as  important,  too,  was 
the  terrific  drain  upon  our  resources  of  capital,  credit,  and 
labor  produced  by  the  era  of  internal  expansion  which  the 
close  of  the  war  ushered  in.  The  rewards  coming  from  the 
development  and  exploitation  of  our  own  country  were  in- 
comparably greater  than  those  from  any  industry  competing 
directly  with  that  of  foreign  nations.  The  transfer  of  his 
fortune  from  shipping  to  railroads,  made  at  this  time  by 
Commodore  Vanderbilt,  was  the  act  of  a  far-seeing  business 
man.  His  example  was  followed  by  many  other  Americans 
concerned  in  shipping,  whether  as  owners  or  sailors,  and  few 
natives  now  embarked  in  the  old  profession. 

These  considerations,  however,  did  not  at  the  time  sink 
into   the   national   consciousness,   which   perceived   merely 

that  until  the  Civil  war  our  merchant  marine     _,     ^   «  ..  • 

Great    Bntain 

had  been  a  leading  American  interest,  and  that    held  responsi- 
after  it  our  flag  had  almost  disappeared  from 
competitive  trade  routes.    The  events  of  the  war  afforded  a 
simple  explanation,  and  anger  was  hot  against  Great  Britain 
as  the  instrument  of  the  change.^ 

Other  subjects  of  dispute  naturally  arose  with  a  nation 
with  which  our  connections  were  so  numerous.  It  became 
a  question,  for  instance,  whether  the  main  Boundary  and 
channel  of  the  strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca  ran  north  *^®  fishenes 
or  south  of  the  archipelago  of  San  Juan,  whether  the  islands 
fell  to  us  or  to  Great  Britain.  The  activities  of  the  American 
and  British  representatives  on  the  spot  might  at  any  time 
cause  an  explosion.^  Then,  too,  in  1866  Marcy's  reciprocity 
treaty  with  Canada  ran  through  its  prescribed  course,  and 
we  notified  Great  Britain  that  we  did  not  care  to  continue 
it.  This  reopened  the  wasp's  nest  of  the  fisheries  question 
in  an  atmosphere  provoking  irritation. 

^  W.  L.  Marvin,  The  American  Merchant  Marine,  New  York,  1902. 

*  This  is  one  of  the  questions  that  might  have  afforded  a  basis  for  Seward's 
foreign-war  panacea.  See  Mrs.  G.  E.  Pickett's  "Wartime  Story  of  General 
Pickett,"  Cosmopolitan,  vol.  Iv,  pp.  752-760. 


338  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

To  these  problems  was  added  that  of  the  Fenian  agitation. 
An  Irish  nationalistic  and  republican  movement,  its  leaders 
Fenian  move-  planned  to  make  the  United  States  the  basis 
"*'^*  for    their    effort  to    invade    Canada,    spread 

terror  in  England,  and  force  the  independence  of  Ireland. 
Archbishop  Hughes  had  visited  Ireland  during  the  Civil 
war,  and  had  successfully  stimulated  the  emigration  of 
young  men  to  the  United  States  for  the  purpose  of  enlisting 
in  the  Union  armies.  As  an  additional  motive  he  urged  that 
they  would  secure  military  training  that  would  prove  useful 
for  "ulterior"  purposes.  He  meant  the  defence  of  the  Papal 
States;  but  he  was  supposed  to  refer  to  the  freeing  of  Ireland, 
and  that  was  the  hope  that  fired  thousands  of  Irish  volunteers. 
In  1866  the  Fenians  invaded  Canada  across  the  Niagara 
river,  but  accomplished  nothing.  In  April  of  the  same  year 
an  attempt  was  made  to  seize  the  island  of  Campo  Bello, 
just  across  the  New  Brunswick  border  from  Maine,  to  pro- 
claim a  republic,  and  to  secure  recognition  from  the  United 
States;  but  this  expedition  also  came  to  nothing.^  It  is  not 
without  significance  that  in  July  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives passed  a  bill  to  allow  the  sale  of  ships  and  munitions  of 
war  to  foreign  citizens  and  governments  at  peace  with  the 
United  States  though  at  war  with  other  countries. 

The  chief  danger  of  the  Irish  movement  arose  from  the  fact 
that  many  of  the  Fenians  were  naturalized  American  citizens, 
and  many  were  veterans  of  our  Civil  war.  When 
they  got  into  difficulties,  therefore,  they  appealed 
to  an  American  public  sentiment  already  alert  to  take  offence 
against  the  British  government.  The  political  influence  of 
the  Irish  leaders,  moreover,  was  so  potent  that  few  politicians 
dared  oppose  them.  In  1868  the  House  passed  by  104  to  4 
a  bill  authorizing  the  President,  in  case  American  citizens 
were  arrested  for  political  reasons  by  a  foreign  power,  to 
suspend  commercial  relations  and  detain  a  corresponding 

*  John  Rutherford,  The  Secret  History  of  the  Fenian  Conspiracy,  2  vela. 
London,  1877. 


THE  AFTERMATH  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR    339 

number  of  the  citizens  of  the  offending  government,  indiscrim- 
inately selected.  This  bill  Sumner  succeeded  in  modifying  in 
the  Senate,  but  still  it  passed  in  good  round  terms.  Seward, 
always  on  close  terms  with  the  Irish  leaders,  in  this  case 
found  any  temptation  that  he  may  have  had  to  play  up  to 
them  checked  by  the  weightiest  of  balancing  considerations. 
Just  when  we  were  urgently  pressing  upon  Great  Britain 
our  claims  for  damages  based  on  her  failure  to  perform  her 
neutral  duties,  we  could  not  permit  ourselves  to  be  lax.  The 
government,  while  protecting  as  far  as  possible  the  rights  of 
American  citizens,  vigorously  enforced  the  laws  that  pre- 
vented the  use  of  our  territory  as  a  base  of  hostile  operations. 
The  crux  of  the  negotiations  between  the  two  govern- 
ments was  our  demand  for  damages  arising  from  what  we 

claimed   to   be   Great   Britain's   violation   of     _     x « -^ 

.  .         -  ,         Great  Bnt- 

neutrality.     Her  statutory  provision  for  the    ain's  practice 

performance  of  her  neutral  duties  was  found 
in  her  foreign  enlistment  act  of  1819.  Although  this  forbade 
the  fitting  out  of  armed  vessels,  the  Confederate  commis- 
sioners were  legally  advised  that  the  purchase  of  vessels  and 
the  purchase  of  arms  were  both  legal,  but  that  the  two  could 
not  be  combined  in  British  waters.  Acting  on  this  advice, 
Captain  Bullock,  the  Confederate  naval  representative,  con- 
tracted for  several  vessels,  of  which  the  Florida,  the  Shenan- 
doah, and  most  important,  the  Alabama  got  to  sea  in  the 
manner  suggested.  Although  in  April,  1863,  the  British 
government  prevented  the  Alexandria  from  being  similarly 
handed  over,  the  courts  sustained  the  Confederate  agents. 
In  this  latter  case  the  lord  chief  baron  instructed  the  jury: 
"  If  you  think  the  object  was  to  build  a  ship  in  obedience  to 
an  order,  and  in  compliance  with  a  contract,  leaving  those 
who  bought  it  to  make  what  use  they  thought  fit  of  it,  then 
it  appears  to  me  the  Foreign  enlistment  act  has  not  been  in 
any  degree  broken."  The  American  claims  for  damages 
rested  not  only  on  the  construction  of  these  vessels,  but 
also  upon  the  fact  that,  by  a  liberal  interpretation  of  the 


340  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

right  of  belligerent  vessels  to  take  on  enough  provisions  to 
reach  a  home  port,  they  were  allowed  to  use  British  ports  as 
bases  for  their  operations. 

On  October  23,  1863,  the  detention  of  the  Laird  rams  hav- 
ing shown  that  the  British  government  had  changed  its 
Futile  negotia-  practice  with  regard  to  the  building  of  hostile 
^^^^  warships,  Adams  offered  to  submit  to  arbitra- 

tion our  claims  for  damages  caused  by  those  already  buUt. 
Lord  Russell  said  that  the  construction  of  British  statutes 
could  never  be  submitted  to  arbitration,  that  the  question 
involved  the  honor  of  the  country  and  so  was  not  appro- 
priate for  arbitration.  It  was,  of  course,  obvious  that  the 
question  was  not  the  construction  of  British  statutes,  but  the 
adequacy  of  those  statutes,  as  interpreted  by  the  British 
courts,  to  the  maintenance  of  neutrality;  but  the  negotiation 
dropped.  It  was  renewed  under  Russell's  successor.  Lord 
Stanley,  but  agreement  was  at  first  prevented  by  the  ques- 
tion as  to  the  limits  of  the  arbitration, — whether  it  should 
be  confined  to  claims  for  damages  directly  inflicted,  or  should 
be  extended  to  include  those  suffered  indirectly,  such  as  in- 
surance, cost  of  pursuit,  and  the  commercial  loss  of  our 
merchant  marine. 

In  1868  Reverdy  Johnson,  who  succeeded  Adams,  ar- 
ranged a  convention  with  Lord  Stanley  dealing  with  this 
^  ,        _  and  other  subjects.    It  gave  up  our  claims  for 

Clarendon  indirect  damages,  and  so  was  not  entirely  satis- 

factory to  Seward;  nevertheless  it  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  Senate.  February  10,  1869,  Seward  wrote  to 
Johnson:  "The  confused  light  of  the  incoming  administration 
is  already  spreading  itself  over  the  country.  .  .  .  With  your 
experience  in  legislative  life,  you  will  be  able  to  judge  for 
yourself  of  the  prospects  of  definite  action  upon  the  treaties 
during  the  remainder  of  the  present  session." 

The  confused  light  broke  in  a  lightening  flash  when,  on 
April  13,  1869,  Sumner  reported  the  convention  unfavorably 
from  the  committee  on  foreign  affairs.     In  one  of  his  most 


THE  AFTERMATH  OP  THE  CIVIL  WAR    341 

carefully  prepared  orations  he  denounced  the  agreement 
and  proclaimed  his  policy.  Our  direct  claims,  he  contended, 
were  no  compensation  for  our  losses;  the  in-  Sumner's 
direct  claims,  particularly  those  based  on  the  ^^'^y 
substitution  of  the  British  merchant  marine  for  our  own,  were 
greater  and  must  be  made  good.  Fundamentally,  however, 
our  grievance  against  Great  Britain  rested  on  the  fact  that 
by  her  premature  and  injurious  proclamation  of  belligerency 
she  had  prolonged  the  war  for  at  least  two  years;  and  for  the 
cost  she  should  pay.  Sumner's  total  bill  amounted  to  two 
and  a  half  billion  dollars.  "Whatever  may  be  the  final  set- 
tlement of  these  great  accounts,"  he  declared,  "such  must 
be  the  judgment  in  any  chancery  which  consults  the  simple 
equity  of  the  case."  ^ 

The  explanation  of  this  preposterous  demand  is  revealed 
in  a  memorandum  of  Sumner's  of  January  17,  1871:  "The 
greatest  trouble,  if  not  peril,  being  a  constant  source  of 
anxiety  and  disturbance,  is  from  the  Fenians,  which  is  ex- 
cited by  the  proximity  of  the  British  flag  in  Canada.  There- 
fore the  withdrawal  of  the  British  flag  cannot  be  abandoned 
as  a  condition  preliminary  of  such  a  settlement  as  is  now  pro- 
posed. To  make  the  settlement  complete  the  withdrawal 
should  be  from  this  hemisphere,  including  provinces  and 
islands."  As  Adams  had  purchased  Florida  and  Polk  New 
Mexico  with  our  claims,  as  Jackson  had  proposed  to  buy  1/ 
Texas,  so  Sumner  would  purchase  all  British  America. 

Fantastic  as  was  his  proposition,  it  was  the  result  of 
thought,  it  rested  on  facts,  and  to  its  execution  he  devoted 
his  utmost  skill;  as  much  may  be  said  of  any  Sumner's  vi- 
conscientiously  constructed  house  of  cards.  """^ 
He  knew  that  his  English  friends,  many  of  them  highly 
placed  and  whom  he  regarded  as  the  real  men  of  that  coun- 
try, believed  colonies  to  be  a  burden,  that  they  would  in 
time  become  free,  that  Canada  would  ultimately  become 
part  of  the  United  States.  Cobden  had  written  to  him  in 
1  Sumner,  Works,  Boston,  1874-1883,  53-93. 


342  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

1849 :  "  I  agree  with  you  that  nature  has  decided  that  Canada 
and  the  United  States  must  become  one  for  all  purposes  of 
intercommunication.  Whether  they  also  shall  be  united  in 
the  same  Federal  Government  must  depend  upon  the  two 
parties  to  the  union.  I  can  assure  you  that  there  will  be  no 
repetition  of  the  policy  of  1776,  on  our  part,  to  prevent  our 
North  American  colonies  from  pursuing  their  interests  in 
their  own  way.  If  the  people  of  Canada  are  tolerably 
unanimous  in  wishing  to  sever  the  very  slight  thread  which 
now  binds  them  to  this  country,  I  see  no  reason  why,  if 
good  faith  and  ordinary  temper  be  observed,  it  should  not 
be  done  amicably."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Gladstone,  who  be- 
came prime  minister  in  1869,  fifteen  years  later  surrendered 
British  authority  in  the  Transvaal  and  withdrew  from  the 
Soudan.  Sumner's  plan  to  remove  all  causes  for  dispute 
with  Great  Britain,  to  take  another  step  in  our  inevitable 
expansion  over  the  continent  without  a  drop  of  blood,  to 
assure  the  dominance  in  the  United  States  of  northern  views 
by  thus  adding  to  the  northern  element,  was  fitted  together 
from  the  best  thought  of  his  generation. 

As  Calhoun  in  his  absorption  over  the  Texas  question 
failed  to  see  the  fallacy  in  his  syllogistic  argument  for  annexa- 
Sumner'smad-  tion,  so  Sumner,  rapt  in  his  vision,  utterly 
°®"  failed  to  take  cognizance  of  human  nature. 

To  inaugurate  an  era  of  brotherly  love  and  lavish  exchanges 
of  brotherly  favors  by  presenting  a  bill  for  two  billion  and  a 
half  dollars,  was  not  tactful.  To  suppose  that  his  friends 
in  England  would  cooperate  in  fixing  everlasting  stigma 
upon  the  name  of  Great  Britain  by  acknowledging  that  she 
had  injured  us  to  that  extent,  was  to  lose  sight  of  realities. 
To  imagine  that  a  people  strong  and  dominant  as  the  Eng- 
lish would  leave  those  friends  in  power  one  minute  after  they 
made  such  a  proposition  was  to  display  inexcusable  ignorance. 
The  only  palliation  of  Sumner's  conduct  was  that  he  lived 
in  a  generation  which  saw  such  visions,  and  that  even  the 
more  conservative  often  yielded  to  them,  as  Seward  had 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  THE  CIVH.  WAR    343 

done  when  he  evolved  his  foreign-war  panacea  at  the  opening 
of  the  Civil  war.  One  would  more  readily  grant  him  excuse 
if  he  had  not  regarded  with  such  self-righteous  horror  others 
who  had  been  or  were  endeavoring  to  carry  out  such  visions, 
as  Jackson,  Calhoun,  Polk,  and  Grant. 

The  importance  of  Sumner's  speech  was  enhanced  by  its 
popular  reception  and  by  the  fact  that  it  might  be  presumed 
to  voice  the  sentiments  of  the  new  administra-  closing  of  ne- 
tion.  The  Johnson-Clarendon  convention  was  8oti*t'o°s 
rejected  by  a  vote  of  54  to  1 ;  Grant,  the  new  President,  being 
a  military  hero,  was  expected  by  many  to  favor  an  aggres- 
sive policy;  and  Motley  was  sent  to  England  as  distinctly  of 
Sumner's  choice.  When  the  latter,  in  his  first  interview, 
told  Lord  Clarendon  that  the  belligerency  proclamation 
was  "the  fountain  head"  of  all  the  woes  caused  "to  the 
American  people,  both  individually  and  collectively,  by  the 
hands  of  Englishmen,"  the  British  government  concluded 
that  we  would  insist  on  Sumner's  views,  and  put  an  end  to 
the  negotiation. 

This  result  was  unfortunate,  for  as  a  matter  of  fact  the 
two  governments  were  just  approaching  an  understanding. 
Not  only  was  the  Gladstone  ministry  friendly  ^  •  ai  tti- 
to  the  United  States,  but  British  public  senti-  tude  of  the  two 
ment  was  beginning  to  perceive  that  it  was  ad- 
vantageous for  Great  Britain  to  yield.  Sir  Thomas  Baring, 
inheriting  the  friendly  sentiments  of  his  house,  argued  that 
Great  Britain,  with  her  immense  commerce  and  her  prepared 
navy,  was  the  last  power  to  admit  the  extemporizing  of  com- 
merce-destroyers in  neutral  ports.  In  time  of  war,  even  with 
a  land-girt  power,  every  neutral  harbor,  he  urged,  would 
be  a  safe  lurking-place  for  her  enemies;  the  only  method  of 
prevention  would  be  universal  war.^  The  American  ad- 
ministration, also,  was  inclined  to  agreement.  The  new 
secretary  of  state,  Hamilton  Fish,  had  actually  instructed 
Motley  to  speak  of  the  belligerency  proclamation  merely  as 
*  John  Morley,  Life  of  Gladstone,  3  vols.,  London,  etc.,  1903. 


344  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

indicating  "the  beginning  and  the  animus  of  that  course  of 
conduct  which  resulted  so  disastrously  to  the  United  States;'* 
and  even  this  clause  was  inserted  only  because  of  the  violent 
insistence  of  Sumner. 

In  spite  of  this  approach  in  the  views  of  the  two  govern- 
ments, it  was  a  delicate  task  to  reopen  the  negotiation  as 
Reopening  of  neither  government  wished  to  take  the  first 
negotiations  g^-gp  Fortunately  it  happened  that  Caleb 
Cushing,  for  the  United  States,  and  John  Rose,  for  Great 
Britain,  two  able  and  accomplished  diplomats,  were  in  Wash- 
ington negotiating  in  regard  to  certain  claims  of  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company  recognized  by  the  treaty  of  1846  and  by  a 
convention  of  1867.  Finding  by  informal  conversations  that 
the  ground  was  secure,  Rose  on  January  11,  1871,  presented 
a  memorandum  suggesting  that  all  questions  in  dispute  be 
made  the  subject  of  a  general  negotiation  and  treaty.  It  was 
at  this  time  that  Sumner,  being  invited  as  chairman  of  the 
committee  on  foreign  affairs  to  read  Rose's  note,  revealed 
his  plan  for  securing  Canada.  It  was  obvious  that  he  stood 
in  the  way  of  any  settlement.  Grant  had  already  been 
incensed  by  Motley's  disregard  of  his  instructions  and  by 
Sumner's  opjjosition  to  his  own  favorite  project,  the  annexa- 
tion of  Santo  Domingo,  an  irritation  which  became  mutual 
when  Grant  requested  Motley  to  resign,  and,  on  his  refusal, 
removed  him.  The  climax  was  now  reached,  and  Grant 
successfully  used  his  influence  with  the  Senate  to  secure 
Sumner's  removal  from  his  chairmanship.  The  ground  was 
ready  for  another  of  our  great  clearing-house  agreements 
with  Great  Britain.^ 

The  negotiation  was  conducted  at  Washington  by  a  com- 
mission of  marked  distinction.  On  the  American  side  were 
Fish,  secretary  of  state,  Schenck,  minister  to  Great  Britain, 

^  This  whole  negotiation  has  been  the  subject  of  much  controversy.  In 
addition  to  Moore's  Arbitrations  and  the  forthcoming  life  of  C.  F.  Adams, 
see  D.  H.  Chamberlain,  Charles  Sumner  and  the  Treaty  of  Washington, 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  1902;  Caleb  Cushing,  The  Treaty  of  Washington,  New 
York,  1873;  and  Rhodes,  United  States,  vi.  337-368. 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR    345 

Justice  Nelson  of  the  supreme  court,  E.  R.  Hoar  of  Massa- 
chusetts as  interested  in  the  fisheries,  and  G.  H.  Williams 
of  Oregon  to  present  the  San  Juan  controversy.  The  commis- 
Although  certainly  less  able  than  our  dele-  "*"* 
gations  at  Paris  in  1783  or  at  Ghent  in  1815,  the  body 
was  skilled  and  representative.  The  British  commission 
far  exceeded  in  dignity,  as  probably  in  ability,  any  previously 
sent  to  us  by  a  foreign  power;  its  makeup  was  significant 
of  our  growth  in  international  importance.  The  chairman 
was  Earl  de  Grey,  president  of  the  privy  council.  Sir  Stafiford 
Northcote,  the  reformer  of  the  civil  service.  Sir  Edward 
Thornton,  British  minister  at  Washington,  Sir  John  Alex- 
ander Macdonald,  minister  of  justice  for  Canada,  and 
Mountague  Bernard,  professor  of  international  law  at 
Oxford. 

After  thirty-seven  sittings  the  treaty  was  signed.  May  8, 
1871.  It  dealt  first  with  claims  for  damage  done  by  the 
Alabama  and  other  British-built  commerce-  "Alabama 
destroyers.  This  question  was  to  be  submitted  <^**™'' " 
to  a  tribunal  of  five  arbitrators,  one  each  to  be  selected  by 
the  president  of  the  United  States,  the  queen  of  Great  Britain, 
the  king  of  Italy,  the  president  of  the  Swiss  confederation, 
and  the  emperor  of  Brazil.  This  tribunal  was  to  meet  at 
Geneva,  and  was  to  base  its  decisions  on  three  rules  for  the 
conduct  of  neutral  nations:  "First,  to  use  due  diligence  to 
prevent  the  fitting  out  .  .  ,  within  its  jurisdiction,  of  any 
vessel  which  it  has  reasonable  ground  to  believe  is  intended  to 
cruise  .  .  .  against  a  Power  with  which  it  is  at  peace  .  .  . ; 
secondly,  not  to  permit  .  .  .  either  belligerent  to  make  use  of 
its  ports  or  waters  as  the  base  of  naval  operations  .  .  .; 
thirdly,  to  exercise  due  diligence  in  its  own  ports  and 
waters  ...  to  prevent  any  violation  of  the  foregoing  obli- 
gations and  duties."  The  insertion  of  "reasonable  ground 
to  believe,"  taken  from  our  neutrality  act  of  1838,  was  a 
distinct  American  triumph.  Great  Britain  would  not  ac- 
knowledge that  this  had  been  the  rule  during  the  Civil  war. 


346  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

but  was  now  willing  to  have  the  cases  decided  on  that  basis, 
in  order  to  establish  it  as  the  rule  for  the  future. 

Another  but  less  elaborate  tribunal,  of  one  commissioner 
appointed  by  each  country  and  one  by  both  together,  was 
Other  CivU  to  decide  upon  all  other  claims,  British  and 
w«r  claims  American,  that  had  arisen  during  the  Civil  war. 

Articles  xviii  to  xxi  of  the  treaty  dealt  with  the  fisheries. 
The  principle  of  reciprocity  was  again  applied,  Great  Britain 
granting  us  the  privileges  necessary  for  the  con- 
duct of  our  fishing  industry,  and  the  United  1 
States  conceding  free  entry  of  fish  oil,  and  sea  fish.  Upon  the 
contention  by  the  British  government  that  the  privileges 
granted  to  us  were  more  valuable  than  those  which  its  sub- 
jects received,  it  was  left  to  a  commission,  the  third  and  arbi- 
trating member  of  which  was  to  be  appointed  by  the  Austrian 
minister  at  London,  to  investigate  the  matter  and  assess  the 
compensatory  sum,  if  any,  that  we  should  pay. 

Article  xxvii  gave  the  United  States  the  free  navigation  ; 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  forever,  and  Great  Britain  similar  use 
Border    ques-     of  the  Yukon,  Porcupine,  and  Stikine.    With, 
***"**  England's   free  use   of   the   Columbia  estab- 

lished in  1846,  this  agreement  opened  up  all  the  important 
international  rivers  with  which  the  two  countries  were  con- 
cerned. By  the  same  article  the  government  of  Great  Bri- 
tain agreed  to  urge  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  and  that  of 
the  United  States  promised  to  use  its  influence  with  those  of 
the  states  concerned,  to  open  up  all  their  respective  canals  \/ 
connected  with  the  navigation  of  the  Great  Lakes  on  terms 
of  equality  to  both  nations;  and  by  article  xxviii  the  United  ^ 
States  allowed  the  free  navigation  of  Lake  Michigan.  Ar- 
ticles xxix  and  xxx  provided  for  the  shipping  of  goods  in 
bond  across  the  border  and  back  under  regulation.  By  ar- 
ticle xxxi  Great  Britain  engaged  to  urge  the  Canadian  gov- 
ernment to  impose  no  export  duty  on  Maine  lumber  floated 
down  the  St.  Johns  under  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  of 
1842. 


THE  AFTERMATH  OF  THE  CIVH.  WAR    347 

By  article  xxiv  the  question  of  the  San  Juan  channel 

was  submitted  to  the  decision  of  the  emperor    _ 

*^  Boundary 

of  Germany. 

Comprehensive  as  was  this  treaty,  and  unique  in  calling 
the  direct  attention  of  most  of  the  crowned  heads  of  Europe 
to  our  affairs,  it  was  overshadowed  in  interest  Geneva  arbi- 
by  the  Geneva  arbitration  which  it  evoked.  *^***°" 
Never  before  had  such  important  and  irritating  international 
disputes  voluntarily  been  submitted  to  judicial  settlement. 
The  commission  was  equal  to  the  significance  of  its  task. 
Grant  appointed  as  our  representative  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  and  Queen  Victoria  chose  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn, 
lord  chief  justice  of  England;  the  commissioners  from  Italy, 
Switzerland,  and  Brazil  were  also  men  of  note.  The  Amer- 
ican case  was  prepared  by  William  Evarts,  M.  R.  Waite, 
and  Caleb  Cushing,  the  first  the  leader  of  the  bar,  the  second 
later  to  be  chief  justice,  the  third  as  brilliant  in  law  as  he 
was  erratic  in  politics.  The  case  which  they  prepared  was 
presented  by  J.  C.  Bancroft  Davis. 

At  this  time  the  American  public  sentiment  that  had  ap- 
plauded Sumner  was  still  in  existence,  Sumner  himself, 
a  power  of  unknown  strength,  was  still  watch-  Arbitration  in 
ful,  the  Fenian  agitation  was  again  attracting  <^"^*r 
attention,  and  a  presidential  campaign  was  coming  on.  The 
administration,  therefore,  did  not  venture  to  admit  that  it 
had  surrendered  all  our  indirect  claims  in  the  treaty  of  Wash- 
ington. It  instructed  our  counsel  to  insist,  not  indeed  on 
those  for  the  cost  of  two  years  of  war,  but  for  compensation 
for  the  transfer  of  our  commerce  to  the  British  merchant 
marine,  as  covered  by  the  clause  of  the  treaty  that  read, 
**acts  committed  by  the  several  vessels  which  have  given 
rise  to  the  claims  generally  known  as  the  'Alabama  Claims."* 
British  public  opinion  considered  this  instruction  an  act  of 
bad  faith,  and  the  Gladstone  government  proposed  to  with- 
draw from  the  arbitration,  knowing  that,  if  it  consented  to 
submit  the  consideration  of  this  question  to  the  tribunal. 


348  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

it  would  itself  be  instantly  overthrown.  There  was  no  pos- 
sibility that  these  claims  would  be  allowed  by  the  tribunal; 
yet  the  United  States  would  not  give  over  presenting  them, 
nor  Great  Britain  allow  their  presentation. 

A  point  of  honor  in  each  case,  backed  by  a  public  senti- 
ment vociferously  led,  and  in  our  case  at  least  certainly  not 
Adams's  solu-  representative,  seemed  likely  to  wreck  the 
***"^  work.     Such  factors,   however,   seldom  have 

decisive  weight  in  controversies  between  Anglo-Saxons.  The 
solution  in  this  case  was  found  by  Adams.  At  his  suggestion 
the  arbitration  tribunal  itself  announced,  June  19,  1872, 
that  it  would  not  consider  such  claims.  Great  Britain  was 
satisfied,  and  the  United  States  acquiesced;  we  could  at  least 
assert  that  they  had  been  considered.  Our  direct  claims 
were  granted,  and  by  the  final  decision  of  September  14, 1872, 
the  sum  of  fifteen  and  a  half  million  dollars  was  awarded  us. 
The  commission  on  other  Civil  war  claims  granted  British  sub- 
jects about  two  million  dollars  for  illegal  imprisonment  and 
other  such  losses  incidental  to  war.  The  emperor  of  Ger- 
many decided  in  our  favor  in  the  case  of  the  channel  through 
the  strait  of  Juan  de  Fuca,  giving  us  the  islands  in  dispute.^ 

Thus  the  diflSculties  between  the  United  States  and  Great 

Britain  growing  out  of  the  Civil  war  were  settled,  the  treaty 

.         ,.  .  of   1846  was  clarified,   some  standard  ques- 

Accomplish-  .  .        .  1.    1      o      T 

mentsofthe        tions,  such  as  the  navigation  of  the  St.  Lawr- 

**^  ence,  were  settled  "forever,"  and  some,  like 

the  fisheries,  were  settled  for  a  period  of  years.    The  terms  of 

the  treaty  itself  reveal  a  new  factor  in  the  relations  of  the 

two  countries  that  was  liable  to  be  a  disturbing  element  in 

the  future,  namely,  the  deference  of  the  government  of 

Great  Britain  to  the  Dominion  of  Canada.     On  the  other 

hand,  and  most  important  of  all,  the  form  of  the  treaty 

marked  it  as  the  longest  step  yet  taken  by  any  two  nations 

toward  the  settlement  of  their  disputes  by  judicial  process. 

» T.  W.  Balch,  The  Alabama  Arbitration,  Philadelphia,  1900. 


CHAPTER    XXV 
ROUTINE,  1861-1877 

While  tl\e  problems  peculiar  to  the  war  received  most  of 
the  attention  that  the  public  had  to  spare  for  diplomatic 
affairs,  between  1861  and  1877,  they  did  not  relieve  the 
administration  from  the  necessity  of  handling  routine  busi- 
ness and  continuous  policies. 

One  immediate  result  of  the  passing  of  governmental  con- 
trol to  the  North  was  the  recognition  and  establishment 
of  diplomatic  intercourse  with  the  negro  gov-  The  negro 
ernments  of  Hayti,  now  a  republic  after  a  sue-  s***®^ 
cession  of  empires,  and  of  Liberia.  The  latter  had  been  a 
protege  of  the  United  States  ever  since  it  was  founded  in 
1819  to  serve  as  a  home  for  our  emancipated  slaves;  we  had 
protected  it  from  foreign  interference,  but  had  not  so  to 
speak,  recognized  it  socially.  The  other  American  negro  na- 
tion, Dominica,  we  recognized  as  soon  as  Spanish  control 
was  withdrawn,  and  we  have  never  since  refused  recognition 
to  any  nation  because  of  its  race.  We  made  a  first  treaty 
with  Liberia  in  1862,  with  Hayti  in  1864,  with  the  Dominican 
Republic  in  1867;  and  possibly  our  first  treaty  with  the  king- 
dom of  Madagascar  in  1867  should  come  under  this  head. 

A  similar  change  is  to  be  found  in  our  policy  toward 
the  slave  trade.    Seward's  convention  of  1862,  allowing  mu- 
tual search  in  certain  specified  parts  of  the     The  slave 
ocean,  with  trial  by  mixed  courts,  has  been    *'**^® 
mentioned.    The  area  of  ocean  subject  to  this  arrangement 
was  extended  in  1863,  and  in  1870  the  provision  with  regard 
to  mixed  courts  was  dropped.    In  1890  we  joined  in  a  general 
international  act  for  the  suppression  of  the  trade,  and  in \y 
1904  in  a  similar  act  for  the  suppression  of  the  trade  in  white 
women.    After  our  own  abolition  of  slavery  we  readily  co- 

S49 


S50  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

operated  in  stamping  it  out  everywhere.  It  is  of  course  to 
be  noted  that  the  danger  of  an  arbitrary  and  dangerous  use 
of  the  mutual  right  of  search  in  times  of  peace,  of  which 
there  were  grounds  to  justify  fear  in  the  earlier  period,  had 
disappeared  by  1870,  owing  to  the  change  in  our  relative 
strength  and  the  development  of  international  law. 

The  sweep  of  our  treaty  relations  was  already  so  compre- 
hensive that  the  only  first  treaty  we  made  with  any  nation 
aside  from  the  negro  governments  was  that 
with  Orange  Free  State  in  1871.  The  formation 
of  the  kingdom  of  Italy  in  1861  and  of  the  German  empire  in 
1871  did  not  require  special  attention,  for  they  inherited 
treaty  obligations  from  their  controlling  or  constituent  states; 
but,  as  new  questions  arose,  treaties  were  made,  with  Italy 
in  1868  and  with  Germany  in  1871. 

Even  during  the  Civil  war  we  did  not  drop  our  pursuit  of 
claims,  and  we  hotly  renewed  the  chase  when  the  war  was 

Claim  °^^^'    ^^  ^^^^  ^"^  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^"^  *^^  United 

States  submitted  their  mutual  claims  to  arbitra- 
tion, the  balance  in  both  cases  being  in  our  favor.  In  1866 
the  American  claims  against  Venezuela  were  arbitrated,  and 
about  a  million  and  a  quarter  dollars  were  awarded  to  us. 
A  mutual  arbitration  with  Mexico,  begun  by  a  treaty  of  1868, 
gave  a  balance  of  about  four  million  to  our  citizens.  In  1871 
our  claims  against  Spain  based  on  the  revolution  in  Cuba 
were  started  on  their  long  history  by  the  consummation  of  a 
treaty.  Finally  during  the  Franco-Prussian  war  we  came 
near  becoming  liable  for  a  violation  of  neutrality  by  our  own 
government  in  the  sale  of  arms  owned  by  the  nation  to 
France,^  but  the  episode  resulted  in  no  ill  consequences. 

The  area  covered  by  our  extradition  treaties  was  increased 
by  the  addition  of  Belgium,  Ecuador,  Italy,  Nicaragua,  the 
Ottoman  empire,  Salvador,  and  Spain.  Where  treaties  did 
not  exist,  the  surrender  of  fugitives  from  justice  by  virtue 

*  Adolf  Hepner,  America's  Aid  to  Qermany  in  1870-71,  St.  Louis,  1905; 
Schurz,  Speeches,  etc.,  v.  33-87. 


ROUTINE,   1861-1877  351 

of  international  courtesy  was  a  delicate  matter  for  us.  We 
would  not  surrender  those  fleeing  from  punishment  for  politi- 
cal ofiFences  or  from  military  service,  and  so  we 
were  loath  to  ask  other  nations  for  the  return 
of  our  own  fugitives.  The  action  of  the  Spanish  government 
in  turning  over  to  us  the  notorious  Boss  Tweed,  in  1876,  be- 
fore the  formation  of  oiu-  treaty  with  her,  was  therefore 
much  appreciated. 

A  new  line  of  diplomatic  activity  was  represented  by  trea- 
ties for  the  protection  of  trademarks,  made  with  Russia 
and  Belgium  in  1868,  France  in  1869,  and  Trademarks, 
Austria  in  1871.  A  still  more  remarkable  ex-  mSfil?eJ°ind 
tension  of  the  scope  of  diplomacy  and  of  our  copyrights 
acceptance  of  the  principle  of  international  cooperation  was 
our  participation,  in  1875,  in  an  international  convention 
for  the  establishment  at  Paris  of  a  bureau  of  weights  and 
measures  to  be  maintained  at  the  joint  expense  of  the  con- 
tracting nations.  Diplomacy,  however,  was  not  allowed  to 
take  any  steps  toward  similar  protection  for  authors  by 
means  of  international  copyrights.  As  the  most  conspicuous 
example  of  the  use  of  the  same  language  by  two  great  na- 
tions. Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  really  occupied 
a  unique  position  with  reference  to  this  question,  and  the 
latter  was  the  greatest  pirate  in  that  form  of  theft.  The 
matter  had  long  been  urged  upon  us  by  Dickens,  the  greatest 
suflFerer,  and  by  many  of  our  own  authors  and  public  men. 
Collectively,  however,  we  showed  no  more  disposition  to 
surrender  our  profits  than  had  the  pirates  of  Barbary. 
The  sums  involved  were  greater  than  those  at  stake  in 
our  relations  with  the  North  African  states,  and  the  moral 
delinquency  must  probably  be  judged  to  be  about  the 
same.* 

Continuing  the  policy  of  freeing  the  navigation  of  great 
international  rivers,  the  United  States,  acting  in  agreement 
but  not  in  formal  cooperation  with   other  powers,  made 

^  R.  R.  Bowker,  Copyright,  its  History  and  its  Law,  Boston,  etc.,  1912. 


S5^  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

a  treaty  with  Hanover  in  1861,  and  one  with  Belgium  in  1863, 
facihtating  the  international  use  of  the  Elbe  and  the  Scheldt. 
Freeing  river  In  each  case  we  paid  a  proportional  part  of  a 
navigation  capital  sum  which  was  divided  among  various 

nations  "pro  rata  to  their  navigation." 

Although  the  definite  undertaking  of  the  first  transcon- 
tinental railroad  through  our  territory  in  1862  diminished 
Transcon-  *^®  interest   in  the  isthmus  routes,  and  its 

tinental  com-  completion  in  1869  lessened  their  importance, 
munication  .  .    .  .  , 

we  continued  our  policy  of  obtaining  the  right 

of  free  use  and  the  guarantee  of  their  neutrality.  In  a  treaty 
with  Honduras  in  1864  we  undertook  a  guarantee  of  the 
proposed  "Interoceanic  railroad"  through  that  country  in 
return  for  the  establishment  of  free  terminal  ports  for  trade 
and  commerce,  but  we  made  the  agreement  conditional  upon 
our  right  to  withdraw  on  six  months'  notice  if  dissatisfied 
with  our  treatment  by  the  company.  A  treaty  with  Nicara- 
gua in  1867  gave  us  free  use  of  her  isthmus  even  for  troops, 
in  return  for  a  guarantee  of  neutrality  in  which  we  agreed 
to  ask  other  nations  to  join.  Now,  with  the  change  in  the 
conditions  of  transportation,  it  was  a  question  whether  such 
treaties  might  not  be  more  of  a  burden  than  an  advantage. 
Fish  wrote  to  Baxter,  our  representative  in  Honduras, 
May  12,  1871,  "The  guarantee  to  Honduras  of  neutrality 
of  interoceanic  communication  does  not  imply  that  the 
United  States  is  to  maintain  a  police  or  other  force  in  Hon- 
duras for  the  purpose  of  keeping  petty  trespassers  from  the 
railway." 

Although  we  made  numbers  of  commercial  treaties  during 
this  period,  we  pressed  the  policy  of  reciprocity  less  con- 
Hawaiian  red-  spicuously  than  heretofore.  In  the  treaty  of 
procity  Washington  the  fisheries  were  dealt  with  on 

that  basis,  but  in  much  more  restricted  form  than  in  Marcy's 
treaty  on  the  same  subject.  The  treaty  with  the  Hawaiian 
islands  in  1875  was  a  conspicuous  exception.  This  was  the 
most  thorough  appUcation  of  the  principle  into  which  we 


ROUTINE,   1861-1877  353 

had  ever  entered.  It  was  on  the  basis  of  entry  customs  free, 
and  included  practically  all  articles  of  exchange,  the  most 
important  being  Hawaiian-grown  sugar.  It  amounted  prac- 
tically to  a  customs  union,  and  represented  not  so  much  a  y 
general  commercial  policy  as  our  growing  conception  that 
Hawaii  was  another  of  our  special  interests. 

Although  in  the  Pacific,  Hawaii  is  for  purposes  of  our  policy 
to  be  regarded  as  connected  with  the  American  continents. 
With  the  further  side  of  that  ocean  we  continued 
to  develop  our  diplomatic  relations,  although 
with  the  passing  of  our  merchant  marine  and  the  substitution 
of  petroleum  for  whale  oil,  our  material  interests  declined. 
With  Japan  we  entered  into  a  convention  in  1864,  fixing  her 
duties  on  certain  of  our  exports;  but  this  agreement  cannot 
be  considered  as  an  example  of  reciprocity,  for  we  made  no 
corresponding  concessions.  The  most  interesting  point  in 
our  Japanese  relations,  however,  was  our  apparently  uncon- 
scious adoption  of  a  new  practice  with  regard  to  interna- 
tional relations.  In  America  we  refused  to  admit  European 
interference;  in  Europe  we  refrained  from  interfering;  in 
Asia  we  began  to  show  a  willingness  actively  to  cooperate 
with  European  powers.  In  1864  we  took  part  with  Great 
Britain,  France,  and  the  Netherlands  in  "chastising"  Mori 
Daizen,  feudatory  prince  of  Najato  and  Suwo,  who,  in  de- 
fiance of  the  Tycoon,  closed  the  straits  of  Shimonoseki;  and 
we  united  also  in  demanding  compensation  from  the  Tycoon, 
receiving  our  fourth  share  of  the  three  million  dollars  that 
he  paid.  In  1866  we  joined  the  same  powers  in  exacting 
from  Japan  a  revision  of  her  tariff,  the  rates  being  fixed  by 
the  treaty.  This  regulation  proved  burdensome  to  Japan 
after  the  revolution  and  the  establishment  of  the  power  of 
the  Mikado,  and  in  1872  a  Japanese  embassy  made  a  cir- 
cular tour  to  secure  its  reconsideration,  as  well  as  that  of  the 
earlier  treaties  which  excepted  foreigners  from  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  native  courts  and  gave  the  various  consuls  judi- 
cial power  over  their  respective  citizens.     Secretary  Fish 


354  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

wrote,  September  14,  1874,  "The  President  is  impressed 
with  the  importance  of  continued  concert  between  the  treaty 
powers  in  Japan,  at  least  until  after  the  revision  of  the  trea- 
ties, and  until  the  government  of  Japan  shall  have  exhibited 
a  degree  of  power  and  capacity  to  adopt  and  to  enforce  a 
system  of  jurisprudence  and  of  judicial  administration,  in 
harmony  with  that  of  the  Christian  powers,  equal  to  their 
evident  desire  to  be  reUeved  from  the  enforced  duties  of 
extraterritoriality. ' ' 

With  China  our  relations  were  particularly  pleasant.  An- 
son Burlingame,  whom  Lincoln  sent  as  minister,  was  so  highly 
regarded  there  that  in  1868  he  returned  to  the 
United  States  accredited  Chinese  minister  to 
her  and  other  western  powers.  Representing  China,  he  con- 
cluded a  treaty  with  us  in  1868.  This  granted  China  the  right 
to  appoint  consuls  to  reside  in  the  United  States,  but  without 
such  extraterritorial  powers  as  our  consuls  exercised  in  China. 
We  agreed,  in  case  China  wished  aid  in  internal  improve- 
ments, to  designate  suitable  engineers  and  to  recommend 
other  nations  to  do  the  same.  The  most  important  clause 
was  that  prohibiting  the  importation  of  coolies  or  forced 
emigrants.  This  precaution  was  called  for  by  the  bringing 
into  this  country  of  thousands  of  laborers  who  were  prac- 
tically slaves,  many  of  whom  were  employed  in  the  con- 
struction of  the  Pacific  railroads.  The  prohibition  is  prob- 
ably more  to  be  connected  with  the  attempt  to  stamp  out 
the  last  remnants  of  slavery  than  with  the  feeling  against 
Chinese  labor.  The  latter  sentiment,  however,  was  daily 
growing  stronger  on  the  Pacific  coast,  and  the  Burlingame 
treaty  was  violently  attacked  because  of  its  failure  to  deal 
with  the  broader  question.* 

By  far  the  most  important  routine  duty  of  diplomacy, 

*  M .  R.  CooHdge,  Chinese  Immigration,  New  York,  1909;  G.  F.  Seward, 
Chinese  Immigration  in  its  Social  and  Economical  Aspects,  New  York,  1881 ; 
F.  W.  Williams,  Anson  Burlingame  and  the  first  Chinese  Mission  to  Foreign 
Potoers,  New  York,  1912. 


ROUTINE,   1861-1877  355 

however,  was  that  of  establishing  the  international  status 

of  our  naturalized   citizens.     Seward   wrote,    August   22, 

1867,  "The  question  is  one  which  seems  to     <,^  ^       .     ^ 
'  ...  .  ,.  .  Status  of  n«t- 

have  been  ripening  for  very  serious  discussion     uralized    dti- 

when  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  war  in  this 
country  obliged  us  to  forego  every  form  of  debate  which 
was  likely  to  produce  hostility  or  even  irritation  abroad." 
The  bill  of  1868  providing  for  the  defence  of  American  cit- 
izens abroad  declared  that  the  "right  of  expatriation"  was 
"a  natural  and  inherent  right  of  all  people,"  and  that 
naturalized  citizens  of  the  United  States  should  receive  the 
same  protection  as  native  citizens.  It  was  obviously  neces- 
sary for  the  administration  to  press  our  position  upon  the 
attention  of  foreign  countries,  and  it  was  fortunate  that  the 
handling  of  this  delicate  problem  fell  to  the  historian  George 
Bancroft,  from  1867  to  1874  minister  first  to  the 
several  German  states  and  then  to  the  German 
empire.  Educated  in  Germany  and  a  scholar  of  repute,  he 
possessed  the  kind  of  ability  and  distinction  that  particularly 
appealed  to  that  nation.  His  relations  with  Bismarck  were 
very  friendly.  Once  kept  waiting  for  an  audience  because 
the  Turkish  representative  was  granted  precedence  based  on 
ambassadorial  rank,  he  protested  that  our  national  impor- 
tance gave  us  the  right  to  equality  of  treatment  in  matters  of 
business  regardless  of  rank.  He  was  never  again  kept  wait- 
ing, although  his  claim  to  equality  of  treatment  had  no  basis 
in  diplomatic  custom.^ 

In  1868  he  obtained  a  treaty  with  the  North  German 
Union.  The  German  governments  acknowledged  the  right 
of  their  citizens  to  transfer  their  allegiance  by  five  years' 
uninterrupted  residence  accompanied  by  naturalization.  A 
subsequent  residence  of  two  years  in  Germany  was  to  be 

'  M.  A.  D.  Howe,  The  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Bancroft,  2  vols..  New 
York,  1908;  J.  S.  Wise,  A  Treatise  on  American  Citizenship,  Northport, 
N.  Y.,  1906;  F.  G.  Franklin,  The  Legislative  History  of  Naturalization, 
Chicago,  1906. 


N/ 


356  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

held  as  a  renunciation  of  United  States  citizenship,  and 
naturalized  citizens  remained  liable  to  punishment  for  acts 
Treaties  with  committed  before  emigration.  This  treaty  was 
German  states  rapidly  followed  by  similar  agreements  with 
other  German  states,  Baden,  Bavaria,  Hesse,  and  Wurttem- 
burg,  all  in  1868.  Treaties  were  made  with  Belgium  and 
Mexico  in  the  same  year,  with  Sweden  and  Norway  in  1869, 
with  Austria  in  1870,  and  with  Ecuador  in  1872. 

Our  agreement  with  Great  Britain  was  almost  as  impor- 
tant as  the  one  with  Germany.  The  impressment  problem 
Treaty  with  was  not  likely  to  come  up  again,  but  the  Fenians 
Great  Britain  ^gre  giving  the  question  of  the  international 
status  of  our  British-born  citizens  every  twist  of  which  it 
seemed  capable.  The  acts  for  which  they  were  arrested  in 
Great  Britain  were  generally  criminal,  such  as  the  dynamit- 
ing of  public  buildings,  an  offence  for  which  our  native  citi- 
zens would  have  been  equally  punishable;  but  cases  did 
arise  in  which  the  question  of  nationality  was  important. 
The  Gladstone  government  rightly  determined  that  the 
doctrine  of  indefeasible  allegiance  was  inapplicable  to  exist- 
ing world  conditions,  and  evinced  its  willingness  to  take  the 
question  up.  Most  appropriately  the  American  negotiator 
was  Motley,  Bancroft's  professional  colleague.  In  this  case 
he  successfully  carried  out  the  purpose  of  the  government 
and  in  1870  concluded  a  treaty  more  satisfactory  than  those 
with  the  German  states,  in  that  it  contained  no  reference 
to  punishment  for  offences  previous  to  naturalization  or 
to  an  automatic  relapse  of  nationality  after  two  years'  resi- 
dence in  one's  native  land. 

These  treaties  provided  for  most  of  our  naturalized  citi- 
zens at  the  time,  and  the  United  States  has  since  success- 
Questions  un-  fully  insisted  upon  similar  principles  in  the 
settled  ^g^gg  ^j£  nearly  all  other  countries  from  which 

she  has  recruited  her  population.  Bancroft's  treaty  with 
Germany  really  marked  the  turning-point  in  the  world's 
attitude  towards  the  question  of  allegiance.    Many  details, 


ROUTINE,   1861-1877  867 

however,  remained  unsettled.  The  status  of  a  foreigner  who 
had  declared  his  intention  of  becoming  a  citizen  and  had 
not  completed  his  naturalization  was  anomalous.  Many  of 
our  states,  moreover,  admit  to  the  suffrage  in  less  than  five 
years.  Questions  have  arisen  as  to  the  liability  of  a  foreigner 
subject  to  military  conscription  who  leaves  home  before 
reaching  the  age  of  service  but  does  not  become  an  Amer- 
ican citizen  until  after  passing  that  age.  The  question  of  the 
validity  of  naturalization  papers  has  proved  annoying,  as  they 
have  been  bought  and  sold  for  the  protection  they  afford. 
One  of  the  most  trying  problems  has  arisen  from  the  un- 
doubted right  of  any  nation  to  exclude  foreigners.  This 
right  we  have  not  denied,  but  we  have  objected  to  dis- 
crimination between  our  naturalized  and  our  natural  cit- 
izens. In  1912  we  denounced  our  treaty  with  Russia  be- 
cause of  her  discrimination  against  our  citizens  of  the 
Jewish  race. 

Such  questions  have  from  1868  to  the  present  day  taken 
up  a  large  proportion  of  the  time  and  attention  of  our  state 
department  and  diplomatic  service.  No  num-  Present  posi- 
ber  of  precedents  seems  able  to  prevent  the  ^5ized°*dti- 
development  of  new  situations.  In  general  zeos 
the  government  has  insisted  upon  its  sole  right  to  determine 
the  validity  of  its  papers,  but  it  is  always  willing  to  investi- 
gate cases  brought  to  its  attention.  It  has  not  conceded 
the  right  of  foreign  governments  to  punish  our  citizens  for 
the  act  of  emigration,  but  it  has  admitted  that  evasion 
of  military  service  is  a  punishable  act.  It  has  not  con- 
tinued to  extend  its  protection  to  naturalized  citizens 
who  are  known  to  have  taken  up  their  permanent  resi- 
dence in  their  native  countries.  Upon  the  whole,  these 
questions,  though  still  handled  by  the  diplomatic  staff  and 
liable  at  any  time  to  cause  an  international  rupture,  may 
be  said  to  have  become  matters  of  legal  detail,  their  fun- 
damental principles  being  well  understood  and  generally 
accepted. 


S58  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

With  all  these  matters  of  routine  upon  his  mind,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  pressing  necessities  of  the  Civil  war  and  its 
Seward  and  results,  and  with  a  weather  eye  always  di- 
expansion  rected  to  politics,  Seward,  most  indefatigable 

of  our  secretaries  of  state,  did  not  lose  his  vision  of  peaceful 
expansion.^  One  stroke  of  luck  enabled  him  to  confirm  his 
prophecy  of  1861  with  regard  to  Russia's  building  on  the 
Arctic  the  outposts  of  the  United  States.  Our  interest  in 
Alaska  was  not  new.  Senator  Gwin  of  California  had  brought 
up  the  question  of  its  purchase  in  1859,  and  the  matter  was 
talked  over  with  the  Russian  minister.  The  latter  did  not 
express  indignation  at  the  suggestion,  but 
thought  that  the  five  millions  mentioned  as  a 
price  was  too  small.  After  the  war  interest  reappeared  in 
the  Pacific  coast  states,  but  was  not  sufficiently  strong  to  set 
our  machinery  in  motion.  In  fact,  when  in  1867  Russia 
offered  Alaska  to  us,  the  general  sentiment  of  the  country, 
viewed  our  acceptance  of  the  proposition  as  a  favor .^ 

Seward,  however,  leaped  to  the  opportunity,  yet  not  so 
far  as  to  lose  his  diplomatic  address.  Stoeckl,  the  Russian 
Seward's  ac-  minister  at  Washington,  suggested  ten  mil- 
^^^  lions  as  a  proper  price,  Seward  five  millions. 

Stoeckl  proposed  to  split  the  diflference,  and  Seward  agreed 
if  Stoeckl  would  knock  off  the  odd  half-million.  Stoeckl 
finally  said  that  he  would  do  so  if  Seward  would  add  two 
hundred  thousand  as  special  compensation  to  the  Russian 
American  Company,  making  the  price  seven  million  two 
hundred  thousand.  Elate,  Seward  roused  Sumner  from  bed 
at  midnight,  and  the  three  drew  up  the  agreement  between 
then  and  four  o'clock.  The  treaty  ceded  all  Russia's  terri- 
tory in  America,  and  ran  a  boundary  through  Behring 
strait  and  sea,  dividing  the  islands.     It  provided,  as  usual, 

»T.  C.  Smith,  "Expansion  after  the  Civil  War,  1865-1871,"  Political 
Science  Quarterly,  1901,  xvi.  412-436. 

*  H.  H.  Bancroft,  Alaska  (San  Francisco,  1886),  eh.  xxviii.;  see  also  O.  S. 
Straus,  The  American  Spirit,  New  York,  1913,  and  in  Providence  Journal, 
June  4.  1905. 


ROUTINE,  1861-1877  851^ 

that  the  civilized  inhabitants  were  to  become  United  States 
citizens,  but  said  nothing  of  their  incorporation  into  the 
Union. 

To  secure  the  acceptance  of  the  treaty  seemed  to  be  more 
difficult  than  to  make  it.  To  this  task  Sumner  devoted 
himself.  He  delivered  a  speech  setting  forth  Russia  tnd  the 
with  learning  and  appreciation  the  possibil-  ^°^**<*  Sutes 
ities  of  the  territory,  but  his  success  was  perhaps  due  less 
to  his  material  arguments  than  to  the  general  impression 
that  we  owed  a  favor  to  Russia,  to  an  undercurrent  of 
belief  that  this  was  our  part  of  a  secret  bargain,  as  a  result 
of  which  Russia  had  lent  us  her  fleet  in  1863.  From  this  hazy 
impression  two  facts  emerge;  in  the  first  place,  there  was  no 
such  bargain;  in  the  second  place,  one  fleet  did  actually  come 
to  New  York  and  another  to  San  Francisco  with  sealed  in-  ^ 
structions  to  put  themselves  at  our  service  in  case  of  inter- 
vention by  Great  Britain  and  France.  While  the  czar  prob- 
ably was  sympathetic  with  the  North  and  saw  with  regret 
the  disappearance  of  our  merchant  marine,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  his  action  was  chiefly  prompted  by  these  considera- 
tions. Russia  was  in  1863  as  much  alarmed  at  the  prospect 
of  intervention  by  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Austria  in 
her  affairs  as  we  were  at  the  possibility  that  England  and 
France  might  interfere  in  ours.  The  Poles  were  once  more 
writhing  under  Russian  rule  and  most  of  Europe  was  protest- 
ing at  Russia's  atrocities.  When,  therefore,  in  May,  1863, 
Seward  refused  an  invitation  from  France  to  join  the  pro- 
test, his  reply,  based  on  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  may  well  have  "^ 
excited  the  czar's  gratitude.  Moreover,  the  Russian  fleets 
more  probably  came  to  our  harbors  for  their  own  protection 
than  for  ours;  that  of  the  Pacific  had  no  winter  harbor  in 
the  East  and  dared  not  go  home,  that  of  the  Atlantic,  lying 
on  the  Spanish  coast,  dared  not  go  through  the  English  Chan- 
nel. From  our  harbors,  also,  they  could,  if  war  broke  out, 
harass  English  commerce,  whereas  at  home  they  would  be 
blocked  completely. 


360  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

The  legend  of  Russia's  aid,  however,  was  apparently  the 
decisive  factor  in  securing  the  acceptance  of  the  treaty,  and 
Success  of  the  has  afforded  the  main  basis  for  a  somewhat 
*'***y  curious   friendship   between  the  two  nations 

ever  since.    When,  in  1871,  the  grand  duke  Alexis  visited  this 
country,  OUver  Wendell  Holmes  greeted  him  with  the  lines, 

"  Bleak  are  our  coasts  with  the  blasts  of  December, 
Throbbing  and  warm  are  the  hearts  that  remember. 
Who  was  our  friend,  when  the  world  was  our  foe." 

Seward  also  thought  of  securing  the  annexation  of  Hawaii, 

but  his  main  interest  was  devoted  to  the  Caribbean.    The 

„      ..  National  Democratic  Convention  in  1856  de- 

HawHU 

clared,  "That  the  Democratic  party  will  expect 

of  the  next  administration  that  every  proper  effort  be  made 
to  increase  our  ascendancy  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  to 
•  maintain  permanent  protection  to  the  great 
outlets  through  which  are  emptied  into  its 
waters  the  products  raised  out  of  the  soil  and  the  com^ 
modities  created  by  the  industry  of  the  people  of  our 
Western  valleys  and  of  the  Union  at  large."  It  was  true 
that,  with  Florida  far  flung  to  the  south  and  untravers- 
able,  our  Mississippi  commerce  must  in  time  of  war  run 
the  gauntlet,  by  one  exit  of  five  hundred  miles  threat- 
ened by  Spanish  Cuba  and  the  British  Bahamas  and  pro- 
tected by  our  solitary  and  isolated  port  of  Key  West,  or 
else  must,  by  the  other  exit,  pass  Cuba  and  the  British 
Jamaica,  with  no  harbor  of  refuge.  This  danger  was  brought 
so  vividly  before  the  minds  of  those  in  authority  by  the 
exigencies  of  the  Civil  war,  that  at  that  time  we  actually 
leased  the  harbor  of  St.  Nicholas  from  Hayti. 

In  January,  1865,  Seward  broached  the  question  of  pur- 
chasing from  Denmark  the  island  of  St.  Thomas,  whose  splen- 

^    . ,  . ,    ,      did  harbor,  just  to  the  east  of  Porto  Rico,  would 
Danish  islands  i  •       r        i 

secure  us  a  convenient  naval  station  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  eastern  route.  After  much  bargaining,  a  treaty 
was  at  length  drawn  up  ceding  both  St.  Thomas  and  St.  Johns 


ROUTINE,  1861-1877  JJ6l 

for  seven  and  a  half  millions,  subject  to  a  popular  vote  by  the 
inhabitants  in  favor  of  annexation,  a  condition  upon  which 
Denmark  vigorously  insisted  in  opposition  to  the  views  of 
Seward.  After  some  contest  a  vote  was  taken  which  resulted 
in  our  favor.  To  the  effort  to  get  the  treaty  ratified,  how- 
ever, the  same  popular  opposition  was  demonstrated  that 
encountered  the  Alaska  treaty,  but  in  this  case  popular  sen- 
timent was  not  caught  by  Denmark,  though  she  too  had 
proved  to  be  our  friend  in  the  war.  The  House  voted  that 
it  would  not  appropriate  the  money,  the  Senate  laid  the 
treaty  on  the  table,  and  when  Grant  came  in  he  dismissed 
it  as  a  "scheme  of  Seward's."  ^ 

Meantime,  in  1867  George  Bancroft  was  instructed  to 
stop  at  Madrid,  on  his  way  to  Berlin,  to  attempt  the  purchase 
of  Culebra  and  Culebrita,  islands  in  the  same     Spanish 
locality   belonging    to    Spain;    but    as   usual,     *^*"<*8 
that  country  would  not  entertain  the  proposal  to  sell  her 
colonies. 

A  more  important  undertaking,  however,  was  taking  shape. 

In  1866  Admiral  Porter  was  sent  to  inspect  Samana  Bay,  in 

the  Dominican  republic,  with  reference  to  its     „ 

,  .  ,         Samana  Bay 

use  as  a  naval  station.    It  was  situated  near  the 

islands  already  considered,  and  proved  to  be  in  many  ways 
ideal  for  the  purpose.  In  February,  1868,  a  convention  was 
drawn  up  with  the  Dominican  government  providing  for  a 
twelve  years'  lease,  in  return  for  a  million  in  gold  and  a  million 
currency  in  the  form  of  arms.  President  Baez,  who  wanted  the 
arms,  was  not  uninclined  to  sell  out  the  whole  republic  while 
his  government  still  had  a  going  value,  and  proposed  annexa- 
tion, to  be  carried  into  effect  without  the  formality  of  a  pop- 
ular referendum.  Sewar^,  taking  a  different  view  of  the  latter 
question  from  that  which  he  had  assumed  in  the  case  of  the 
Danish  islands,  demanded  a  popular  vote;  but  it  still  seemed 
possible  to  bring  the  negotiation  to  a  head  in  an  acceptable 
form. 

1  James  Parton.  The  Danish  Islands,  Boston,  1869. 


362  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

President  Johnson,  who  left  Seward  a  very  free  hand  in 
diplomacy,  referred  to  the  subject  in  his  annual  message  of 
_       ^  1868:  "Comprehensive  national  policy  would 

annex  San  seem  to  sanction  the  acquisition  and  incorpora- 
tion  into  our  Federal  Union  of  the  several 
adjacent  continental  and  insular  communities  as  speedily 
as  it  can  be  done  peacefully,  lawfully,  and  without  any  viola- 
tion of  national  justice,  faith,  or  honor.  ...  I  am  satisfied 
that  the  time  has  arrived  when  even  so  direct  a  proceeding 
as  a  proposition  for  an  annexation  of  the  two  Republics  of 
the  island  of  St.  Domingo  would  not  only  receive  the  con- 
sent of  the  people  interested,  but  would  also  give  satisfaction 
to  all  other  foreign  nations."  Seward  took  up  the  question 
with  General  Banks,  chairman  of  the  House  committee  on 
foreign  affairs,  and  a  resolution  favoring  it  was  introduced. 
A  test  vote,  however,  was  defeated  110  to  63.  In  the  summer 
of  1868  Seward  wrote  to  our  representative  in  Hawaii,  "The 
public  mind  refuses  to  dismiss"  domestic  questions  "even 
so  far  as  to  entertain  the  higher  but  more  remote  questions 
of  national  expansion  and  aggrandizement." 

Although  Grant  threw  aside  the  Danish  treaty,  and  his 
secretary.  Fish,  refused  to  entertain  a  proposition  from  the 
Swedish  Swedish  minister  for  the  purchase  of  her  West 

islands  India  islands,  the  San  Domingo  proposal  took 

on  a  new  lease  of  life  with  the  new  administration.  Grant 
made  it  his  particular  policy;  perhaps  he  felt  safer  with  a 
Grant  and  scheme  of  Baez's  than  with  one  of  Seward's.  He 
San  Domingo  proceeded  like  a  cavalry  officer  on  a  raid.  He 
sent  as  his  secret  and  personal  agent  General  Babcock,  who 
speedily  concluded  a  treaty.  This  document  provided  among 
other  things  that  the  United  States  should  pay  a  million 
eight  hundred  thousand  dollars,  assume  the  national  debt 
in  return  for  the  public  lands,  and  protect  the  Dominican 
republic  until  a  free  expression  of  the  public  will  could  be 
given.  This  promise  was  made  concrete  by  the  fact  that 
Babcock  was  accompanied  by  three  men-of-war,  instructed 


ROUTINE,  1861-1877  86S 

to  protect  the  Dominican  government,  and  "if  Haytians 
attack  the  Dominicans  with  their  ships,  destroy  or  capture 
them."  If  one  compares  this  policy  of  protection  during  the 
pendency  of  annexation  with  the  cautious  words  of  Calhoun 
in  the  case  of  Texas,  one  is  reminded  of  the  remark,  "What  is 
the  constitution  among  friends?"  But  probably  Grant  him- 
self did  not  even  consider  the  constitution  in  this  connection. 

The  agreement  continued,  the  President  "promises  pri- 
vately to  use  all  his  influence  in  order  that  the  idea  of  annex- 
ing the  Dominican  Republic  to  the  United  Defeat  of  Bab- 
States  may  acquire  such  a  degree  of  popularity  ^^''^  treaty 
among  members  of  congress  as  will  be  necessary  for  its  ac- 
complishment." Grant  presented  the  treaty  to  the  Senate, 
January  18,  1870,  and  by  message  and  interviews  faithfully 
carried  out  his  word.  Nevertheless,  the  treaty  was  rejected, 
June  30,  by  a  tie  vote. 

Meanwhile  President  Baez  had  busied  himself  with  floating 
a  loan  on  the  London  market,  which  would  be  assumed  by  the 
United  States  in  case  of  annexation.  British  Renewal  of 
financial  interests  strongly  favored  annexation.  *^*  proposal 
In  spite  of  the  rejection  of  the  treaty  and  the  outbreak  of  do- 
mestic revolution,  he  assured  his  congress,  "The  measure  will, 
nevertheless,  succeed  in  the  end,  for  it  is  a  necessity  in  the 
progress  of  humanity,  whose  unseen  agent  is  Providence  it- 
self." The  seen  agent  in  this  case  was  Grant.  He  extended 
his  protection  for  a  year,  and  in  his  next  message  to  Congress 
applied  the  lash  of  foreign  intrigue.  Should  the  treaty  be 
ultimately  refused,  he  said,  "a  free  port  will  be  negotiated 
for  by  European  nations  in  the  Bay  of  Samana.  A  large 
commercial  city  will  spring  up,  to  which  we  will  be  tributary 
without  receiving  corresponding  benefits,  and  then  will  be 
seen  the  folly  of  our  rejecting  so  great  a  prize."  At  last  he 
secured  from  Congress  authority  to  send  a  san  Domingo 
commission  to  report  on  conditions,  and,  con-  comnussion 
fident  in  the  value  of  his  proposal,  appointed  for  the  mission 
able  and  honorable  men, — Benjamin  F.  Wade,  Andrew  D. 


364  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

White,  and  Samuel  S.  Howe.  They  were  accompanied  by 
A.  A.  Burton  and  Frederick  Douglass,  who  served  as  secre- 
taries. The  commission  made  a  well-balanced  and  not  un- 
favorable report,  but  the  proposition  was  dead. 

Fruitless  as  it  proved  in  itself,  the  San  Domingo  question 
influenced  many  other  things.  Sumner  reported  it  unfavor- 
ably  from  the  Senate  committee,  and  thereby 
against  ex-  earned  Grant's  enmity,  a  fact  which  largely 
*  accounted  for  the  latter's  willingness  to  depose 

him  when  he  stood,  next  winter,  in  the  way  of  the  treaty  of 
Washington.  The  debate,  too,  was  the  only  exhaustive  one 
on  expansion  between  the  Mexican  and  the  Spanish  wars. 
In  a  great  speech  in  the  Senate,  January  11,  1871,  Carl 
Schurz  summed  up  the  reasons  that  defeated,  in  this  period, 
the  dream  of  expansion  which  Seward  and  others  had  brought 
over  from  the  last.  He  feared  that  this  was  but  a  step  in  a 
general  campaign  of  expansion  that  would  stretch  us  through 
the  West  Indies  and  Mexico  to  the  isthmus.  He  feared  the 
incorporation  into  the  Union  of  these  tropic  territories, 
where  self-government  had  never  flourished,  where  free  labor 
was  never  successful.  Our  true  expansion  had  been  west- 
ward, migration  followed  isothermal  lines,  and  we  now  em- 
braced the  habitat  suited  to  the  nations  from  whom  we  had 
drawn  and  should  continue  to  draw  our  people;  San  Domingo 
was  not  a  proper  home  for  them.  He  believed  that  the  pro- 
tection of  a  naval  station  so  far  away  would  raise  more  prob- 
lems than  it  would  solve.  The  irregularities  of  the  Presi- 
dent's conduct  he  condemned,  foreign  ambitions  he  scouted, 
and  he  made  easy  fun  of  "manifest  destiny."  He  did  not, 
however,  call  attention  to  a  fact  which  undoubtedly  had 
much  to  do  with  the  popular  sentiment  against  expansion, 
namely,  that  the  movement  had  just  before  the  war  become 
so  identified  with  southern  interests  that  the  North  was 
suspicious  of  every  such  suggestion.^ 

Meanwhile,  from  1868  to  1878  insurrection  in  Cuba  the 
,  ^  Schurz,  Speeches,  etc.,  ii.  71-122. 


ROUTINE,  1861-1877  365 

desired  invited  our  attention.  As  Grant  made  San  Domingo 
his  specialty,  so  his  secretary  of  state  assumed  direction  of 
the  Cuban  question.  Although  Grant  first  ap-  Grant  and 
pointed  Elihu  Washburne  to  this  position,  it  ^^^ 
was  merely  with  the  idea  of  honoring  an  old  friend.  After 
five  days'  service  Washburne  resigned  and  was  promptly 
appointed  minister  to  France,  where  he  played  a  useful  and 
distinguished  part  during  the  Franco-German  war  and  the 
Commune.  He  was  succeeded  as  secretary  by  Hamilton 
Fish,  who  outserved  Grant  three  days.  A  less  aggressive 
man  than  Seward,  serving  under  a  more  interfering  President 
than  either  Lincoln  or  Johnson,  he  played  less  to  the  public 
eye.  Nevertheless,  his  handling  of  the  Alabama  dispute 
gives  him  an  enviable  place  in  history,  and  the  long  drawn- 
out  case  of  Cuba  he  managed  with  triumphant  patience.^ 

The  Cuban  situation  was  particularly  complicated  by 
reason  of  the  rapid  change  of  governments  in  Spain, — the 
overthrow  of  Isabella  in  1870,  the  formation  Cuban  insur- 
of  a  constitutional  monarchy  under  Amedeo  ^^'^^^^ 
of  Savoy  in  1871,  the  proclamation  of  a  republic  in  1873, 
and  the  return  of  the  Bourbons  under  Alfonso  in  1874.  In 
Cuba  also  the  population  was  divided,  the  native  "volun- 
teers" fighting  the  insurrectionists  even  more  bitterly  than 
did  the  Spanish  troops.  Sympathy  for  the  insurgents  was 
keen  in  the  United  States,  and  the  presence  of  native  Cu- 
bans in  our  country  and  of  American  naturalized  Cubans  in 
the  island  led  to  constant  agitation  for  us  to  take  a  hand  in 
the  conflict.  To  these  considerations  were  added  the  tradi- 
tional, though  not  then  dominant,  belief  that  Cuba  was 
eventually  destined  to  become  part  of  the  United  States. 

The  three  questions  which  we  had  to  consider  were  neu- 
trality, mediation,  and  intervention.  On  the  first  one  our 
policy  was  to  some  extent  dictated  by  our  contemporary  dis- 
pute with  England.     Criticizing  her  issuance  of  the  bellig- 

^  F.  E.  Chadwick,  Relations  of  the  United  States  and  Spain — Dijilomacy 
(New  York,  1909),  chs.  xiv-xix. 


366  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

erency  proclamation.  Fish  desired  to  restrain  us  from  taking 

similar  action,  particularly  as  the  insurgents  possessed  no 

ports  or  marine.  In  this  object  he  was  suc- 
Belligerency  . 

cessful,  although  the  President  and  Congress 

were  restive.  Grant,  it  is  said,  had  for  a  long  time  a  proc- 
lamation ready  to  sign,  in  his  desk.  The  fact  that  we  did 
not  recognize  belligerency  did  not,  however,  relieve  us  of 
our  neutral  duties,  which  we  vigorously  performed,  although 
we  were  not  able  entirely  to  prevent  aid  from  this  country 
reaching  Cuba. 

Mediation  was  offered  by  Fish  in  1869,  Marshal  Prim  hav- 
ing expressed  his  willingness  to  consent  even  to  Cuban  inde- 

„  ^.   .  pendence.    The  exigencies  of  Spanish  politics. 

Mediation  ,  ,        ,  .    .  m  i     7^      i 

however  rendered  it  impossible  for  her  govern- 
ment to  agree  to  any  terms  upon  which  we  would  act.  In  1874, 
we  made  another  offer,  in  which,  a  year  later,  we  asked  Great 
Britain,  Germany,  Prussia,  Italy,  and  Austria  to  join.  The 
United  States  "neither  sought  nor  desired  any  physical  force 
or  pressure,  but  simply  the  moral  influence  of  concurrence 
of  opinion  as  to  the  protraction  of  the  contest."  Italy  did 
act,  but  again  there  was  no  result. 

Intervention  by  force  we  did  not  try,  though  Fish  used 
the  possibility  of  it  as  a  goad  to  move  Spain  to  activity  in 

meeting  our  demands.  Peaceably,  however,  we 
Intervention  °  ,      .  .  x       i       • 

were  constantly  intervening.  In  the  instruc- 
tions to  Caleb  Cushing,  who  was  sent  to  Spain  in  1874, — the 
situation  having  at  length  convinced  the  government  that  we 
needed  a  minister  of  ability  there, — Fish  explained  our  Cuban 
policy  and  our  special  interest  in  the  island.  Commercially 
as  well  as  geographically,  he  argued,  it  was  more  closely  con- 
nected with  us  than  with  Spain;  civil  dissension  there  pro- 
duced an  effect  on  us  second  only  to  that  produced  in  Spain; 
the  local  Spanish  government  was  able  to  injure  our  citizens, 
but  we  could  obtain  reparation  only  by  the  slow  and  cum- 
brous method  of  applying  to  Spain.  The  United  States  had 
no  desire  for  annexation;  but  "the  desire  for  independence 


ROUTINE,   1861-1877  367 

on  the  part  of  the  Cubans"  "is  a  natural  and  legitimate 
aspiration  of  theirs,  because  they  are  Americans,  and  while 
such  independence  is  the  manifest  exigency  of  the  political 
interests  of  the  Cubans  themselves,  it  is  equally  so  that  of 
the  rest  of  America,  including  the  United  States." 

With  these  special  interests  as  a  reason  and  the  possibility 
of  intervention  as  a  motive  force,  we  successfully  insisted  on 
maintaining  a  certain  supervision  of  the  con-  influence  in 
test.  Partly  at  our  instance,  Spain  finally  ^"''* 
adopted  a  system  of  gradual  emancipation  of  slaves,  a  step 
which  Buchanan  had  so  feared  she  would  take  at  the  in- 
stance of  Great  Britain.  Spain  also  promised  us  reform  in 
local  government,  and  modified  her  methods  of  conducting 
the  war.  In  1871  a  convention  was  signed  submitting  to 
arbitration  the  claims  of  our  citizens  growing  out  of  the 
hostilities  in  Cuba.  Spain,  however,  would  not  admit  her 
responsibility  for  losses  by  act  of  the  insurgents,  though  we 
claimed  that,  since  we  had  not  recognized  a  state  of  war, 
her  responsibility  was  complete. 

In  1873  the  seizure  on  the  high  seas  of  the  Virginius,  flying 
an  American  flag  and  with  American  papers,  caused  an  out- 
burst of  popular  indignation  that  seemed  likely    „.   .  . 

,  .  -  ,.  .  ,  «  ,  Virgmius  aflfair 

to  drive  us  from  our  policy  of  watchful  peace. 

The  incident  was  rendered  still  more  acute  by  the  summary 
trial  and  condemnation  to  death  of  the  crew.  The  fact  that 
the  Spanish  government  ordered  a  suspension  of  the  sentences 
illustrated  Fish's  point  with  regard  to  the  diplomatic  incon- 
venience of  the  situation;  for  many  executions  took  place 
before  the  reprieve  was  delivered  in  Cuba.  Our  attorney- 
general  decided  that  the  Virginius  was  improperly  using 
our  flag,  and  that  she  was  engaged  in  filibustering  contrary 
to  our  law,  but  that  Spain  had  no  right  to  seize  her  while 
flying  our  flag  on  the  high  seas,  belligerency  not  being  recog- 
nized. We  demanded  indemnity,  the  return  of  the  Virginius, 
a  salute  to  our  flag,  and  the  punishment  of  the  oflScers  guilty 
of  the  execution  of  the  crew,  an  act  "  inhuman  and  in  viola- 


868  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tion  of  the  civilization  of  the  age."  Spain  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  case  of  VAmistad  our  supreme  court 
had  exercised  the  right  of  going  behind  the  oJBBcial  papers 
and  examining  the  actual  status  of  the  vessel.  On  this  point 
we  yielded,  omitting  our  demand  for  a  salute.  Our  other 
conditions  were  accepted.  In  carrying  them  out,  however, 
Spain  almost  drove  us  into  war.  The  trial  of  her  officers 
was  not  pressed,  and  the  general  responsible  for  the  execu- 
tions was  promoted.  On  being  returned,  moreover,  the 
Virginius  straightway  sank,  by  the  machinations,  it  was  be- 
lieved, of  the  Spanish  officers  in  charge.  The  administra- 
End  of  insur-  tion,  however,  kept  its  hand  on  the  situation, 
rection  ^^^  Grant  in  his  annual  message  of  December, 

1875,  announced  that  our  relations  with  Spain  were  friendly. 
General  Martinez  de  Campos,  the  new  governor-general  of 
Cuba,  proved  tactful  and  efficient,  and  the  insurrection 
gradually  died  out. 

The  diplomatic  problems  of  the  Civil  war  had  practically 
been  solved  by  1872,  but  the  continuity  of  personnel  and  of 
Significance  of  domestic  conditions  serve  to  give  a  unity  to 
the  Civil  war  ^^le  whole  period  from  1861  to  1877.  The  most 
important  in  our  diplomatic  history  since  independence,  its 
record  was  marked  not  so  much  by  progress  as  by  our  suc- 
cess in  outriding  a  storm.  Our  stake  was  not  independence 
but  unity,  and  our  success  in  preserving  unity  was  not  solely 
and  perhaps  not  mainly  of  domestic  importance.  Division 
meant  not  only  the  severing  of  established  ties,  but  increased 
liability  to  quarrel.  Peaceful  acceptance  of  secession  in  1861 
would  have  been  followed,  not  by  perpetual  peace  between 
North  and  South,  but  by  perpetual  imminence  of  war,  un- 
ceasing preparation  for  war,  and  ultimately  not  by  one  war 
but  by  many.  The  freedom  to  expend  all  our  resources  upon 
our  own  internal  development  would  have  been  sacrificed, 
and  the  military  system  of  Europe  would  have  been  trans- 
ferred to  America.  And  not  the  system  only.  Our  pre- 
dominance in  America  once  lost,  there  were  abundant  in- 


ROUTINE,   1861-1877  369 

dications  that  the  powers  of  Europe  would  have  extended 
the  scope  of  their  poUtics  to  our  continents;  foreign  armies 
and  navies  would  have  been  within  striking  distance.  Amer- 
ica would  no  longer  have  escaped  that  dualism  of  European 
politics,  that  tricky  balance,  in  which  every  domestic  con- 
cern of  European  royalty,  every  street  broil  in  a  European 
capital,  becomes  a  makeweight  which,  if  not  instantly  ad- 
justed, may  upset  the  whole.  Our  escape  was  due  to  a  partly 
unconscious  but  wholly  determined  national  will  which  em- 
ployed our  armies,  our  navies,  and  our  statesmen  for  the 
purpose.  Diplomacy  was  not  our  savior,  but  it  performed 
its  full  duty,  and  those  who  shaped  it  deserve  eternal 
gratitude. 

Devoted  primarily  to  this  great  task,  the  period  was  not 
barren  of  routine  progress.  The  most  notable  advance  lay 
in  the  defining  of  the  relationships  of  our  Progress,  1861 
naturalized  citizens  to  the  countries  of  their  *°  ^®^'' 
birth;  the  most  interesting  new  policy  was  that  of  interna- 
tional cooperation  in  the  Pacific.  Our  various  accepted 
policies  were  adjusted  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  time,  and 
current  matters  were  kept  well  in  hand.  The  continual  agi- 
tation for  expansion  resulted  in  nothing  but  the  addition  of 
Alaska,  and  that  was  one  of  the  most  nearly  accidental  hap- 
penings of  our  history.  The  people  were  satisfied  with  their 
territory,  and  by  1877  the  idea  had  developed  that  expan- 
sion was  contrary  to  our  national  policy  and  our  indisposi- 
tion to  expand  had  become  almost  a  passion.  The  United 
States  showed  an  increasing  willingness  to  cooperate  with 
other  nations  for  international  ends;  for  which  no  small 
degree  of  credit  belongs  to  Clara  Barton  and  the  Red  Cross. 
Seward  at  the  beginning  of  the  period  was  strongly  opposed 
to  European  agreements;  Garfield,  just  after  its  close,  gave 
them  his  sympathetic  support!^ 

1  M.  T.  Boardman,  Under  the  Bed  Cross,  Philadelphia,  1915. 


CHAPTER    XXVI 
BAITING  THE  LION,  1877-1897 

The  period  between  1877  and  1897  marks  the  lowest  point 
in  the  conduct  of  our  diplomacy.  The  long  and  able  services 
Break  in  con-  oi  Seward  and  Fish  had  given  dignity  and  con- 
^^^  tinuity  to  the  period  from  1861  to  1877,  and 

their  previous  experience  in  public  life  had  reduced  to  a 
minimum  the  deflection  from  policies  previously  developed. 
In  the  new  period,  administrations  of  short  duration  reversed 
each  other  and  paid  little  attention  to  the  past.  There  was 
some  continuity  between  the  policies  of  Evarts,  secretary 
under  Hayes  from  1877  to  1881,  and  those  of  Blaine,  who 
served  under  Garfield  in  1881,  though  Evarts  would  not  have 
admitted  it.  Frelinghuysen,  coming  in  under  Arthur  in 
December,  1881,  changed  Blaine's  policies,  only  to  have  his 
own  reversed  by  Bayard,  whom  Cleveland  appointed  in  1885. 
Bayard  was  inclined  to  conform  to  the  traditions  of  our  his- 
tory, but  he  was  seriously  hampered  by  Congress.  Harrison 
brought  in  Blaine  again  in  1889,  and  the  two  united  in  dis- 
carding what  their  predecessors  had  done,  but  otherwise  for 
the  most  part  pulled  diflFerent  ways,  until  Blaine  resigned  in 
1892,  to  be  succeeded  by  John  W.  Foster,  who  was  well 
equipped  but  served  too  short  a  time  to  make  himself  felt. 
In  1893  Cleveland  and  his  party  effectually  checked  what  the 
Republicans  had  set  in  train. 

Never  before  had  diplomacy  been  so  much  at  the  mercy 
of  politics.  In  the  fifties  the  attempt  was  to  arouse  national 
Politics  and  interest  in  general  policies;  in  this  period  par- 
diplomacy  ticular  questions  of  diplomacy  were  thrown  into 
the  balance  to  turn  a  few  votes.  Particularly  popular  was 
the  diversion  of  twisting  the  tail  of  the  British  lion,  which 

870 


BAITING  THE  LION,   1877-1897  371 

animal  proved  to  be  peaceable,  though  not  easily  led  by  this 
method  to  any  useful  end. 

During  these  years  we  did  not  put  into  office  any  really 
great  diplomat.  The  secretaries  of  state  were  all  excep- 
tionally able  men,  but  the  position  had  become  Lack  of  great 
primarily  political.  James  G.  Blaine  seems  to  ^plo°"ts 
have  had  some  genius  for  diplomacy,  as  well  as  a  real  pur- 
pose, but  his  superficiality  was  so  much  greater  than  that  of 
Henry  Clay,  whom  he  imitated,  that  comparison  is  odious. 
His  lack  of  knowledge  of  international  law  was  conspicuous 
even  in  his  own  generation,  and  the  influence  of  his  splendid 
and  magnetic  personality  which  might  have  compensated 
for  this  defect  was  lost  by  the  ineptness  of  his  agents,  some 
of  them  forced  upon  him  and  some  for  whom  he  was  himself 
responsible. 

The  whole  mechanics  of  diplomatic  intercourse  had  been 
changed  by  the  laying  of  the  Atlantic  cable  in  1866.  This 
was  particularly  true  of  our  own  service.  Effect  of  the 
Owing  to  distance  and  the  frequent  difficulty  Atlantic  cable 
of  communication,  our  representatives  abroad  had  always 
enjoyed  a  remarkable  degree  of  freedom  and  responsibility, 
which  they  had  used  to  the  uttermost,  as  is  illustrated  by 
the  careers  of  John  Jay  and  Soule.  As  Mr.  Dooley  says  of 
our  ministers,  they  "  led  a  free  an'  riochous  life,  declared  war, 
punched  Prime  Ministers  in  th' ey',  an'  gin'rally  misbehaved" 
themselves,  "an'  no  wan  at  home  cared.  ...  Be  the  time 
they  knew  anything  about  it  it  was  old  news  an' "  they  were 
"up  to  some  other  divilment.  But  now,  how  is  it?  Sure 
an  Ambassador  is  about  as  vallyable  as  a  tillyphone  op'rator. 
He  has  to  make  connections  an'  if  he  listens  or  cuts  in  he's 
fired.  He's  a  messenger  an'  a  slow  wan  fr'm  wan  Government 
to  another."  With  the  concentration  of  business  at  the  home 
department,  the  position  of  foreign  representative  became 
less  attractive  to  able  men  with  a  future.  They  accepted  it 
as  a  vacation  or  an  honorable  retirement,  or  because  of  the 
social  ambition  of  their  wives. 


372  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

With  the  flooding  of  Europe  by  Americans  of  wealth,  bent 
upon  pleasure  or  social  advancement,  a  chief  occupation 
Social  distrac-  of  the  American  ministers  became  the  securing 
**°"  of  introductions  for  their  countrymen  at  the 

courts  to  which  they  were  accredited.  It  was  in  general  a 
thankless  task,  as  the  absence  of  fixed  social  rank  in  America 
left  their  selections  for  the  honor  to  the  caprices  of  their 
own  choice;  consequently  every  capital  city  became  the 
fighting-ground  of  cliques  of  Americans  for  and  against  the 
embassy.  Involved  in  society  as  they  were,  such  offices 
could  be  used  as  stepping-stones  to  social  position  at  home; 
hence  they  came  to  be  sought  by  men  of  wealth,  whose  easiest 
method  of  securing  them  was  by  contribution  to  the  party 
campaign  funds.  Cleveland's  appointment  to  Italy,  in  1893 
of  James  J.  Van  Alen,  who  had  given  fifty  thousand  dollars 
to  the  Democratic  fund,  aroused  such  a  storm  of  protest 
throughout  the  country,  that  he  was  barely  confirmed  by  the 
Senate,  and  in  decency  was  forced  to  decline  the  position. 
This  was  not  the  only  case  of  the  kind,  however,  nor  the  last. 

The  competition  of  the  rich  for  these  posts  doubtless  had 
something  to  do  with  the  failure  of  Congress  to  raise  the  sal- 

„.  .       ,  aries  to  meet  the  increased  cost  of  modern  living, 

Rich  and  poor  ,  .    ,  ,  .  -i  i    c  •  i 

and  it  became  almost  impossible  for  a  man  with- 
out private  resources  to  accept  appointment.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  eclat  of  some  embassies  did  not  prevent  the  exigen- 
cies of  domestic  politics  from  forcing  the  appointment  of  many 
men  whose  social  training  was  as  lacking  and  more  obvious 
than  their  intellectual  deficiencies. 

There  were  always  exceptions  however,^  and  in  partic- 
ular the  mission  to  Great  Britain  maintained  its  distinc- 
Mission  to  tion.  With  John  Adams,  Thomas  Pinckney, 
Great  Britain  j^j^j^  j^y^  Ruius  King,  James  Monroe,  Wil- 
liam Pinkney,  John  Quincy  Adams,  Richard  Rush,  Albert 
Gallatin,  Martin  Van  Buren,  Edward  Everett,  George  Ban- 
croft, James  Buchanan,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Reverdy 
*  A.  D.  White,  Autobiography,  2  vols..  New  York.  1905. 


BAITING  THE  LION,   1877-1897  373 

Johnson,  and  John  Lothrop  Motley  among  its  previous 
holders,  the  line  was  continued  by  James  Russell  Lowell, 
Edward  J.  Phelps,  Robert  Lincoln,  and  Thomas  F.  Bayard. 
The  loss  of  diplomatic  responsibility  was  here  more  than  made 
up  by  the  growing  sense  that  the  American  minister  in  Eng- 
land was  representative  of  one  people  to  the  other;  and  the 
position  was  regarded  as  one  of  eminence. 

While  the  importance  of  the  diplomatic  service  was  de- 
clining, that  of  the  consular  service  was  increasing  with  the 
change  of  trade  conditions.  Not  only  was  inter-  Commercial 
national  exchange  assuming  larger  relative  changes 
proportions,  but  American  trade  was  becoming  less  special- 
ized. With  the  development  of  Argentina,  our  exports  of 
provisions  encountered  more  active  competition.  In  many 
lines  of  manufacture,  moreover,  as  in  leather  goods  and 
agricultural  machinery,  the  supply  was  coming  to  exceed 
the  needs  of  the  home  market,  and  a  foreign  market  was 
demanded.  The  aid  of  the  government  was  therefore  once 
more  called  in,  as  it  had  been  in  the  early  days  of  the  republic, 
to  assist  our  commercial  interests.  This  could  be  done  in 
part  by  national  policy,  and  Blaine  and  Cleveland  proposed, 
the  one  reciprocity,  the  other  free  trade.  Much  of  it,  how- 
ever, must  be  done  by  the  collection  and  diffusion  of  informa- 
tion by  our  consuls,  and  by  their  activity  in  establishing 
friendly  relations  with  foreign  business  men. 

Although  the  consular  service  had  grown  to  cover  almost 
every  port  and  shipping  point  of  the  world,  its  selection  re- 
mained at  the  mercy  of  politics.  With  the  Consular 
adoption  of  civil  service  reform  in  1883,  efforts  service 
were  made  to  extend  the  merit  system  to  this  branch;  but 
they  were  unsuccessful.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  results 
were  better  than  might  have  been  expected.  The  lack  of 
special  training  and  experience  was  not  so  important  here 
as  in  diplomatic  positions,  and  the  politicians  who  were  ap- 
pointed were  by  profession  shrewd  and  apt  at  dealing  with 
men  and  clever  at  picking  up  information.    Although  they 


374  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

did  not  particularly  command  the  respect  of  the  educated 

classes  of  other  countries  or  of  their  own,  and  though  some 

of  them  created  difficulties  that. might  not  otherwise  have 

occurred,  they  were  on  the  whole  eflScient  in  promoting 

business.^ 

While  no  advances  in  the  routine  of  diplomacy  are  to  be 

looked  for,  developments  already  started  continued  to  make 

progress.    For  one  thing,  the  range  of  our  ex- 
Extradition  ...  .  .11       mi 

tradition  treaties  was  extended.     Ine  passage 

of  an  act  by  the  Canadian  Parliament  in  1889,  authorizing  the 

government  to  surrender  fugitives  from  justice  even  where  no 

treaty  existed,  seemed  to  close  that  haven  to  our  embezzlers. 

Although  for  certain  reasons  it  failed  to  be  put  into  operation 

for  some  time,  it  appears  to  have  deterred  many  recreants 

from  taking  refuge  there.     With  the  toils  of  international 

agreement  closing  round  them,  criminal  fugitives  of  all  kinds 

continued  to  furnish  much  of  the  business  of  diplomacy. 

The  movement  for  the  protection  of  trademarks  contin- 
ued, and  many  treaties  were  made  on  the  subject.  More 
Trademarks  important  was  our  adhesion,  in  1883,  to  a  con- 
and  copyright  yention  for  the  International  Protection  of 
Industrial  Property,  which  covered  patents,  trademarks, 
and  commercial  names.  In  1891  Congress  at  length  au- 
thorized the  President  to  enter  into  agreements  regarding 
international  copyright,  which  he  could  make  valid  by  proc- 
lamation. This  step  was  speedily  followed  up,  and  copyright 
has  become  practically  universal  in  its  extent. 

We  also  joined,  in  1886,  in  an  international  agreement 
for  the  protection  of  submarine  cables,  and  in  1890  in  an 
International  international  union  for  the  publication  of  cus- 
coOperation  toms  tariffs.  Our  participation  in  the  latter 
year  in  an  international  act  for  the  suppression  of  the  African 
slave  trade  has  already  been  noticed.  This  tendency  to  enter 
freely  into  agreements  with  foreign  countries  on  general  sub- 
jects was  a  natural  result  of  the  improvement  of  communica- 
*  Consular  reports  have  been  published  monthly  since  1880. 


BAITING  THE  LION,   1877-1897  375 

tlon  and  the  increase  of  intercourse,  conditions  which  made 
the  necessity  for  mutual  understanding  greater  and  more 
apparent.  It  was  in  no  wise  in  opposition  to  our  fundamental 
doctrine  of  avoiding  entangling  alliances,  though  a  certain 
sensitiveness  developed  by  our  isolation  caused  many  Amer- 
icans to  feel  that  such  communications  might  corrupt  our 
manners. 

First  treaties  we  made  only  with  Servia  in  1881,  with 
Corea  in  1882,  and  with  Egypt  and  the  new  Congo  Free  State 
in  1884.  Claims  we  followed  up  with  our  ac-  First  treaties 
customed  zeal.  Our  bag  was  not  so  large  as  "^'^  claims 
usual,  and  proved  rather  troublesome.  It  included  numerous 
conventions  with  Hayti  beginning  in  1884,  and  with  Vene- 
zuela beginning  in  1885.  In  the  case  of  Portugal,  in  1891, 
we  joined  Great  Britain  in  an  arbitration  fixing  the  compen- 
sation which  Portugal  should  pay  to  each  of  us  as  a  result  of 
her  taking  possession  of  the  Lourengo  Marques  railroad. 
The  treaty  with  Ecuador  in  1893  concerned  only  one  claim- 
ant, an  Ecuadorian  naturalized  in  the  United  States.  The 
convention  with  Chili  in  1892,  had  almost  cost  a  war  before 
it  was  concluded.  A  mutual  arbitration  convention  with 
France  in  1880  recoiled,  giving  her  a  balance  of  over  six  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars.  Our  several  treaties  with  Spain, 
and  one  with  Mexico  in  1897,  produced  nothing  during  this 
period. 

The  standard  question  of  the  fisheries  had  seemed  to  be 
settled  by  the  treaty  of  Washington,   but  circumstances 
worked  against  the  permanency  of  this  agree-     Treaty  of 
ment.    The  mackerel  suddenly  changed  their    and^the     ° 
habits,  deserting  the  Canadian  waters  for  our    fisheries 
own.     In    1882  only  one   of   our  vessels   took   advantage 
of  our  privileges.    The  arbitrators  under  the  clause  of  the 
treaty  providing  for  special  compensation  to  Great  Britain, 
of  whom  the  umpire  was  chosen  by  Austria,  made  their  esti- 
mates on  previous  records  and  ordered  us  to  pay  five  and  a 
half  million,  or  $458,333.33  per  year,  for  our  supposed  ad- 


376  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

vantage.     Not  unnaturally  we  did  not  care  to  renew  this 

bargain  when  the  fixed  period  of  its  duration  expired.^ 

Congress  ordered  that  notice  of  the  termination  of  the 

agreement  be  given  and  in  1885  it  came  to  an  end.    There- 

„  .,       ^  upon  the  Canadian  authorities  began  to  make 

Failure  to  re-        ^  .  ° 

new  red-  themselves  disagreeable  to  our  deep-sea  fish- 

^  °*^^'  ers,  who,  although  they  did  not  need  to  fish 

within  the  three-mile  limit,  were  obliged  to  use  Canadian 
harbors.  In  1886  the  David  J.  Adams  was  seized  for  buying 
bait  and  ice,  and  other  cases  soon  followed.  The  purpose  of 
the  Canadians  was  to  force  a  renewal  of  reciprocity,  which 
would  allow  free  entry  of  their  fish  into  the  United  States. 
Cleveland  was  desirous  of  treating  on  these  terms.  In  fact, 
the  American  government  had  generally  favored  even  more 
extensive  reciprocity  with  Canada,  and  under  Grant  had  en- 
deavored to  bring  it  about.  In  1888  the  administration  sub- 
mitted a  treaty  to  the  Senate  on  the  old  basis.  American 
fishermen,  however,  were  unwilling  to  admit  equal  competi- 
tion, particularly  as  fishing  bounties  had  been  discontinued 
in  1866;  and  their  representatives  in  the  Senate  succeeded  in 
defeating  the  treaty.  The  fishermen's  proposal  for  the  pay- 
ment of  a  lump  sum  by  the  nation,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
opposed  by  the  western  interests,  which  felt  that  it  was 
enough  to  pay  a  higher  price  for  their  dried  cod  without 
paying  additionally  in  the  way  of  taxes.  Consequently  no 
new  treaty  could  be  agreed  upon,  and  for  many  years,  the 
fishing  industry  rested  on  a  modus  vivendi  agreed  to  in  1888 
pending  the  acceptance  of  Cleveland's  treaty.  This  tem- 
porary agreement  was  based  on  the  principle  of  exacting  a 
payment  of  a  license  fee  of  a  dollar  and  a  half  per  ton  for 
those  vessels  whose  owners  wished  the  freedom  of  the  Cana- 
dian harbors.  This  method  of  allowing  those  who  used  the 
privileges  to  pay  for  them  worked  satisfactorily,  and  under 
it  the  fishery  flourished.  With  the  introduction  of  steamers 
to  supply  the  fleet,  the  industry  became  more  self-sufficing, 
*  J.  B.  Henderson,  American  Diplomatic  Questions,  New  York,  etc.,  1901. 


BAITING  THE  LION,   1877-1897  377 

till  in  1898,  out  of  1427  New  England  schooners,  only  79 
took  licenses. 

While  we  were  struggling  for  in-shore  and  harbor  privi- 
leges on  the  east  coast  of  America,  we  were  assuming  a  very 
different  position  in  the  west.  The  first  fruits  The  Alaska 
of  Alaska  were  seal  skins.  In  1870,  in  order  ^®*^^ 
to  regulate  the  industry  and  prevent  the  extermination  of 
the  seals,  the  sole  right  of  killing  was  granted  to  the  Alaska 
Commercial  Company,  which  was  limited  to  one  hundred 
thousand  a  year.  These  were  to  be  killed  at  the  breeding 
grounds  on  the  Pribilof  islands,  and  were  to  be  bachelor  seals. 
The  government  royalties  seemed  destined  to  pay  the  pur- 
chase price  of  the  islands. 

The  seals,  however,  had  no  appreciation  of  these  provisions 
for  their  own  safety.  Once  a  year  they  took  a  cruise  of 
many  months  into  the  Pacific,  returning  up  Destruction  of 
the  coast  of  British  Columbia.  When  at  home,  ^^  ^^^  ^^^^^ 
moreover,  they  sported  recklessly  beyond  the  three-mile 
limit  and  the  protection  of  the  American  flag,  thus  exposing 
themselves  to  the  unregulated  attack  of  adventurers  from 
all  the  Pacific  coasts,  but  particularly  of  Canadians.  With 
dynamite,  undistinguishing  between  bachelors  and  mothers 
of  families,  indiscriminately  tearing  up  many  of  the  valuable 
skins,  they  laid  waste  the  herds. 

The  herds  diminished;  whether  owing  to  the  annual  slaugh- 
ter of  one  hundred  thousand  prospective  fathers,  or  to  the 
uncounted  slaughter  of  whole  families,  became     . 
ultimately  a  burning  issue  between  British  and    United  states 
American  scientists.     In  1881  the  collector  of    marine^^juris- 
San  Francisco,  grieved  at  the  prospect  of  the    g^^^  °''^^ 
extermination  of  another  native  American  race, 
propounded  the  theory  that  all  of  Behring  sea,  to  the  line 
of  the  treaty  of  1867  dividing  Russian  territory  from  Amer- 
ican, "is  considered  as  comprized  within  waters  of  Alaska 
territory."    In  1886  the  United  States  revenue  cutter  Corwin 
seized  three  British  vessels,  which  were  later  condemned 


378  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

by  the  United  States  District  Court  at  Sitka  for  violating 
American  waters.  This  action  the  secretary  of  state.  Bayard, 
refused  to  sustain  diplomatically,  but  seizures  continued  to 
be  made.  To  meet  the  actual  situation,  Bayard  wrote  to 
France,  Germany,  Japan,  Russia,  and  Great  Britain,  asking 
them  to  cooperate  "for  the  better  protection  of  the  fur-seal 
fisheries  in  Behring  Sea."  Negotiations  went  on  rapidly 
and  a  general  agreement  seemed  probable,  when,  on  May  16, 
1888,  Lord  SaUsbury,  the  British  minister  of  foreign  affairs, 
announced  that  the  Canadian  government  had  asked  him  to 
suspend  action.  As  our  Senate  had  rejected  the  northeastern 
fishery  treaty  on  May  7,  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
this  was  a  counter  stroke. 

In  March,  1889,  the  House,  largely  through  Blaine's  in- 
fluence, asserted  that  Behring  sea  was  under  the  territorial 

^ jurisdiction  of  the  United  States.     This  asser- 

Blame's  poucy       .        t,,   .  ,  ■,  i   <•      i       t, 

tion  Blame  undertook  to  deiend.  It  was  op- 
posed to  the  policy  of  free  navigation  of  rivers  and  bays, 
which  we  had  almost  consistently  pursued  from  the  year  of 
Independence,  and  ran  counter  to  the  general  current  of  the 
world's  opinion,  which  we  had  done  much  to  set  in  motion. 
Both  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  had  protested  the 
czar's  ukase  of  1821,  which  had  asserted  territorial  control  of 
Behring  sea  and  part  of  the  northern  Pacific.  Our  treaty  of 
1867  did  indeed  run  a  boundary  line  through  the  waters  of 
that  sea,  but  this  division  could  not  be  held  binding  on  other 
nations  unless  it  could  be  shown  that  Russia  had  owned  the 
sea.  Blaine's  argument  was  based  on  historical  misinforma- 
tion, questionable  instances  drawn  from  British  practice, 
and  the  supposed  good  of  humanity. 

After  a  rather  quarrelsome  negotiation,  a  modus  Vivendi 
was  arranged  in  January,  .1891,  forbidding  all  killing  of 

...     .  seals,  except  seven  thousand  five  hundred  for 

ArbitrAuon 

the  sustenance  of  the  natives.     February  29, 

1892,  an  arbitration  treaty  was  signed.     The  commission 

created  was  to  take  up  the  whole  question,  historical,  legal. 


BAITING  THE  LION,  1877-1897  379 

and  economic.  If  it  decided  that  the  United  States  had  no 
exclusive  right  to  the  sea,  we  were  to  pay  damages  for  the 
seizure  of  British  vessels.  In  this  case  also  the  commission 
was  to  decide  upon  measures  suitable  for  the  preservation  of 
the  seals.  The  arbitration  tribunal  was  a  dignified  body  of 
seven  members.  It  met  at  Paris,  and  the  American  counsel 
were  James  C.  Carter,  Edward  J.  Phelps,  and  Frederic  R. 
Coudert.    John  W.  Foster  presented  the  case. 

The  issue  narrowed  down  to  the  meaning  of  "Pacific 
ocean"  in  the  treaties  of  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain 
with  Russia  in  1824  and  1825.  Our  claim  that  The  decision 
Behring  sea  was  by  nature  mare  clausum  was  "^^  **^  ®*®'^* 
given  up.  Stress  was  also  laid  upon  the  common-law  pro- 
tection for  domestic  animals  when  beyond  their  owner's 
land;  but  Lord  Salisbury's  argument  that  seals  were  fercB 
naturoe,  and  so  res  nullius,  seems  to  have  been  nearer  the 
fact.  The  decision  was  not  unnaturally  against  us,  and  we 
finally,  though  reluctantly  and  not-  until  1898,  paid  about 
half  a  million  dollars'  damages.  The  protective  regulations, 
providing  for  a  closed  season,  no  killing  at  sea  within  sixty 
miles  of  the  Pribilof  islands,  no  use  of  steamers  or  of  explo- 
sives, and  special  licenses  and  flags  for  the  vessels  engaged, 
proved  ineffective.  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 
disagreed  as  to  the  changes  necessary  to  make  them  so,  and 
other  nations  were  not  bound  by  even  the  existing  regula- 
tions. During  this  period,  therefore,  diplomacy  failed  to 
protect  the  seal  herds.  Our  attempt  to  sacrifice  a  cherished 
principle  to  obtain  this  end  had  succeeded  with  regard  to 
neither  the  end  nor  the  principle.  Although  agreement  had 
in  1888  halted  because  of  the  dispute  concerning  the  fisheries 
on  the  opposite  coast,  it  seems  probable  that  the  note  of 
bombast  introduced  by  Blaine,  and  the  national  antagonisms 
thus  aroused,  were  the  weightiest  causes  of  final  failure. 

In  1878  Lieutenant  Wyse  received  a  concession  from  the 
government  of  Colombia,  formerly  New  Granada,  for  a 
French  company  that  desired  to  build  an  interoceanic  canal 


380  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

across   the   isthmus   of  Panama.     Ferdinand    de   Lesseps, 

director  of  the  Suez  canal,  was  put  at  the  head  of  the  new 

company,  and  the  scheme  was  launched  with 

French    con-  .  .        .„ 

cession  at  effusion.     In   1879  a  scientific  congress   was 

assembled  at  Paris  to  discuss  the  engineering 
problems  involved,  and  the  United  States  government  was 
represented  by  two  distinguished  naval  officers.  Our  interest 
in  the  canal  problem,  long  dormant,  suddenly  revived,  the 
most  effective  spur  being  De  Lesseps's  suggestion,  in  1879, 
of  a  joint  international  guarantee  of  neutrality.^ 

March  8,  1880,  President  Hayes  announced  in  a  message  to 
Congress:  "The  policy  of  this  country  is  a  canal  under 
,  American  control.    The  United  States  cannot 

consent  to  the  surrender  of  this  control  to 
any  European  power  or  to  any  combination  of  European 
powers.  .  .  .  An  interoceanic  canal  across  the  American 
Isthmus  will  essentially  change  the  geographical  relations 
between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  coasts  of  the  United 
States.  ...  It  would  be  the  great  ocean  thoroughfare  be- 
tween our  Atlantic  and  our  Pacific  shores,  and  virtually  a 
part  of  the  coast  line  of  the  United  States.  .  .  .  No  other 
power  would  under  similar  circumstances  fail  to  assert  a 
rightful  control  over  a  work  so  closely  and  vitally  affecting 
its  interest  and  welfare."  Evarts  proposed  to  Colombia  that 
all  cessions  be  considered  as  subject  to  the  treaty  of  1846,  and 
that  we  have  the  right  to  erect  fortifications  at  the  mouths  of 
the  canal. 

This  certainly  had  not  hitherto  been  the  policy  of  the 

United  States,  who  has  always  asserted  the  general  principle 

„ of  universal  freedom  of  use,  analogous  to  our 

Blaine's  policy      •  •         ,    ,      -        ,  .  .  .        ,  < 

idea  of  the  freedom  of  international  waters  and 

of  a  joint  international  guarantee.    It  was,  however,  endorsed 

in  1880  by  Congress,  which  based  it  on  the  Monroe  Doctrine, 

^  Freeman  Snow,  Treaties  and  Topics  in  American  Diplomacy  (Boston, 
1894),  337-347;  T.  J.  Lawrence,  Essays  on  some  Disputed  Questions  in  Modem 
International  Law  (Cambridge,  Eng.,  1884),  Nos.  ii-iii. 


BAITING  THE  LION,  1877-1897  381 

and  was  joyously  taken  up  by  Blaine  in  1881.  He  announced 
to  our  representatives  in  Europe  that  it  was  "  nothing  more 
than  the  pronounced  adherence  of  the  United  States  to  prin- 
ciples long  since  enunciated."  Our  guarantee,  he  maintained, 
needed  no  "reinforcement,  or  accession,  or  assent  from  any  / 
other  power; "  a  pledge  that  during  a  war  in  which  either 
the  United  States  or  Colombia  was  engaged  hostile  military 
forces  should  be  permitted  to  pass  through  the  canal  was  "no  J 
more  admissible  than  on  the  railroad  lines  joining  the  At- 
lantic and  Pacific  shores  of  the  United  States";  we  should 
object  to  any  concert  of  European  powers  for  guaranteeing 
the  canal. 

The  last  two  positions  at  least  were  in  direct  contravention 
to  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  which  seems  to  have  escaped 
Blaine's  attention.  On  November  1,  however,  Blaine's  case 
he  took  it  up.  That  treaty,  he  said,  was  more  cfayton-Buf- 
than  thirty  years  old;  it  was  for  the  special  wer  treaty 
purpose  of  facilitating  the  construction  of  a  canal  which 
had  never  materialized;  conditions  had  now  changed  with 
the  development  of  our  Pacific  slope;  by  forbidding  the 
fortification  of  the  canal,  we  practically  gave  it  to  Great 
Britain,  as  she  could  control  it  with  her  fleet;  the  treaty 
was  not  consistent  with  "our  right  and  long  established 
claim  to  priority  on  the  American  continent;"  the  entrance 
of  France  had  changed  the  situation;  finally,  we  wished  to 
fortify  the  canal,  and,  in  company  with  the  country  in  which 
it  was  located,  to  control  it.  Frelinghuysen,  on  becoming 
secretary,  added  that  the  English  occupation  of  British 
Honduras  constituted  a  violation  of  the  treaty,  and  repeated 
that  "a  protectorate  by  European  nations"  would  be  a 
violation  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  we  had  declared 
"at  the  suggestion  of  the  official  representative  of  Great 
Britain." 

It  must  have  been  a  joy  to  the  British  foreign  office  to 
answer  such  dispatches  as  these,  of  which  it  received  so  many 
during  this  period.     Lord  Granville  replied  in  a  series  of 


382  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

notes.  He  pointed  out  that  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  was 
not  a  special  contract,  that  it  distinctly  stated,  indeed, 
B  *ti  h  f  ^^^  ^*^  purpose  was  to  declare  a  general  policy, 
the  Clayton-  The  United  States,  he  was  able  to  show, 
had  specifically  agreed  that  British  Honduras 
should  not  be  considered  a  part  of  Central  America.  He 
remarked  that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  had  not  prevented  the 
formation  of  the  treaty;  and  he  might  have  added  that 
Canning,  so  far  from  urging  its  declaration,  had  immediately 
upon  its  announcement  set  about  to  defeat  it.  He  called 
attention  to  the  development  of  the  Pacific  slope  in  Canada 
as  well  as  in  the  United  States,  and  in  one  note  Lord  Salis- 
bury added  that  the  building  of  the  transcontinental  rail- 
roads had  actually  decreased  our  special  interest  in  the  canal. 
With  regard  to  the  age  of  the  treaty,  thirty  years  probably 
seemed  less  in  England  than  in  America.  Lord  Granville 
might  also  have  referred  to  Seward's  instructions  to  Adams 
in  1866  when  we  were  seeking  a  naval  station  at  Tiger 
island  in  Honduras,  suggesting  that,  although  the  treaty 
was  really  out  of  date,  yet,  so  long  as  its  binding  force 
"should  remain  a  question,  it  would  not  comport  with 
good  faith  for  either  party  to  do  anything  which  might 
be  deemed  contrary"  even  "to  its  spirit."  He  might 
have  shown,  too,  that  Fish  in  1872,  and  Evarts  in  1880, 
had  recognized  its  existence.  The  discussion  closed  with- 
out result. 

Meanwhile  we  did  not  confine  ourselves  to  argument. 
We  proposed  to  construct  a  rival  canal  on  the  Nicaraguan 
Nicaragua  route.      In    December,    1884,    Frelinghuysen 

P^*°  negotiated  a  treaty  with  that  country,  providing 

that  such  a  canal  be  built  under  United  States  auspices  and 
practically  under  her  control.  This  treaty  was  withdrawn 
by  Cleveland,  who  reverted  to  our  traditional  policy  of  a 
canal  internationally  guaranteed.  Such  a  highway,  he  said, 
"must  be  for  the  world's  benefit,  a  trust  for  mankind,  to  be 
removed  from  the  chance  of  domination  by  any  single  power. 


BAITING  THE  LION,   1877-1897  383 

nor  become  a  point  of  invitation  for  hostilities  or  a  prize 
for  warlike  ambitions." 

Had  Cleveland  shared  the  desire  of  his  Republican  pred- 
ecessors to  find  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  void,  he  might 
have  attacked  it  during  his  second  administra-  The  Mosqui- 
tion  on  better  grounds  than  Blaine  found.  *°®® 
The  irritating  question  of  the  Mosquitoes  seemed  to  have 
been  settled  in  1860  by  a  treaty  between  Great  Britain  and 
Nicaragua.  With  the  revival  of  interest  in  the  mouth  of 
the  San  Juan  river,  however,  adventurers  among  the  tribe 
began  to  scent  the  possibility  of  profit  in  emphasizing  the 
semi-independence  which  that  treaty,  as  interpreted  by  an 
arbitrating  decision  of  the  emperor  of  Austria  in  1881,  gave 
them.  Nicaragua,  unwilling  to  allow  interference  with  the 
bargain  which  she  seemed  to  be  driving  with  the  United 
States,  asserted  her  authority,  whereupon  the  Mosquitoes 
called  in  Great  Britain,  who  answered  the  call.  In  spite  of 
protests  from  the  United  States,  British  marines  were 
landed  at  Bluefields  in  1894.  Complicated  as  were  the  legal 
arguments  in  the  case,  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  this 
interference  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  was  in  violation  of 
the  spirit  of  the  treaty  which  she  was  trying  to  uphold.  In 
fact  the  point  was  apparently  appreciated  by  her  govern- 
ment; the  marines  were  withdrawn,  and  in  1895  the  matter 
was  temporarily  settled,  but  not  beyond  the  possibility  of 
revival,  by  the  submission  of  the  Mosquitoes  to  Nicaragua. 

The  agitation  over  the  canal  question  did  not,  during 

this  period,  accomplish  any  definite  result.    The  canal  was 

not  built,  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  remained,     „ 

,     -      ^_   .      ,  J^  -      ,  1   /»    •     1        **o  progress 

and  the  United  States  had  not  even  definitely 

changed  its  mind. 


CHAPTER   XXVII 

BLAINE,  OLNEY,  AND  THE  MONROE  DOCTRINE  ^ 

The  development  of  our  policy  toward  Spanish  America 

during  this  period  was,  to  1892,  almost  entirely  the  work 

of    Blaine,   whose    handling    of    this   subject 
Intervention  ,  °  '  ^w^^ 

in  America  to    was    comprehensive    and   constructive.     The 

negative  influence  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
in  preserving  the  territorial  integrity  and  independence  of 
the  free  nations  of  our  continents  had  undoubtedly  been 
great,  but  the  hope  of  Adams  and  Clay  for  a  sympathetic 
union  with  them,  accompanied  by  a  leadership  on  our  part, 
had  not  been  realized.  Great  Britain  had  won  and  held  the 
imp)ort  trade,  her  rivals  being  France,  Spain,  and  to  an  in- 
creasing extent  Germany.  The  United  States  actually  lost 
ground  between  1860  and  1880,  although  she  consumed 
more  and  more  Brazilian  coffee.  The  immigration  of  Ger- 
mans into  Brazil  and  of  Italians  into  Argentina  was  laying 
a  more  substantial  basis  for  influence  than  any  we  possessed. 
The  first  part  of  Blaine's  policy  was  developed  under 
Garfield.  He  planned  to  have  the  United  States  assume  the 
M  di  ti  b  position  of  sole  mediator  in  the  disputes  con- 
tween  Europe  tinually  arising  between  the  several  American 
powers,  and  between  them  and  European 
powers.  On  this  subject  we  had  not  previously  taken  a 
definite  stand.  In  1851  we  had  joined  with  France  and  Great 
Britain  in  mediating  between  Hayti  and  the  Dominican 
Republic;  and  sometimes  our  representatives  had  acted  in  a 
mediating  capacity,  but  more  often  those  of  France  or  Great 
Britain  had  done  so. 

Blaine's  first  opportunity  appeared  in  the  dispute  between 
*  Latan^,  Diplomatic  Relations  of  the  United  States  and  Spanish  America. 

384 


BLAINE,  OLNEY;  MONROE  DOCTRINE     385 

France  and  Venezuela.  The  former  country  had  claims 
against  the  latter,  and  proposed  to  seize  the  customs  houses 
and  collect  the  sum  due,  a  proceeding  by  no  means  unusual. 
To  prevent  this  desecration  of  American  soil  by  French 
marines,  Blaine  vigorously  urged  Venezuela  to  acknowledge 
the  French  claim,  and  suggested  that  the  money  be  paid  to 
our  agent  at  Caracas;  if  it  were  not  paid  within  three 
months,  he  threatened,  the  United  States  herself  would 
seize  the  customs  houses  and  collect  the  money.  This  pro- 
posal to  act  as  collecting  agent  came  to  nothing  at  the  time, 
for  Frelinghuysen  did  not  continue  the  policy;  as  foreshadow- 
ing a  course  of  action  later  much  discussed  and  sometimes 
followed  out,  it  is,  however,  important.^ 

With  regard  to  disputes  between  American  powers  Blaine 
did  not  claim  exclusive  authority.  June  25,  1881,  he  wrote  to 
Fairchild,  minister  in  Spain,  protesting  against     objection  to 

the  proposal  to  submit  to  Spain  the  arbitration    European 

*^     ^  *^  ,  mediation  be- 

of  the  boundary  between  Colombia  and  Costa    tween    Amer- 

Rica.  He  based  his  protest  on  the  fact  that, 
since  in  the  treaty  of  1846  we  had  guaranteed  Panama 
to  Colombia,  we  should  have  been  consulted.  In  using 
this  special  ground,  he  obviously  refrained  from  deny- 
ing the  right  of  Spanish-American  states  to  ask  European 
states  to  serve  in  such  a  capacity  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances or  that  of  European  states  to  accept  the  invitation. 
He  planned,  however,  to  make  such  recourse  unnecessary 
by  having  the  United  States  serve  as  a  permanent  and  im- 
partial umpire.  Already  in  1880  Colombia  and  United  states 
Chili  had  agreed  to  make  the  president  of  the  *^  «^<^"  "^*" 
United  States  a  permanent  arbitrator  between  them.  In 
1881  the  settlement  of  a  dispute  between  Chili  and  Argentina 
is  said  to  have  been  "due  to  the  unremitting  efforts  of  the 
representatives  of  the  United  States  in  both  countries." 
In  1881  Mexico  and  Guatemala  having  a  boundary  dispute, 
the  latter  applied  to  us  as  the  "natural  protector  of  the 
*  Edward  Stanwood,  James  Gillespie  Blaine,  Boston,  etc.,  1905. 


386  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Central  American  territory."  Blaine  offered  to  arbitrate. 
He  told  Mexico  that  we  were  satisfied  with  our  own  territory 
and  that  she  should  be  content  with  what  was  justly  hers; 
that  he  should  consider  any  hostile  movement  by  Mexico 
against  Guatemala  as  "not  in  harmony  with  the  friendly 
relations  existing  between  us,  and  injurious  to  the  best  in- 
terests of  all  the  republics  of  this  continent.  This  country," 
he  declared,  "will  continue  its  policy  of  peace  even  if  it  can- 
not have  the  great  aid  which  the  cooperation  of  Mexico  would 
assure;  and  it  will  hope  at  no  distant  day  to  see  such  concord 
and  cooperation  between  all  the  nations  of  America  as  will 
render  war  impossible." 

His  greatest  chance  came  in  the  war  raging  between  Chili 
and  Peru  and  Bolivia  for  the  possession  of  the  nitrate  mines 
_.    p  situated  near  the  junction  of  their  national 

Bolivia-Chili  boundaries.  Evarts  had  already  offered  media- 
tion and  protested  against  European  inter- 
vention. Blaine  emphasized  both  points.  He  informed 
France  that  the  American  republics  were  our  younger  sisters, 
removed  from  the  European  system.  To  Chili  and  Peru  he 
sent  messengers  of  peace.  They  were  not,  however,  well 
chosen,  for  each  became  the  partisan  of  the  country  to  which 
he  was  sent.  Blaine,  deeply  in  earnest,  at  length  sent  a 
competent  man,  William  H.  Trescot  of  South  Carolina, 
whose  diplomatic  experience  dated  back  to  1852  and  whose 
skill  and  scholarship  were  everywhere  acknowledged.  He 
was  instructed  to  warn  Chili  against  making  excessive  de- 
mands as  a  result  of  her  victories,  and  to  suggest  that,  if 
she  did,  we  would  secure  the  cooperation  of  other  American 
powers  to  coerce  her  into  reasonableness. 

These  instructions  are  to  be  taken  in  connection  with 
the  second  great  principle  upon  which  Blaine  was  acting, 
Pan-American  that  of  Pan-Americanism.  November  29, 1881, 
arbitration  j^^    invited    all    the    independent    nations    of 

America  to  meet  for  a  discussion  of  arbitration.  They  were 
not,  to  be  sure,  to  take  up  "exciting"  questions,  but  were  to 


^ 


BLAINE,  OLNEY;  MONROE  DOCTRINE     387 

inaugurate  an  era  of  peace  in  America  for  the  future,  and 
the  emanation  of  their  good  will  might  serve  to  assuage 
present  passions  based  on  past  lawlessness.  This  opportunity 
was  lost.  Frelinghuysen  feared  that  this  meeting  of  a  "par- 
tial group  of  our  friends"  might  oflFend  Europe;  accordingly, 
although  many  nations  accepted  the  invitation,  he  indefinitely 
postponed  the  conference,  and  he  discourteously  recalled 
Trescot. 

Blaine  employed  the  leisure  between  his  two  terms  of  office 
in  preparing  the  public  mind  to  support  his  Pan-American 
plans  on  a  basis  even  broader  than  he  had  Blaine's  influ- 
suggested  in  1881.  In  1882  he  wrote  The  gress^dpX 
Foreign  Policy  of  the  Garfield  Administra-  ^^  opinion 
tion.  He  secured  the  passage  by  Congress  of  an  amend- 
ment to  the  consular  bill  of  1884,  providing  for  a  commission 
of  three  to  obtain  information  as  to  the  advisability  of  a 
Pan-American  Congress.  Charlatan  and  genius,  he  sought 
to  recommend  his  plan  of  peace  and  cooperation  in  America 
by  a  persistent  baiting  of  Europe.  He  fostered  the  dispute 
with  Great  Britain  concerning  the  fisheries  and  Behring  sea; 
he  became  discredited  among  the  intellectual  class  at  home 
as  a  jingo;  and  when  he  returned  to  office  the  Spanish  min- 
ister of  foreign  affairs  moved  an  increase  in  the  West  Indian 
fleet. 

Nevertheless  he  made  progress.     Congress  had  already, 

in   1888,  passed  a  bill  calling  a  Pan-American  Congress, 

which   Cleveland   allowed   to   become   a  law     _  „  .     _   ^ 

Call  for  first 

without  his  signature.  It  was  to  discuss  not  Pan-American 
arbitration  alone,  but  customs  union,  weights 
and  measures,  copyright,  trademarks  and  patents,  communi- 
cations, common  coinage,  and  indeed  anything  that  seemed 
suitable.  Europe  scoffed,  and  Spanish  America  was  not  en- 
thusiastic. The  president  of  Chili  told  his  congress  that  he 
had  accepted  "out  of  polite  regard  for  a  friendly  govern- 
ment." Senor  Romero,  the  veteran  Mexican  minister  at 
Washington,  said  that  there  was  a  general  fear  that  its  object 


388  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

was  "to  secure  the  political  and  commercial  ascendency  of 
the  United  States  on  this  continent."  ^ 

The  congress  was  well  attended  and  ably  managed  by 
Blaine,  who  was  elected  its  president.  The  delegates  had 
Meeting  of  the  HO  power  to  bind  their  governments;  but  uni- 
Congress  form  sanitary  regulations  were  drawn  up,  the 

survey  of  an  intercontinental  railroad  was  arranged,  the 
principle  of  the  free  navigation  of  international  rivers  was  en- 
dorsed, and  agreements,  not  quite  universal,  were  made  con- 
cerning trade-marks,  patents,  and  extradition,  and  treaties 
of  arbitration  and  reciprocity  between  the  several  nations 
were  recommended.  One  thing  of  real  importance  was  ac- 
complished,— the  foundation  of  the  Bureau  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republics,  located  at  Washington,  supported  jointly 
by  the  nations  concerned,  and  charged  with  the  collection 
of  information.  Actually  permanent,  its  functions  grew  till 
it  became  a  lasting,  though  not  a  strong  element  of  union. ^ 

The  vitality  of  the  whole  scLeme  rested  on  the  develop- 
ment of  commercial  relations,  a  process  that  Blaine  sought 

^    .      .  to  stimulate  by  treaties  of  reciprocity.     Such 

Reciprocity  •      ,      ,  i  ,       •      i  •     ,%.r,.  i      , 

treaties  had  been  authorized  m  1884,  and  a  few 

were  drawn  up  under  Arthur,  but  they  were  withdrawn  by 
Cleveland.  In  1890  the  Republican  majority  in  Congress  was 
working  over  the  McKinley  tariff  bill.  In  this  document 
sugar,  coffee,  hides,  and  other  such  commodities,  our  most  im- 
portant assets  for  international  customs  bartering,  were  put 
on  the  free  list.  If  the  bill  passed  in  this  form,  therefore,  we 
should  have  no  favors  to  offer  American  countries.  Blaine 
threw  himself  into  opposition.  July  11,  1890,  he  wrote  to 
Senator  Frye,  "There  is  not  a  section  or  a  line  in  the  entire 
bill  that  will  open  a  market  for  another  bushel  of  [American] 
wheat  or  another  barrel  of  pork."  His  position  was  supported 
by  western  sentiment,  and  Senator  Hale  of  Maine  offered  an 

^  Romero,  M.  "The  Pan-American  Conference,"  North  American  Review, 
1890,  cli.  354-367,  407-421. 

*  Bureau  of  the  American  Republics,  Bulletins,  1891,  etc 


BLAINE,  OLNEY;  MONROE  DOCTRINE     380 

amendment  representing  his  views.  His  plan  provided  for 
a  duty  on  the  commodities  in  question,  but  empowered  the 
President  "  to  declare  the  ports  of  the  United  States  free  and 
open  to  all  products  of  any  nation  of  the  American  hemi- 
sphere upon  which  no  export  duties  are  imposed,  whenever 
and  so  long  as  such  nation  shall  admit  to  its  ports,  free  of  all  '* 
duties  of  whatsoever  nature,  certain  enumerated  products 
of  the  United  States,  or  such  other  products  as  might  be 
agreed  upon.  This  amendment  was  not  passed,  but  in  sub- 
stitution for  it  one  proposed  by  Senator  Aldrich  was  adopted, 
which  left  the  enumerated  articles  on  the  free  list,  but  au- 
thorized the  President,  when  in  his  judgment  the  duties 
imposed  on  the  agricultural  and  other  products  of  the  United' 
States  by  nations  producing  the  enumerated  articles  were 
"reciprocally  unequal  and  unjust,"  to  declare  in  force  a  pre- 
scribed list  of  duties.^ 

This  rule,  being  applicable  to  all  the  world,  deprived 
Blaine  of  his  weapon  for  specially  cementing  together  the 
nations  of  America.  Nevertheless  he  went  Reciprocity  in 
to  work  actively  to  use  it  to  open  markets  for  operation 
American  exports,  and  his  efforts  were  continued  by  his 
successor,  Foster,  with  the  result  that  agreements  were  en- 
tered into  with  Brazil,  Spain  (for  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico), 
Austria,  Nicaragua,  Honduras,  and  with  France  for  herself 
and  her  colonies.  Colombia,  Hayti,  Venezuela,  and  Spain 
with  reference  to  the  Philippines,  were  informed  that  unless 
certain  specified  duties  were  removed  by  March  15,  1892, 
the  President  would  enforce  the  duties  provided  by  the  act. 
In  1894,  before  it  was  possible  to  determine  what  effect  this 
policy  was  to  have  on  our  trade,  the  Democratic  Wilson  tariff 
was  enacted,  and  Cleveland's  first  secretary  of  state  in  his 
new  term,  Gresham,  informed  the  countries  concerned 
that  the  duration  of  these  agreements  depended  on  the  dura- 
tion of  the  act,  and  were  therefore  void. 

1  F.  W.  Taussig,  "Reciprocity,"  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  ii.  314- 
346  (1893),  vii.  26-39. 


390  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

The  great  tragedy  of  Blaine's  ambition,  however,  resulted 
from  the  civil  war  in  Chili.  In  that  contest  we  had  not 
The  Chili  em-  taken  part,  but  once  more  our  minister  had 
broglio  been  ill  selected  to  represent  us  at  so  critical 

a  point.  His  name  being  Patrick  Egan,  he  sympathized  with 
the  anti-English  party,  and  was  sufficiently  demonstrative 
to  have  stirred  up  decided  feeling  among  its  victorious  op- 
ponents. This  feeling  had  been  increased  by  our  over  strict 
interpretation  of  our  neutral  duties  in  seizing  the  Itata,  a 
vessel  carrying  arms  to  the  successful  party.  It  happened 
that  under  these  circumstances,  on  October  16,  1891,  some 
sailors  from  our  cruiser  Baltimore,  who  went  ashore  at  Val- 
paraiso, were  assaulted,  one  officer  was  killed,  and  seven 
seamen  were  wounded.  Blaine  and  Harrison  were  both  being 
talked  of  for  the  next  Republican  nomination.  The  latter 
insisted  upon  dealing  with  the  matter  with  a  high  hand  in 
order  to  win  votes,  particularly  the  Irish  ones.  Blaine  could 
not  be  left  behind,  and  a  blustering  policy  was  adopted,  with 
primary  reference  to  the  effect  that  the  episode  would  have 
at  home.  For  a  time  war  seemed  imminent;  diplomatic 
relations  were  suspended  and  an  ultimatum  dispatched. 
Chili  grudgingly  yielded,  but  the  suspicions  with  which  the 
Spanish- American  states  had  regarded  Blaine  were  confirmed, 
and  the  memory  of  his  pleasing  personality  and  eloquent  ap- 
peals for  kindliness  and  cooperation  vanished. 

Although  Blaine  seemed  to  make  little  impression  on  the 
solid  opinion  of  his  time,  some  of  his  policies  have  proved 
_       ,  to  be  permanently  American.     The  idea  of 

strength  and  United  States  control  of  the  canal,  which  was 
not  original  with  him  but  which  he  made  his 
own,  returned  later,  and  apparently  to  stay.  So,  too,  the 
conception  of  the  United  States  as  an  intermediary  between 
American  and  European  nations  is  incorporated  in  our 
statute  books  in  the  case  of  San  Domingo.  He  was  among 
the  first  of  our  public  men  to  observe  the  changing  conditions  \J 
of  our  commerce.    That  with  this  ability  he  should  have  com- 


BLAINE,  OLNEY;  MONROE  DOCTRINE     391 

bined  the  arts  of  the  blatant  hawker  after  votes,  thereby 
uselessly  aggravating  the  powers  of  Europe;  that,  with 
the  splendid  scope  of  his  plan  of  international  cooperation 
in  America,  he  should  in  the  eighties  have  imagined  that  the 
two  hemispheres  could  be  divided,  not  in  political  ideals 
as  Adams  in  the  twenties  has  said  they  were,  but  commer- 
cially, were  evidences  of  a  power  of  intuitive  perception  un- 
accompanied either  by  comprehensive  knowledge  or  by  a 
capacity  for  thinking  things  through. 

Richard  Olney,  who  formulated  President  Cleveland's 
conception  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  was  Blaine's  opposite 
in  every  respect.  Clear-cut  and  logical,  he  The  Vene- 
thought  his  problem  through  to  the  bitter  end,  ^"«'*  question 
and  did  not  have  the  imagination  to  see  that  the  end  was 
bitter.  The  occasion  for  the  declaration  of  the  Olney  doc- 
trine arose  out  of  a  dispute  between  Great  Britain  and 
Venezuela.  It  was  a  question  of  boundary,  and  ran  back 
to  the  demarcation  line  of  Alexander  VI.  More  particu- 
larly, the  situation  was  that  the  Spaniards  had  settled  on 
the  Orinoco,  the  Dutch  on  the  Essequibo,  without  ever  de- 
termining the  line  between  them.  In  1814  the  Dutch  had 
ceded  western  Guiana  to  the  British,  and  a  little  later  the 
Spanish  settlements  had  declared  their  independence  as 
Venezuela. 

Both  Great  Britain  and  Venezuela  had  extended  their 
claims  to  the  uttermost,  the  former  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Orinoco,  the  latter  to  the  mouth  of  the  Ese-  Rise  of  the 
quibo;  from  1841  they  had  been  at  controversy,  controversy 
Of  the  two,  Venezuela,  fearing  Great  Britain,  was  the  more 
anxious  for  a  fixed  line.  In  1876  she  appealed  to  us,  as  "the 
most  powerful  and  oldest  of  the  Republics  of  the  new  con- 
tinent," to  lend  to  the  others  our  "powerful  moral  support 
in  disputes  with  European  nations."  Evarts,  Frelinghuysen, 
and  Bayard  all  expressed  their  interest.  Blaine  was  collect- 
ing material  on  the  subject  in  1881,  and  probably  would  have 
taken  some  action  had  he  continued  in  office.    In  1890  he 


392  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

instructed  Lincoln  to  proffer  our  good  oflSces  and  to  suggest 
an  informal  conference  of  the  three  countries. 

Meantime  the  question  had  become  acute,  owing  to  the 
discovery  of  gold  in  the  region  in  dispute  and  the  probabil- 
Cleveland  and  ity  of  actual  occupation.  Cleveland  therefore 
Venezuela  proposed  to  handle  it  with  vigor.    He  referred 

to  it  in  his  message  of  1894,  expressing  his  hope  for  arbitra- 
tion, and  Congress  recommended  such  action  to  both  parties. 
England  refused,  as  she  had  in  the  case  of  Lincoln's  sugges- 
tion, to  submit  the  whole  question,  but  she  would  arbitrate 
within  fixed  limits.  It  was  at  this  point  that  Secretary 
Gresham  died  and  Olney  took  oflBce.  It  was  not,  however, 
as  a  result  of  Gresham's  death  that  the  United  States  policy 
showed  that  sudden  acceleration  which  became  a  nine  days' 
wonder  for  the  whole  world;  the  change  had  already  been 
determined  upon  by  Cleveland.  He  believed  that,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  non-colonization  pronouncement  of  Mon- 
roe, the  boundaries  of  foreign  colonies  in  America  had  be- 
come fixed,  that  they  were  determinable  by  judicial  process, 
and  must  be  so  determined  lest  in  a  contest  between  a  strong 
European  nation  and  a  weak  American  one  the  line  might  be 
pushed  back  and  the  area  of  freedom  curtailed.  To  insist 
upon  such  a  judicial  settlement  was,  he  urged,  our  duty  and 
privilege. 

June  20,  1895,  Olney  sent  his  dispatch  setting  forth  these 
views.  To  the  more  usual  phrases  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
The  Olney  he  added,  "That  distance  and  three  thousand 
doctrine  miles  of  intervening  ocean  make  any  permanent 

political  union  between  a  European  and  an  American  state 
unnatural  and  inexpedient  will  hardly  be  denied."  Not 
content  with  thus  proclaiming  the  ultimate  extinction  of 
European  colonial  possessions,  he  announced  with  reference 
to  the  present,  "  Today  the  United  States  is  practically  sover- 
eign on  this  continent,  and  its  fiat  is  law  upon  the  subjects 
to  which  it  confines  its  interposition."  Great  Britain,  he 
declared,  could  not  be  considered  as  a  South  American  power; 


BLAINE,  OLNEY;  MONROE  DOCTRINE     303 

if  she  advanced  her  frontier,  she  would  be  acting  contrary 
to  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  In  order  that  we  might  know  that 
no  such  extension  was  taking  place,  full  arbitration  was  neces- 
sary. The  President,  he  said,  must  be  informed  of  her  policy 
before  the  next  meeting  of  Congress;  "if  he  is  disappointed 
in  that  hope"  the  result  will  be  "calculated  to  greatly  em- 
barrass the  future  relations  between  this  country  and  Great 
Britain." 

Lord  Salisbury  in  a  long  dispatch  controverted  these 
statements,  and  refused  to  admit  the  intervention  of  the 
United  States  between  Great  Britain  and  Vene-  Cleveland  and 
zuela.  In  a  special  message  of  December  17,  ^'®**  Bntain 
1895,  Cleveland  dealt  with  the  matter  in  a  manner  similar 
to  that  which  Polk  had  made  use  of  in  connection  with  Ore- 
gon, but  more  vigorously.  He  recommended  that  we  ap- 
point a  commission  of  our  own  to  investigate  the  facts.  If 
its  report  should  show  that  Great  Britain  was  extending  her 
territory,  nothing  would  remain  but  to  accept  the  situation, 
to  recognize  its  plain  requirements,  and  to  deal  with  it  ac- 
cordingly. 

War  spirit  ran  high,  but  it  is  only  fair  to  President  Cleve- 
land to  say  that  he  was  throughout  probably  conscious  of 
the  irresistible  weight  of  the  forces  making  for  The  settle- 
peace  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  ™®°* 
States.  He  was  not  bluffing,  for  he  was  prepared  to  meet  the 
call;  but  he  did  not  expect  to  be  called.  Like  Polk,  he  was 
"looking  England  in  the  eye."  Venezuela  prepared  her  case 
for  the  benefit  of  our  commission,  and  Great  Britain  brought 
out  a  timely  parliamentary  Blue  Book,  which  answered  the 
same  purpose.  February  27,  1896,  Sir  Julian  Pauncefote, 
who  long  and  ably  represented  Great  Britain  at  Washington, 
was  empowered  to  discuss  the  question.  In  order  to  avoid 
yielding,  Lord  Salisbury  suggested  a  general  arbitration 
tribunal  to  adjust  all  questions  between  us;  but  this  was  re- 
fused. After  a  year  of  negotiation,  February  2,  1897,  an 
arbitration  between  Great  Britain  and  Venezuela  was  ar- 


394  AMERICAN   DIPLOMACY 

ranged.  Although  to  a  degree  Great  Britain's  action  in 
treating  of  the  matter  with  us  constituted  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  our  special  position  on  the  continent,  she  did  not 
formally  recognize  it,  and  she  did  not  conclude  without 
having  forced  a  compromise, — namely,  that  the  arbitrators 
were  to  act  on  the  rule  that  adverse  possession  for  fifty  years 
should  make  good  title,  a  limitation  upon  which  she  had  long 
insisted.  The  tribunal  met  at  Paris  in  1899,  and  was  dis- 
tinguished by  the  presence  of  Ex-President  Harrison  as 
counsel  for  Venezuela.  The  result  was  largely  favorable  to 
Great  Britain,  but  it  gave  Venezuela  control  of  the  mouth 
of  the  Orinoco.  A  dispute  between  Great  Britain  and  Brazil 
concerning  the  southern  boundary  of  Guiana  was  in  1901 
submitted  to  arbitration  without  controversy.'^ 

As  an  exposition  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  Olney's  dispatch 
pushed  interpretation  to  an  extreme.  It  was  as  much  an 
Blain  d  extension  of  the  original  intention  as  was 
Olney  com-        Blaine's.      If   Blaine   could   see   nothing   but    / 

America,  Olney  could  see  nothing  but  the 
United  States.  If  his  statement  that  colonies  in  America 
were  but  transitory  was  provocative  to  Europe,  his  assertion  \/ 
that  the  fiat  of  the  United  States  was  law  upon  this  continent 
was  equally  provocative  to  other  American  powers.  They 
could  not  grasp  its  consistency  with  Cleveland's  statement 
that  the  Monroe  Doctrine  found  "its  recognition  in  those 
principles  of  international  law  which  are  based  upon  the 
theory  that  every  nation  shall  have  its  rights  protected  and 
its  just  claims  enforced."  They  considered  our  assertion  of 
authority  in  connection  with  what  they  believed  to  be  our 
designs.  The  really  harmless  statement  of  President  Hayes, 
that  an  isthmian  canal  would  be  part  of  the  coast  line  of  the 
United  States,  they  regarded  as  a  threat  to  all  countries 

*  Henderson,  American  Diplomatic  Questions,  411-443;  Grover  Cleveland, 
Presidential  Problems,  New  York,  1904;  Richard  Olney,  "International 
Isolation  of  the  United  States,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  1898,  Ixxxi.  577-588; 
Hiram  Bingham,  The  Monroe  Doctrine  an  Obsolete  Shibboleth,  New  Haven, 
\913. 


BLAINE,  OLNEY;  MONROE  DOCTRINE      395 

between  us  and  it.  Our  protection  of  Venezuela,  therefore, 
failed  to  increase  our  popularity  in  America.  In  this  respect 
Olney  seems  to  have  been  guilty  of  an  ignorance  which 
Blaine  avoided.  His  remark  that  "the  states  of  America, 
South  as  well  as  North,  by  geographical  proximity,  by  nat- 
ural sympathy,  by  similarity  of  governmental  constitutions, 
are  friends  and  allies,  commercially  and  politically,  of  the 
United  States,"  could  scarcely  have  compressed  more  errors 
into  fewer  words.  It  contrasts  with  Blaine's  eflPort  to  make 
precisely  those  hopes,  facts. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 

GROWTH  OF  AMERICAN  INFLUENCE  IN  THE 
PACIFIC 

While  both  political   parties  were  doing  their  best  to 

deepen  the  Atlantic,  and  the  careless  words  of  so  many  of 

.  .  .  our  statesmen  were  preventing  any  diplomatic 
American    in-  .  .       ^        .  .  . 

fluence  in  the  understanding  with  Spanish  America,  our  influ- 
ence in  the  Pacific,  unbacked  by  policy  and 
largely  unnoticed,  was  rapidly  extending.  Foremost  among 
the  pioneers  were  the  missionaries,  who  were  carrying  their 
ministrations  to  every  coral  isle  and  penetrating  the  vast 
bulk  of  China,  to  whose  awakening  they  were  ultimately  to 
contribute  so  much.  In  China  their  ministry  was  distinctly 
recognized  by  the  treaties  of  1858  and  1868,  and  everywhere, 
as  American  citizens,  they  carried  the  protection  of  our 
name  and  extended  the  duties  of  our  diplomacy.  The  whaler 
had  become  a  less  customary  visitant  in  the  Pacific,  but  the 
trade  was  not  entirely  dead.  Regular  commerce  with  the 
East  was  not  relatively  so  important  as  in  the  first  part  of 
the  century,  but  absolutely  it  was  growing  and  demanded 
the  constant  attention  of  our  state  department  and  our 
representatives  abroad.^ 

In  Japan  we  took  a  benevolent  interest.    In  returning  to 
her  in  1883  our  portion  of  the  Shimonoseki  indemnity,  we 

^  J.  M.  Callahan,  American  Relations  in  the  Pacific  and  the  Far  East,  1784- 

1900,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Studies  in  Historical  and  Political  Science, 

1901,  xix.  Nos.  1-3;  J.  W.  Foster,  American  Diplomacy  in  the  Orient,  Boston, 
etc.,  1908;  W.  E.  Griffis,  America  in  the  East,  a  Glance  at  our  History,  Pros- 
pects, Problems,  and  Duties  in  the  Pacific  Ocean,  New  York,  1899;  A.  T. 
Mahan,  The  Problem  of  Asia  and  its  Effect  upon  International  Policies, 
Boston,  1900;  A.  R.  Colquhoun,  The  Mastery  of  the  Pacific,  New  York,  etc., 
1902;  E.  E.  Sparks,  National  Development,  1877-1885  {American  Nation^ 
Vol.  xxiii.),  chs.  xiii-xiv.    All  these  were  written  after  the  Spanish  war. 

396 


OUR  INFLUENCE  IN  THE  PACIFIC        397 

performed  an  unusual  act  of  international  courtesy.  With 
Japan's  desire  for  commercial  autonomy  we  exhibited  sym- 
pathy, which  was  checked,  however,  by  our  in- 
ternational convention  of  1866,  and  by  our  sus- 
picion as  to  her  readiness  for  the  judicial  autonomy  for  which 
she  was  equally  desirous.  In  1878  we  concluded  a  commer- 
cial treaty  with  her,  surrendering  our  tariff  rights;  but,  as  it 
was  not  to  go  into  effect  until  the  other  treaty  powers  had 
similarly  surrendered  theirs,  it  served  merely  as  an  expression 
of  our  good  will.  We  finally  left  it  for  Great  Britain  to  be 
the  first  absolutely  to  recognize  the  accomplished  modernity 
of  the  empire  in  1894,  but  we  followed  with  a  treaty  of  the 
same  year.  Our  general  relations  continued  to  be  of  special 
friendliness.^ 

With  China  there  was  much  the  same  spirit,  but  just  as 
our  territorial  acquisitiveness,  actual  or  suspected,  has  always 
prevented  that  sympathy  for  which  we  have  Chinese  im- 
hoped  in  America,  so  the  vase  of  our  friendship  n^s^^t^o" 
with  the  Far  East  began  to  show  a  flaw.  As  subjects  for  mis- 
sionary effort,  and  as  honest  merchants  with  whom  to  deal, 
we  respected  the  Chinese  while  we  condescended  to  them. 
As  competitive  laborers  in  our  country  we  both  disliked  and 
feared  them.  Concentrated  as  it  was  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
this  sentiment  had  the  advantage  of  being  the  dominant  po- 
litical issue  there.  The  electoral  vote  of  California  began  to 
veer  with  the  attitude  of  parties  on  this  question,  and  by  1880 
the  Californian  position  became  the  embodied  national  will. 

In  1879  Congress  passed  a  bill  excluding  the  Chinese,  but, 
as  this  action  was  in  contradiction  to  the  Burlingame  treaty. 
President  Hayes  vetoed  it.  To  accomplish  Chinese  ex- 
the  same  end  by  diplomacy  he  sent  a  special  <^"s'<>° 
commission.  Following  the  precedent  of  calling  upon  the 
best  talent  in  the  country  to  deal  with  such  emergencies, 
instead  of  relying  on  our  regular  diplomatic  staff,  he  selected 

*  W.  E.  GriflSs,  Tovonsend  Harris,  First  American  Envoy  in  Japan,  Boston, 
etc.,  1895. 


398  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

President  James  B.  Angell  of  the  University  of  Michigan, 
and  Trescott,  with  John  F.  Smith  to  represent  Cahfornia. 
They  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  treaty  permitting  us  to  limit 
or  suspend,  though  not  absolutely  to  prohibit,  the  immigra- 
tion of  laborers.  In  accordance  with  this  treaty  we  passed 
an  exclusion  act  in  1882. 

Successfully  evading  the  law,  however,  the  Chinese  con- 
tinued to  come.  More  vigorous  measures  being  necessary 
Treaty  of  1894  to  carry  out  our  purpose,  we  again  nego- 
with  China  i-jj^^g^j  ijj  1888,  and  in  spite  of  the  failure  of  the 

treaty  passed  a  new  and  more  effective  act  in  that  year. 
Other  laws  followed,  the  most  important  being  the  Geary 
act  of  1892,  requiring  the  registration  of  all  Chinese  in  this 
country.  The  question  as  to  the  return,  after  leaving  the 
country,  of  those  once  resident  here  added  to  the  diplomatic 
difficulty  of  the  situation.  At  length  in  1894  a  new  treaty 
was  signed  prohibiting  by  its  own  terms  the  immigration 
of  Chinese  laborers  for  ten  years.  "Officials,  teachers,  stu- 
dents, merchants,  or  travellers  for  curiosity  or  pleasure" 
were  exempted,  but  they  must  carry  certificates.  This  took 
the  question  through  the  period,  but  our  success  was  not 
without  the  loss  of  some  regard. 

Our  interest  in  the  Pacific,  however,  was  not  confined  to 
our  relations  with  other  nations  resident  upon  it:  we  were 
T     t    ai  becoming  one  of  the  most  important  resident 

pansion  on  the  nations  ourselves.  The  definite  acquisition  of 
Oregon  with  Puget  Sound  in  1846,  and  of 
California  with  the  bay  of  San  Francisco  in  1848,  gave  us  the 
best  commercial  coast  line  on  its  western  shores,  and  the 
annexation  of  Alaska  in  1867  stretched  a  finger  round  toward 
Asia.^ 

From  time  to  time  the  American  flag  was  raised  over  a 
number  of  the  Pacific  islands.  In  1812  Commodore  Porter, 
cruising  in  the  Pacific,  named  and  annexed  Madison  island; 

^  F.  H.  Skrine,  The  Expansion  of  Russia,  1815-1900,  Cambridge,  Eng., 
1903. 


y 


OUR  INFLUENCE  IN  THE  PACIFIC        399 

but  name  and  flag  alike  soon  vanished  from  it.  Ephemeral 
national  occupation  was  taken  from  time  to  time  of  guano 
islands.  By  a  succession  of  United  States  laws  The  Pacific 
the  President  was  authorized,  after  proper  for-  inlands 
malities,  to  maintain  these  as  national  possessions  while  the 
guano  was  being  extracted,  but  without  incurring  any  obliga- 
tion of  perpetual  possession.  Although  some  of  them  were 
situated  in  the  Caribbean  and  elsewhere,  the  majority  were 
in  the  Pacific;  in  the  eighties  over  fifty  were  reported  as 
claimed  by  Americans  in  that  ocean.  The  hold  of  the  United 
States  in  such  cases  was  not  only  temporary  but  slight;  still 
conflicting  claims  of  persons  and  nations,  and  complaints 
as  to  conditions  on  them,  demanded  constant  attention  by 
the  department  of  state.  The  occupation  of  the  appropriately 
named  Midway  island  by  the  navy  in  1867  has  been  held  to 
have  brought  it  permanently  within  our  sovereignty. 

More  important  was  our  connection  with  the  inhabited 
islands,  the  first  general  interest  being  excited  by  the  island 
kingdom  of  Samoa.  This  earthly  paradise, 
which  Stevenson  has  made  the  home  of  ro- 
mance and  faery,  was  the  scene  of  diverting  wars  between  the 
natives  and  of  Gilbertian  intrigues  between  the  American, 
German,  and  English  consuls.  Like  the  "three  kings  of 
Chickeraboo,"  they  smoked  at  Apia,  the  capital,  and 
dreamed  of  circumventing  their  rivals.  Three  hundred 
foreigners,  mostly  of  the  beach-combing  variety,  divided  the 
trade  of  the  islands.  That  of  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  had  ceased  to  grow,  but  the  Deutsche  Handels-und 
Plantagengesell-schaft  fiir  Sudseeinseln  zu  Hamburg  was  ex- 
tending its  sales  and  taking  in  payment  therefor  land  titles 
of  the  significance  of  which  the  natives  had  as  little  idea  as 
the  American  Indians  had  had  of  theirs.  The  tendency, 
therefore,  was  for  the  American  and  English  consuls  to  co- 
operate against  the  German.^ 

^  R.  L.  Stevenson,  A  Footnote  to  History:  Eight  Years  of  Trouble  in  Sanuxif 
New  York,  1892. 


400  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

In  1872  one  of  our  naval  officers  secured  an  agreement 
with  a  local  chieftain  giving  us  harbor  privileges.  In  1875 
a  German  agent  named  Steinberger  obtained  a  commis- 
sion of  inquiry  from  the  United  States  government,  and 
o  fir  t  d'  1  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^^  authority  attempted  to  set  up 
matic  relations  a  government  under  our  protection;  but  our 
consul  secured  his  deportation.  In  1878  we 
made  a  treaty  with  the  kingdom.  This  gave  us  the  right 
to  use  the  harbor  of  Pagopago,  in  the  island  of  Tutuila,  as  a 
naval  station.  We  on  our  part  agreed,  "  If,  unhappily,  any 
differences  should  have  arisen,  or  shall  hereafter  arise,  be- 
tween the  Samoan  government  and  any  other  government 
in  amity  with  the  United  States,  the  government  of  the  latter 
will  employ  its  good  offices  for  the  purpose  of  adjusting  those 
differences  upon  a  satisfactory  and  solid  foundation."  Al- 
though this  pledge  did  not  constitute  a  protectorate,  it  was 
from  time  to  time  so  interpreted  by  our  consuls.  At  any 
rate,  it  seems  to  have  been  somewhat  of  a  departure  from  our 
tradition  of  avoiding  entangling  obligations. 

In  1884  the  German  consul,  on  pretext  of  an  agreement 
with  King  Malietoa,  hoisted  the  German  flag  over  the 
Approach  of  royal  hut.  In  1886  the  American  consul  once 
the  crisis  more  proclaimed  our  protectorate.    Our  govern- 

ment, being  appealed  to  under  the  treaty  of  1878,  sent  a 
commission  to  investigate,  and  in  accordance  with  their 
report  Bayard  sought  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  the 
German  and  British  ministers  at  Washington.  A  conference 
was  arranged,  but  failed  to  agree.  Meantime  a  quarrel 
between  King  Malietoa  and  the  German  consul  culminating 
opportunely  at  the  time  of  the  arrival  of  a  German  warship, 
the  consul  deposed  and  deported  the  king,  and  substituted 
for  him  another,  Tamasese.  Uprose  at  this  point  Mataafa, 
a  native  champion  of  island  rights,  and  refused  to  recognize 
Tamasese.  The  German  warship  Adler  bombarded  Mataafa's 
villages,  while  the  American  consul,  Sewall,  steamed  his 
launch  between  the  Adler  and  the  shore.     Finally,  De- 


OUR  INFLUENCE  IN  THE  PACIFIC        401 

cember  18,  1888,  Mataafa  surrounded  a  German  landing 
party,  and  killed  fifty  of  its  members. 

German  public  opinion  demanded  satisfaction  and  the  vin- 
dication of  German  arms;  American  public  sentiment,  touched 
by  the  heroism  of  the  Samoans,  demanded  that  The  crisis  and 
our  government  protect  them;  Great  Britain,  *^«  hurricane 
jealous  of  Germany  as  a  new  rival  in  the  colonial  field, 
stood  with  the  United  States.  All  three  sent  warships,  and 
it  was  a  possibility  that  any  day  might  bring  news  that 
their  animosities,  stimulated  by  the  tropic  heat,  had  resulted 
in  hostilities.  On  March  16,  1889,  a  hurricane  descended 
on  Apia,  blowing  bad  feeling  away  before  it.  Every  one, 
the  sailors  of  the  three  nations  as  well  as  the  natives,  showed 
helpfulness  and  good  feeling,  and  the  air  in  Samoa  cleared. 

Meantime,  in  the  real  world  Bayard  and  Bismarck  were 
trying  to  reach  a  permanent  solution  of  these  troubles. 
Bayard,  in  accordance  with  American  tradi-  General  Act  of 
tions,  insisted  that  the  basis  of  such  a  solution  ^«'^ 
must  be  the  authority  of  the  natives;  Bismarck  could  see 
no  permanence  for  trade  except  in  European  control.  At 
length,  and  after  rather  heated  controversy,  the  Washington 
conference  was  revived  in  Berlin.  The  United  States  sent 
a  commission  headed  by  John  A.  Kasson,  another  veteran 
in  diplomacy,  who,  like  Trescot,  was  often  called  in  for 
critical  service.  In  1889  there  was  concluded  the  General 
Act  of  Berlin,  which  recognized  the  independence  of  Samoa, 
but  gave  preponderance  of  authority  to  a  chief  justice  and  a 
president  of  the  municipal  council  of  Apia,  to  be  chosen  by  the 
three  powers,  the  United  States,  Great  Britain,  and  Germany. 

Trivial  as  was  this  affair,  its  significance  as  illustrating 

the  interplay  of  old  and  new  forces  in  American  diplomacy  is 

great.     Some  importance  attaches  to  the  ap-    t    i    .._•        * 
.  .  Impbcations  of 

pearance  of  a  new  bogy,  the  German  empire,     the    Samoan 
In   1871  that  power  was  supposed  to  want      ^^^° 
Samana  Bay;  the  first  actual  evidence  of  rivalry  with  us 
appeared  in  the  Samoan  affair,  and  other  instances  were  to 


402  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

arise.  In  this  case,  the  real  obstacle  to  agreement  was  the 
traditional  American  belief  in  the  right  of  local  self-govern- 
ment. Had  we  believed  in  the  extension  of  the  colonial 
system,  division  of  the  islands  and  compromise  would  have 
been  easy.  In  the  end,  however,  the  United  States,  though 
she  saved  the  form  of  independence  for  Samoa,  was  forced  to 
consent  to  its  violation  in  substance,  thereby  becoming  her- 
self involved  in  a  very  spider's  web  of  entangling  alliance. 
It  was  the  third  such  international  agreement  into  which  we  J 
had  entered.  The  first,  the  treaty  of  1866  between  Great 
Britain,  France,  Holland,  Japan,  and  ourselves,  was  per-  / 
haps  only  an  agreement  by  concert.  It  was,  however,  al- 
ready proving  troublesome,  and  would  doubtless  have 
entangled  us  seriously  in  the  future  had  not  rising  Japan 
shaken  it  off.  The  second  was  an  agreement  concerning 
Morocco,  entered  into  in  1880.  including  most  European  , 
powers,  and  having  to  do  with  the  protection  of  foreigners 
and  their  native  prot6g6s  in  that  country.  Apparently  harm- 
less in  itself,  it  involved  us,  though  not  materially,  in  the 
great  Algeciras  conference  that  bid  fair  to  plunge  Europe 
into  war  in  1906.  It  is  important  to  note  that  none  of  these 
agreements  had  to  do  with  Europe  or  the  Americas,  and 
that  two  were  concerned  with  the  Pacific.^ 

Richest  and  most  strategically  important  of  the  island 
groups  of  the  Pacific  was  Hawaii,  where  we  had  possessed 
^.  .  .  _  from  the  beginning  the  really  predominant 
terests  in  interest.    As  early  as  1820  we  had  appointed 

an  "agent  .  .  .  for  commerce  and  seamen," 
and  in  the  same  year  the  first  of  our  missionaries  arrived 
there.  The  latter  was  particularly  well  received  by  the  King 
Kamamaha,  the  Napoleon  of  the  Pacific,  who  had  consoli- 
dated the  whole  group  of  islands  into  a  strong  kingdom. 
The  missionaries  aided  him  in  establishing  a  civilized  govern- 
ment, reduced  the  language  to  writing,  and  codified  the  laws; 
their  children  became  land-owners  and  sugar-planters,  an 
^  Schurz,  Speeches,  etc.,  v.  1-10. 


OUR  INFLUENCE  IN  THE  PACIFIC        40S 

opulent  and  fascinating  aristocracy,  preserving  their  Amer- 
icanism of  race  and  education.  Our  interests  there  were 
still  further  advanced  by  the  establishment  of  reciprocity 
in  1875,  and  our  commerce  offered  a  substantial  basis  for  a 
claim  to  priority.^ 

This  we  had  put  forth  as  early  as  1842,  when  Webster  said 
that  the  government  of  Hawaii  should  not  be  the  object 
of  interference  by  foreign  powers.  In  1843  j^.  ^  ^^^. 
a  British  naval  officer  made  one  of  those  un-  protection  of 
authorized  seizures  of  the  islands  which  so 
often  result  in  the  permanent  extension  of  British  territory. 
Legare  instructed  Everett  to  protest,  and  declared  that,  if 
Great  Britain  persisted,  we  might  be  justified  even  in  using 
force,  a  warning  which  practically  included  Hawaii  within 
the  American  continents  and  under  the  protection  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  The  British  withdrew.  An  appearance 
of  interest  by  France  in  1851  led  Fillmore  to  reiterate  our 
views.  Although  Blaine,  or  some  subordinate,  forgot  to 
invite  her  to  the  Pan-American  Congress  in  1889,  it  may  be 
said  to  have  been  the  American  contention  from  the  time  of 
Webster  that  Hawaii  was  constructively  and  in  the  general 
sense  American.  Because  of  the  priority  of  our  interests. 
Bayard  in  1888  refused  to  join  with  England  and  France  in  a 
joint  guarantee  of  the  government. 

Our  protection  was  several  times  asked,  and  while  any  such 
formal  arrangement  was  refused,  it  was  practically  extended. 
Marcy  and  Seward  were  anxious  for  annexa-  Discussion  of 
tion.  Fish  summed  up  the  situation  well  in  ^^exation 
1873:  "There  seems  to  be  a  strong  desire  on  the  part  of  many 
persons  in  the  islands,  representing  large  interests  and  great 
wealth,  to  become  annexed  to  the  United  States.  And 
while  there  are,  as  I  have  already  said,  many  and  influential 

1  W.  F.  Blackman,  The  Making  of  Hawaii,  New  York,  etc.,  1899;  L.  A. 
Thurston,  A  Hand-book  on  the  Annexation  of  Hawaii,  [St.  Joseph,  Mich., 
1897];  M.  H.  Krout,  Hawaii  and  a  Revolution,  New  York,  1898;  Liliuokalani, 
Hawaii's  Story  by  Hawaii's  Queen,  Boston,  1898;  Chalfant  Robinson,  History 
of  txvo  Reciprocity  Treaties. 


404  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

persons  in  this  country  who  question  the  policy  of  any  insular 
acquisitions,  perhaps  even  any  extension  of  territorial  limits, 
there  are  also  those  of  influence  and  of  wise  foresight  who  see 
a  future  that  must  extend  the  jurisdiction  and  the  limits  of 
this  nation,  and  that  will  require  a  resting  spot  in  the  mid- 
ocean,  between  the  Pacific  coast  and  the  vast  domains  of 
Asia,  which  are  now  opening  to  commerce  and  Christian 
civilization."  The  feeling  against  expansion  was  too  strong 
to  be  overcome,  however,  especially  since  the  advantage  of 
reciprocity  made  it  seem  unnecessary.  Without  annexation, 
even  the  navy  was  provided  for:  by  a  Senate  amendment  to  a 
renewal  of  the  reciprocity  treaty  in  1884,  which  was  accepted 
by  the  Hawaiian  government,  we  were  to  have  the  exclusive 
right  to  use  Pearl  harbor  as  a  coaling  and  repair  station. 

Nevertheless,  Blaine  in  1881  seriously  considered  annexa- 
tion, for  the  bogy  of  foreign  influence  was  appearing.  In  a 
Blaine  and  confidential  dispatch  to  our  minister,  Comly,  he 
Hawaii  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^g  must  take  the  islands  if  the  native 

population  continued  to  decline.  "Throughout  the  con- 
tinent, north  and  south,"  he  wrote,  "wherever  a  foothold 
is  found  for  American  enterprize,  it  is  quickly  occupied,  and 
this  spirit  of  adventure,  which  seeks  its  outlet  in  the  mines  of 
South  America  and  the  railroads  of  Mexico,  would  not  be 
slow  to  avail  itself  of  openings  of  assured  and  profitable  enter- 
prize even  in  mid-ocean." 

Before  Blaine  came  in  again  foreign  influence  had  taken 
on  a  definite  form.  The  king  had  died,  and  had  been  suc- 
British  influ-  ceeded  by  Queen  Liliuokalani,  who  had  married 
ence  in  Hawaii  ^  Scotchman,  and  whose  successor,  the  crown 
princess  Kaiulani,  was  the  daughter  of  an  Englishman  and 
had  been  educated  in  England.  Blaine  appointed  a  personal 
friend,  J.  L.  Stevens,  as  minister.  On  February  8,  1892, 
Stevens  wrote:  "At  a  future  time,  after  the  proposed  treaty 
shall  be  ratified,  I  shall  give  you  a  more  elaborate  statement 
of  facts  and  reasons  why  a  'new  departure'  by  the  United 
States  as  to  Hawaii  is  rapidly  becoming  a  necessity,  that  a 


OUR  INFLUENCE  IN  THE  PACIFIC        405 

protectorate  is  impracticable,  and  that  annexation  must  be 
the  future  remedy  or  else  Great  Britain  will  he  furnished  rjoith 
circumstances  and  opportunity  to  get  a  hold  on  these  islands 
which  will  cause  future  serious  embarrassment  to  the  United 
States.  At  this  time  there  seems  to  be  no  immediate  pros- 
pect of  its  being  safe  to  have  the  harbor  of  Honolulu  left 
without  an  American  vessel  of  war.  Last  week  a  British 
gunboat  arrived  here,  and  it  is  said  will  remain  here  for  an 
indefinite  period."  Foster,  succeeding  Blaine,  June  29,  1892, 
asked  Stevens  for  two  series  of  reports,  one  public  and  one 
confidential.  On  November  20,  1892,  Stevens  in  one  of  the 
latter  discussed  the  terms  of  annexation.  Scenting  a  revolu- 
tion, he  asked  how  to  use  the  United  States  naval  force 
which  had  been  sent  to  the  harbor. 

On  January  14,  1893,  the  queen  abolished  the  constitution 
drawn  up  and  administered  largely  by  the  American  element, 

and  proclaimed  a  new  one  based  on  absolutism     _     ,  ^ 

.         .       ,  .  Revolution 

and  native  home  rule.    At  2  p.  m.,  January  16,     and  anneza- 

the  American  element  organized  a  committee 
of  safety;  at  4:30  p.  m.  the  United  States  forces  landed  at  the 
request  of  Stevens.  The  next  day  a  provisional  government 
was  organized  and  was  at  once  recognized  by  Stevens;  the 
queen  surrendered  under  protest.  Envoys  of  the  new  govern- 
ment were  sent  to  the  United  States  by  the  next  steamer, 
and  passage  was  refused  to  the  envoy  of  the  queen.  Febru- 
ary 14  a  treaty  of  annexation  was  drawn  up  at  Washington. 
On  March  9  President  Cleveland  withdrew  this  treaty 
from  the  consideration  of  the  Senate  and  soon  after  sent  a 
commissioner  to  investigate  the  facts  of  the  _,,  .  . 
revolt.  The  latter  could  not  obtain  evidence  jects  annexa- 
that  Stevens  was  in  collusion  with  the  men  who 
held  the  very  quiet  meeting  at  2  p.  m.,  January  16,  although 
the  landing  of  our  troops  at  4:30  p.  m.,  seemed  to  indicate 
his  complicity.  It  was  clear,  however,  that  the  only  solid 
force  behind  the  revolt  was  the  presence  of  United  States 
marines,  and  that  the  leaders  had  counted  upon  them.    More- 


406  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

over,  although  the  only  proper  pretext  for  the  landing  of  the 
seamen  was  the  protection  of  American  citizens  and  property, 
yet  they  were  stationed  in  a  portion  of  the  city  where  there 
was  nothing  American  to  protect.  Cleveland  recalled  Stev- 
ens, and  December  19  requested  the  new  government  to  re- 
store the  queen.  This  it  refused  to  do;  and  even  if  the  ma- 
jority of  the  population  preferred  the  native  dynasty,  their 
preference  was  not  strong  enough,  at  any  rate,  to  drive  them 
to  serious  revolt,  nor  did  Cleveland  venture  to  use  force. 
The  provisional  government  became  permanent,  waiting  for 
a  return  of  Republican  control  in  the  United  States  and  a 
renewed  opportunity  for  annexation.^ 

Even  if  Hawaii  was  theoretically  part  of  the  American 
continent,  practically  it  was  far  out  in  the  Pacific,  and  even 
Our  position  in    if  it  was  still  independent,  its  government  was 
"^  as  American  as  that  of  Texas  between  1836  and 

1845.  With  Alaska  and  Midway  island  in  our  possession, 
with  Hawaii  American,  and  Samoa  under  our  joint  control, 
we  were  by  1897  halfway  across  to  Asia. 

The  period  from  1877  to  1898  was  one  of  flux.  No  strong 
current  of  popular  interest  or  purpose  was  apparent,  and 
1877-1898  a  the  surface  of  diplomacy  was  choppy  with  the 
penod  of  fltxx  wind  of  circumstance,  but  some  eddies  in  the 
stream  indicated  new  conditions  not  fully  understood.  The 
most  important  development  was  that  of  our  interests  in 
the  Pacific,  a  process  which  had  gone  on  for  the  most  part 
independently  of  diplomacy,  but  which  must  before  many 
years  involve  diplomatic  action.  Similarly,  the  impending 
changes  in  our  commercial  position  arising  from  the  growth 
of  an  export  trade  in  manufactures  was  sure  to  concern  the 
diplomat  sooner  or  later.  Of  more  immediate  moment  was 
the  oscillation  of  our  opinions  as  to  the  status  of  the  isthmian 
canal  which  had  become  an  imminent  possibility.  Our  in- 
terest in  Spanish  America  was  increasing;  there  were  some 
signs  of  a  more  special  interest  in  the  Caribbean,  but  no  one 
*  Senate  Reports,  53  Cong.  2  sess.,  ii.  No.  227. 


OUR  INFLUENCE  IN  THE  PACIFIC        407 

felt  certain  what  our  policy  there  would  be.  In  a  general 
way,  also,  it  was  evident  that  international  associations  were 
becoming  closer;  but  whether  we  should  be  a  dog  in  the  manger 
or  a  gracious  participant,  and  whether  participation  would 
mean  the  abandonment  of  our  policy  of  self-contained  ab- 
stinence from  European  politics,  no  one  could  tell. 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

THE  SPANISH  WAR 

When  William  McKinley  became  President  in  1897,  he 

shared  with  an  overwhelming  majority  of  Americans  the 

_  .  .      view  that  our  destiny  was  peace  and  our  in- 

The  war  spint     ,      .  i  mi       c  i 

hentance  complete.     Ihe  fact  that  we  had, 

without  becoming  involved  in  war,  passed  through  a  period 
when  diplomatic  leadership  was  vacillating  when  it  was  not 
weak,  and  when  the  virile  manhood  of  the  country  had  been 
trained  to  battle,  seemed  to  assure  the  future.  It  is  possible, 
however,  that  the  spiritual  impulse  to  war  is  strongest  when 
the  horrors  of  past  struggles  have  had  time  to  become  blurred, 
when  the  veteran,  respected  and  reminiscent,  embroiders  its 
glories  and  its  satisfactions.  Neither  the  war  of  1812  nor  the 
Spanish  war  was  necessary.  Those  responsible  for  both  jus- 
tified themselves  by  referring  to  causes  which  had  long  been  in 
existence.  The  development  of  the  crisis  in  each  case  was  in 
large  measure  due  to  the  rise  of  a  new  spirit. 

The  pugnacity  and  nationalism  of  Blaine  and  Olney  were 
due  in  part  to  an  apprehension,  in  part  to  a  reflection,  of  a 
_  general   militancy   and   a  demonstrative   pa- 

tions  of  pa-  triotism.  During  the  later  eighties  and  nine- 
ties public  schools  began  to  teach  respect  for 
the  flag,  assemblies  began  to  rise  at  the  playing  of  the  na- 
tional anthem  or  to  be  chidden  for  not  rising,  the  comic  opera 
began  to  exhibit  the  national  emblems  and  to  be  condemned 
for  so  doing.  American  history  and  military  drill  came  to 
be  commonly  taught  in  schools  and  colleges.  A  new  genera- 
tion of  historians  dedicated  themselves  to  the  study  of  our 
past;  patriotic  societies  awakened  the  popular  interest  in  the 
deeds  of  their  ancestors.    In  a  material  way  this  sentiment 

406 


THE  SPANISH  WAR  409 

found  expression  in  the  regeneration  of  our  navy,  which, 
from  its  Civil  war  bulk  and  efficiency,  had  sunk  to  such  a 
point  that  in  1891  the  prospect  of  war  with  Chili  caused  not 
entirely  unjustifiable  panic  on  the  Pacific  coast. 

The  occasion  that  gave  point  to  this  national  assertive- 
ness  was  the  outbreak  of  a  new  levolt  against  Spanish  rule 
in  Cuba.  This  began  in  1895,  and  in  character  Cuban  insur- 
resembled  the  ten  years'  insurrection  of  1868  ^^^^°°^ 
to  1878.  Cubans  themselves  were  divided,  hence  the  strug- 
gle took  on  the  nature  of  a  civil  war.  The  Spanish  troops 
and  volunteers  were  able  to  drive  the  insurrectionists  to  the 
mountains;  but  these,  running  in  a  long  ridge  from  one  end 
of  the  island  to  the  other,  offered  countless  fastnesses  for 
refuge  and  for  use  as  posts  from  which  to  attack  the  plan- 
tations in  the  plains  at  their  foot.^ 

Innumerable  causes  of  friction  between  the  United  States 
and  Spain  were  inherent  in  the  situation.  The  Cubans 
planned  to  conduct  the  war  from  the  United  American  as- 
States  as  a  base.  Many  Cubans  of  wealth  "Stance 
resided  in  the  United  States,  and  that  sympathy  for  revolu- 
tion which  has  never  failed  among  us  promised  assistance. 
A  Cuban  committee  headed  by  the  inspiring  name  of  Ethan 
Allen  raised  the  Cuban  flag  over  its  headquarters  in  New 
York.  Cuban  bonds  were  sold,  and  the  press  generally  ex- 
pressed its  hope  for  the  success  of  the  movement.  Irritating 
as  all  this  was  to  Spain,  she  had  no  cause  to  complain  unless 
words  were  transmuted  into  action.  This  Cleveland  tried  to 
prevent,  by  ordering  our  neutrality  laws  to  be  enforced.  In 
spite,  however,  of  an  administration  that  seemed  to  be  con- 
scientiously rigid,  aid  did  reach  Cuba.    The  Spanish  govem- 

^  Chadwick,  Relations  of  the  United  States  and  Spain,  Diplomacy;  Louis  Le 
Fur,  Etude  sur  la  guerre  hispano-amiricaine  de  1898,  Paris,  1899;  J.  H. 
Latan^,  America  as  a  World  Power  1897-1907.  (American  Nation,  vol.  xxv.), 
chs.  i.-iv;  E.  J.  Benton,  International  Law  and  Diplomacy  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War,  Baltimore,  1908;  Achille  Viallate,  Les  prSliminaires  de  la 
guerre  hispano-americaine  et  V annexation  des  Philippines  par  les  Etats-Unis, 
Revue  Uistorique,  1903,  Ixxxii.  242-291. 


410  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ment  asserted  that  its  delay  in  quelling  the  insurrection  was 
due  to  this  assistance. 

The  causes  for  irritation  on  the  part  of  the  United  States 
were  numerous.  American  capital  was  invested  in  the 
American  in-  island,  particularly  in  the  tobacco  industry, 
terests  ^^^  ^^^  therefore  subject  to  loss.    Many  of  our 

citizens,  particularly  natives  of  Cuba  naturalized  in  the 
United  States,  were  residents  and  were  doing  business  there, 
and  these  were  continually  in  trouble.  Official  complaints 
and  inquiries  by  our  government  included  such  subjects  as 
the  maltreatment  of  naturalized  Americans,  their  irregular 
trial  and  condemnation  for  participation  in  the  revolt,  the 
destruction  of  American  property,  the  expropriation  of  prop- 
erty of  United  States  citizens  for  military  use,  the  methods 
of  dealing  with  American  vessels  thought  to  be  running  the 
blockade,  the  Spanish  prohibition  of  the  export  of  leaf  to- 
bacco to  the  injury  of  American  interests,  the  withdrawal  of 
Spanish  protection  from  American  plantations  and  other 
property,  to  say  nothing  of  the  harsh  treatment  of  the  cor- 
respondents of  the  American  press  recklessly  seeking  news 
in  the  dungeon's  mouth. 

The  fact  that  Spain  had  not  yet  settled  our  claims  arising 
out  of  the  last  war  did  not  diminish  our  insistence.  These 
Disputes  be-  claims  were  actually  paid  in  1898,  but  we  were 
and*United"^  at  odds  not  only  over  Spanish  delay  but  also 
States  Qygj.  theory.    Since  we  had  recognized  no  state 

of  war,  we  still  held  her  responsible  for  the  acts  of  the  insur- 
gents, such  as  the  destruction  of  some  property  and  the  levy 
of  assessments  to  secure  the  exemption  of  still  more,  a  respon- 
sibility which  Spain  continued  to  deny,  as  she  had  done  in 
1871.  This  conflict  of  opinion  was,  however,  less  provocative 
of  bad  feeling  than  the  annoyance  to  which  we  were  con- 
stantly subjected  in  the  delay  caused  by  the  necessity  of 
dealing  with  every  petty  case  through  Madrid.  Complaints 
came  to  our  consul-general  at  Havana,  from  him  went  to 
Washington,  and  thence  to  Madrid;  Madrid  sought  the 


THE  SPANISH  WAR  411 

facts  from  Havana,  and  on  receiving  them,  if  there  were  no 
controversy,  sent  its  orders  to  Havana. 

While  such  calls  by  the  hundreds  almost  clogged  our  state 
department,  the  people  did  not  confine  their  attention  to 
the  sufferings  of  our  own  citizens.  The  conduct  American 
of  the  war  itself  was  the  leading  topic  of  their  sy™P*t^^y 
comment.  After  Martinez  de  Campos  had  driven  the  in- 
surgents from  the  fields  but  failed  to  dislodge  them  from 
the  mountains,  he  was  succeeded  by  General  Weyler,  the 
"  Butcher,"  as  he  came  to  be  known  in  America.  He  adopted 
two  methods  of  subduing  the  rebels.  One  was  that  of  the 
corral,  a  system  of  wire  fences  and  blockhouses  stretched 
across  the  island,  and  gradually  pushed  forward  with  the 
hope  of  penning  the  insurgents  up  in  one  end.  The  other 
method  was  that  of  starving  them  out  by  destroying  every- 
thing eatable  within  their  reach.  To  accomplish  this  ob- 
ject, Weyler  caused  the  population  of  infected  areas  to  be 
brought  together  in  reconcentrado  camps,  and  crops  and 
granaries  to  be  burned.  This  policy  involved  the  virtual 
imprisonment  of  many  American  citizens  and  the  giving 
over  of  their  property  to  destruction.  Executed  with  all 
the  Spanish  indifference  to  suffering,  the  prevailing  lack  of 
sanitary  knowledge,  and  the  inadequacy  of  Spain's  financial 
resources,  the  reconcentrado  camps  became  pest-holes  filled 
with  starving  unfortunates. 

The  horror  of  the  American  public  at  these  atrocities  so 
near  their  own  territory  was  inflamed,  as  the  pressure  of 
their  opinion  upon  tlie  government  was  con-  influence  of 
stantly  increased,  by  the  attention  which  the  *^®  '^*^^ 
press  devoted  to  Cuban  affairs.  The  boast  of  an  important 
American  journalist  that  it  cost  him  three  millions  to  bring 
on  the  war  need  not  be  taken  seriously.  In  spite  of  the  bril- 
liancy of  his  sensational  strokes,  it  was  upon  other  papers 
than  his  that  the  solid  elements  which  pushed  Congress  to 
action  based  their  opinion.  It  was  by  no  particular  design 
that  the  press  as  a  whole  exploited  the  Cuban  question;  it 


412  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

was  the  question  of  the  day  upon  which  Americans  wanted 
news.  It  was  on  the  reports  of  such  men  as  Consul-General 
Lee  and  Senator  Proctor,  and  of  reliable  and  known  corre- 
spondents, that  the  eflPective  majority  formed  its  views.  If, 
however,  the  American  people  had  not  possessed  such  an 
instrument  as  their  press  to  circulate  the  opinions  of  Lee  and 
Proctor,  to  ascertain  the  facts  that  they  wished  to  know, 
their  interest  might  have  remained  dormant  and  the  war 
might  not  have  occurred. 

Cleveland,  intent  on  peace,  enforced  neutrality,  refused  to 
recognize  belligerency,  but  offered  mediation  and  threatened 
Development  intervention.  Sherman,  McKinley's  secretary 
ofpoUcy  q£  state,  followed  the  example  of  Fish  by  as- 

serting our  right  to  oversee  the  conduct  of  the  war.  June  26, 
1897,  he  wrote:  "The  inclusion  of  a  thousand  or  more  of  our 
own  citizens  among  the  victims  of  this  [the  reconcentrado] 
policy,  the  wanton  destruction  of  the  legitimate  investments 
of  Americans  to  the  amount  of  millions  of  dollars,  and  the 
stoppage  of  avenues  of  normal  trade — all  these  give  the 
President  the  right  of  specific  remonstrance,  but  in  the  just 
fulfillment  of  his  duty  he  cannot  limit  himself  to  these  formal 
grounds  of  complaint.  He  is  bound  by  the  higher  obligations 
of  his  representative  office  to  protest  against  the  uncivilized 
and  inhuman  conduct  of  the  campaign  in  the  Island  of  Cuba. 
He  conceives  that  he  has  a  right  to  demand  that  a  war,  con- 
ducted almost  within  sight  of  our  shores  and  grievously  af- 
fecting American  citizens  and  their  interests  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  shall  at  least  be  conducted 
according  to  the  military  codes  of  civilization."  In  a  later 
dispatch  he  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  conditions  in 
the  camps  imperilled  our  own  health.  On  July  16  he  wrote 
to  Woodford,  our  minister  in  Spain,  that  public  opinion 
strongly  demanded  recognition,  and  that  beyond  recognition 
lay  intervention.  He  asked  whether  Spain  could  offer  a 
solution. 

The  death  of  the  Spanish  prime  minister,  the  conservative 


THE  SPANISH  WAR  413 

Canovas,  in  the  following  fall,  and  the  appointment  of  the 
liberal  Sagasta,  seemed  to  promise  alleviation.  In  November, 
Spain  promised  to  break  up  the  reconcentrado  change  of 
camps;  the  queen  regent  issued  decrees  for  the  Spanish  poUcy 
establishment  of  legislative  autonomy  in  Cuba  and  sub- 
stituting Blanco  for  Weyler;  and  on  December  6,  McKinley 
told  Congress  that  we  must  allow  time  enough  to  determine 
the  success  of  the  new  system.  Our  government,  however, 
more  and  more  earnestly  urged  upon  Spain  that  the  struggle 
in  Cuba  could  not  be  indefinitely  prolonged  without  necessity 
for  action  on  our  part ;  and  in  March  it  began  to  grow  restive. 

During  this  watchful  pause  in  the  development  of  our 
policy  two  episodes  inflamed  the  pubUc  mind.  Dupuy  de 
L6me,  the  Spanish  minister  at  Washington,  in  De  Lome  epi- 
a  private  letter  to  a  Madrid  editor  visiting  *°*** 
Havana,  characterized  McKinley  as  a  vacillating  and  time- 
serving politician.  This  letter  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
American  press.  On  the  same  day  on  which  it  was  published, 
February  9,  1898,  Woodford  was  instructed  to  demand  his 
recall.  De  Lome,  upon  seeing  the  facsimile  of  his  letter  in  a 
newspaper,  cabled  his  resignation.  It  was  accepted,  and 
he  thus  escaped  the  punishment  he  should  have  received. 
Although  our  state  department  expressed  satisfaction,  it 
would  have  been  more  conducive  to  peace  had  he  been  re- 
called. 

On  January  24,  1898,  we  expressed  our  intention  of  send- 
ing a  warship  on  a  friendly  visit  to  Havana,  the  Maine  was 
sent,  and  on  February  15,  in  Havana  harbor,     _.      .  j  ^^^^ 
an  explosion   utterly  wrecked   the   ship   and     up  of  the 
killed  266  of  the  crew,  besides  wounding  60. 
A  large  portion  of  the  American  public  at  once  attributed 
this  catastrophe  to  the  action  of  Spain,  the  more  conserva- 
tive laid  it  to  the  individual  action  of  Spanish  officers.    T.  B. 
Reed,  speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  an  oppo- 
nent of  war,  suggested,  but  not  openly,  that  the  insurgents 
blew  up  the  vessel  in  order  to  bring  on  war.    Spain  naturally 


414  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

urged  internal  combustion  as  the  cause.  Among  these  con- 
flicting theories,  that  of  Spanish  responsibihty  was  the  most 
general  in  the  United  States,  and  "Remember  the  Maine" 
became  a  popular  call  to  action.  Responding  to  the  new 
impulse,  Congress  could  no  longer  be  held  in  check.  March  9 
J.  G.  Camion  introduced  a  bill  granting  fifty  million  to  the 
President  for  war  preparations;  and  still  more  definite  action 
was  inevitable  unless  it  were  prevented  by  some  decided 
change  in  the  situation. 

The  administration  exerted  itself  to  change  the  situation. 
In  the  age  and  infirmity  of  Secretary  Sherman,  the  manage- 
Last  effort  for  ment  of  the  negotiation  at  Washington  was 
peace  undertaken  by  the  assistant  secretary  of  state. 

President  McKinley's  close  friend,  William  R.  Day.  The 
cable  was  kept  hot  with  messages  between  him  and  Wood- 
ford, who  was  in  constant  touch  with  the  Spanish  adminis- 
tration. The  latter  did  not  want  war  any  more  than  we  did, 
but  feared  humiliation.  It  regarded  Cuba  as  already  lost, 
but  it  must  save  its  face  with  the  Spanish  public. 

March  27,  1898,  Day  enumerated  our  demands  to  Wood- 
ford: anmesty  until  October  1,  during  which  negotiations 
United  States  should  be  conducted  through  the  President  of 
demands  ^j^^  United  States;  immediate  abolition  of  the 

reconcentrado  policy,  and  admission,  which  had  heretofore 
been  refused,  of  relief  from  the  United  States  for  the  suffering; 
should  the  negotiations  prove  unsuccessful,  the  President 
was  to  act  as  arbiter.  The  demand  for  facilities  to  examine 
the  Maine  in  order  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  the  explosion 
had  already  been  made.  Under  these  terms  the  Spanish 
government  writhed,  fearing  to  yield  completely,  and  yet 
realizing  the  necessity  of  yielding  in  substance.  March  31 
it  abrogated  the  reconcentrado  system  in  the  western  prov- 
inces and  offered  to  refer  the  question  of  the  Maine  to  arbi- 
tration. April  3,  Woodford  cabled  that,  should  the  President 
ask  the  Pope  to  intervene,  the  latter's  suggestion  for  an  im- 
mediate anmesty  would  be  accepted.    Spain  would  also,  he 


THE  SPANISH  WAR  415 

intimated,  feel  less  humiliated  in  yielding,  if  we  withdrew  our 
fleet  now  in  Cuban  waters.  "I  can  get  the  peace  that  you 
have  worked  so  hard  for,"  he  protested.  Day  replied, 
"  Would  the  peace  you  are  so  confident  of  securing  mean  the 
independence  of  Cuba?  The  President  cannot  hold  his  mes- 
sage longer  than  Tuesday." 

On  April  5  Day  was  informed  that  the  reconcentrado  policy 
was  abolished  over  the  entire  island,  and  Woodford  cabled 
asking  if  an  amnesty  by  the  queen  regent,  g  •  ,  j^  | 
dated  April  6,  and  prefaced,  "at  the  request  tating  accept- 
of  the  Holy  Father,  and  in  sincere  hope  and 
belief  that  during  this  suspension  permanent  and  honorable 
peace  may  be  obtained,"  would  be  sufficient.  "Please  read 
this,"  he  added,  "in  the  light  of  all  my  previous  telegrams 
and  letters.  I  believe  that  this  means  peace,  which  the  sober 
judgment  of  our  people  will  approve  long  before  next  Novem- 
ber, and  which  must  be  approved  at  the  bar  of  final  history." 
Day  said  that  the  President  would  lay  the  whole  matter  before 
Congress.  On  April  6  a  joint  note  of  the  powers  was  pre- 
sented, appealing  "to  the  feelings  of  humanity  and  modera- 
tion of  the  President  and  of  the  American  people."  A  similar 
note  was  presented  to  Spain,  and  at  length,  on  April  9,  an 
amnesty  based  on  this  appeal  was  granted  and  negotiation 
with  the  insurgents  authorized.  On  April  10  Woodford 
cabled  that  the  negotiation  would  result  in  autonomy, 
independence,  or  cession  to  us,  according  to  our  wishes. 

By  this  time,  so  far  as  our  government  knew,  there  re- 
mained no  American  citizen  in  a  Cuban  prison,  the  recon- 
centrado policy  had  been  stopped,  American  „,  d'  i  - 
relief  had  been  admitted,  most  questions  arising  matic  status, 
in  Cuba  could  be  settled  directly  through  our  ^  ' 
consul  at  Havana,  Fitzhugh  Lee,  arbitration  on  the  Maine 
controversy  had  been  offered,  and  amnesty  had  been  granted. 
In  two  respects  our  terms  had  not  been  exactly  met,  that 
the  negotiation  during  the  amnesty  be  conducted  officially 
through   the   President,  and   that  the   President  be   arbi- 


416  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ter  if  the  negotiation  failed.  Our  minister,  however,  as- 
sured the  government  that  its  decision  would  govern  the 
result.  This  solution  McKinley  seems  to  have  been  content 
to  accept;  yet  it  may  be  well  questioned  how  valuable  was  the 
assurance  of  a  government  that  dared  not  announce  its 
decision  to  its  own  people.  Spanish  public  opinion  was  as 
excited  as  our  own.  The  less  educated  beUeved  that  war 
would  be  successful;  and  many  of  those  who  realized  that  it 
would  not,  preferred  war  to  the  revolution  which  they  feared 
if  the  crown  should  yield  to  the  United  States.  However 
sincere  the  government  of  Sagasta,  there  was  no  guarantee 
that  Sagasta  could  remain  in  office.  Under  these  circum- 
stances the  President  would  not  have  been  justified  in  resist- 
ing the  sentiment  of  Congress  that  war  was  necessary. 

On  April  11  he  sent  in  his  message,  already  delayed  a  few 
days  in  order  to  allow  Americans  to  leave  Cuba  and  to  permit 
McKinley  and  the  completion  of  war  preparations.  He 
Congress  recommended  forcible  intervention,  but  recog- 

nition of  neither  belligerency  nor  independence;  whereupon 
Congress,  entirely  out  of  hand,  adopted  joint  resolutions,  on 
April  17,  calling  upon  Spain  to  withdraw  from  Cuba  and 
authorizing  the  President  to  use  our  forces  to  compel  her  to  do 
so.  It  was  further  resolved  that  the  United  States  did  not 
desire  Cuba,  and  "that  the  people  of  the  island  of  Cuba  are 
and  of  right  ought  to  be  free  and  independent."  In  this  last 
resolution  vanished,  apparently  forever,  the  cherished  hope 
and  frequently  expressed  conviction  of  our  statesmen  from 
Jefferson  to  the  Civil  war,  that  Cuba  must  inevitably  become 
part  of  the  United  States. 

Since  neither  Spain  nor  the  United  States  had  adhered  to 

the  Declaration  of  Paris,  they  were  free  to  practice  pri- 

_  ,      ,  vateering.     On  April  26,  1898,  however,  the 

Rules  of  war       _,      . ,  ,  ,  .  ....  ,   .       * 

President  of  his  own  mitiative  proclaimed  the 

principles  of  that  declaration,  and  on  May  7  a  proclamation 

of  the  queen  regent  announced  that  practically  the  same  rules 

would  be  observed  by  Spain. 


THE  SPANISH  WAR  417 

The  administration  had  already  determined,  in  the  event  of 
war,  to  attack  the  Spanish  empire  not  only  in  Cuba  but  also 
at  its  other  extremity,  the  Philippines.  Those  The  Philip- 
far-away  islands  had  appeared  in  our  diplomacy  P"^®* 
as  early  as  1786,  when  Rufus  King  suggested  that  trade  con- 
cessions there  might  be  obtained  from  Spain  in  part  payment 
for  Jay's  proposed  surrender  of  the  navigation  of  the  Missis- 
sippi for  a  term  of  years. ^  Historically  they  might  have  been 
supposed  to  fall  under  the  wing  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  for 
the  Spaniards  regarded  them  as  part  of  the  western  hemi- 
sphere; in  fact  it  was  the  supposition  that  they  fell  within  the 
continuance  of  Alexander  VI's  demarcation  line  that  gave 
Spain  her  first  title  to  them.  Actually,  moreover,  their  con- 
nection with  Europe  had  been  westward  until  the  independ- 
ence of  Spanish  America  barred  the  way.  But  it  is  not 
probable  that  such  considerations  as  these  influenced  young 
Captain  Dewey  when,  at  the  time  of  the  Virginius  afifair, 
he  proposed,  in  case  war  should  break  out,  to  take  the  ves- 
sel which  he  was  commanding  on  the  west  coast  of  Mexico 
across  the  Pacific  and  attack  Manila.^  To  him  it  was  merely 
that  Manila  was  a  vulnerable  point;  and  it  was  probably  the 
same  reason  that  moved  the  administration  in  1898  to  order 
Commodore  Dewey  and  his  fleet  to  attack  that  port.  It  is 
also  to  be  observed  that  for  a  belligerent  American  fleet  in 
Asia  there  were  but  three  alternatives, — to  return  home,  to  be 
interned  in  a  neutral  port,  or  to  occupy  an  enemy's  harbor. 
Moreover,  it  was  doubtless  felt  that  a  natural  result  of 
peace  might  be  the  concession  to  us  of  a  harbor  of  our  own 
in  the  East,  which  would  prevent  the  recurrence  of  a  simi- 
lar situation.  On  May  1,  by  the  battle  of  Manila  Bay, 
Dewey  made  good  his  position  in  the  best  harbor  of  the 
archipelago. 

The  war  having  gone  against  her,  Spain,  on  July  22,  1898, 
through  the  French  ambassador  Cambon,  made  the  first 

*  King  to  Gerry,  June  4, 1786,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.,  Proceedings,  1866,  pp.  9-12. 

*  George  Dewey,  Autobiography,  New  York,  1913. 


418  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

approach  for  peace.  On  July  30  Day  replied,  stating  our 
general  terms;  Spain  was  to  relinquish  all  her  claim  to  Cuba 
^  .  .  and  immediately  to  withdraw;  she  was  to  grant 
peace  negotia-  us  as  indemnity  all  her  remaining  West  India 
islands  and  a  selected  island  in  the  Ladrone 
group,  in  the  mid-Pacific;  "the  United  States,"  he  declared, 
"will  occupy  and  hold  the  city,  bay,  and  harbor  of  Manila, 
pending  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  of  peace  which  shall  de- 
termine the  control,  disposition,  and  government  of  the  Phil- 
ippines." These  terms  Spain  accepted,  August  7,  with  the 
statement  that  she  did  not  ipso  facto  relinquish  the  Philip- 
pines; and  on  August  12  a  protocol  of  agreement  was  signed. 

The  treaty  of  peace  was  to  be  drawn  at  Paris.  The  Presi- 
dent appointed  as  president  of  the  commission  Day,  who  had 
The  peace  succeeded  Sherman  as  secretary  of  state  on 

commission  ^pj.jj  gg^  ^^^  ^^lo  on  September  16  resigned 
that  post  to  undertake  this  new  service.  With  him  were  sen- 
ators Davis,  Frye,  and  Gray,  and  Whitelaw  Reid.  The 
commission  was  conspicuously  fortunate  in  having  as  its  sec- 
retary the  publicist  John  Bassett  Moore,  who  had  been  con- 
nected with  the  state  department  from  1885  to  1891,  thus 
overlapping  the  long  tenure  of  Hunter,  and  who  had  just 
now  been  serving  as  assistant  secretary  of  state.  The  Spanish 
commissioner  least  unknown  to  America  ^as  Don  Eugenio 
Mohtero  Rios. 

The  negotiations  from  our  point  of  view  were  the  simplest 
in  which  we  had  ever  been  engaged,  for  we  stood  in  a  position 
to  demand  what  we  wanted.  The  trouble  was,  we  were  not 
entirely  certain  what  we  did  want.  The  Spanish  delegates 
were  particularly  disturbed  over  the  debt  secured  by  Cuban 
revenues.  The  other  Spanish- American  States  had,  on  re- 
ceiving recognition  from  Spain,  assumed  their  debts;  but,  as 
this  one  had  been  incurred  in  the  eflFort  to  subdue  Cuba 
rather  than  in  an  attempt  to  improve  her  condition,  our 
commissioners  would  not  consent  that  the  new  island  govern- 
ment should  be  saddled  with  it.    The  United  States,  never 


THE  SPANISH  WAR  41d 

avaricious  of  money  from  a  defeated  enemy,  released  Spain 
from  all  claims  resulting  from  the  insurrection,  and  agreed  to 
adjudge  and  pay  them  herself.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
the  domestic  commission  appointed  for  their  settlement 
adopted  the  Spanish  contention  that  Spain  was  not  responsi- 
ble for  the  acts  of  the  insurgents  and  that  "concentration  and 
devastation  are  legitimate  war  measures."  On  one  point  we 
yielded  to  the  desires  of  Spain.  She  was  unwilling,  on 
abandoning  Cuba,  to  deliver  it  to  the  insurgents,  a  sense  of 
honor  and  prudence  combining  to  urge  her  to  this  position. 
We  therefore  agreed  to  receive  the  island  in  trust.  The  island 
which  we  selected  in  the  Ladrone  group,  Guam,  was  ceded 
to  us. 

By  far  the  chief  feature  of  the  negotiation,  however,  was 
the  disposition  of  the  Philippines.  McKinley  stated  in 
August:  "I  do  not  want  any  ambiguity  to  be  status  of  the 
allowed  to  remain  on  this  point.  The  negotia-  PJ^^^PP^^es 
tors  of  both  countries  are  the  ones  who  shall  resolve  upon  the 
permanent  advantages  which  we  shall  ask  in  the  archipelago, 
and  decide  upon  the  intervention,  disposition,  and  govern- 
ment of  the  Philippines."  On  October  31  the  American 
commissioners  formally  suggested  the  cession  of  the  whole 
group  to  the  United  States.  Apparently  the  chief  evidence 
before  the  commission  to  lead  to  this  decision  was  the  report 
of  General  Merritt,  who  brought  directly  from  Manila  the 
views  of  Admiral  Dewey.  He  pointed  out  that  we  wanted 
one  of  the  islands  as  a  coaling  station,  and  that  what  we  left 
some  other  nation,  stronger  than  Spain,  would  take.  He 
felt  that  the  actual  situation  in  the  islands  was  bad,  and  that 
in  some  way  we  were  responsible  for  its  cure. 

The  foreign  bogy  in  this  case  was  Germany.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  Germany,  on  the  lookout  for  colonies,  had 
before  our  war  considered  the  acquisition  of  the     „. 

•    1  1  mi  r  1  T%        -n        n  i         •  MinOf    poilltS 

islands.     Ihe  action  of  her  Pacmc  neet  during 

our  occupation  of  Manila  harbor  was  calculated  to  excite  such 

suspicion,  and,  her  prompt  purchase,  in  1899,  of  everything 


420  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

that  we  left  to  Spain  in  that  ocean  is  further  evidence  of 
her  desires.  As  the  Philippines  were  not  in  America, 
our  non-transfer  corollary  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  did 
not  apply  to  them;  but  it  was  obvious  that  the  value 
of  a  naval  station  there  would  be  much  diminished  if  sur- 
rounded by  the  possessions  of  a  strong  naval  power  like 
Germany. 

That  the  question  of  the  disposition  of  the  islands  was  not 
more  complicated  was  due  to  Admiral  Dewey's  knowledge  of 
Conditions  in  international  law  and  his  tact.  He  found  an 
the  islands  insurrection  going  on  there  similar  to  that  which 

we  had  found  in  Cuba;  but,  while  maintaining  friendly 
relations  with  the  insurrectionists  and  cooperating  with  them, 
he  refrained  from  recognition.  It  was  evident  that,  should 
the  forces  of  Spain  be  withdrawn,  widespread  murder  and  de- 
struction of  property  would  take  place;  on  the  other  hand, 
should  we  leave  the  islands  in  the  hands  of  Spain,  we  would 
leave  civil  war,  and  would  abandon  the  islanders,  who  under 
their  leader  Aguinaldo  had  been  cooperating  with  us.  The 
suggestion  of  Carl  Schurz,  that  we  turn  the  islands  over  to 
Belgium  or  Holland,  was  hardly  within  the  cognizance  of 
practical  international  politics,  if  indeed  it  was  consistent 
with  international  morality.  It  was  this  situation  which 
seemed  to  Admiral  Dewey  to  involve  us  in  some  responsi- 
bility. 

It  can  hardly  be  that  a  question  of  this  magnitude  was  left 
to  the  commissioners,  particularly  under  a  President  so 
American  pub-  notably  characterized  by  keeping  his  ear  to  the 
Uc  opinion  ground  as  was  McKinley.    It  is  impossible  to 

believe  that  the  decision  was  not  made  at  Washington,  and  in 
accordance  with  the  pressure  of  what  the  administration 
believed  to  be  public  opinion.  When  Dewey  won  the  battle 
of  Manila  Bay,  the  idea  of  expansion  so  far  afield  was  novel 
to  the  great  majority  of  Americans.  As  the  sentiment  for 
"all  Mexico"  developed  during  our  war  with  that  country, 
so  an  expansionist  feeling  developed  in  the  United  States  dur- 


THE  SPANISH  WAR  421 

ing  the  summer  and  fall  of  1898.  Engendered  by  the  reasons 
already  given,  it  received  direction  from  two  forces  par- 
ticularly powerful  at  the  White  House — the  influence  of 
capital  seeking  new  fields  for  exploitation,  and  the  enthu- 
siasm of  the  missionary  element  filled  with  the  idea  of 
the  good  that  we  might  do  there.  With  many  to  whom 
the  diffusion  of  Christianity  by  the  organized  work  of 
religious  bodies  was  not  a  leading  purpose,  a  general  belief 
in  the  civilizing  function  of  our  race,  just  then  set  forth 
in  Kipling's  White  Man's  Burden,  was  a  deciding  con- 
sideration.^ 

The  Spanish  commissioners  were  forced  to  accept  the 
American  proposition,  sugared  as  it  was  by  the  payment  of 
twenty  millions.  The  annexation  of  territory  Terms  of  the 
not  a  part  of  the  American  continents,  thickly  *^®**y 
populated  by  a  foreign  race,  and  not  likely  ever  to  become 
predominantly  American  constituted  in  each  particular  a 
departure  from  our  previous  policy.  The  last  two  differences 
the  Philippines  shared  with  Porto  Rico,  included  in  the  same 
treaty.^  An  additional  divergence  was  made  in  the  provision 
that  the  civil  rights  and  political  status  of  the  inhabitants  "  of 
the  territories  hereby  ceded  to  the  United  States  shall  be 
determined  by  the  Congress."  Their  religious  freedom  only 
was  secured  by  the  treaty.  In  all  previous  annexations  provi- 
sion had  been  made  for  incorporation  into  the  United  States, 
except  in  case  of  Alaska,  and  there  all  except  the  native 
Indians  were  to  have  the  rights  of  citizens  of  the  United 
States.^    For  the  first  time  we  were  acquiring  colonies.    What 

» Herbert  Croly,  M.  A.  Hanna  (New  York,  1912),  279-280,  attributes 
much  influence  to  Senator  Orville  Piatt. 

^  Whitelaw  Reid,  Problems  of  Expansion,  New  York,  1912;  H.  von  Hoist, 
The  Annexation  of  our  Spanish  Conquests,  Chicago,  1898. 

'The  Russian  treaty  provided:  "The  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  terri- 
tory .  .  .  with  the  exception  of  unciviHzed  native  tribes,  shall  be  admitted 
to  the  enjoyment  of  all  the  rights  ...  of  citizens  of  the  United  States." 
The  Spanish  treaty  declared  of  native  Spaniards  that,  if  they  did  not  assert 
their  Spanish  citizenship,  they  should  be  considered  "to  have  adopted  tha 
nationality"  of  the  territory  in  which  they  might  reside;  and  it  addedi 


422  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY  ; 

the  Federalists  had  contended  for  in  the  Louisiana  debate 
was  now  the  national  policy.  The  treaty  was  signed  on 
December  10,  1898. 

"The  civil  rights  and  political  status  of  the  native  inhabitants  of  the  ter- 
ritories hereby  ceded  to  the  United  States  shall  be  determined  by  the  Con-        i 
gresa."  \ 


CHAPTER  XXX 

IMPERIALISM  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN 

The  Spanish  war  brought  to  light,  and  accelerated  in 
progress,  a  spirit  which  may  properly  be  called  imperialism. 

That  democratic  regard  for  simplicity  which     , 

,     ,  .  f  p       •  Impenausm 

had  prevented  the  appomtment  of  foreign  rep- 
resentatives of  the  highest  official  rank  yielded,  in  1893,  to 
the  appointment  of  ambassadors,  though  not  so  far  as  to 
provide  for  their  maintenance  on  an  equality  with  those  of 
other  nations.  The  attempt  to  give  a  similar  titular  prece- 
dence to  our  naval  officers,  who  often  perform  semi-diplomatic 
functions,  made  slower  progress;  Dewey,  as  a  special  re- 
ward, was  made  admiral  (1899),  and  the  grade  of  vice-admiral 
has  just  (1915)  been  created.  After  the  war,  moreover, 
the  regular  army  was  increased  to  double  its  previous 
size.  Although  this  enlargement  had  special  reference  to 
the  occupation  of  the  Philippines,  the  steady  and  very  much 
greater  increase  of  the  navy  has  been  based  on  more  general 
grounds. 

This  spirit  was  voiced  by  Rear-admiral  Alfred  Thayer 
Mahan,  and  by  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Both  trained  histori- 
ans, and  with  a  wide  knowledge  of  other  peo-  Mahan, 
pies  and  of  world  politics,  they  were  able  to 
avoid  many  of  the  errors  and  inconsistencies  which  had 
marred  the  programs  of  Blaine  and  Olney.  Mahan  in  a 
series  of  studies  of  naval  history  published  between  1883  and 
1913,  pointed  out  the  importance  of  sea  power  in  the  world's 
history,  its  relations  to  the  future  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  necessity  of  our  maintaining  a  large  navy  and  securing 
strategic  bases  for  naval  operations.  He  tried  to  bring 
public  sentiment  to  a  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  United 

423 


424  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

States  could  not  safely  remain  forever  aloof,  and  that  it 
should  not  confide  too  trustingly  in  the  hope  for  universal 
peace.  His  books  received  even  more  attention  abroad  than 
at  home,  and  belong  as  much  to  the  international  literature  of 
the  discussion  of  peace  and  war,  which  now  began  to  divide 
the  world  of  thought,  as  to  the  literature  of  American  history. 
These  views  were  shared  by  Roosevelt,  who  from  his  return 
from  Cuba  at  the  close  of  the  Spanish  war  for  a  dozen  years 
rode  a  wave  of  popularity  whose  crest  seemed  ever  to  mount 
higher.  As  President  from  1901  to  1909,  he  was  able  to 
give  them  effect.  The  navy,  whose  record  against  Spain 
had  made  a  profound  impression  on  international  opinion, 
was  increased  until  it  eventually  ranked  just  after  those  of 
Great  Britain  and  Germany;  its  efficiency  was  tested  and  at 
the  same  time  thrust  upon  the  attention  of  the  world  by 
its  circumnavigation  of  the  globe  by  order  of  the  President 
in  1907.  The  impression  which  this  latter  event  made 
whether  at  home  or  abroad,  was  scarcely  so  great  as  that 
created  by  the  brilliant  and  dashing  personality  of  President 
Roosevelt  himself.  It  seemed  evident  that  a  nation  so 
equipped  and  so  led,  and  that  of  its  own  choice,  would  play 
a  larger  part  in  world  movements  than  the  United  States 
had  done  in  the  past. 

The  war  probably  had  no  effect  on  the  fact  or  the  form  of 
Hawaiian  annexation.    McKinley,  to  be  sure,  shortly  after 
„  his  inauguration,  conveyed  to  Carl  Schurz  the 

impression  that  the  subject  would  not  be 
pressed;  ^  but  those  best  informed  realized  that  the  return  of 
the  Republican  party  meant  annexation.  The  war,  neverthe- 
less, hastened  the  process.  July  7, 1898,  a  treaty  negotiation 
was  cut  short  by  the  passage  of  a  joint  resolution  providing 
for  annexation  on  the  old  terms  of  incorporation  into  the 
United  States.  A  new  note  was  struck,  however,  by  the  pro- 
test of  the  Japanese  government,  based  on  the  disturbance  of 
the  balance  of  power  in  the  Pacific,  and  on  the  possible  effect 
^  Schurz,  Speeches,  etc.,  vi.  270,  271. 


IMPERIALISM  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN      425 

upon  the  large  number  of  its  citizens  who  were  laborers  and 
merchants  in  the  islands.^ 

Of  the  influence  of  the  Spanish  treaty  on  the  final  settle- 
ment of  the  Samoan  question,  on  the  other  hand,  there  can 
be   no   doubt.      Constant   difficulties    having 
arisen  under  the  General  Act  of  Berlin,  and 
our  scruples  at  the  extinction  of  native  rule  having  become 
deadened,  we  agreed,  on  December  4,  1899,  to  a  treaty  of 

division.    This  gave  us  the  island  of  Tutuila,     _     .. 

Tutuila 
whose  fine  harbor  of  Pagopago  we  had  had  the 

right  to  use  since  1878.  Germany  took  the  other  islands,  and 
Great  Britain  received  compensation  elsewhere.  This  treaty 
contained  no  provision  for  incorporation  or  civil  rights. 
While  this  negotiation,  with  the  reassertion  of  our  claim  to 
Midway  island,  or  rather  islands,  and  the  occupation  of  the 
neighboring  Wake  island  in  1900,  completed  the  Midway  and 
tale  of  our  acquisitions,  it  does  not  indicate  the  W*^®  islands 
extent  to  which  the  colonial  policy  was  applied.  A  treaty 
was  once  more  negotiated  for  the  purchase  of  the  Danish 
islands,  but  it  was  rejected  by  the  Danish  parliament.  As 
there  was  some  doubt  whether  the  Isle  of  Pines,  to  the  south- 
west of  Cuba,  belonged  to  that  government,  the  matter  was 
left  open  in  our  treaty  with  the  new  nation  in  1903.  Negotia- 
tion, however,  resulted  in  giving  it  to  her. 

More  important  than  all  the  rest  was  the  action  of  Congress. 
That  body  made  use  of  the  discretion  left  it  by  the  treaty 
with  Spain  to  establish  the  Spanish  cessions  colonial  gov- 
upon  a  basis  definitely  colonial,  without  refer-  er°™e'its 
ence  to  their  future  incorporation  into  the  United  States. 
In  the  case  of  Cuba  we  conscientiously  carried  out  our  ob- 
ligations both  to  Spain  and  to  the  islanders,  by  handing  its 
government  over  to  the  latter  as  soon  as  they  were  organized 
to  receive  it  and  competent  to  protect  persons  and  property. 
In  so  doing,  however,  we  insisted  on  certain  permanent  con- 
ditions prescribed  by  Congress  and  known  as  the  "Piatt 
^  Moore,  Digest,  i.  504. 


426  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

amendment."  These  conditions  provided  that  Cuba  should 
never  allow  any  foreign  power  or  powers  to  impair  its  inde- 
Platt  amend-  pendence  in  any  way;  that  the  government 
™®'^*  should  contract  no  debt  which  could  not  be  paid 

by  a  sinking  fund  from  the  ordinary  revenues;  that  the  United 
States  should  have  the  right  to  intervene  in  Cuba  "for  the 
preservation  of  Cuban  independence,  the  maintenance  of  a 
government  adequate  for  the  protection  of  life,  property, 
and  individual  liberty,  and  for  discharging  the  obligations" 
with  respect  to  the  rights  and  property  of  Spanish  subjects 
under  the  treaty  of  Paris;  that  Cuba  should  provide  for  the 
sanitation  of  her  cities,  and  should  grant  the  United  States 
"lands  necessary  for  coaling  or  naval  stations"  and  for  cog- 
nate purposes.  By  the  treaty  embodying  these  provisions 
we  practically  added  a  protectorate  to  our  colonies. 

The  change  involved  in  the  sudden  extension  of  our  terri- 
tory almost  to  the  Asiatic  coast,  and  still  more  in  our  new 
Attitude  of  spirit,  did  not  escape  the  attention  of  Europe. 
Europe  'pj^^  general  sentiment  was  at  first  one  of  dis- 

approval.    In  France,  Spanish  bondholders  were  at  first 
alarmed  by  the  war,  and  then  were  indignant 
at  our  refusal  to  impose  the  Cuban  debt  on  the 
island  government.    German  opinion  was  influenced  by  the 
fact  that  we  apparently  had  forestalled  its  gov- 
ernment in  taking  over  the  Philippines,  and  it 
was  kept  excited  by  the  exchange  of  discourtesies  between  the 
oflBcers  of  the  two  fleets.   Austria,  never  friendly,  remember- 
ing the  fate  of  Maximilian,  was  distressed  at  the 
losses  of  the  queen  regent  of  Spain,  a  member 
of  the  Hapsburg  house.    The  feeling  of  Italy  had  been  con- 
tinually  aggravated  by  repeated  lynchings  of 
Italian  subjects  in  the  United  States.    In  affairs 
of  that  kind  the  United  States  government  was  unable  to  af- 
ford the  protection  of  its  courts,  as  the  punishment  for  such 
offences  fell  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  states,  whose  courts 
often  failed  to  do  their  duty.    The  most  important  ease  was 


IMPERIALISM  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN      427 

that  at  New  Orleans  in  1891,  but  others  occurred  in  Colorado 
in  1896,  at  Hahnville,  Louisiana,  in  1896,  and  at  Tallulah  in 
the  same  state  in  1899.  In  each  of  these  instances.  Congress 
voted  indemnity,  but  this  wergeld  did  not  entirely  assuage 
the  national  ill-feeling. 

To  these  special  sources  of  discontent  was  added  a  general 
resentment  at  the  sudden  apparition  of  a  new  world  power 
which  might  upset  the  nicely  adjusted  balance  „  . 
of  international  politics.  More  immediately  power  and  bal- 
alarming  was  the  fact  that  the  balance  of  trade 
seemed  already  upset.  In  1895  we  had  exported  less  than 
fifty  millions  more  than  we  imported,  in  1900  over  five 
hundred  million  more;  and  much  of  the  surplus  consisted  of 
manufactured  goods.  Credits  accumulated  at  New  York, 
which  seemed  likely  to  become  the  financial  centre  of  the 
world.^  Our  bankers  began  to  talk  of  the  financing  of  the 
loans  of  foreign  governments,  an  industry  which  had  pre- 
viously been  monopolized  by  London,  Paris,  and  Berlin, 
and  which  carried  with  it  a  vast  influence  in  world  politics. 
This  condition  was  in  part  temporary,  due  to  the  "dump- 
ing" by  our  trusts,  at  under-cost  prices,  of  the  accumulated 
supplies  of  overproduction,  a  practice  very  unpopular  at 
home  where  prices  were  kept  up  behind  the  protection  of  our 
tariff  wall,  but  equally  unpopular  abroad,  where  it  was  feared 
that  these  low  prices  would  undermine  established  industries. 
Joined  with  the  fear  of  German  competition,  it  formed  the 
basis  of  Joseph  Chamberlain's  somewhat  later  campaign  for 
protection  in  England.  The  United  States  loomed  so  gigantic 
on  the  horizon  of  industrial  and  diplomatic  competition, 
which  are  always  closely  connected,  that  during  the  years  im- 
mediately following  the  Spanish  war,  talk  of  European  com- 
bination to  oppose  her  advance  was  in  the  air. 

Great  Britain  was  the  one  great  power  who,  in  spite  of 
her  industrial  fears,  welcomed  the  rise  of  the  United  States. 
Her  population  had  more  appreciation  of  the  humanitarian 
*  Coman,  Industrial  History,  327-331. 


428  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

impulse  that  lay  behind  our  intervention  in  Cuba.  Her  states- 
men hoped  much  from  our  moral  assistance.  She  was  at  that 
.  time  diplomatically  in  a  position  which  Lord 
Salisbury  described  as  one  of  "spendid  isola- 
tion," but  which  was  not  without  its  dangers,  particularly  in 
view  of  the  impending  Boer  war.  Somewhat  exaggerating  the 
Anglo-Saxon  character  of  our  population,  her  orators  called 
attention  to  the  ties  of  blood  and  the  world  destiny  of  our 
common  race.  For  the  first  time  in  our  national  history  there 
was  a  real  cordiality  between  the  two  peoples,  though  it  was 
most  demonstrative  on  the  part  of  the  English.  An  alliance, 
formal  or  informal,  with  the  United  States  they  would  have 
greeted  with  enthusiasm. 

The  task  of  adapting  American  foreign  policy  to  these  new 
conditions  raised  our  diplomacy  to  an  importance  equal  to 
Diplomatic  that  which  it  had  possessed  in  the  early  days  of 

**^^  the  republic  and  during  the  Civil  war.     To 

adjust  the  nation  to  its  new  position  without  sacrificing  the 
principles  developed  in  the  past  was  an  operation  of  a  deli- 
cacy hardly  exceeded  by  that  of  preserving  our  neutrality 
during  the  French  revolutionary  wars,  or  of  keeping  Europe 
neutral  while  we  ourselves  were  fighting.  It  was  the  more 
difficult  because  of  the  divided  tones  in  which  the  voice  of 
the  past  came  down  through  the  confusion  of  the  eighties  and 
nineties.  That  its  importance  was  appreciated  is  evident 
from  the  struggle  for  control  which  was  almost  continuously 
waged  between  the  administration  and  the  Senate.  In  the 
Executive  latter  the  leadership  was  generally  with  Sen- 

versus  Senate  g^^^j.  Lodge,  long  a  member  of  the  committee 
on  foreign  affairs;  but  his  leadership  did  not  mean  control. 
Except  in  one  case,  in  which  it  acted  alone  and  in  one  other 
in  which  it  joined  with  the  House,  namely,  in  ordering  the  ab- 
rogation of  the  Russian  treaty,  the  power  of  the  Senate  has 
been  confined  to  checking  or  modifying  the  policy  of  the  ad- 
ministration. The  direction  of  policy  has  been  with  the 
executive. 


IMPERIALISM  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN      429 
* 

Fortunately,  at  this  time  the  main  burden  fell  upon  John 
Hay,  secretary  of  state  from  September,  1898,  to  June,  1905. 
Beginning  public  life  as  private  secretary  to  »  j^  », 
President  Lincoln,  he  had  passed  the  years  since 
that  time  in  minor  diplomatic  posts,  in  journalistic  and  lit- 
erary work,  and  in  an  advantageously  placed  social  position 
at  home  and  abroad,  until  his  appointment  by  President  Mc- 
Kinley  as  ambassador  to  Great  Britain  in  1897.  Somewhat 
predisposed  by  his  European  associations  to  think  in  the 
terms  of  the  great  powers,  he  was  least  successful  in  his  deal- 
ings with  the  Spanish- American  nations.  His  knowledge  of 
international  law,  of  historic  tendencies,  and  of  men  was,  how- 
ever, in  its  combination  unsurpassed  in  his  day.  He  pos- 
sessed such  an  Americanism  as  can  exist  only  when  based  on 
a  complete  knowledge  of  American  development.  Most  of  all, 
during  his  tenure  he  divorced  the  oflEice  of  secretary  of  state 
from  politics.  Under  McKinley  he  was  left  with  a  free  hand 
in  his  own  department,  and  he  himself  did  not  interfere  in 
others;  under  Roosevelt  the  latter's  vigorous  personality 
asserted  itself  on  particular  questions,  but  the  general  policy 
remained  Hay's.  In  diplomatic  ability  and  accomplish- 
ment he  is  to  be  ranked  with  Franklin  and  John  Quincy 

Adams.    His  successor,  Elihu  Root,  who  served    „...    „ 

Elihu  Root 
till  January,  1909,  brought  to  the  office  an  un- 
rivalled legal  knowledge  and  a  compelling  geniality  of  ap- 
proach. 

From  1897  to  1913  there  was  an  unusual  degree  of  conti- 
nuity in  the  diplomatic  service,  accompanied  by  some  reg- 
ularity of  promotion.  Thus  Henry  White,  Diplomatic 
employed  in  minor  but  responsible  posts  from  ^®'^*^® 
1879  until  Cleveland's  second  term,  was  again  called  into 
service  and  appointed  successively  as  secretary  of  the  London 
embassy,  as  ambassador  to  Italy  and  later  to  France,  and  to 
many  special  missions  and  international  conferences.  David 
Jayne  Hill,  an  eminent  student  of  diplomatic  history,  served 
in   Switzerland,    the   Netherlands,    and    Germany.      John 


430  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Barrett  was  minister  to  Siam  in  1894,  and  later  to  Argentina, 
to  Panama,  and  to  Colombia;  he  took  part  in  many  inter- 
national conferences,  and  became  director-general  of  the 
Pan-American  Union  in  1905.  C.  P.  Bryan  was  minister 
successively  in  China,  Brazil,  Switzerland,  Portugal,  Belgium, 
and  was  ambassador  to  Japan;  Charlemagne  Tower  was 
ambassador  to  Austria,  Russia,  and  Germany;  J.  G.  A. 
Leishman  was  minister  to  Switzerland  and  Turkey,  and 
ambassador  to  Italy  and  Germany.  The  triple  embassy  of 
Oscar  Straus  to  Turkey,  1887-1889,  1898-1901,  and  1909- 
1910,  and  the  long  service  of  Whitelaw  Reid  in  England, 
1905  to  1913,  are  noticeable.  All  these  were  men  of  ability, 
and  they  had  an  opportunity  to  acquire  diplomatic  experience 
of  which  most  of  them  took  advantage.  If  some  of  them  in- 
dulged in  an  ostentation  of  extravagance  a  bit  offensive  to 
good  taste,  at  least  they  were  representative  of  an  important 
element  among  their  countrymen,  and  they  spent  their 
money  on  the  whole  with  grace. 

The  action  of  President  Wilson,  in  1913,  in  removing 
nearly  all  the  heads  of  missions  shows  that  the  elements  of 
^„  .        continuity    and    promotion    found    between 

the  diplomatic  1897  and  1913  were  due  to  the  maintenance 
in  power  of  one  political  party,  and  that  it  is 
still  our  policy,  as  it  always  has  been,  to  have  the  ministers 
represent  the  administration  rather  than  constitute  the  cul- 
minating rank  of  a  permanent  staff.  The  creation  of  a  bran- 
new  staff  resulted  as  usual  in  success  and  failure.  The  Flood 
Act  of  1916  systematized  the  lower  ranks  of  the  service. 

The  consular  service  has  still  more  markedly  improved. 
In  1864  the  proposition  of  1856  for  the  appointment  of  a  per- 
Consiilar  manent  staff  was  revived  in  a  very  modified 

service  form.      Thirteen    consular    clerks    or    pupils, 

removable  only  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate,  were  there- 
after to  be  appointed.  The  substitution  of  salaries  for 
fees  also  made  gradual  progress,  until  it  was  made  complete 
in  1906,  with  the  unimportant  exception  of  consular  agents. 


IMPERIALISM  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN      431 

Meantime  the  development  of  civil-service  reform  led  to  a 

continuous  attempt  to  include  the  consular  service  under 

its  provisions.    Although  this  attempt  has  failed,  it  has  not 

been  without  its  results.     President  Cleveland  announced 

a  system  of  appointment  by  examination  and  promotion. 

Although  McKinley  was  hardly  rigid  in  adhering  to  this, 

President  Roosevelt  returned  to  it  with  emphasis,  and  the 

decision  of  President  Wilson  to  treat  the  service  as  out  of 

politics  promises  permanence.^ 

This  administrative  systematization  has  fortunately  been 

accompanied  by  an  effective  backing  of  popular  support. 

The  industrial,  interests  of  the  country  have    _  . 

•^  .        Interest  in 

urged  improvement,  and  have  cooperated  in  consular 
bringing  it  about.  Educational  institutions 
have  also  responded  to  the  national  need,  especially  in  the  at- 
tention devoted  to  the  study  of  modern  languages,  Spanish  in 
particular,  and  in  the  offering  of  courses  designed  to  equip 
students  for  consular  positions.  With  the  promise  of  a  con- 
tinuous career,  it  has  become  possible  to  advise  many  young 
men  to  take  up  the  service  as  a  life  work,  and  at  the  same 
time  the  position  by  becoming  businesslike  has  become  less 
attractive  as  a  vacation  for  the  exhausted  politician. 

Working  under  these  conditions.  Secretary  Hay  under- 
took to  achieve  a  new  settlement  of  outstanding  disputes 
with  Great  Britain,  such  as  had  been  accom-  Relations  with 
plished  in  1794,  1815  to  1818,  1842,  and  1871.  ^"**  ^"*«^ 
The  friendship  of  Great  Britain  for  the  United  States,  still 
represented  at  Washington  by  the  veteran  Sir  Julian  Paunce- 
fote,  was  an  advantage,  though  it  required  some  caution 
to  prevent  that  friendship  from  becoming  entangling.  This 
situation  became  particularly  delicate  during  the  Boer  war, 
but  our  experience  in  the  art  of  neutrality  prevented  any 
real  difficulties.  The  main  obstacles  were  the  now  definite 
decision  of  the  American  people  to  have  an  American  canal, 
and  the  fact  that,  since  many  of  our  disputes  were  between 
^  Civil  Service  Commission,  Reports,  annual. 


432  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

the  United  States  and  Canada,  Great  Britain  was  obliged 
to  defer  in  large  measure  to  that  powerful  colony. 

A  commission  appointed  in  1898  to  agree  upon  questions 
at  issue  between  the  United  States  and  Canada  found  twelve 
Canadian  dis-  topics  for  discussion:  seals,  fishing,  the  Alaskan 
P"*®°  boundary,  transit  of  goods  through  each  other's 

territory  back  to  the  original  country,  or  to  a  third  country, 
transit  of  criminals,  wreckage  and  salvage,  alien  labor, — 
particularly  the  importation  of  Chinese  into  the  United 
States  across  the  Canadian  boundary, — ^reciprocity,  mining 
rights,  the  navigation  of  the  Great  Lakes,  and  the  marking 
of  the  boundary  line.  These  matters  the  commission  failed 
to  settle  outright,  but  negotiation  was  continuous.  In  1908 
the  transit  of  criminals,  the  question  of  wreckage  and  salvage, 
and  the  marking  of  the  frontier  were  provided  for. 

The  more  exciting  question  of  the  Alaskan  boundary  had 
already  been  settled.  This  had  first  assumed  importance 
Alaskan  with  the  discovery  of  gold  on  the  Yukon  in 

boundary  jggg     -pj^^  dispute  grew  out  of  the  treaty  of 

1825  between  Russia  and  Great  Britain,  and  chiefly  out  of 
the  provision  that  the  boundary  was  to  follow  the  crest 
of  the  mountains  parallel  to  the  coast  from  the  parallel  of 
latitude  of  56  to  the  intersection  of  that  line  with  the  parallel 
of  longitude  of  141  ,  but  was  never  to  be  more  than  ten  marine 
leagues  from  the  coast  following  its  sinuosities.  This  arrange- 
ment was  sufficiently  complicated,  but  it  was  rendered  more 
so  by  the  deep  and  irregular  indentations  of  the  Alaskan 
coast  line.  Great  Britain  claimed  that  the  line  ran  along 
the  crests  nearest  the  ocean,  from  peak  to  peak,  crossing  the 
bays,  giving  her  the  heads  of  several  of  them  and  thus  access 
to  the  sea.  The  United  States  held  that  the  line  must  be 
everywhere  ten  leagues  from  sea  water,  thus  entirely  cutting 
off  a  great  part  of  Canada  from  the  ocean.  A  modus  vivendi 
was  agreed  upon  in  1899,  and  in  1903  the  question  was  sub- 
mitted to  arbitration,  but  by  a  commission  composed  of 
three  members  from  each  nation,  without  an  umpire.    The 


IMPERIALISM  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN       433 


60 

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ALASKA 

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¥^ 

54 
134 

^r 

/             ■»>»<■ -OMUMCft  It*  ▼•« 

6< 

132             54 

130 

128 

434  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

American  commissioners  were  Senator  Lodge,  Elihu  Root, 
and  Senator  Turner  to  represent  the  Northwest.  Maintain- 
ing the  American  position  in  all  except  a  few  minor  points, 
they  were  supported  by  Chief  Justice  Alverstone  of  England; 
and  so  the  boundary  was  fixed  according  to  our  views. ^ 

The  question  of  fishing  was  threefold,  involving  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Alaskan  seals,  the  securing  of  privileges  from 

the  Dominion  of  Canada,  and  the  securing  of 
Fur  seals  ...  .  .  .     .    i.     .  , 

privileges   Irom   the   separate  jurisdiction  of 

Newfoundland.  In  case  of  the  seals,  the  British  legislation 
resulting  from  the  Behring  sea  arbitration  lapsed  in  1899,  at 
the  end  of  the  prescribed  five-year  period,  and  the  sea  was 
thus  open  to  Canadians  to  within  three  miles  of  the  Pribilof 
islands,  with  no  limitation  as  to  methods.  In  1897  we  had 
prohibited  our  own  citizens  from  engaging  in  open-sea  killing, 
but  Canadian  opinion  would  not  permit  Great  Britain  to  re- 
ciprocate in  any  way.  In  the  United  States  the  feeling  among 
those  interested  was  so  strong  that  at  one  time  it  was  pro- 
posed that  we  kill  off  all  the  herds.  It  was  not  until  the  ad- 
ministration of  President  Taft,  in  1911,  that  the  matter  was 
settled  by  a  joint  treaty  with  Japan,  Russia,  and  Great 
Britain,  whereby  pelagic  killing  was  for  the  time  being  alto- 
gether prohibited  and  these  countries  were  to  have  pro  rata 
shares  of  the  kill  on  land.  An  act  of  Congress  of  1912  pro- 
hibited all  killing  whatsoever  on  land  for  a  term  of  years. 

Our  fishing  difficulties  with  Canada  were  settled  by  a 
treaty  of  1908,  which  provided  a  permanent  international 
Canada  and  fisheries  commission.  It  was  with  Newfound- 
Newfoundland    i^jjjj  ^jjg^^.  i-jjg  jjjQg^  trying  situation  existed, 

rendering  negotiation  and  fresh  causes  of  irritation  constant. 
In  1902,  in  accordance  with  a  new  diplomatic  method  ac- 
cepted by  Great  Britain,  Hay  negotiated  a  treaty  with 
Premier  Bond  of  Newfoundland  on  the  familiar  basis  of  ad- 
mitting fish  from  the  Banks  to  our  markets  free  of  duty  in 
return  for  the  privileges  that  we  desired.  Again,  however,  as 
^  George  Davidson,  The  Alaska  Boundary,  San  Francisco,  1903. 


IMPERIALISM  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN      435 

in  1888,  the  fishing  interests  in  the  Senate  were  strong  enough 
to  defeat  the  treaty,  by  insisting  that  it  was  the  national 
duty  both  to  afford  economic  protection  to  the  industry 
and  to  obtain  such  international  advantages  as  might  be 
necessary.  The  final  defeat  of  this  treaty  in  1904  led  to 
retaliatory  legislation  by  Newfoundland  in  1905  and  1906, 
in  which  every  possible  port  regulation  that  could  distress 
our  fishermen  was  resorted  to.  While  the  governments  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  temporarily  quieted 
matters  by  an  annual  modus  Vivendi,  they  sought  agreement. 
Great  Britain  maintained  the  right  of  Newfoundland  to 
make  any  port  regulations  which  ostensibly  applied  to  both 
nations  equally,  and  which  were  in  its  judgment,  necessary 
to  the  preservation  of  the  fijshing  or  to  the  maintenance  of 
order  and  morals.  The  United  States  admitted  that  there 
must  be  such  port  regulations  as  were  necessary  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  fishing,  but  claimed  that,  as  these  determined 
the  conditions  under  which  she  was  to  enjoy  the  privileges 
accorded  to  her  by  the  treaties  of  1783  and  1818,  her  assent 
to  them  was  necessary.  In  1909  the  matter  was  submitted 
to  a  tribunal  composed  of  members  of  the  Hague  Permanent 
Court  of  Arbitration,  which  was,  in  addition,  to  recommend 
rules  for  the  conduct  of  the  fishing.  The  decision  was  mainly 
in  favor  of  Newfoundland,  but  in  accordance  with  the  recom- 
mendations an  agreement  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  was  reached.  It  seems  probable  that  this 
century-old  dispute  is  happily  ended.  The  Americans  are 
to  enjoy  such  privileges  as  the  right  to  buy  bait  and  take 
on  necessary  water,  without  suffering  undue  annoyance 
from  local  laws.* 

The  all-important  subject  of  trade  relations  with  Canada 
reached  no  special  crisis  until,  in  1911,  a  reciprocity  treaty 
was  concluded  under  Taft's  administration  and  largely  by 
his  personal  influence.    The  rejection  of  this  treaty  as  the 

*P.  T.  McGrath,  "The  Atlantic  Fisheries  Dispute,"  Review  of  Reviews, 
1910,  xli.  718-724. 


436  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

result  of  a  nationalistic  uprising  in  Canada  and  the  defeat 

of  the  Laurier  government,  seemed  to  presage  a  period  of  still 

greater  strain  than  in  the  past.     Some  of  the 
Reciprocity  ,  .  •        i      .   i  •  •        i  i 

thmgs  aimed  at  by  reciprocity,  however,  the 

new  United  States  tariff  bill  of  1913  accomplished  withQut  the 
exaction  of  specific  compensation,  and  it  may  lead  to  a  better 
understanding.  Only  five  of  the  twelve  questions  of  1898 
remain  to  be  settled,  but  in  regard  to  all  of  them  except 
alien  labor  and  mining  rights  the  existing  agreements  are  not 
unsatisfactory.  The  new  questions  that  have  arisen,  such  as 
the  use  of  international  rivers  for  irrigation,  seem  not  to  be 
serious. 

The  other  important  British  interest  in  America  has  been 
the  interoceanic  canal.  It  had  finally  become  obvious 
Clayton-  that  such  a  canal  would  be  constructed,  and 

Bulwer  treaty  gj^jjgp  ]jy^  qj.  under  the  auspices  of,  the  United 
States  government.  Yet  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  still 
held.  In  1900,  therefore.  Hay  and  Pauncefote  arranged  a 
compact  to  meet  these  conditions.  This  new  treaty,  like 
that  of  Clayton  and  Bulwer,  was  based  on  the  prin- 
ciple of  international  neutralization,  and  it  asked  other 
nations  to  join  in  the  guarantee.  As  this  arrangement  was 
unsatisfactory  to  public  opinion  in  the  United  States,  the 
Senate  amended  it  by  specifically  abrogating  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  treaty,  by  allowing  the  United  States  to  fortify  the 
canal,  and  by  leaving  out  the  general  invitation  to  adhere 
to  the  agreement.  In  consequence  of  these  amendments, 
Hay  and  Pauncefote  drew  up,  in  1901,  a  new  treaty  providing 
for  the  abrogation  of  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty.  In  return 
for  this  concession  by  Great  Britain,  which  allowed  the  United 
States  to  acquire  territory  in  Central  America,  the  last- 
named  power  adopted  certain  prescribed  rules.  The  second 
of  these  forbade  the  blockade  of  the  canal,  but  allowed  the 
United  States  to  "maintain  such  military  police  along  the 
canal  as  may  be  necessary  to  protect  it  against  lawlessness 
and  disorder."    Under  a  rather  liberal  interpretation  of  this 


IMPERIALISM  AND  GREAT  BRITAIN      437 

permission,  the  United  States  plans  to  fortify  the  canal 
in  the  hope  of  rendering  it  impregnable  to  attack.  Rules 
three  to  six  regulated  the  use  of  the  canal  in  time  of  war. 
Rule  one  ran:  "The  canal  shall  be  free  and  open  to  the 
vessels  of  commerce  and  of  war  of  all  nations  observing  these 
Rules,  on  terms  of  entire  equality,  so  that  there  shall  be  no 
discrimination  against  any  such  nation,  or  its  citizens  6r 
subjects,  in  respect  of  the  conditions  or  charges  of  traffic, 
or  otherwise.  Such  conditions  and  charges  of  traffic  shall 
be  just  and  equitable." 

This  last  rule  became  the  subject  of  much  controversy 
after  1912,  when  Congress,  in  jfixing  the  rates  of  traffic, 
exempted  from  all  charge  vessels  engaging 
under  certain  conditions  in  the  coastwise,  or 
rather  coast-to-coast,  trade  of  the  United  States.  Primarily 
intended  to  decrease  the  cost  of  transcontinental  freight,  and 
to  have  its  effect  on  the  rates  of  the  transcontinental  rail- 
roads, the  law  plainly  violated  the  provisions  of  the  treaty. 
Great  Britain  promptly  protested,  and  President  Wilson  in 
1914  recommended  that  Congress  repeal  the  discriminating 
exemption.  The  acceptance  of  the  recommendation  by  Con- 
gress was  a  notable  manifestation  of  our  intention  of  rec- 
ognizing treaty  rights. 

It  is  not  only  in  thus  preventing  our  carrying  out  of  a 
domestic  policy  that  the  Hay-Pauncefote  treaty  has  proved 
a  stumbling-block  in  our  way.  The  purpose  Military  use  of 
of  our  change  of  canal  policy  was  not  so  much  *^*"*^ 

commercial  as  military.  A  canal  internationally  guaranteed 
would  need  no  fortification,  but  would  be  equally  available 
to  all  nations.  The  policy  of  making  the  canal  American 
involved  the  expense  of  fortifying  it  and  of  maintaining  a 
garrison  there,  the  compensation  being  that  our  fleet  could 
do  double  duty,  could  be  available  for  use  in  either  ocean. 
By  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  however,  it  is  probable  that  the 
value  of  any  other  fleet  with  which  we  may  be  contending 
^ill  equally  be  doubled,  as  the  canal  is  open  to  the  war 


438  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

vessels  of  other  nations  even  when  at  war  with  us,  Lf  those 
nations  observe  the  rules  laid  down  in  the  treaty.  This 
being  the  case,  it  might  seem  that,  since  we  are  not  allowed 
to  exclude  their  war  vessels,  we  need  not  be  at  the  expense 
of  fortification.  In  the  absence  of  the  uiternational  guarantee 
arranged  for  in  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  and  in  the  first 
Hay-Pauncefote  treaty,  however,  it  is  obvious  that  the  only 
means  we  have  of  seeing  that  the  rules  are  observed  is  the 
ability  to  enforce  them  on  the  spot.  By  the  terms  of  agree- 
ment all  we  have  secured  by  our  canal  diplomacy  is  the 
obligation  to  maintain  by  our  own  power,  and  without  any 
compensating  exclusive  use,  a  neutrality  which  the  nations 
of  the  world  would  have  been  glad  to  guarantee.  The  canal 
has  become  a  vulnerable  spot,  at  the  mercy  of  any  power 
able  to  seize  it,  except  Great  Britain  which  is  bound  by  the 
treaty.  Authority  and  power  are  of  course  not  synonymous. 
Having  made  use  of  our  right  to  acquire  territory  and  to 
fortify  the  canal,  we  have  acquired  the  power  to  exclude 
other  nations,  if  we  care  to  disregard  our  treaty  obligations. 
Such  disregard,  however,  is  always  provocative  of  trouble, 
and  may  be  dangerous.  The  experience  of  the  United  States 
with  the  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty  should  emphasize  the  ad- 
vice of  Washington  and  Jefferson,  to  avoid  entangling  alli- 
ances, if  we  wish  to  maintain  our  freedom  to  change  our  mind. 
It  is  apparent  that  the  questions  at  issue  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  have  since  the  Spanish  war 
been  much  less  critical  than  those  of  earlier  periods,  that 
most  of  them  have  been  settled,  and  that  the  diflBculties 
of  the  future  are  likely  to  be  of  diminishing  significance. 


CHAPTER   XXXI 
SPANISH  AMERICA 

In  clarifying  her  relations  with  Great  Britain,  the  United 
States  removed  only  one  diplomatic  obstacle  from  the  path 
of  the  canal.  It  remained  for  her  to  decide  Nicaragua  ver- 
whether  she  wished  a  canal  by  way  of  Nicaragua  ^"*  Panama 
or  of  Panama,  and  then  to  make  arrangements  with  the 
nation  that  owned  the  chosen  isthmus.  In  Congress  there 
was  a  strong  sentiment  in  favor  of  the  former  way,  and 
Nicaragua  was  willing  to  grant  us  such  conditions  as  we  con- 
sidered necessary.  By  the  Spooner  act  of  1902,  however, 
the  President  was  authorized  to  proceed  with  the  Panama 
route,  which  he  preferred,  if  he  could  make  satisfactory  ar- 
rangements within  a  reasonable  time.  President  Roosevelt 
determined  to  build  the  canal  by  Panama,  and  he  at  once 
made  the  enterprise  his  particular  policy.  The  first  step  was 
to  obtain  the  concession  which  was  still  legally  held  by  the 
successor  of  de  Lesseps's  company.  This  was  bought  for  forty 
million  dollars,  and  title  to  the  Panama  railroad  was  sub- 
sequently purchased. 

More  difficult  was  the  negotiation  with  the  republic  of  Co- 
lombia, of  which  Panama  was  one  of  the  constituent  states. 
We  regarded  as  essential  to  the  construction  Position  of 
and  operation  of  the  canal  full  possession  of  a  Colombia 
strip  of  territory  on  each  side,  with  ample  rights  of  fortifica- 
tion and  police,  and  for  this  we  were  willing  to  pay.  Hay  ac- 
cordingly arranged  a  satisfactory  treaty  with  Herran,  the  Co- 
lombian minister,  giving  us,  not  sovereignty,  but  control  for 
ninety-nine  years,  with  privileges  of  renewal,  of  a  six-mile 
strip.  After  two  months'  debate,  however,  this  treaty  was 
rejected  by  the  Colombian  senate  in  August,  1903.    Although 

439 


440  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Colombia  had  a  perfect  right  to  do  this,  and  though  her 
motives  were  not  properly  open  to  question,  President  Roose- 
velt prepared  a  message  recommending  to  Congress  that  we 
dig  the  canal  without  awaiting  her  permission.  His  justifica- 
tion was  given  in  later  documents,  in  which  he  argued,  or 
at  least  asserted,  that  Colombia,  in  rejecting  a  reasonable 
and  generous  offer,  had  violated  the  treaty  of  1846.  He 
believed  that  her  motive  was  to  obtain  more  money,  and  de- 
clared that  the  world  could  wait  no  longer  on  her  sloth  and 
avarice.  An  agreement,  he  believed,  might  be  made  with  the 
state  of  Panama.^ 

To  those  who  are  ready  for  the  fray  weapons  are  sent.  Like 
Polk,  Roosevelt  was  able,  when  Congress  met,  to  present  a 
The  state  of  simpler  course,  for  which,  however,  unlike 
Panama  p^jj^^  j^^  ^jj^j  ^^^  ^iave  to  incur  the  direct  re- 

sponsibility. Not  unnaturally,  the  citizens  of  Panama  were 
deeply  incensed  that  their  only  prospect  for  future  greatness 
was  likely  to  be  blocked,  perhaps  forever  if  the  Nicaraguan 
route  should  be  chosen.  The  situation  was  attractive  to 
adventurers,  and  offered  all  the  possibilities  of  intrigue  famil- 
iar to  the  readers  of  Richard  Harding  Davis.  When  in 
August,  1903,  it  was  announced  that  Panama  would  revolt, 
the  attitude  of  the  United  States  government  was  not  such 
as  to  discourage  action. 

October  10,  1903,  President  Roosevelt  wrote  to  Dr.  Albert 
Shaw,  editor  of  the  Review  of  Reviews:  "I  enclose  you,  purely 
Roosevelt's  for  your  own  information,  a  copy  of  a  letter  of 
policy  September  5th,  from  our  minister  to  Colombia. 

I  think  it  might  interest  you  to  see  that  there  was  absolutely 
not  the  slightest  chance  of  securing  by  treaty  any  more  than 
we  endeavored  to  secure.  The  alternatives  were  to  go  to 
Nicaragua  against  the  advice  of  the  great  majority  of  com- 
petent engineers — some  of  the  most  competent  saying  that 

^  W.  L.  Scruggs,  The  Colombian  and  Venezuelan  Republics,  Boston,  1900; 
Achille  Viallate,  Les  Etats-Unis  et  le  canal  interocianiqu^,  in  his  Essait 
d'histoire  diplomatique  amSricaine  (Paris,  1905),  57-206. 


SPANISH  AMERICA  441 

we  had  better  have  no  canal  at  this  time  than  go  there — or 
else  to  take  the  territory  by  force  without  any  attempt  at 
getting  a  treaty.  I  cast  aside  the  proposition  made  at  this 
time  to  foment  the  secession  of  Panama.  Whatever  other 
governments  can  do,  the  United  States  cannot  go  into  the 
securing  by  such  underhand  means  the  cession.  Privately, 
I  freely  say  to  you  that  I  should  be  delighted  if  Panama  were 
an  independent  state;  or  if  it  made  itself  so  at  this  moment; 
but  for  me  to  say  so  publicly  would  amount  to  an  instigation 
of  a  revolt,  and  therefore  I  cannot  say  it."  ^ 

Fully  alert  to  the  possibilities,  the  administration  watched 
the  Isthmus.  November  2  the  naval  officer  commanding 
our  observation  squadron  was  ordered :  "  Main-  _,.  -dminis- 
tain  free  and  uninterrupted  transit.  .  .  .  Pre-  tration  and  the 
vent  landing  of  any  armed  force  with  hostile 
intent,  either  government  or  insurgent,  either  at  Colon, 
Porto  Bello,  or  other  point."  At  3.40  p.  m.,  November  3, 
the  acting  secretary  of  state  telegraphed  to  the  Isthmus  that 
an  uprising  was  reported  to  be  taking  place  there.  A  reply  of 
8.15  p.  M.  stated  that  there  had  been  none  yet,  but  that  it  was 
rumored  that  there  would  be  one  during  the  night.  On  Nov- 
ember 4  independence  was  proclaimed.  The  only  active  hos- 
tility was  in  the  city  of  Panama,  on  the  Pacific,  beyond  our 
reach,  where  the  Colombian  gunboat  Bogota  dropped  a  few 
shells  on  the  morning  of  the  4th  and  killed  a  Chinaman.  At 
noon  we  warned  the  commander  to  shell  no  more.  At 
11.55  A.  M.  on  November  6,  the  state  department  was  in- 
formed: "The  situation  is  peaceful.  Isthmian  movement  has 
obtained  so  far  success.  Colon  and  interior  provinces  have 
enthusiastically  joined  independence.  Not  any  Colombian 
soldiers  known  on  isthmian  soil  at  present.  Padillo  equipped 
to  pursue  Bogota.  Bunau  Varilla  has  been  appointed  officially 
confidential  agent  of  the  Republic  of  Panama  at  Washington.'* 
At  12.51  p.  M.  Hay  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  this  note.^ 

1  Nation.  1904,  Ixxix.  328. 

'  Senate  Docs.,  58  Cong.  2  sess..  No.  51. 


442  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

On  the  same  day  Hay  instructed  our  acting  consul  on  the 
spot  to  negotiate  with  the  new  government.  November  13 
Recognition  of  Bunau  Varilla  was  received  at  Washington; 
Panama  December  7  a  treaty,  drawn  up  by  Hay,  was 

signed;  December  12  a  minister  was  appointed.  This  quick 
recognition  of  the  new  repubhc  was  contrary  to  our  consistent 
practice  of  waiting  till  independence  was  soundly  established, 
as  illustrated  by  our  conduct  in  relation  to  the  Spanish- 
American  revolutions  from  Spain,  the  Texan  revolution,  and 
the  government  of  Maximilian,  and  as  emphasized  by  our 
attitude  toward  the  contemplated  recognition  of  the  Con- 
federacy. To  be  sure,  the  Isthmus  was  quiet;  but  it  was 
because  we  had  prevented  the  Colombian  forces,  amply 
able  to  restore  order,  from  intervening.  Such  interposition 
on  our  part  was  not,  as  President  Roosevelt  subsequently 
claimed  it  was,  in  accordance  with  local  precedents.^  We  had 
a  number  of  times,  under  the  treaty  of  1846,  landed  troops 
to  protect  the  railroad,  but  we  had  successfully  protected 
it  without  occupying  the  whole  Isthmus.  Senator  Hoar 
seems  to  have  been  justified  in  his  statement  of  December  17, 
1903,  that  no  revolution  had  up  to  that  date  interfered  with 
the  isthmian  traffic.^  Such  previous  interventions,  more- 
over, had  been  to  carry  out  the  treaty;  in  this  case  the  pur- 
pose was  to  overthrow  it.  In  compensation  for  the  right  of 
free  transit  we  had  guaranteed  the  Isthmus  to  Colombia, 
we  now  intervened  to  prevent  Colombia  from  enforcing  her 
sovereignty.  These  points  were  cleverly  met  by  Roosevelt 
in  his  message  to  Congress,  and  by  Hay  in  his  correspondence 
relating  to  the  episode.  They  urged  among  other  things  that 
the  validity  of  the  union  of  the  several  states  of  the  Colom- 
bian republic,  and  particularly  of  Panama,  was  extremely 
complicated  from  a  constitutional  point  of  view.  The  rela- 
tion of  Panama  to  Colombia  had  actually  varied  from  inde- 
pendence to  incorporation  as  a  department.    To  suggest  that 

^  House  Docs.,  58  Cong.  2  sess.,  No.  1. 

*  Congressional  Record.  58  Cong.  2  sess.,  pp.  316-318;  2191-2000. 


SPANISH  AMERICA  44S 

an  outside  power  might  take  cognizance  of  such  internal  con- 
ditions was  of  course  obviously  inconsistent  with  our  policy, 
and  before  the  Civil  War  cemented  our  own  union  would  have 
been  dangerous.  It  was  not,  however,  the  real  defense  upon 
which  the  administration  relied.  Its  real  excuse  was,  rather, 
the  plea  by  which  Jefferson  justified  to  himself  the  Louisiana 
purchase,  a  transaction  so  contrary  to  his  constitutional  scru- 
ples,— the  plea  that  the  situation  was  one  which  never  could 
happen  again,  and  was  of  such  unparalleled  importance  as  to 
exempt  it  from  the  ordinary  laws  of  morality  and  of  nations. 
The  new  republic  met  our  needs  more  completely  than 
Senor  Herran  had  done.  The  United  States  received  full 
rights,  as  "if  it  were  the  sovereign,"  of  "a  zone  The  republic 
five  miles  on  each  side"  of  the  canal;  she  Sie'unUed" 
also  secured  the  right  to  fortify  the  canal,  and  States 
to  obtain  additional  naval  stations  within  the  republic.  In 
return  she  paid  ten  million  dollars  down,  and  agreed  to  pay  a 
quarter  of  a  million  a  year,  beginning  nine  years  from  date. 
The  United  States  guaranteed  the  independence  of  Panama. 
The  constitution  of  Panama  contains  the  following  clause: 
"The  Government  of  the  United  States  of  America  may 
intervene  anywhere  in  the  Republic  of  Panama  for  the  re- 
establishment  of  constitutional  peace  and  order  if  this  should 
be  disturbed,  provided  that  by  virtue  of  public  treaty  said 
nation  should  assume  or  have  assumed  to  guarantee  the  in- 
dependence and  sovereignty  of  this  Republic."  Though  our 
guarantee  was  made  in  the  light  of  this  clause,  intervention 
is  merely  a  right  that  has  been  granted  to  us,  not  a  duty  that 
we  have  assumed.  Yet  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that  by  the 
events  of  1903  we  acquired  in  the  canal  zone  a  colony,  and 
in  Panama  a  protectorate.  It  is  worth  noting  that  between 
1846  and  1903  there  were  fifty-three  riots  and  revolutions  on 
the  isthmus,  and  since  then,  peace.^ 

^  Aragon,  Republica  de  Panama  y  la  diplomada  contemporanea,  Retitta 
Positivista  (Mexico),  1904;  Schurz,  Speeches,  etc.,  vi.  389-40S,  434-436; 
Rafael  Reyes,  The  Two  Americas,  New  York,  1914. 


444  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Until  the  Spanish  war  it  had  been  one  of  our  unrealized 
ambitions  to  dominate  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  thus  secure 
Control  of  the  the  outlet  of  the  Mississippi.  Although  we 
Caribbean  Sea    f^jig^j  ^q  ^j^  (^^^a  in  that  war,  we  obtained 

enough  hold  on  that  island  to  give  us  the  control  we  wished, 
a  control  which  has  recently  been  strengthened  by  the  com- 
pletion of  the  railroad  to  Key  West.  With  the  undertaking 
of  the  canal  as  a  national  enterprise,  the  control  of  the  Car- 
ibbean became  equally  necessary.  By  1903  we  had  already, 
with  our  naval  station  at  Guantanamo  in  Cuba,  in  addition 
to  Porto  Rico  and  Panama,  a  strategic  preponderance  in 
that  sea  which  it  has  been  the  apparent  intention  of  the 
government  to  maintain  and  strengthen.  The  only  danger 
lies  in  the  possibility  of  European  influence  over  some  of  the 
republics  situated  about  it,  a  peril  that  has  involved  a  careful 
consideration  of  the  exact  bearing  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine 
upon  the  situation. 

European  interference  with  the  political  affairs  of  those 
states  it  obviously  remains  our  intention  to  prevent,  and 
European  this  policy  doubtless  extends  to  the  exclusion 

mediation  ^^  European  mediation  in  the  case  of  a  revolu- 

tionary contest  in  any  one  of  them,  a  policy  underlying  our 
present  (1915)  attitude  with  respect  to  Mexico.  Other  pos- 
sible avenues  of  European  approach  would  be  mediation 
between  two  warring  republics,  and  the  collection  of  claims. 
With  regard  to  the  first,  no  case  has  yet  arisen  clearly  indi- 
cating whether  the  administration  would  follow  the  earlier 
practice  of  allowing  mediation,  or  whether  it  would  adopt 
Blaine's  policy  of  discouraging  it,  or  whether  we  would  ab- 
solutely prevent  it.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  however,  that 
in  any  such  case  our  own  good  offices  would  be  promptly 
offered,  and  that  we  should  resent  their  rejection  in  favor  of 
any  other  country.  The  existence  of  the  Permanent  Court  at 
The  Hague,  estabUshed  in  1899,  has  simplified  this  problem 
by  providing  a  recourse  equally  acceptable  to  Europe  and 
America. 


445 


446  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

The  question  of  claims  is  more  diflBcult  and  important. 
These  are  of  two  kinds.  One  rests  upon  the  duty  of  every 
European  government  to  protect  with  all  its  power  the 

claims  hves  of  its  citizens  legally  resident  in  a  foreign 

country.  The  recent  (1914)  attitude  of  the  Wilson  adminis- 
tration in  connection  with  the  killing  of  a  British  subject, 
Benton,  by  the  Mexican  revolutionists  indicates  that  we 
do  not  assume  responsibility  in  such  cases,  but  that  under 
certain  circumstances  we  do  undertake  to  act  as  intermediary. 
The  question  of  property  is  a  different  one;  or  at  least,  if  the 
destruction  of  personal  and  tangible  property  is  analogous 
to  the  destruction  of  life,  that  of  public  debts  may  be  differ- 
entiated. Such  debts  give  rise  to  many  perplexing  questions. 
They  are  sometimes  contracted  by  governments  that  fail 
to  establish  themselves;  through  non-payment  of  interest 
many  of  them,  as  those  of  Santo  Domingo  and  Honduras, 
mount  to  proportions  beyond  any  immediate  possibility 
of  payment;  and,  worse  still,  being  in  most  cases  contracted 
for  temporary  purposes,  they  have  not  usually  increased  the 
capacity  of  the  debtor  countries  to  meet  them. 

In  1902  Luis  M.  Dtago,  foreign  minister  of  Argentina,  pre- 
sented to  the  United  States  government  the  view  that  "the 
Drago  Doc-  public  debt  cannot  occasion  armed  intervention 
*""®  nor  even  the  actual  occupation  of  the  territory 

of  American  nations  by  a  European  power."  ^  This  "Drago 
Doctrine  "  was  a  slight  modification  of  the  principle  advanced 
by  his  fellow  country -man,  Carlos  Calvo,  that  "the  collection 
of  pecuniary  claims  made  by  the  citizens  of  one  country 
against  the  government  of  another  country  should  never  be 
made  by  force."  It  has  excited  much  discussion  among  dip- 
lomats and  students  of  international  law.  It  is  true,  how- 
ever, that  capitalists  have  in  the  past  loaned  money  with  the 
expectation  that  their  own  country  would  if  necessary  help 
them  collect  it,  and  that  the  borrowing  countries  have  in  con- 
sequence received  more  than  they  otherwise  would  have  done 
^  House  Docs.,  58  Cong.  £  sess.,  No.  1,  p.  4. 


SPANISH  AMERICA  447 

and  at  lower  interest  rates.  Dr.  Drago's  proposition  was 
put  forward  in  the  case  of  Venezuela,  when  a  joint  German, 
British,  and  Italian  squadron,  after  repeated  negotiations, 
undertook  a  blockade  of  the  coast  of  that  country,  in  order  to 
secure  a  recognition  by  its  government  of  cer-  Forcible  col- 
tain  claims,  which  included  losses  caused  both  Section  o*  debts 
by  government  loans  and  by  the  destruction  of  private 
property.  The  United  States  government  did  not  accept 
Dr.  Drago's  view  as  estabhshed  international  law,  but,  fol- 
lowing the  precedent  set  by  Blaine  in  1881,  protested  with 
extreme  vigor,  on  the  basis  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  It 
forced  the  European  countries  interested  to  withdraw  and 
actively  intervened  to  cause  the  whole  matter  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  arbitration.  In  1907  the  United  States  submitted 
the  Drago  Doctrine  to  the  Hague  Conference,  in  the  modified 
form,  that  force  should  not  be  used  in  such  cases  unless  the 
creditor  nation  had  first  proposed  arbitration  and  this  had 
been  refused  or  ignored  by  the  nation  against  which  the  claim 
was  made.  In  this  form  it  was  endorsed  by  the  Conference. 
The  possibilities  of  such  interference,  particularly  when 
the  debts  were  obviously  beyond  the  unassisted  resources 

of  the  debtor  country,  excited  much  anxiety    „ 

1      TT   •      1  r.  o     1  .      ,      Roosevelt's 

m  the  United  States.    So  long  as  we  recognized     doctrine    of 

the  principle  of  the  forcible  collection  of  debts,  ^  power 
the  only  method  of  preventing  the  occasional,  and  perhaps 
at  times  long-continued,  presence  of  foreign  fleets  in  American 
waters  was  to  assume  the  duty  of  collection  ourselves. 
Even  the  Drago  Doctrine  would  not  prevent  the  enforce- 
ment of  claims  for  the  destruction  of  private  property.  In 
messages  of  1903  and  1904  President  Roosevelt  said:  "That 
our  rights  and  interests  are  deeply  concerned  in  the  main- 
tenance of  the  [Monroe]  Doctrine  is  so  clear  as  hardly  to 
need  argument.  This  is  especially  true  in  view  of  the  con- 
struction of  the  Panama  Canal.  As  a  mere  matter  of  self- 
defence  we  must  exercise  a  close  watch  over  the  approaches 
to  this  canal,  and  this  means  we  must  be  thoroughly  alive 


448  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

to  our  interests  in  the  Caribbean  Sea."  "When  we  announce 
a  policy,  such  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  we  thereby  commit 
ourselves  to  the  consequences  of  the  poUcy."  .  .  .  "Chronic 
wrongdoing,  or  an  impotence  which  results  in  a  general 
loosening  of  the  ties  of  civilized  society,  may  in  America, 
as  elsewhere,  ultimately  require  intervention  by  some  civilized 
nation,  and  in  the  Western  Hemisphere  the  adherence  of 
the  United  States  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine  may  force  the 
United  States,  however  reluctantly,  in  flagrant  cases  of  such 
wrongdoing  or  impotence,  to  the  exercise  of  an  international 
poHce  power." 

This  policy  of  intervention  to  prevent  wrongdoing,  whether 
to  our  own  citizens  or  to  those  of  other  countries,  resembled 
The  "  Big  the  policy  advocated  by  Blaine.    The  absence 

Stick"  q£   g^jjy.  sugar-coating  in   its  pronouncement, 

however,  justifies  the  popular  differentiation  in  terms, 
Blaine's  being  known  as  the  "Elder  Sister"  policy  and 
Roosevelt's  as  the  "  Big  Stick. ' ' 

The  conspicuous  example  of  this  new  extension  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine — our  assumption  of  responsibility  for  the 
Santo  Do-  good  behavior  of  Latin  America — occurred  in 
°"°*^°  the  case  of  the  negro  republic  of  Santo  Do- 

mingo. In  1905  President  Roosevelt  made  a  treaty  with  its 
government  whereby  we  were  to  undertake  the  adjustment  of 
its  obligations  and  the  administration  of  its  customs  houses. 
This  agreement  was  not  ratified  at  once,  or  in  its  first  form,  by 
the  Senate,  but  in  1907  a  convention  which  preserved  the 
main  features  of  the  plan  was  accepted. 

This  action  added,  at  any  rate  for  the  time  being,  a  new 
protectorate  to  our  list,  and  thereby  increased  our  territorial 
New  protec-  hold  on  the  Caribbean.  In  1911  somewhat 
torates  similar  arrangements  were  made  by  Secretary 

Knox  with  Nicaragua  and  Honduras.  Neither  was  accepted, 
but  in  1916  a  similar  treaty,  drawn  up  by  Secretary  Bryan 
in  1913  with  Nicaragua,  was  ratified,  and  another  was  drawn 
up  with  Hayti.    The  policy  of  trusteeship  thus  adopted  by 


SPANISH  AMERICA  449 

both  national  parties  may,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  national. 
While  we  do  not  absolutely  prohibit  European  intervention 
for  the  collection  of  debts,  we  aim  to  make  such  intervention 
unnecessary  by  acting  as  intermediary. 

The  "Big  Stick"  has  also  been  evident  in  the  frequent 
and  penetrating  applications  of  our  police  power  for  the 
defence  of  our  own  interests.  In  Cuba,  by  United  States 
intervening  in  1906  and  by  threatening  in-  "ite"eot»«>° 
tervention  in  1912,  we  have,  in  accordance  with  the  Piatt 
amendment,  insisted  on  peace  and  order.  In  Venezuela  we 
threatened  to  use  force  to  establish  our  claims,  which  were 
subsequently  submitted  to  the  Hague  conference.  We 
forcibly  intervened  in  Honduras,  and  have  continually 
used  force  in  Nicaragua  in  the  hope  of  establishing  peace. 
In  the  case  of  the  latter  country,  at  least,  we  have  ourselves 
exercised  a  latitude  of  interference  which  we  would  not 
permit  to  European  powers  without  vigorous  protest.  It 
remains  the  theory  of  the  United  States  that  such  inter- 
vention shall  not  control  the  right  of  the  people  to  constitute 
their  own  government,  but  we  approach  the  position  of 
insisting  that  they  shall  have  a  stable  government.  So  far  as 
European  powers  are  concerned,  we  do  not  prohibit  their 
intervention  to  protect  the  lives  and  property  of  their  sub- 
jects; but  we  insist,  as  against  them,  that  their  intervention 
shall  be  strictly  confined  to  that  purpose,  and  as  against  the 
American  nation  involved,  that  it  shall  be  in  a  condition  to 
render  such  intervention  unnecessary. 

It  is  not,  however,  European  nations  alone  that  we  wish 
to  keep  from  interference  in  American  affairs.  With  the 
rise  to  power  of  Japan  and  the  immense  po-     _  . 

tentialities  of  immigration  from  that  country     Magdalena 
and  from  China,  the  attitude  of  these  countries 
toward  America  has  become  a  matter  of  concern.    There  is 
no  doubt  that  we  shall  apply  to  them  all  the  prohibitions 
that  we  maintain  against  Europe,  although  in  their  case  we 
have  not  the  justification  of  non-interference  in  Asia.     It 


450  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

was,  moreover,  with  special  reference  to  Japan  that  a  new 
corollary  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  proposed  in  1912. 
This  was  in  the  form  of  a  resolution  presented  by  Senator 
Lodge,  declaring  that,  "When  any  harbor  or  other  place 
in  the  American  continents  is  so  situated  that  the  occupa- 
tion thereof  for  naval  or  military  purposes  might  threaten 
the  communication  or  the  safety  of  the  United  States,  the 
government  of  the  United  States  could  not  see,  without 
grave  concern,  the  possession  of  such  harbor  or  other  place 
by  any  corporation  or  association  which  has  such  relations 
to  another  government  not  American  as  to  give  that  govern- 
ment practical  power  of  control  for  naval  or  military  pur- 
poses." Though  passed  by  a  vote  of  51  to  4,  it  was  not» 
however,  accepted  by  President  Taft.  In  1913  President 
Wilson  attempted  to  put  it  upon  less  nationalistic  grounds 
by  enlarging  its  scope  so  as  to  make  it  extend  to  an  opposition 
to  all  special  "concessions"  to  foreign  syndicates,  for  it  is 
his  belief  that  capital  should  find  ample  protection  in  the 
general  laws  of  a  country,  and  that,  if  it  cannot,  its  invest- 
ment will  inevitably  lead  to  political  complications  such 
as  we  wish  to  avoid.  His  attitude  seems  already  to  have 
prevented  the  execution  of  the  plan  of  the  English  Pearson 
syndicate  in  Colombia.  A  still  further  method  of  meeting 
this  situation  has  been  developed  by  the  attempt  to  secure 
for  the  United  States  a  preemption  of  all  possible  inter- 
oceanic  canal  routes  in  America.  Those  of  Nicaragua  and 
Colombia  are  now  covered  by  treaties,  the  first  ratified  in 
1916,  the  second  still  (1916)  unratified. 

The  intensification  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  since  the 
Spanish  war  has  been  confined,  as  to  fact,  to  the  Caribbean. 
Scope  of  new  Dr.  Shaw,  of  the  Review  of  Reviews,  and  very 
policies  close  to  President  Roosevelt,  wrote  editorially, 

"Control  of  the  canal  and  dominance  in  the  Caribbean  Sea 
would  suffice  to  assure  the  Monroe  Doctrine."  It  is  not  to 
be  supposed  that  the  administration  intended  to  withdraw 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  from  connection  with  the  more  southern 


SPANISH  AMERICA  451 

countries;  but  it  certainly  did  not  actually  apply  to  them  its 

additions  to  that  doctrine,  which  was  in  part  due  to  the  fact 

that  their  governments  were  more  firmly  established  than 

those  about  the  Caribbean.     President  Roosevelt  said  in 

1904,  "Any  country  whose  people  conduct  themselves  well 

can  count  upon  our  hearty  friendship."    We  helped  mediate 

between  Chili  and  Argentine,  but  we  did  not  protest  when  in 

1902  they  made  Edward  VII.  arbiter  in  their  disputes,  and 

we  accepted  in  1909  the  same  monarch,  and  later  George  V, 

as  arbiter  between  Chili  and  the  United  States. 

All  Spanish  America,  however,  has  been  included  in  our 

attempts  to  establish  continental  cooperation.    In  1907,  at 

our  initiative  joined  with  that  of  Mexico,  the    «  ,  xj         -^ 

Central- American  states  agreed  to  a  series  of    Spanish  Amer- 
,  ,  1  1  •  1  •  !_     ica  in  general 

treaties  and  conventions  establishing  a  court 

of  arbitration,  and  looking  toward  a  renewal  of  that  union 
which  existed  for  a  few  years  after  their  separation  from 
Spain.  Andrew  Carnegie  presented  them  with  a  palace  at 
Cartago,  in  Costa  Rica,  for  the  use  of  their  court. 

In  1899  President  McKinley  proposed  a  second  Pan- 
American  congress,  and  we  endeavored  to  popularize  the 
idea  by  the  holding  of  a  Pan-American  exposi-  Pan-American 
tion  at  Buffalo  in  1901.  It  was  there  that  co^eresses 
President  McKinley  met  his  death,  but  as  a  result  of  his 
initiative  a  congress  was  held  in  1901  at  the  City  of  Mexico. 
This  congress  put  on  record  a  number  of  far-reaching  resolu- 
tions and  adopted  a  few  useful  regulations,  its  most  important 
undertaking  being  an  effort  to  make  the  meeting  of  such  con- 
gresses regular.  Two  have  since  been  held,  the  third — ^the 
second  of  the  new  series — at  Rio  Janeiro  in  1906  and  the 
next  at  Buenos  Ayres  in  1910,  but  they  have  not  yet  become 
periodical.  Although  these  congresses  have  steadily  improved 
the  conditions  of  international  intercourse,  they  cannot  be 
said  to  have  led  to  any  marked  advance  toward  our  goals 
of  trade  supremacy  and  sympathetic  understanding.  Our 
trade  has  grown,  to  be  sure,  and  with  it  our  regular  steam- 


45«  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ship  connection.  It  still,  however,  consists  chiefly  of  impor- 
tations, many  of  them  brought  to  us  by  tramp  steamers, 
which,  arriving  in  New  York,  take  on  an  American  cargo  for 
Europe,  where  they  load  with  manufactured  goods  for  South 
America.  Our  exports,  except  those  that  go  to  countries 
near  by,  like  Mexico,  have  not  generally  equalled  those  of 
Great  Britain  nor  has  their  growth  kept  pace  with  those  of 
Germany  and  Belgium.^ 

Sympathy  cannot  exist  without  interest,  and  interest  is 
languid  in  the  United  States,  where  news  from  every  part  of 
Lack  of  in-  the  world  is  presented  more  voluminously 
pMt^of°'the  *  ^°d  read  more  eagerly  than  that  from  any 
United  States  p^^t  of  Spanish  America,  except,  again,  Mexico. 
Among  the  Spanish  Americans  there  is  plenty  of  interest  in 
us,  but  not  understanding,  or  at  least  kindly  understanding. 
The  aggressions  of  the  United  States  against  Spain  and 
Colombia,  her  decided  firmness  in  deaUng  with  the  countries 
of  the  Caribbean,  the  threatening  and  condescending  lan- 
guage of  President  Roosevelt,  far  from  changing  the  opinion 
that  a  majority  of  their  public  men  have  always  held  in 
regard  to  us,  have  only  confirmed  it.  They  still  fear  our 
continued  aggression,  a  fear  from  which  the  repeated  asser- 
tions of  Roosevelt  and  of  Wilson  fail  to  free  them.  In  addi- 
tion, the  powerful  and  firmly  estabhshed  governments  of 
Argentina,  Brazil,  and  Chili  resent  the  arrogance  of  our  tone. 

_     ...  They  feel  no  necessity  for  the  defence  of  the 

Suspicion  m         ,,  t-w         •  i         i 

Spanish  Monroe  Doctrme;  they  deny  the  assertion  that 

our  fiat  is  law  upon  the  American  continents, 
while  they  realize  that  in  fact  that  is  the  basis  of  our  action. 
It  was  with  the  idea  of  quieting  this  apprehension  and  sensi- 
tiveness that  Root  in  1906,  while  still  secretary  of  state, 
visited  South  America,  and  that  Secretary  Knox  in  1912 
visited  the  Caribbean  states,  omitting  Colombia  by  request. 
It  is  said  to  have  been  with  the  intention  of  counteracting  the 
effect  of  the  "  Big  Stick "  on  the  minds  of  the  people  of  the 
'  Bureau  of  the  American  Republics,  Annual  Reports,  1891,  etc 


SPANISH  AMERICA  45S 

great  South-American  powers  that  Ex-President  Roosevelt 
undertook  his  journey  to  South  America  in  1913-14.  Never- 
theless, our  not  unnatural  refusal  to  submit  our  differences 
growing  out  of  the  treaty  of  1846  and  the  revolution  in  Pan- 
ama to  arbitration  by  the  Hague  court,  remains  a  stumbling- 
block.  Secretary  Knox  endeavored  to  appease  Colombia 
by  a  treaty  granting  her  financial  compensation  and  gaining 
for  us  control  of  a  possible  canal  route  though  her  territory. 
Secretary  Bryan  succeeded  in  making  such  a  treaty,  which 
added  an  expression  of  our  regret  that  misunderstandings 
had  arisen.  This  treaty,  however,  has  not  yet  been  approved 
by  the  Senate.^ 

The  meeting  of  the  Pan-American  Scientific  Congress  at 
Washingto»  in  1915,  a  bit  of  hospitality  long  delayed  by  the 
failure  of  our  Congress  to  make  the  necessary  appropriations, 
became  the  occasion  for  the  most  effusive  demonstration  of 
Americanism  that  ever  took  place  in  the  United  States.  The 
sense  of  mutual  dependence  in  the  great  world  conflict,  and 
the  realization  that  the  absorption  of  Europe  in  its  own  diffi- 
culties must  force  the  Americas  to  a  closer  relationship  in 
trade  and  finance,  created  a  background  of  sentiment  to 
which  President  Wilson  gave  forceful  expression.  United 
States  banks  began  to  prepare  to  enter  South  America,  and 
Spanish  classes  in  the  universities  became  crowded.  Pan- 
Americanism  is  far  from  an  established  fact,  but  it  is  more 
nearly  a  reality  than  ever  before. 

^  For  a  recent  and  clear-headed  discussion  of  the  whole  subject  see 
John  Bigelow,  American  Policy:  The  Western  Hemisphere  in  Its  Relation  to 
the  Eastern,  New  York,  1915;  cf.  R.  G.  Usher,  Pan-Americanism,  New  York, 
1915. 


CHAPTER   XXXII 
THE   PACIFIC 

Into  the  diplomacy  of  the  Pacific  the  new  regime  plunged 
joyously,  stripped  of  past  policies  and  entangling  alliances. 
New  start  in  By  our  treaty  of  1894  with  Japan  and  the 
the  Pacific  return  of  the  Sinionoseki  indemnity  we  had 

freed  ourselves  from  the  consequences  of  joint  action  under 
Seward  and  Fish,  and  by  the  division  of  Samoa  from  the 
complications  of  the  General  Act  of  Berlin.  From  the  con- 
sequences of  our  situation,  however,  we  were  not  so  free. 
No  other  country  possessed  so  much  Pacific  coast-line  as  we 
did :  the  North  Pacific  was  strategically  ours.  Our  possessions 
were  widely  scattered,  however,  and,  in  spite  of  the  attempts 
of  Congress,  by  customs  duties  and  by  education,  to  knit 
them  together,  they  could  not  be  held  apart  from  the  current 
of  Asian  development.  We  were  forced  to  become  participants 
in  the  affairs  of  the  Far  East.^ 

We  found  there  England,  France,  Germany,  and  Russia, 
all  strongly  entrenched  in  commerce  and  territory.  Japan, 
Interaational  modern  and  ambitious,  was  already  by  the 
situation  jjgjp  q£  jjgj.  geographical  position  a  great  power. 

China,  inert  but  containing  no  one  knew  what  possibilities  of 
greatness,  was  prey  about  which  the  others  hovered  ex- 
pectantly but  somewhat  gingerly.  With  Japan  it  was  a 
question  of  dealing  as  with  an  equal.  With  China  the  ques- 
tion was  less  of  dealing  with  her  than  about  her,  and  it 
was  quickly  evident  that  our  only  choice  was  between  be- 

^  Latan6,  America  as  a  World  Power;  J.  W.  Foster,  American  Diplomacy  in 
the  Orient,  Boston,  etc.,  1903;  Coolidge,  The  United  States  as  a  World  Power, 
313-374;  A.  T.  Mahan,  The  Interest  of  America  in  International  Conditions, 
Boston,  1910;  T.  J.  Lawrence,  War  and  Neutrality  in  the  Far  East,  2d  edition, 
London,  etc.,  1904. 

454 


THE  PACIFIC  455 

coming  one  of  the  concert  of  powers  or  leaving  them  to  ap- 
portion the  empire  according  to  their  desires. 

In  1898  Germany  secured  by  lease  from  China  the  port 
of  Kiauchau,  Russia  got  in  the  same  way  Port  Arthur  and 
Talien-wan,  France,  Kwangchau  Bay,  Great  «« Spheres "  of 
Britain,  Wei-hai-wei  and  Mirs  Bay,  and  Italy  J^ue^" 
obtained  the  right  to  develop  the  port  of  Sanmun.  Japan,  as 
a  result  of  her  recent  war  with  China,  had  already  obtained 
the  separation  of  Corea  from  Chinese  jurisdiction.  In  these 
transactions,  the  United  States  took  no  part,  though  she 
temporarily  profited  by  the  opening  of  these  places  to 
trade.  It  was  believed,  however,  that  these  leased  ports 
might  become  the  centres  of  spheres  of  influence,  the  com- 
mercial advantages  of  which  the  respective  powers  would 
seek  to  monopolize.  On  the  possibility,  therefore,  that  we 
might  be  deprived  of  our  natural  share  of  Chinese  commerce. 
Hay,  on  September  6,  1899,  instructed  our  ambassadors  at 
London,  Berlin,  and  St.  Petersburg  to  ask  for  declarations 
in  favor  of  open  trade. 

Meantime  there  began  in  China  a  religious  and  conserva- 
tive movement  against  the  "foreign  devils,"  and  particularly 
against  the  missionaries.  Sweeping  all  before  "Boxer" 
them,  and  winning  the  support  of  the  empress  *'<"*^^®^ 
dowager,  the  "Boxers"  got  possession  of  Peking  and  be- 
sieged the  foreign  embassies.  Under  such  circumstances 
the  only  possible  policy  for  the  United  States  was  to  join  with 
the  other  powers  in  a  military  expedition  for  the  relief  of  the 
legations.  That  relief  once  effected,  however,  there  were 
untold  possibilities  of  further  interference.  The  lives  and 
property  of  individuals,  particularly  of  missionaries,  must 
be  atoned  for  in  some  manner  that  would  render  a  recurrence 
of  a  similar  movement  unlikely.  France,  as  protector  of 
Catholics  in  the  Orient,  might  demand  indemnity  for  the 
native  Christians  slain;  and  such  demands  might  easily 
assume  a  bulk  that  would  render  payment  impossible  ex- 
cept by  cession  of  territory,  or  they  might  take  the  form 


456  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

of  putting  the  empire  in  a  straight-jacket.  With  these  pos- 
sibilities in  mind,  Hay  determined  to  assume  the  advantage 
_  ,  -  of  leadership,  and  on  July  3,  1900,  announced 
China  and  the  the  policy  of  the  United  States.  "  If  wrong  be 
pen  00  (Jone  to  our  citizens,"  he  declared,  "we  pro- 
pose to  hold  the  responsible  authors  to  the  uttermost  ac- 
countability." Peking  being  in  anarchy,  the  power  and 
responsibility  "are  practically  devolved  upon  the  local  pro- 
vincial authorities.  So  long  as  they  are  not  in  overt  col- 
lusion with  rebellion  and  use  their  power  to  protect  foreign 
life  and  property,  we  regard  them  as  representing  the  Chinese 
people,  with  whom  we  seek  to  remain  in  peace  and  friend- 
ship." The  President  will  cooperate  with  the  powers  in  pro- 
tecting American  interests,  and  "in  aiding  to  prevent  a 
spread  of  the  disorders  to  the  other  provinces  of  the  Empire 
and  a  recurrence  of  such  disasters.  It  is  of  course  too  early 
to  forecast  the  means  of  attaining  this  last  result;  but  the 
policy  of  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  to  seek  a 
solution  which  may  bring  about  permanent  safety  and  peace 
to  China,  preserve  Chinese  territorial  and  administrative 
entity,  protect  all  rights  guaranteed  to  friendly  powers  by 
treaty  and  international  law,  and  safeguard  for  the  world 
the  principle  of  equal  and  impartial  trade  with  all  parts  of  the 
Chinese  Empire."  To  this  policy  he  invited  the  powers  to 
adhere  by  similar  declarations. 

The  two  fundamental  ideas  of  this  circular  note,  which 
was  sent  to  Berlin,  Brussels,  The  Hague,  Lisbon,  London, 
Hay's  leader-  Madrid,  Paris,  Rome,  St.  Petersburg,  Tokio, 
*^P  and    Vienna,    were   the    preservation    of   the 

territorial  and  administrative  entity  of  China,  and  the  "open 
door"  to  the  world's  trade.  These  ideas  have  become  almost 
as  firmly  established  in  the  American  mind  with  regard  to 
China,  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  with  regard  to  America. 
Furthermore,  by  his  prompt  action  and  especially  by  the 
manner  of  it.  Secretary  Hay  established  a  leadership  in  the 
concert  of  powers  which,  although  entirely  temporary  and 


THE  PACIFIC  457 

personal,  gave  dignity  and  power  to  our  appearance  in  this 
new  relationship.  He  succeeded  in  establishing  a  reputation 
for  being  a  man  of  his  word  similar  and  equal  to  that  which 
Franklin  had  enjoyed,  and  he  knew  how  to  seize  upon  that 
exact  moment  when  international  opinion  rendered  the  carry- 
ing out  of  an  idea  practical  but  needed  a  strong  and  respected 
leader  to  make  itself  effective.  He  had  learned  from  Lincoln 
to  step  ahead  of  the  crowd  without  ceasing  to  step  with  it. 
His  thorough  acquaintance  with  diplomacy  as  it  existed,  did 
not  blind  him  to  new  currents  of  thought  as  yet  little  recog- 
nized by  diplomatic  staffs,  but  destined  to  shape  their 
activities.  The  powers  promptly  concurred  in  disclaiming 
any  desire  to  partition  China,  and  some  of  them  admitted 
the  principle  of  the  *'open  door."  On  this  basis  the  ex- 
pedition for  the  relief  of  the  legation  in  Peking  was  under- 
taken. 

The  matter  of  negotiation,  involving  first  an  agreement  be- 
tween the  powers  and  then  a  joint  negotiation  with  China,  was 

difficult,  but  it  was  ably  handled,  the  United     ^ 

•^  Preservation 

States  being  represented  by  E.  H.  Conger  of  China's 
and  W.  W.  Rockhill,  and  China  by  Prince  ^**^*^ 
Ching  and  Li  Hung  Chang.  The  Chinese  agreed,  Septem- 
ber 7,  1901,  to  make  expiatory  punishments  and  memorials, 
to  pay  an  indemnity,  and  to  improve  the  facilities  of  com- 
munication; both  the  physical  route  to  Peking  and  the  organ- 
ization of  the  foreign  office.  Rockhill,  the  special  com- 
missioner, reported  to  Hay,  November  30,  1901:  "While 
we  maintained  complete  independence,  we  were  able  to  act 
harmoniously  in  the  concert  of  powers  ...  we  retained  the 
friendship  of  all  the  negotiating  powers,  exerted  a  salutary 
influence  in  the  cause  of  moderation,  humanity,  and  justice, 
secured  adequate  reparation  for  wrongs  done  our  citizens, 
guaranties  for  their  future  protection,  and  labored  success- 
fully in  the  interests  of  the  whole  world  in  the  cause  of 
equal  and  impartial  trade  with  all  parts  of  the  "Chinese 
Empire." 


458  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Our  cooperation  in  the  expedition  against  the  Boxers 
not  only  assisted  in  preserving  the  territorial  integrity  of 
.J.  j^  China,  but  helped  establish  the  principle  of 

of  the  "Open  the  "open  door."  Hay  had  asked  the  assent 
of  the  powers  that  had  spheres  of  influence  in 
China  to  three  propositions, — that  treaty  ports  within  leased 
territory  be  not  interfered  with,  that  the  tariff  charged  be  that 
of  China  and  be  under  Chinese  administration,  unless  the 
leased  ports  were  made  "free  "  of  all  duties,  and  that  no  dis- 
criminating harbor  dues  or  transportation  charges  be  levied 
in  such  "spheres."  To  these  propositions  he  had,  by  De- 
cember, 1899,  secured  the  adhesion  of  France,  Germany, 
Great  Britain,  Italy,  Japan,  and  Russia,  although  the  latter 
country  was  somewhat  guarded  in  its  commitment.  By 
thus  establishing  these  important  items  he  confirmed  his 
leadership  in  the  development  of  the  policy  of  the  powers 
toward  China. 

On  February  8,  1904,  Hay  again  assumed  leadership  by 
inviting  Germany,  Great  Britain,  and  France  to  unite  with 
The  United  the  United  States  in  urging  Japan  and  Russia 
Russo-Jap-  *  to  recognize  the  neutrality  of  China  in  the  war 
anese  war  which  they  were  beginning,  and  to  localize  hos- 

tilities within  fixed  limits.  This  effort  was  successful.  In 
January,  1905,  Russia  announced  to  us  that  China  was  not 
neutral  and  could  not  preserve  neutrality;  hence  that  she 
should  be  forced  to  consider  Chinese  neutrality  "from  the 
standpoint  of  her  own  interests."  Mr.  Hay  was  able  to 
convince  Russia  of  the  inexpediency  of  such  action.  His 
circular  note  of  January  10,  1905,  setting  forth  our  hope 
that  the  war  would  not  result  in  any  "concession  of  Chinese 
territory  to  neutral  powers,"  brought  equivalent  disclaimers 
from  Germany,  Austria-Hungary,  France,  Great  Britain, 
and  Italy.  The  culmination  of  this  leadership  was  reached 
in  President  Roosevelt's  offer,  in  1905,  of  our  good  offices 
to  bring  the  war  to  a  close.  In  the  treaty  of  Portsmouth, 
which  concluded  it,  both  the  territorial  and  the  administra- 


THE  PACIFIC  459 

tlve  entity  of  China,  as  well  as  the  policy  of  the  "open  door," 
were  formally  respected,  although  a  way  was  left  for  their 
subsequent  violation  in  spirit. 

Philander  C.  Knox,  who  became  secretary  of  state  in 
1909,  carried  out  this  policy  by  a  circular  note  of  1912  pro- 
posing non-intervention  in  the  Chinese  revolu-  Non-interven- 
tion, then  in  progress.  Although  such  was  the  **°^  "^  ^^^^^ 
actual  conduct  of  most  of  the  powers,  the  action  of  Russia  in 
recognizing  the  independence  of  Mongolia  before  acknowl- 
edging the  new  government  of  China  was  an  ominous  ex- 
ception; while  the  attitude  of  Great  Britain  with  reference 
to  Tibet  and  that  of  Japan  in  Manchuria  have  long  consti- 
tuted false  notes  in  the  concert  for  the  preservation  of  China's 
territorial  and  administrative  integrity.  Japan's  action 
has  also  threatened  the  openness  of  trade. 

Secretary  Knox,  however,  devoted  most  of  his  attention 
to  securing  opportunities  for  American  capital  to  share  in 
the  development  of  Chinese  resources,  This  "Dollar" 
movement,  popularly  known  as  "dollar"  <^plomacy 
diplomacy,  though  not  confined  to  China,  was  most  impor- 
tant there.  His  treaty  of  1911  with  Honduras  was  based  on 
the  assumption  of  the  foreign  debt  of  that  country  by  an 
American  syndicate,  headed  by  J.  P.  Morgan,  in  return  for 
concessions.  In  1910  he  attempted  to  have  the  Manchurian 
railroads  turned  over  to  a  syndicate,  and  urged  China  to 
grant  to  an  Anglo-American  body  concessions  in  the  same 
province.  These  attempts  were  unsuccessful,  but  an  Anglo- 
American,  French,  and  German  company  received  a  con- 
cession to  build  a  railroad  in  the  Yangtse  valley.  His  most 
important  effort,  however,  was  to  secure  a  right  for  the  United 
States  to  participate  in  the  loan  required  by  the  new  govern- 
ment in  1912. 

As  finally  arranged,  this  loan  was  to  be  shared  equally 
by  the  bankers  of  Great  Britain,  France,  Germany,  Japan, 
Russia,  and  the  United  States.  If  its  political  character  was 
not  rendered  sufficiently  obvious  by  the  inclusion  of  Japan 


460  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

and  Russia,  which  had  no  money  to  lend,  it  was  written 
plainly  enough  in  the  terms  upon  which  the  credit  was 
"Six  power"  to  be  given  to  China.  That  government, 
^***"  though  anxious  for  the  money,  was  unwilling 

to  be  bound  by  the  engagements  proposed,  a  hesitation 
which  probably  caused  recognition  of  the  Chinese  republic 
to  be  withheld  in  order  that  pressure  might  be  brought  to 
United  States  bear  upon  it.  On  March  18,  1913,  President 
from  "I^  Wilson  reversed  this  policy.    lie  led  the  way 

power"  loan  j^  t}jg  recognition  of  the  new  republic,  and 
withdrew  the  government  support  from  the  "six  power" 
loan.  "The  conditions  of  the  loan,"  he  said,  "seem  to  us 
to  touch  very  nearly  the  administrative  independence  of 
China  itself,  and  this  administration  does  not  feel  that 
it  ought,  even  by  implication,  to  be  a  party  to  those  con- 
ditions." As  a  result,  the  American  bankers  withdrew 
from  the  syndicate.  Although  this  action  is  in  line  with  his 
attitude  toward  concessions  to  syndicates  in  Spanish  America, 
the  administration  did  not  go  so  far  in  China  as  to  oppose 
the  activities  of  others;  and  the  five  remaining  powers  con- 
tinued their  negotiations. 

Our  relations  with  China  herself  have  been  simple  and 
good-natured,  particularly  during  the  agreeable  mission  of 
United  states  Wu  Ting  Fang  to  this  country.  The  question 
and  China  ^^  Chinese  immigration  has  been  left  on  the 

basis  of  the  treaty  of  1894,  which  was  continued  in  1903.* 
In  the  treaty  that  perpetuated  it,  new  ports,  inland  naviga- 
tion, and  mining  rights  were  opened  up,  and  trademarks, 
patents,  and  copyrights  were  provided  for.  Missions  were 
placed  upon  an  exceptionally  strong  basis,  which  allowed 
societies  to  rent  and  lease  lands  and  buildings  in  any  part  of 
the  empire,  and  exempted  Chinese  Christians  from  taxation 
for  the  support  of  "  religious  customs  and  practices  contrary 
to  their  faith."    An  elaborate  tariff  was  made  a  part  of  the 

*  A.  P.  C.  Griffin,  Select  list  of  References  on  Chinese  Immigration,  labraiy 
of  Congress,  1904, 


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POSSESSIONS    AND  DEPENDENCIES 

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THE  PACIFIC  461 

treaty.  Finally,  the  use  of  a  portion  of  the  Boxer  indemnity 
fund  to  aid  Chinese  students  to  study  in  this  country  bids 
fair  to  increase  the  friendliness  between  the  two  peoples. 

With  Japan  the  situation  has  been  very  different.  With 
that  country  we  now  have  more  points  of  contact  than 
with  any  other  nation  except  Great  Britain.  United  States 
The  fact  is,  though  it  is  not  yet  recognized  *"<i  J*P*n 
politically,  that  this  embassy  has  taken  the  position  held  by 
that  of  Spain  until  1898^  pis  th'.  second  in  importance.  In  addi- 
tion to  tlie  direct  questions  involved  by  a  large  trade  and  an 
unpopular  immigration,  we  have  to  deal  with  Japan  as  oc- 
cupying Chinese  territory  in  Manchuria,  as  well  as  in  her 
relations  to  Spanish  America,  which  are  founded  on  a  large 
and  increasing  immigration  to  nearly  all  of  those  republics. 
The  situation  is  further  complicated  in  the  United  States  by 
the  belief  that  Japan  desires  Hawaii  and  the  Philippines,  and 
in  Japan  by  a  disappointment,  to  say  the  least,  that  we 
secured  the  latter  islands,  as  well  as  by  resentment  at  our 
attitude  toward  Japanese  emigrants. 

The  first  difficulty  lay  in  the  objection  on  the  part  of 
a  large  element  of  American  public  opinion,  particularly 
on  the  Pacific  coast,  to  Japanese  immigration.  Japanese 
This  objection  was  partly  racial  and  partly  "°™igr*t»on 
due  to  the  fear  of  competition  in  the  labor  market  with 
the  overflowing  populations  of  the  Orient.  The  position 
and  the  self-conscious  pride  of  Japan  made  impossible  any 
such  treaty  arrangement  as  was  made  with  China.  In  fact 
the  treaties  of  1894  and  1911  both  granted  a  mutual  right  of 
immigration.  Under  these  trying  circumstances  Secretary 
Root  succeeded  in  putting  the  question  at  rest,  by  an  agree- 
ment, expressed  in  a  series  of  notes  exchanged  in  1907  and 
1908,  whereby  the  Japanese  government  itself  undertook 
to  prohibit  the  emigration  of  laborers  to  the  United  States. 
A  similar  understanding  between  Japan  and  Canada  prevents 
the  danger  of  the  smuggling  of  coolies  across  the  border,  and 
&  United  States  law  prevents  Japanese  labor  already  resident 


462  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

in  Hawaii  from  migrating  to  the  states.    In  this  way  Japanese 

pride  was  saved,  and  the  desire  of  American  opinion  was 

for  the  time  being  met. 

The  problem  of  the  position  of  Japanese  now  resident  in  the 

United  States  has  proved  more  perplexing.    By  treaty  they 

are  secured  the  rights  of  citizens  of  the  most 
Japanese  in  , 

the  United         favored  nation,  but  they  are  ineligible  to  citizen- 

States  •  • 

ship.  In  the  case  of  the  Italians,  who  were  un- 
popular in  the  nineties,  the  securing  of  the  franchise  has, 
politically  at  any  rate,  secured  them  full  acceptance.  The 
Japanese,  being  politically  negligible,  are  at  the  mercy  of  leg- 
islation in  so  far  as  they  are  not  protected  by  treaty  rights. 
Their  privileges  have  been  interfered  with  by  legislation  in 
several  states,  in  such  a  way,  the  Japanese  government  claims, 
as  to  violate  our  treaty  obligation.  The  chief  complaint  has 
been  of  California.  In  1913  the  legislature  of  that  state, 
after  many  years  of  agitation  with  regard  to  their  use  of 
schools  and  other  privileges,  adopted  a  small  measure  of 
discrimination  by  prohibiting  leases  of  agricultural  land 
for  more  than  three  years  to  persons  "ineligible  to  citizen- 
ship." In  the  actual  situation  this  restriction  applies  almost 
entirely  to  the  Japanese.  The  qualifications  for  citizenship 
are  of  course  a  purely  domestic  aflFair;  but  the  making  of 
the  standard  of  eligibility  a  rule  for  granting  further 
favors,  when  that  standard  applies  almost  wholly  to  one 
nation,  certainly  raises  a  delicate  question  under  the  most 
favored  nation  clause. 

This  dispute  still  persists,  but  otherwise  our  relations  have 
been  exceptionally  friendly.     The  floating  of  a  Japanese 

,  loan  in  the  United  States  at  the  time  of  the 

Japanese-  ...  .  , 

American  un-    war  with  Russia  established  a  tie,  and  our 

"^^        cooperation  in  China  was  generally  conducive 

to  good  feeling.    In  1908  Secretary  Root  and  the  Japanese 

ambassador  exchanged  notes  to  the  effect  that  their  wish 

was  for  the  peaceful  development  of  their  commerce  on  the 

Pacific;  that  "the  policy  of  both  governments,  uninfluenced 


THE  PACIFIC  463 

by  any  aggressive  tendencies,  is  directed  to  the  maintenance 
of  the  existing  status  quo  in  the  region  above  mentioned, 
and  to  the  defense  of  the  principle  of  equal  opportunity  for 
commerce  and  industry  in  China;"  that  they  both  stood  for 
the  independence  and  integrity  of  China;  and  that,  should 
any  event  threaten  the  existing  conditions,  "it  remains  for 
the  two  governments  to  communicate  with  each  other  in 
order  to  arrive  at  an  understanding  as  to  what  measures 
they  may  consider  it  useful  to  take." 

In  thus  defending  our  interests  in  the  Pacific,  and  at  the 
same  time  exerting  a  decided  influence  on  international 
policy,  even  to  the  point  of  having  possibly     .    -^  * 

prevented  the  dismemberment  of  China,  with     entan^ing  al- 

liflQCfiS 

so    little   resulting   international    bad   feeling 
and  that  of  a  character  practically  inevitable  and  without 
becoming  involved   in  any  entangling  alliance,  American 
diplomacy  has  shown  itself  at  its  best  and  worthy  of  the  early 
traditions  of  the  republic.^ 

*  W.  R.  Thayer,  Life  and  Letters  of  John  Hay  (Boston,  1915),  throws 
much  light  on  Hay's  personality  and  on  diplomatic  problems,  particularly 
the  Alaska  boundary  and  the  canal  problem. 


CHAPTER    XXXIII 

ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  ^ 

With  our  policy  of  dominance  in  the  Caribbean,  of  exclu- 
sion of  foreign  influence  throughout  Spanish  America,  of 
equal  compromise  with  Great  Britain  in  British 
North  America,  of  participation  in  Eastern 
Asia,  of  non-interference  in  Europe,  Africa  remains  open. 
Our  joining  in  an  international  receivership  for  Liberia  in 
1912,  must,  of  course,  be  attributed  to  a  special  parental  in- 
terest in  that  little  republic.  Some  persons  feared  that  our 
participation  in  the  Algeciras  conference  of  1906  concerning 
Morocco,  might  involve  us  in  issues  both  complex  and  ex- 
citing, but  it  was  carefully  guarded.  The  Senate  ratified  the 
"General  Act"  of  the  conference  with  the  distinct  assertion 
that  it  was  not  to  be  deemed  a  departure  on  our  part  from  our 
traditional  policy  of  having  nothing  to  do  with  "the  settle- 
ment of  questions  which  are  entirely  European  in  their  scope." 
We  have  no  African  policy. 

With  Turkey,  a  power  partly  European  and  partly  Asiatic, 
the  United  States  has  also  assumed  no  special  attitude.    It 

„   .  has  followed  the  example  of  European  nations  in 

Turkey  .  ,,..,.. 

reserving  to  its  own  consuls  the  jurisdiction  over 

its  own  citizens.  This  matter  has  been  the  subject  of  peren- 
nial dispute,  as  differing  texts  have  been  found  of  our  treaty 
of  1830,  upon  which  our  claim  to  the  privileges  of  extraterri- 
toriality have  been  chiefly  based.  Our  insistence  upon  the 
practice,  however,  was  placed  by  Hay  in  1900  on  the  most 
favored  nation  clause,  and  we  have  maintained  it.  What 
action  will  be  taken  now  that  Turkey  has  (1914)  abrogated 

^  American  Year  Book,  1910.    This  annual  and  the  International  Year  Book 
give  good  accounts  of  the  diplomacy  of  each  year. 

464 


ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  465 

the  privilege  in  the  case  of  all  nations,  is  uncertain;  the 
most  favored  nation  clause  ceases  to  have  any  significance 
in  the  connection,  and  our  treaty  is  abrogated  with  the  rest. 
We  have  taken  no  part  in  the  concert  of  powers  which  has 
so  often  intervened  and  remonstrated  as  a  result  of  condi- 
tions within  the  Turkish  empire.  In  1894  the  Senate  passed 
resolutions  looking  to  expostulation  because  of  reported 
"atrocities;"  but  President  Cleveland  stated  that,  since 
the  European  powers  were  bound  together  in  the  matter 
by  the  treaty  of  Berlin,  we  could  not  take  action  without 
inconvenience,  and  that  he  had  already  declined  an  in- 
vitation of  the  Turkish  government  to  investigate  con- 
ditions. 

The  protection  of  our  citizens  there  has,  however,  been 
a  perpetual  source  of  annoyance  and  dispute.  These  con- 
troversies have  been  chiefly  of  two  classes,  those     ,,.   . 

,       .  ,        Missions 

relating  to  missionaries,  and  those  having  to  do 

with  naturalized  citizens  of  Turkish  origin.  Our  missions, 
particularly  numerous  in  Syria  and  including  the  important 
Roberts  College  at  Constantinople,  have  been  permitted, 
and  have  enjoyed  protection.  By  an  agreement  of  1874, 
definitely  interpreted  in  1910,  they  have  even  been  allowed 
to  hold  property.  Our  whole  position  has  been  simplified 
by  the  fact  that  united  Europe  demands  the  fullest  freedom 
in  such  matters,  and  that  we  have  since  1903  claimed  and 
have  not  been  denied,  equal  treatment.  Our  position  has 
been  that  whatever  concessions  of  this  character  have  been 
granted  European  nations,  become  automatically  ours  by 
right.  In  the  case  of  injury  to  missions  or  to  other  American 
property  during  the  disorders  so  frequent  in  Turkey,  we 
have  never  succeeded  in  making  the  Sublime  Porte  ac- 
knowledge our  claims  by  formal  treaty.  In  one  instance, 
however,  indemnity  was  virtually  granted  by  an  agreed 
overpayment  for  the  construction  of  a  Turkish  war  vessel 
by  an  American  firm. 
The  situation  of  our  naturalized  natives  of  Turkey  is 


466  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

extremely  disagreeable,  and,  owing  to  the  increased  immi- 
gration of  Armenians  and  Syrians  to  this  country,  the  matter 

NaturaKzation     ^^^   ^^^   °^   growing   importance.      Turkey 
problem  with      allows   expatriation  only  by  permission  and 

on  condition  of  renewing  Turkish  citizenship 
immediately  upon  return  to  the  empire.  European  nations, 
having  no  large  interchange  of  population  with  Turkey, 
have  acquiesced  in  this  position;  and  the  United  States  has 
been  obliged  to  follow  their  example.  Natives  of  Turkey 
who  have  become  naturaHzed  in  the  United  States,  therefore, 
whether  with  or  without  the  permission  of  the  Turkish 
government,  cannot  expect  from  the  United  States  that  full 
protection  afforded  to  native  American  citizens  or  natural- 
ized citizens  born  elsewhere  than  Turkey.  This  does  not, 
however,  mean  that  they  are  neglected.  The  United  States 
embassy  and  consular  officials  are  always  on  the  alert,  and 
have  actually  afforded  a  protection  sufficiently  efficacious  to 
make  it  worth  while  to  forge  American  passports.  It  is 
this  lack  of  definite  agreement  and  the  possibility  of  ac- 
complishing so  much  by  personal  effort,  that  makes  the 
embassy  at  Constantinople  so  important.  It  is  generally 
given  to  a  man  of  personality,  and  it  was  here  that  Oscar 
S.  Straus  did  so  much  to  ameliorate  conditions.  Legally 
the  conditions  with  regard  to  naturalization  are  similar 
in  Russia,  but  there  the  subject  has  been  handled  on  the 
basis  of  general  understandings,  which  for  a  long  time  worked 
fairly  satisfactorily.  The  dangers  inherent  in  the  situation 
N  turaii  ti  however,  are  illustrated  by  the  dispute  over 
problem  with      Russia's  decision  to  exclude  entirely  Russian 

Jews  naturalized  in  America,  which  led  in 
1912  to  the  denunciation  of  our  treaty  of  commerce  with  that 
country  by  Congress. 

In  Europe  itself  the  shadow  of  the  profound  and  united 
animosity,  which  succeeded  the  Spanish  War,  quickly  van- 
ished with  the  realization  that  our  new  policy  was  not  aggres- 
sive in  fields  particularly  interesting  to  that  continent, — that 


ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  467 

we  did  not  threaten  the  equipoise  of  European  power,  that 
our  gigantic  trade  balances  were  not  eternal,  that  New  York 
did  not  take  the  place  of  European  capitals  as  _j^  , 
the  center  for  foreign  loans.  Perhaps,  too,  titude  of 
there  was  a  feeling  that,  if  we  were  strong,  it 
would  be  good  policy  to  cultivate  us.  Quick  to  perceive  these 
facts,  the  Kaiser  became  demonstrative  in  his  friendliness, 
sending  his  brother  Prince  Henry  to  visit  us,  presenting  the 
nation  with  a  statue  of  Frederick  the  Great  and  Harvard 
University  with  the  material  to  fill  a  Germanic  museum, 
leading  the  way  in  the  cultivation  of  international  good  will 
by  the  establishment  of  exchange  professorships,  and  asking 
President  Roosevelt's  daughter  to  christen  his  new  racing 
yacht,  the  building  of  which  in  America  was  a  compliment 
to  a  national  industry  of  which  we  are  justly  proud.  France, 
less  successful  in  engaging  the  popular  attention,  followed 
in  his  wake  with  a  statue  of  Rochambeau,  which  recalled  to 
our  people  when  reading  one  morning  newspaper,  the  aid 
that  she  had  given  us  under  his  leadership  during  our 
Revolution.  She  too  provided  exchange  professorships. 
This  effusive  friendship  was  harmless,  and,  if  it  did 
not  much  affect  the  stand  taken  by  Germany  on  Ameri- 
can pork,  it  at  least  provided  a  pleasanter  atmosphere  for 
negotiation. 

With  Europe,  the  question  of  immigration  to  the  United 
States  has  far-reaching  possibilities.  The  floods  of  immi- 
grants that  have  lately  come  to  our  shores  European 
from  that  contment  have  excited  the  appre-  im™i«™t»o° 
hension  of  widely  differing  classes  of  our  population.  Senator 
Lodge  has  made  himself  spokesman  of  the  movement  toward 
exclusion,  and  the  labor  element  has  complained  of  being 
exposed  to  the  competition  of  newcomers  satisfied  with  a 
low  standard  of  living.  This  agitation  has  taken  form  in  the 
exclusion  of  persons  with  disease,  with  criminal  records,  or 
those  likely  to  become  dependent  upon  the  public  for  sup- 
port.   As  a  further  precaution.  Congress  in  1912  and  twice 


468  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

in  1914  passed  acts  establishing  a  literary  test.  The  first 
of  these  was  vetoed  by  President  Taft,  and  the  other  two  met 
a  like  fate  from  President  Wilson.  Nevertheless  some 
further  legislation  is  probable  in  the  near  future. 

While  such  action  would  not  necessarily  lead  to  foreign 
complications,  yet  the  laws  that  we  already  have  give  rise 
Roumanian  to  many  minor  diplomatic  problems,  and  in 
"°*®  1902  Secretary  Hay  took  a  new  stand  with 

many  potentialities.  On  July  17  of  that  year  he  wrote  to 
our  minister  accredited  to  Roumania  concerning  a  proposed 
convention  in  regard  to  naturalization.  After  discussing  our 
general  policy,  he  added:  "It  behooves  the  State  to  scrutinize 
most  jealously  the  character  of  the  immigration  from  a  foreign 
land,  and,  if  it  be  obnoxious  to  objection,  to  examine  the 
causes  which  render  it  so.  Should  those  causes  origiuate 
in  the  act  of  another  sovereign  State,  to  the  detriment  of 
its  neighbors,  it  is  the  prerogative  of  an  injured  State,  to 
point  out  the  evil  and  to  make  remonstrance;  for  with  na- 
tions, as  with  individuals,  the  social  law  holds  good  that  the 
right  of  each  is  bounded  by  the  right  of  the  neighbor."  He 
found  that  the  action  of  Roumania  made  life  intolerable  to 
the  Jews.  "Removal  under  such  conditions  is  not  and  can- 
not be  the  healthy,  intelligent  emigration  of  a  free  and  self- 
reliant  being.  It  must  be,  in  most  cases,  the  mere  trans- 
plantation of  an  artifically  produced  diseased  growth  to  a 
new  place."  Our  opposition  was  not  to  Jews,  but  to  out- 
casts and  paupers.  We  would  make  no  treaty  by  which, 
under  existing  conditions,  we  were  forced  to  take  them,  or 
by  which  they  were  to  be  prevented  from  returning  to 
Roumania.^ 

Our  action  in  this  matter  was  limited  to  our  remonstrance 
and  our  refusal  to  make  a  treaty.  The  suggestion  of  Secre- 
tary Bryan,  in  1913,  to  the  Bucharest  conference  of  the  Bal- 
kan states,  that  it  permit  full  religious  liberty,  seems  to  have 

^  Cyrus  Adler,  Jexoi  in  the  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  United  State* 
Amer.  Jewish  Hi^t.  Soc.,  Publications,  No.  15  il90&). 


ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  469 

been  in  accordance  with  this  policy.  Our  national  annoy- 
ance at  the  forced  immigration  due  to  the  artificial  stimula- 
tion caused  by  the  advertisements  and  solicita-    „  . 

,  ,  .       ,.  Undue   stunu- 

tions   of    steamship    Imes,    has    not    reached     lation  of  immi- 

the  point  of  definite  diplomatic  action;  but 
we  have  called  the  attention  of  the  nations  concerned  to 
the  subject,  and  have  met  with  sympathetic  response  from 
Italy.  The  prospective  opening  of  the  Panama  canal,  with 
the  possibility  of  water  transit  to  the  Pacific  Coast,  caused 
the  subject  to  receive  special  attention  in  1914. 

The  routine  problems  of  diplomacy  did  not  require  quite 
so  much  attention  during  this  period  as  in  that  from  the 
Civil  to  the  Spanish  war,  although  the  number  First  treaties, 
of  actual  cases  was  far  greater.  We  made  first  ^ ^^ade-' 
treaties  only  with  Ethiopia,  more  commonly  °»"i£s 
known  as  Abyssinia,  and  with  San  Marino.  The  area  of 
extradition  practically  covered  the  globe,  and  the  protection 
of  our  trademarks,  patents,  and  copyrights  became  almost 
world-wide.  Claims  we  arranged  with  Brazil,  Chili,  Great 
Britain,  Guatemala,  Hayti,  Peru,  Russia,  Salvador,  and 
Venezuela.  These  were  all  submitted  to  some  form  of  ar- 
bitration. 

Although  our  ocean  merchant  marine  remained  relatively 
small,  we  took  no  steps  to  improve  it  that  involved  our  rela- 
tions with  other  countries.  The  era  of  maritime  Merchant 
discrimination,  except  in  regard  to  coasting  °^*"°® 
trade,  had  passed.  For  the  maintenance  of  their  commercial 
flags  at  sea,  nations  had  come  to  rely  on  subsidies  and  on 
the  creation  of  conditions  favorable  to  ship-building  and  em- 
ployment. Congress  was  continually  and  earnestly  urged 
to  adopt  a  subsidy  policy,  but  refused  to  do  so.  Such  legis- 
lation as  was  adopted  from  time  to  time  rather  repressed 
than  encouraged  the  development  of  a  marine  under  our  flag. 
The  laws  concerning  the  registration  of  vessels,  granting 
the  right  to  carry  the  American  flag,  made  it  difficult  to 
register  foreign  built  vessels,  the  intention  being  to  encourage 


470  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

domestic  ship-building.  The  various  tariffs,  however,  by 
protecting  the  materials  for  ship-building,  increased  its 
cost.  While  thus  making  American  built  ships  more  costly, 
the  government  was  not  able  to  afford  them  compensating 
protection,  for  the  competition  of  the  ocean  marine  is  in- 
ternational, and  equality  is  the  most  that  can  be  obtained 
by  international  agreement.  It  was  hoped  that  the  tariff 
law  of  1913  would  remove  some  of  the  disadvantages  under 
which  we  labored,  but  conditions  since  its  passage  have  been 
so  unusual  as  to  render  it  impossible  to  estimate  its  effect. 
The  outbreak  of  the  great  war  of  1914,  therefore,  found  us  in 
the  position  that  Jefferson  described  in  his  report  of  1793; 
chiefly  dependent  for  our  foreign  intercourse  upon  the 
marines  of  warring  foreign  nations.  The  situation  thus 
created  led  to  a  widespread  interest  in  the  problem,  from 
which  some  consistent  and  effective  national  policy  may 
result.  Already  (March,  1915)  the  opening  of  American 
registry  to  foreign  built  vessels  has  brought  us  half  a  million 
tons  of  shipping.  President  Wilson's  proposal  for  a  nation- 
owned  marine  suggests  interesting  possibilities. 

The  attempt  to  create  openings  for  our  commerce  was  con- 
stant and  more  successful.     In  1903  a  special  reciprocity 

.      .  treaty  was  made  with  Cuba.   The  Dingley  tariff 

act  of  1897,  authorized  the  President  to  negoti- 
ate, within  two  years,  reciprocity  treaties  providing  for  a 
twenty  per  cent  reduction  of  duties,  such  agreement  to  be 
subject  in  every  case  to  the  ratification  of  the  Senate  and  the 
approval  of  Congress.  J.  A.  Kasson  was  appointed  special 
commissioner  to  secure  such  treaties,  and  obtained  them 
with  Great  Britain  in  behalf  of  Barbadoes,  Bermuda,  British 
Guiana,  Turk  island  and  Caicos,  and  Jamaica,  also  with 
the  Argentine  Republic,  France,  the  Dominican  Republic, 
Ecuador,  and  Denmark.  Although  Senator  Cullom,  chair- 
man of  the  senate  committee  on  foreign  affairs,  strongly 
urged  that  the  treaties  should  go  into  effect  immediately 
upon  their  ratification  by  the  Senate,  that  view  was  not 


ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  471 

pressed,  and  at  the  suggestion  of  Senator  Spooner  each  of 
them  was  amended  by  the  addition  of  the  clause  "not  to 
take  effect  until  the  same  shall  have  been  approved  by  the 
Congress."  This  admission  of  the  power  of  Congress  as  a 
whole  in  these  particular  cases  left  open  the  general  ques- 
tion of  the  rights  of  the  President  and  Senate  to  make  such 
treaties.  Under  these  circumstances,  only  the  treaty  with 
France  was  accepted,  in  1898,  with  an  amendment  in  1902.^ 

In  addition,  the  Dingley  act  gave  the  President  power  to 
apply  by  proclamation  varying  fixed  minimum  and  maxi- 
mum tariffs  to  different  countries  according    Maximiun  and 

to  their  treatment  of  us.    This  measure  proved    niinimum 

.  .  rates 

to  be  a  powerful  weapon  in  preventing  retalia- 
tory and  discriminating  tariffs.  It  became  the  constant 
business  of  our  diplomats  to  watch  the  commercial  policies 
of  foreign  governments,  and  with  the  threat  of  high  or  the 
offer  of  low  rates  to  secure  favorable  treatment  for  our 
merchants.  Such  agreements  were  made  in  1900  with  Italy, 
Germany,  and  Portugal,  and  in  1902  an  additional  one  was 
arranged  with  Portugal;  in  1906  one  was  made  with  Spain 
and  a  substitute  one  with  Germany;  and  in  1908  the  treaty 
with  France  was  supplemented  by  such  an  agreement.  In 
1906  the  President,  without  formal  compact,  but  in  con- 
sideration of  tariff  changes  in  Switzerland,  proclaimed  a 
low  rate  on  our  imports  of  her  products.  With  the  passage 
of  the  Payne-Aldrich  tariff  act  in  1909,  all  these  agreements 
fell.  A  similar  minimum  and  maximum  provision  in  the  latter 
act,  however,  afforded  opportunity  for  similar  agreements, 
and  a  tariff  mission  was  able  promptly  to  make  arrangements 
with  most  of  the  countries  with  which  we  trade  heavily. 
These  again  ceased  to  be  of  force  with  the  passage  of  the 
Underwood  tariff  of  1913,  which  nevertheless  authorized 
the  President  "to  negotiate  trade  agreements  with  foreign 
nations,"  providing  for  mutual  concessions  "looking  toward 
free  trade  relations  and  further  reciprocal  expansion  of  trade 
^  S.  M.  Cullom,  Fifty  Years  of  Public  Service,  Chicago,  1911. 


472  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

and  commerce."  These  are  to  be  ratified  in  each  case  by 
both  houses  of  Congress. 

It  was  only  natural  that,  with  our  new  and  wider  interna- 
tional relationships  and  the  constant  progress  of  international 
International  agreement,  the  scope  of  our  international  acts 
agreements  should  expand  also.  In  1898  we  adopted 
as  a  modus  vivendi  during  our  war  with  Spain,  articles  re- 
lating to  the  conduct  of  hostilities  drawn  up  at  a  Geneva 
convention  of  1864.  In  1899  we  adhered  to  a  Convention 
regulating  the  Importation  of  Spirituous  Liquors  into  Africa, 
and  in  1906  to  a  new  agreement  on  the  same  subject.  In 
1900  we  were  parties  to  an  additional  Act  for  the  Protection 
of  Industrial  Property,  in  1902  to  a  Convention  on  Literary 
and  Artistic  Copyrights,  in  1903  to  an  International  Sani- 
tary Convention.  In  1902  we  united  with  most  of  the 
American  powers  in  a  Convention  for  the  Arbitration  of 
Pecuniary  Claims,  and  in  1905  in  an  International  Sanitary 
Convention  of  which  the  other  signatories  were  Central 
and  South  American  states.  In  1904  we  joined  in  an  inter- 
national exemption  of  hospital  ships  from  the  payment  of 
dues.  In  1905  we  shared  in  the  establishment  of  an  Inter- 
national Institute  of  Agriculture  at  Rome,  of  which  the  first 
director  was  an  American.  In  1906  we  were  signatory  to  an 
International  Red  Cross  Convention  for  the  amelioration 
of  the  condition  of  the  wounded  of  the  armies  in  the  field, 
in  the  same  year  to  an  agreement  for  the  unification  of  the 
Pharmacopoeial  Formulas  for  Potent  Drugs,  and  in  1907 
to  the  establishment  of  an  International  Office  of  Public 
Health. 

During  the  whole  of  this  period  one  of  the  most  absorbing 
subjects  of  our  diplomacy,  as  well  as  of  popular  interest 
Peace  move-  in  diplomacy,  was  the  movement  for  the  im- 
™®°*  provement  of  the  conditions  of  war  and  for  the 

customary  settlement  of  international  disputes  by  judicial 
process.  Arbitration  in  special  cases  has  been  a  historic  policy 
of  the  United  States.    Blaine's  attempt  to  establish  it  as  a 


ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  473 

general  practice  for  all  America  showed,  as  did  so  many  of 
his  policies,  a  premonition  of  the  coming  movement.  In 
the  period  following  the  Spanish  war  many  of  our  leaders 
welcomed  it  with  enthusiasm.  President  Roosevelt  endorsed 
it,  and  Secretaries  Hay,  Root,  and  Bryan,  as  well  as  President 
Taft,  made  it  a  leading  purpose.  The  education  of  public 
sentiment  in  the  direction  of  universal  peace  was  organized 
on  a  colossal  scale  as  a  result  of  the  munificence  of  Andrew 
Carnegie  and  Edwin  Ginn,  and  of  the  activity  of  A.  K. 
Smiley,  who  since  1882  has  called  the  believers  in  peace  to  an- 
nual conferences  at  Lake  Mohonk.  The  pressure  of  always- 
impending  war  in  Spanish  America,  however,  excited  those 
countries  to  a  somewhat  earlier  application  of  arbitration 
as  a  general  practice,  and  the  tremendous  cost  of  war  ar- 
maments in  Europe,  combined  with  the  militant  patriotism 
of  its  great  powers,  have  given  the  question  a  greater  popular 
vitality  there  than  with  us. 

The  first  important  step  in  the  direction  of  peace  was  the 
calling  by  the  Czar  of  the  first  Hague  conference,  which  met 
in  1899.  This  body  adopted  certain  principles  Hague  con- 
to  govern  the  conduct  of  war  on  land  and  sea,  *«rences 
and  established  a  permanent  court  of  arbitration  to  sit  at  the 
Hague.  The  second  conference,  held  in  1907,  adopted  addi- 
tional rules  with  regard  to  the  conduct  of  war,  reorganized 
the  court,  and  declared  the  principle  that  the  contract  debts 
of  one  government  to  another  should  not  be  collected  by 
force.  Andrew  Carnegie  gave  funds  for  the  building  of  a 
palace  for  the  work  of  the  court,  to  the  furnishing  of  which 
various  nations  presented  evidences  of  their  regard  for 
peace.  ^ 

The  formation  of  a  permanent  court  stimulated  the  resort 

to  arbitration.    The  United  States  joined  in  sending  many 

^  W.  I.  Hull,  The  Two  Hague  Conferences,  Boston,  1908;  Moore,  American 
Diplomacy,  ch.  viii.;  J.  W.  Foster,  Arbitration  and  the  Hague  Court,  Boston, 
1904;  Lake  Mohonk  Conference  on  International  Arbitration,  Reports,  1895, 
etc.,  Assoc,  for  International  Conciliation,  International  Conciliation,  1907, 
etc.  (issued  monthly). 


474  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

cases  to  it,  particularly  its  long-standing  claim  against  Mexico 
for  the  "Pious  fund,"  and  suggested  the  court  as  a  recourse 
General  ar-  agreeable  to  us  for  the  settlement  of  Spanish- 
bitration  American    disputes    with    European    powers. 

More  important  was  the  impetus  which  it  gave  to  the  adop- 
tion of  general  arbitration  treaties  providing  for  future 
cases.  In  1902  Spain  and  Mexico  made  a  ten-year  agree- 
ment for  compulsory  reference  to  The  Hague;  in  1903  France 
and  Great  Britain  made  a  similar  but  less  comprehensive 
treaty;  in  1907  the  Hague  Conference  drafted  a  model  or 
"mondial"  treaty  form  for  general  adoption. 

These  provided  that  all  differences  of  a  legal  nature  as 
well  as  all  those  relating  to  the  interpretation  of  treaties. 
The  model  which  could  not  be  settled  by  diplomacy,  and 
treaties  which    did    not    affect    vital    interests,   inde- 

pendence, or  honor,  should  be  referred  to  the  Hague  Court. 
This  reference  was  not  to  be  automatic,  but  every  dis- 
pute which  arose  between  the  contracting  nations  was  to  be 
made  the  subject  of  a  special  protocol  or  agreement.  The 
point  gained  for  judicial  settlement,  was  that  the  contracting 
nations  bound  themselves  to  make  such  arrangements.  Each 
treaty  itself  was  to  be  of  five  years'  duration.  It  was  a  very 
tentative  step,  but  it  was  hoped  that  if  generally  accepted,  it 
would  land  mankind  somewhat  nearer  the  goal  of  universal 
peace.  Secretary  Hay  concluded  treaties  in  general  accord 
with  this  model  with  a  number  of  nations,  and  President 
Roosevelt  referred  them  to  the  Senate. 

In  that  body  there  was  general  approval,  tempered  by 
fear  that  they  might  lead  to  cases  involving  the  bonds  which 
Attitude  of  have  been  repudiated  by  a  number  of  our  states. 
Senate  rpj^^  Senate  was  also  alarmed  because  no  pro- 

vision was  made  that  the  special  protocols  in  each  case  should 
be  submitted  to  it  for  approval.  If  all  such  international 
disputes  were  simply  to  be  sent  by  the  President  to  the  Hague, 
the  prestige  of  the  Senate  would  be  decidedly  diminished. 
President  Roosevelt  wrote  Senator  Cullom,  chairman  of  the 


ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  475 

committee  on  foreign  affairs,  that  it  was  "absurd  and  prob- 
ably mischievous  to  treat "  the  question  of  state  debts  "  as 
possible  to  be  raised."  On  the  subject  of  reference,  however, 
both  he  and  Hay  were  emphatic  that  it  was  intended  to 
be  kept  in  the  hands  of  the  President,  and  that  it  should  be 
kept  there;  whereupon  the  Senate  straightway  amended  the 
treaties  by  substituting  the  word  "treaty"  for  "special 
agreement,"  thus  removing  the  doubt  and  keeping  the  matter 
in  its  own  hands.^ 

President  Roosevelt  was  so  deeply  incensed  at  this  action 
that  he  refused  to  go  on  with  the  treaties.  Secretary  Root, 
however,  who  had  the  subject  much  at  heart  Acceptance  of 
renewed  the  project  and  secured  a  large  number  *^®  treaties 
in  the  amended  form.  In  1908  and  1909  we  made  them  with 
Austria-Hungary,  China,  Costa  Rica,  Denmark,  France, 
Great  Britain,  Hayti,  Italy,  Japan,  Mexico,  the  Netherlands, 
Norway,  Paraguay,  Peru,  Portugal,  Salvador,  Spain,  Sweden, 
and  Switzerland. 

In  1913  Secretary  Bryan  sought  to  extend  the  scope  of 
arbitration  still  farther  by  carrying  out  one  of  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  second  Hague  conference     ^ 
,      ,  .  ,  ri         'f  •        e  Bryan's  policy 

lookmg  to  the  postponement  of  hostilities,  from 

whatever  cause,  pending  an  investigation  of  the  facts.  This 
suggestion,  reminding  one  of  the  "pause  twenty  minutes 
before  you  spank"  principle,  which  has  done  so  much  to 
reduce  the  corporal  punishment  of  children,  would  help 
oflfset  the  exciting  effect  of  the  telegraph  and  the  cable,  which 
have  enabled  the  popular  excitement  in  two  countries  to 
react  so  quickly  and  so  constantly.  Secretary  Bryan's  pro- 
posal met  with  so  prompt  a  response  from  most  of  the  coim- 
tries  with  which  we  have  habitual  dealings,  that  in  the  summer 
of  1914  twenty  such  treaties  were  submitted  to  the  Senate. 
The  years  from  1898  to  1913  may  be  regarded  as  a  period 
by  themselves,  partly  because  of  the  continuity  of  personnel 
in  the  diplomatic  staff,  and  partly  from  the  fact  that  prac- 
*  Cullom,  Fifty  Years  of  Public  Service. 


476  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

tically  all  terminable  diflSculties  had  been  settled  by  the  latter 
year.  It  was  a  period  replete  with  new  policies  and  with 
Period  1898  the  development  of  old  ones  to  suit  new  con- 
to  1913  ditions,  and  over  the  whole  period  hung  the  un- 
certainty as  to  whether,  should  the  opposing  party  come  to 
power,  these  new  departures  would  be  confirmed,  or  dropped 
or  changed.  The  administration  of  President  Wilson  does 
indeed  bid  fair  to  mark  a  turning  point  in  international  rela- 
tionships, and  to  usher  in  a  new  period.  Mainly,  however, 
this  diplomatic  change  has  been  the  result  of  new  factors 
introduced  from  the  outside,  of  the  great  calamity  of  the 
present  (1915)  world  war.  The  situation  has  altered,  but 
American  policy  has  remained  comparatively  unchanged. 
The  traditional  American  policies  have  been  maintained  and 
the  most  of  the  new  ideas  introduced  under  McKinley, 
Roosevelt,  and  Taft,  having  been  endorsed  by  the  opposing 
party,  are  in  fair  way  to  become  traditions.  Those  few  which 
were  reversed,  as  Secretary  Knox's  "  dollar  diplomacy  "  may 
be  considered  as  still  subjects  of  domestic  controversy. 

In  many  respects  the  outstanding  feature  of  this  period  was, 
as  for  that  from  1815  to  1829,  the  clearing  of  the  board  of  minor 
Routine  and  questions  of  all  kinds, — ^boundaries,  fisheries,  cit- 
commerce  izenship,  claims,  and  treaty  interpretations, — 

some  of  them  old  problems,  some  new,  but  all  interfering 
with  cordial  international  relationships.  Never  before  had 
we  been  quite  so  free  from  such  food  for  quarrelling  as  we 
were  by  1913.  In  this  period,  as  in  all  others,  diplomacy 
sought  to  aid  commerce,  its  attempts  were  perhaps  somewhat 
more  positive  than  before,  but  were  of  such  a  character 
that  it  is  difficult  to  estimate  their  effect. 

Much  more  spectacular  was  the  expansion  of  territory. 
The  new  acquisitions  were  more  remarkable  for  the  novelty 
Expansion  of  of  their  characteristics  than  for  their  extent, 
temtory  -poT  the  first  time  we  violated  Jefferson's  in- 

junction to  make  no  annexations  that  would  require  a  navy 
for  their  defense.    In  the  case  of  the  Philippines  there  was 


ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  477 

the  further  novelty  that  we  professed  an  intention  of  holding 
them  only  until  they  should  be  ready  for  independence. 
In  reality  far  more  important  than  the  exten-  Expansion  of 
sion  of  our  dominions  was  our  entrance  into  "^"•'^ce 
the  diplomacy  of  eastern  Asia.  Although  still  avoiding  en- 
tangling alliances,  we  nevertheless  engaged  in  the  problems 
of  the  Far  East  as  an  equal  participant  with  the  great  powers 
of  Europe.  Our  purposes  were  limited  to  the  preservation  of 
the  integrity  of  China  and  the  open  door  for  trade,  ideas  that 
appealed  to  the  ideals  of  our  own  people,  and  were  calculated 
to  command  the  acquiescence  if  not  the  heartfelt  approval 
of  foreign  nations.  At  the  same  time  we  cordially  cooperated 
with  other  nations  in  general  measures  for  the  protection  of 
commerce,  for  the  peaceful  settlement  of  international  dis- 
putes, and  for  the  humane  conduct  of  war,  if  war  must  be. 

Our  most  striking  single  achievement  was  the  settlement 
on  a  new  basis,  in  accordance  with  our  changed  opinion, 
of  the  status  of  isthmian  transit.  Although  isthmian 
this  determination  of  the  question  has  proved  P^^^y 
its  worth  by  allowing  the  actual  construction  of  the  long- 
planned  canal,  it  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  diplomatically 
satisfactory,  or  as  likely  to  withstand  the  strain  of  a  war  to 
which  we  ourselves  should  be  a  party.  In  connection  with 
the  canal  we  have  developed  a  distinct  Caribbean  policy, 
which  has  not  been  thoroughly  differentiated  from  what  we 
call  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  but  which  is  actually  different. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  itself  has  continued  its  growth  by 
accretion;  even  more  than  the  Constitution  has  it  been 
adjusted  to  meet  new  wants,  while  preserving    p     ■  .  < 

the  sanctity  of  an  established  and  revered  the  Monroe 
name.  Although  monarchy  and  republicanism 
cease  to  stand  in  such  striking  opposition  as  they  did  in 
1823,  the  European  system  of  alliances  and  balance  of  power 
is  still  a  real  something  which  we  wish  to  avoid,  and  have 
thus  far  successfully  avoided.  Though  our  relations  have 
grown,  and  will  continue  to  grow,  increasingly  intimate. 


478  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

we  have  not  become  a  part  of  the  European  system.  It  is, 
however,  still  a  possibility,  as  it  was  in  1823,  that  we  may 
by  our  own  action  or  by  the  force  of  circumstances,  become 
a  member  of  it.  It  is  still  the  wish  of  some  European  states- 
men that  this  may  become  the  case,  and  some  Americans  are 
not  adverse  to  the  idea.  The  fact  that  for  ninety  years, 
ever  since  our  declaration  against  further  colonization,  there 
has  been  no  establishment  of  new  European  colonies  in 
America  decidedly  strengthens  our  continued  insistence  on 
that  point.  On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  in  the  same 
ninety  years  the  only  colonies  in  America  from  which  Euro- 
pean authority  has  been  removed  are  Alaska,  Cuba,  and 
Porto  Rico  somewhat  deadens  the  force  of  Secretary  Olney's 
declaration  that  all  the  colonies  are  destined  to  break  off 
their  dependence.  Fortunately  he  set  no  date.  If  any  new 
case  should  occur,  we  should  probably  still  maintain  the 
position  announced  by  Polk  in  the  case  of  Yucatan,  that  we 
could  not  with  equanimity  see  even  the  voluntary  passing 
of  any  American  territory  under  European  jurisdiction; 
and  probably,  we  should  also  hold  the  position  taken  by 
Grant,  that  we  should  object  to  the  transfer  of  any  colony 
from  one  European  power  to  another,  at  least  where  such 
transfer  was  likely  to  change  the  status  of  American  affairs. 
The  development  of  an  American  unity  to  confront  the  dual- 
ity of  Europe,  which  Adams  and  Clay  planned,  which  Blaine 
did  so  much  to  promote,  was  pressed  in  this  period  with 
vigor  and  with  some  success,  but  must  be  held  to  be  a  long 
way  from  accomplishment.  Our  American  policy  is  still 
the  policy  of  the  United  States. 

The  most  important  new  features  or  corollaries  of  our 
policy  were  our  announcements  that,  with  a  view  to  reducing 
New  corol-  the  opportunity  for  European  interference, 
Monroe**  *®  we  were  willing,  by  mediation,  advice,  guardian- 
Doctrine  ship,  and  practical  protectorates,  to  insure  the 
carrying  out  by  American  governments  of  their  general 
obligations  to  Europeans.    To  what  extent  we  are  ready  to 


ROUTINE  AND  ARBITRATION  479 

push  this  supervision  is  a  matter  to  be  determined  in  each 
case,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  we  would  go  farther 
within  the  region  of  our  special  interest,  the  Caribbean, 
than  elsewhere.  It  is  significant  that  the  new  corollary  of 
the  Wilson  administration,  to  the  effect  that  we  will  recognize 
only  governments  founded  on  justice  and  law,  was  not 
apphed  in  the  case  of  Peru,  where  a  military  government 
was  promptly  recognized  at  the  very  time  when  we  were 
protesting  against  the  government  of  Huerta  in  Mexico. 


CHAPTER   XXXIV 
MEXICO 

When  Woodrow  Wilson  became  President,  March  4, 1913, 
he  found  himself  in  a  position  somewhat  similar  to  that  of 
Wflson  ad-  JefiFerson  in  1801,  of  Jackson  in  1829,  and  of 
ministration  Lincohi  m  1861.  Most  of  the  diplomatic 
problems  of  the  time  had  been  set  at  rest,  and  pol- 
icies for  dealing  with  routine  affairs  had  been  adopted 
and  were  running  smoothly.  He  called  to  the  position  of 
secretary  of  state  William  Jennings  Bryan,  who,  being  with- 
out experience  in  matters  of  state,  would  naturally  be  ex- 
pected to  be  chiefly  interested  in  the  general  politics  of 
the  administration.  In  selecting  John  Bassett  Moore  as 
counsellor  of  the  state  department,  however,  he  secured  the 
promise  of  sound  judgment  and  continuity  of  action.^ 

Wilson  at  once  reversed  one  policy  of  the  previous  admin- 
istration by  withdrawing  the  assistance  of  diplomacy  to 
Change  of  Americans  seeking  concessions  in  China,  and 

policy  announced  a  new  extension  of  the  Monroe 

Doctrine  by  opposing  concessions  to  foreign  corporations 
by  American  nations.  The  second  of  these  new  departures 
promised  to  make  up  to  the  state  department  the  loss  of 
labor  which  the  first  might  cause.  Of  the  three  unsettled 
and  exciting  questions  left  to  him,  two  were  the  dispute  with 
Great  Britain  concerning  the  canal  toll,  and  that  relating 
to  the  position  of  Japanese  residents  in  this  country.  Both 
these  matters  he  endeavored  to  settle  by  domestic  action. 
In  the  interest  of  the  second  one.  Secretary  Bryan  visited 
California  and  attempted  to  forestall  action  by  her  legis- 
lature, but  this  attempt  failed,  and  the  controversy  con- 
^  Resigned  March  4,  1914. 
480 


MEXICO  481 

tinues.  In  the  matter  of  tolls,  the  President  recommended 
Congress  to  revoke  its  action.  This  it  did,  and  that  question 
has  vanished. 

The  third  and  most  important  problem  was  that  of  Mexico. 
Contiguous,  within  the  range  of  our  Caribbean  policy, 
and  powerful,  Mexico  had  always  demanded  Relations  with 
a  large  share  of  our  diplomatic  attention.  To  M«^<^o 
these  causes  of  interest  have  usually  been  added  those  arising 
from  her  internal  disorder;  but  that  factor  had  come  to 
be  excluded  from  our  consideration  during  the  long  presi- 
dency of  Porfirio  Diaz,  which  had  given  a  peace  that  seemed 
established.  The  intimacy  of  our  relationship  is  indicated 
by  forty  agreements,  treaties,  and  conventions  made  in  the 
forty  years  between  1868  and  1908.  These  included,  besides 
the  usual  subjects  of  international  negotiation,  arrangements 
with  regard  to  boundary,  the  pursuit  of  Indians,  provision 
for  the  navigation  of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  the  equitable  dis- 
tribution of  the  waters  of  that  river.  The  agreements  finally 
culminated  in  a  general  treaty  of  arbitration  and  the  meeting 
of  Taft  and  Diaz  in  1910. 

While  the  governments  were  thus  intimate,  and  in  general 

friendly,  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  were  infiltrating 

Mexico.     This  infiltration,  however,  was  dif-    ^     . 

Foreign    in- 

f erent  from  that  which  Alaman  saw  and  feared  tei;ests  in 
in  Texas,  it  was  most  largely  an  infiltration  of  *"*^ 
capital.  Peace  had  opened  up  enormous  possibilities  of 
development,  for  which  Mexico  could  furnish  the  oppor- 
tunity and  the  labor,  but  not  the  accumulated  capital  nec- 
essary to  combine  the  two.  The  rewards  promised  to  capital 
were  correspondingly  great  and  it  was  furnished  in  large 
amounts.  Mining  companies  and  railroad  corporations 
invested  enormous  sums,  and  ranching  companies,  rub- 
ber plantation  companies,  and  municipal  utility  companies 
scattered  their  shares  broadcast.  Private  individuals  en- 
gaged in  great  undertakings,  and  to  hasten  development 
the  Mexican  government  itself  borrowed  heavily.    This  cap- 


482  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ital  came  from  all  the  investing  countries  of  the  world,  but 
chiefly  from  the  United  States.  In  1912,  President  Taft  esti- 
mated that  a  billion  dollars  had  been  invested  by  Americans. 

This  capital  did  not  go  unaccompanied.  It  sent  its  rep- 
resentatives to  Mexico,  and  in  addition,  organizing  ability 
p     .  and  expert  service  were  needed.     Thousands 

population  in  of  Americans,  with  many  English,  French, 
and  Germans,  found  employment  there.  Span- 
iards continued,  as  always,  to  be  numerous.  Although  the 
foreign  colony  at  the  City  of  Mexico  was  large,  the  majority 
of  these  foreigners  were  not  to  be  found  in  compact  settle- 
ments, but  scattered  about  the  country,  managing  mines, 
ranches,  and  plantations,  and  living  in  the  midst  of  a  pop- 
ulation overwhelmingly  native.  The  one  important  excep- 
tion was  an  agricultural  colony  of  American  Mormons  in 
the  north. 

When,  therefore,  in  November,  1910,  Francisco  Madero 
inaugurated  a  revolution,  the  event  became  at  once  a  matter 
Revolution  of  of  high  concern  for  the  United  States  and  for 
Madero  other  foreign  powers.     While  France,  Spain, 

Germany,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States  were  all 
interested  in  the  protection  of  the  lives  and  property  of  their 
citizens,  the  United  States  was  additionally  disturbed  over 
the  relation  of  the  revolt  to  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  as  well  as 
over  the  possibility  of  frontier  disturbances.  The  latter 
question  was  the  more  immediately  alarming,  as  the  revolu- 
tion was  to  some  extent  sectional  in  character  and  in  the 
beginning  was  localized  in  the  north,  the  strategic  points 
being  those  at  which  the  railroads  ran  out  of  Mexico 
into  United  States  territory.  Juarez,  Porfirio  Diaz,  and 
Larado  ultimately  became  the  scene  of  fighting,  and  stray 
bullets  sometimes  crossed  the  frontier  and  killed  Americans 
upon  American  soil.  In  March,  1911,  therefore,  President 
Taft  ordered  the  mobilization  of  twenty  thousand  United 
States  troops  on  the  frontier,  with  a  fleet  at  Galveston.  The 
rumors  that  these  forces  were  intended  to  take  part  in  a 


MEXICO  483 

forcible  intervention,  however,  Secretary  Knox  dismissed  as 
"foolish  stories."  We  did,  in  point  of  fact  preserve  our 
neutrality  according  to  our  customary  principles. 

The  speedy  collapse  of  the  Diaz  government  was  a  sur- 
prise to  most  Americans,  who  were  unaware  of  the  general 
unrest  and  dissatisfaction  which  his  failure  to  Madero's 
broaden  the  limits  of  popular  government  and  s"<=<^®8^ 
relieve  the  distress  of  the  agricultural  laborers  had  excited. 
While  those  with  financial  interests  in  Mexico  regretted  the 
passing  of  a  government  apparently  strong  and  sympathetic 
with  their  aims,  the  general  pubUc  in  America  came  to  sym- 
pathize with  Madero,  as  the  press  spread  the  complaints  of  the 
revolutionists.  There  was,  therefore,  general  satisfaction  in 
the  United  States  when,  in  May,  1911,  Diaz  resigned  and  left 
the  country  and,  in  October,  Madero  was  elected  president. 

The  government  of  the  latter  was  at  once  recognized,  but 
was  never  able  to  establish  peace.  Even  in  1911  the  United 
States  warned  him  that  fighting  was  not  to  United  States 
take  place  where  American  lives  and  property  *°*^  Madero 
would  be  endangered;  and  our  army  was  kept  ready  for 
action.  Nevertheless,  while  favoring  the  new  government, 
we  preserved  strict  neutrality,  and  in  1912  Congress  took  an 
additional  step  in  the  development  of  our  neutral  system  by 
the  passage  of  an  act  authorizing  the  President,  whenever 
he  should  "find  that  in  any  American  country  conditions  of 
domestic  violence  exist  which  are  promoted  by  the  use  of 
arms  and  munitions  of  war  procured  fromthe  United  States," 
to  prohibit  trade  in  such  articles.  Taft  acted  at  once  upon 
this  authority,  but  he  exempted  purchases  by  the  govern- 
ment of  Madero. 

In  February,  1913,  however,  Madero  was  overthrown  by 
Felix  Diaz  and  General  Huerta.  Madero  and  his  vice- 
president,  Suarez,  were  killed  under  circum-  Revolution  of 
stances  which  strongly  indicated  official  assas-  ^"®^** 
sination,  and  on  February  27  Huerta  was  proclaimed  presi- 
dent.    His  authority  was  at  once  rejected  by  Governor 


484  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Carranza  of  the  state  of  Coahuila,  who  denied  its  constitu- 
tionaUty  and  insisted  upon  a  return  to  the  governmental 
methods  prescribed  by  the  constitution. 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  Wilson  became 
President  and  undertook  the  management  of  the  problem. 
Wilson  and  Before  his  policy  was  developed.  Great  Britain, 
Huerta  ^j^  jyj^y  3^  ^nd  France,  Germany,  and  other 

countries  in  quick  succession,  recognized  Huerta.  This 
Wilson  refused  to  do,  and  in  explaining  his  action  he  formu- 
lated a  new  policy  which  remains  the  latest  extension  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  His  purpose  was  to  use  non-recognition 
as  a  means  of  discouraging  the  establishment  of  governments 
in  Spanish  America  that  were  based  on  violence,  and  on  vio- 
lation of  the  constitution  of  the  country  involved  and  of  the 
laws  of  morality.  "We  dare  not,"  he  declared,  "turn  from 
the  principle  that  morality  and  not  expediency  is  the  thing 
that  is  to  guide  us  and  that  we  will  never  condone  iniquity 
because  it  is  most  convenient  to  do  so."  This  is  a  departure 
from  our  traditional  policy  of  recognizing  de  facto  govern- 
ments, although  there  exists  one  precedent  in  the  threat  of 
the  Roosevelt  administration  not  to  acknowledge  a  revolu- 
tionary leader  in  the  Dominican  Republic  even  if  he  suc- 
ceeded. Our  practical  protectorate  over  that  country, 
however,  together  with  its  size,  constituted  important 
diflFerences. 

President  Wilson's  attitude  of  non-recognition  is  by  all 

odds  the  most  aggressive  turn  that  has  ever  been  given  to 

_.       J.       -      our  Spanish-American  policy,  as  it  involves 

"  non-recogni-  practical  intervention  in  the  domestic  affairs 
tion  " 

of   those   republics.     To   ascertain   the  facts 

obviously  means  investigation.     In  actual  operation  the 

force  created  by  such  a  policy  of  non-recognition  consists  in 

the  lack  of  stability  which  it  gives  to  the  government  under 

our  disapprobation,  and  the  consequent  inability  of  the  latter 

to  borrow  money.     It  is  plainly  President  Wilson's  belief 

that  a  government  not  founded  on  the  popular  will  consti- 


MEXICO  485 

tutionally  expressed,  and  without  our  recognition,  is  a  house 
built  upon  the  sands.  Should  such  a  government  establish 
itself,  however,  the  situation  might  be  inconvenient. 

In  accordance  with  this  policy,  Wilson  in  August,  1913, 
sent  a  special  but  informal  agent,  John  Lind,  to  convey  his 
terms  to  Huerta.  These  were  immediate  "Watchful 
amnesty,  security  for  an  early  and  a  free  elec-  ^*^**^ 
tion,  and  the  assurance  that  Huerta  would  not  be  candidate 
for  the  presidency  and  that  all  parties  would  agree  to  abide 
by  the  results.  These  terms  were  rejected;  when,  therefore, 
on  October  9,  1913,  Huerta  "purged"  the  Mexican  Congress 
by  imprisoning  over  a  hundred  of  its  members,  Wilson  in- 
formed him  that  the  United  States  would  not  accept  the 
result  of  the  election  which  was  soon  to  be  held.  Already 
in  August  the  United  States  had  warned  Americans  to  leave 
Mexico,  the  administration  had  sent  war-vessels  to  assist 
their  departure,  and  Congress  had  appropriated  money  for 
the  same  purpose.  On  December  2,  the  President  informed 
Congress  that  his  policy  was  one  of  "watchful  waiting." 
Hoping  for  the  success  of  the  insurrectionists,  he  soon  after- 
ward withdrew  the  embargo  on  arms. 

Meantime  the  administration  vigorously,  and  with  some 

degree  of  success,  held  both  the  Huerta  government  and  the 

insurrectionists  to  a  respect  for  the  lives  and     ~.  ^   ^       . 
^  Protection  of 

property  of  Americans.  It  could  not,  however,  life  and 
insist  on  restitution  and  indemnity,  since 
there  was  no  recognized  government  to  approach  on  these 
subjects.  The  powers  of  Europe,  having  recognized  Huerta, 
were  in  a  different  position,  and  it  was  feared  that  they 
might  pursue  a  different  policy.  This  fear  was  in  part  re- 
moved by  a  speech  of  Prime  Minister  Asquith,  on  Novem- 
ber 10,  1913,  in  which  he  announced  that,  so  far  as  Great 
Britain  was  concerned,  there  was  "not  a  vestige  of  founda- 
tion for  such  a  rumor;"  and  other  nations  assured  the 
administration  of  their  intention  to  respect  American 
policy. 


486  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Nevertheless,  the  presence  of  British,  German,  and  French 
war-vessels  on  the  Mexican  coast  created  alarm  lest  they 

T,  ..  ^  ox  X  should  feel  called  upon  to  land  troops  to  pro- 
Umted   States  ,     .       .  .  „  „  ,     . 

and  European  tect  their  citizens.  Senator  Bacon,  chairman 
powerg  ^£  ^j^^  Senate  committee  on  foreign  affairs, 

admitted  that  we  could  not  deny  their  right  to  do  so,  but 
said  he  considered  "it  far  better  that  a  request  be  made  to 
the  United  States  to  land  marines  "  when  protection  was 
necessary,  "so  as  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  the  slightest 
conflict  between  the  United  States  and  the  European  Pow- 
ers." The  killing  of  Benton,  an  Englishman,  by  the  rev- 
olutionary forces  of  General  Villa  in  March,  1914,  brought 
this  question  of  protection  to  a  head.  Secretary  Bryan  as- 
serted that,  since  Great  Britain,  having  recognized  Huerta 
and  not  recognized  belligerency,  could  in  no  way  treat  with 
the  Constitutionalists,  and  yet  could  not  be  expected  to  let 
the  matter  pass  unnoticed,  we  should  be  allowed  to  serve  as 
intermediary,  with  the  understanding,  however,  that  we 
thereby  assumed  no  responsibility.  This  policy  was  acqui- 
esced in  by  both  Great  Britain  and,  after  some  hesitation,  by 
Villa's  superior  oflBcer,  General  Carranza.  Should  another 
case  occur,  therefore,  the  United  States  will  undoubtedly 
handle  it  as  next  friend  of  both  parties. 

The  question  arose  whether  the  condition  in  Mexico  con- 
stituted another  of  the  traditional  opportunities  for  Ameri- 
can expansion.     The  infiltration  of  American 
Expansion  ver-  .     ,  ,      .  . 

8US  annexa-  capital  and  Citizens,  and  the  subsequent  de- 
velopment of  occasions  for  interference,  were 
already  there;  the  governor  of  Texas  encouraged  Texan 
citizens  to  cross  the  frontier  in  self-defence,  the  governor  of 
Oregon  prepared  his  militia  for  war  with  Mexico,  and  a  bill 
for  the  annexation  of  northern  Mexico  was  introduced  into 
Congress.  Even  the  final  symptom,  the  fear  of  the  intrusion 
of  foreign  influence  in  case  we  did  not  intervene,  appeared. 
Japan  had  for  some  time  been  supposed  to  be  seeking  an 
entrance  into  Mexico.     In  1912  the  proposed  purchase  of 


MEXICO  487 

Magdalena  bay  for  a  Japanese  colony  excited  the  Senate 
to  its  adoption  of  Senator  Lodge's  resolution  on  the  subject 
of  concessions  to  a  syndicate  that  might  lead  to  the  establish- 
ment of  a  foreign  power  on  American  territory.  The  send- 
ing of  Felix  Diaz  by  Huerta  on  a  special  mission  to  Japan 
in  1913  seemed  to  confirm  the  suspicion  of  undue  intimacy, 
but  the  refusal  of  that  government  to  receive  him  somewhat 
quieted  our  apprehension.  In  March,  1914,  Senator  Fall  of 
New  Mexico  called  for  immediate  intervention  to  prevent 
Germany  from  taking  action  in  Mexico. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  process  of  expansion  by  the  growth 
of  American  interests  in  foreign  countries  and  the  subse- 
quent adhesion  of  these  countries  to  the  United  States 
seems,  except  in  case  of  Hawaii,  to  have  been  completed  in 
1845.  The  acquisition  of  the  Philippines,  although  it  gave 
evidence  of  our  desire  to  anticipate  other  countries,  was  ex- 
ceptional. It  has  been  the  theory,  moreover,  that  our  occupa- 
tion of  those  islands  is  to  last  only  until  they  shall  obtain  the 
capacity  for  self-government,  an  idea  which  the  Wilson 
administration  has  endeavored  to  make  the  basis  of  its  Philip- 
pine policy.  Alaska  was  an  instance  of  happy  and  largely 
accidental  anticipation;  annexation  promoted  expansion 
rather  than  the  reverse.  Our  other  acquisitions  belong  to 
the  category  of  naval  stations,  and  are  to  be  attributed 
rather  to  our  imperialistic  tendencies  than  to  our  traditional 
expansive  habits. 

In  spite  of  the  dreams  of  a  continental  republic  that 
Seward  reflected,  and  in  spite  of  our  confident  expectations 
of  Cuba,  the  only  settled  portion  of  Spanish     Character  of 
America  that  we  have  secured  is  Porto  Rico.     spii.^sh°°  "^ 
That  island  we  took  possession  of  because  it    America 
was  obviously  foolish  to  have  fought  the  Spanish  war  without 
putting  an  end  to  our  century  and  a  quarter  of  diflSculties 
with  Spain  by  excluding  her,  as  Sumner  said  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, from  the  "hemisphere";  and,  having  taken  it  from  Spain, 
we  could  do  nothing  but  annex  it.    In  no  settled  portion  of 


488 


MEXICO  489 

Spanish  America  have  we  ever  established  a  concentrated 
population,  or  acquired  a  preponderance  of  numbers  or  of  in- 
fluence, or  established  a  likelihood  of  such  a  preponderance; 
nor  has  any  Spanish-American  population  shown  an  inclina- 
tion to  become  incorporated  into  the  United  States.  There 
has  always  been  lacking,  therefore,  that  local  germ  which 
has  been  the  moving  cause  of  annexation  in  each  natural 
case.  Financial  interests  and  the  temporary  residence  of 
our  citizens  in  a  foreign  country  have  never  yet  led  us  to 
acquire  that  country.  Had  Buchanan  taken  northern  Mexico 
in  pledge  for  our  claims  in  1858,  it  is  possible  that  such  a 
germ  might  have  developed  there;  but  the  possibility  of  it 
now  seems  remote. 

It  is  evident  that  we  will  not  allow  Mexico  to  become  the 
seat  of  a  power  threatening  our  control  of  the  Caribbean; 
but  there  is  no  probability  that  we  shall  ever  The  Vera 
receive  from  Mexico,  or  even  from  a  part  of  ^^^  episode 
Mexico,  any  authentic  request  for  annexation,  or  that  we 
shall  in  this  case  depart  from  President  Wilson's  pronounce- 
ment that  "the  United  States  will  never  again  seek  one  foot 
of  territory  by  conquest."  In  fact  the  very  act  which  seemed 
to  Spanish-American  opinion  most  indicative  of  an  intention 
on  our  part  to  conquer  Mexico,  was  turned  by  President 
Wilson  into  the  most  convincing  demonstration  it  has  re- 
ceived of  the  sincerity  of  our  constant  protestation  to  the 
contrary.  While  our  government  refused  to  recognize 
either  Huerta  or  Carranza  as  officially  representative  of 
Mexico,  it  was  in  constant  relationship  with  both.  In  April, 
1914  its  relations  with  Huerta  became  so  strained  that  it 
was  decided  to  undertake  a  military  occupation  of  Vera  Cruz. 
This  was  accomplished  not  without  bloodshed.  Although 
the  administration  announced  that  hostilities  would  not  be 
carried  farther,  the  opinion  was  widespread  that  war  and 
at  least  temporary  conquest  would  result.  The  people  of  the 
United  States  were  strongly  divided  as  to  the  probability 
and  wisdom  of  such  action,  Europe  was  deeply  interested. 


490  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Spanish  America  was  still  more  intensely  aroused,  and  its 
press  and  public  men  were  very  generally  convinced  of  the 
ambitions  of  the  United  States.  In  this  crisis  Argentina, 
Brazil,  and  Chili,  known  as  the  ABC  powers,  offered  their 
mediation.  This  the  Wilson  administration  promptly  ac- 
cepted, subject  to  certain  restrictions,  and  a  conference  was 
The  ABC  arranged  at  Niagara.     The  Mexican  factions 

mediation  showed  themselves  less  amenable  to  suggestion 

than  the  United  States,  and  practically  nothing  was  done 
towards  solving  the  internal  problems  of  Mexico.  The  at- 
titude of  the  United  States,  however,  was  made  clear  to 
Spanish  America,  and  the  subsequent  withdrawal  of  the 
American  troops  from  Vera  Cruz  confirmed  the  impression, 
that  it  was  guided  by  no  motives  of  territorial  aggrandize- 
ment. 

Huerta  soon  fell,  but  the  situation  in  Mexico  did  not  im- 
prove. Villa,  who  had  been  the  leading  lieutenant  of  Car- 
ranza,  revolted;  and  again  the  tide  of  revolution  ran  strong 
from  north  to  south.  The  United  States  continued  to  co- 
operate with  other  American  powers.  In  August,  1915,  a 
Pan-American  conference  met  at  Washington,  which,  after 
much  negotiation  and  several  adjournments,  agreed  to  the 
recognition  of  Carranza,  subject  to  certain  conditions 
Carranza  accepted  and  made  rapid  progress.  Yet  Villa, 
though  defeated,  remained  at  large,  and  in  the  spring  of 
1916  made  an  incursion  into  the  United  States.  He  doubtless 
hoped  to  produce  a  breach  between  Carranza  and  the 
United  States,  and  to  become  a  national  hero  by  fighting 
the  "  Gringoes."  We  promptly  demanded  permission  to  send 
troops  across  the  border  to  hunt  down  the  bandits;  a  right 
we  had  always  claimed  when  our  neighbors  were  unable  to 
prevent  their  citizens  from  harassing  our  territory.  Car- 
ranza granted  it,  claiming  and  receiving  the  recognition  of  a 
reciprocal  right. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

THE  GREAT  WAR  * 

The  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  in  August,  1914,  took  the 

overwhelming  majority  of  Americans  by  complete  surprise. 

They  had  no  share  in  the  causes  that  led  up     ^  .  „ 

,    .        ,      ,  ,  ,    ,  «  .1  Public  opinion 

to  it,  and  few  had  any  knowledge  of  them. 

The  first  reaction  was  one  of  horror,  accompanied  by  a  feeling 
not  unakin  to  superiority,  in  that  we  had  passed  beyond  such 
things.  Most  people  took  sides,  but  rather  according  to 
social  and  racial  sympathies  than  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
facts.  The  bulk  of  those  of  German  stock  felt  a  thrill  of 
pride  at  seeing  Germany  playing  for  the  first  time  as  a  nation 
the  leading  r61e  in  worid  affairs.  With  them  were  many 
Irish  who  were  anti-British  above  all,  and  many  Americans, 
who,  having  studied  in  German  universities,  knew  only  the 
best  of  that  country.  The  confidence  of  a  large  part  of  the 
population  in  the  integrity  of  Great  Britain,  and  the  love 
for  France,  might  not  have  made  the  sympathizers  for  the 
latter  allies  the  large  majority  they  actually  were,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  shock  to  American  sensibilities  caused  by 
the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality;  and  even  that  left  many 
doubtful  as  to  whether  Germany's  claim  that  she  had  fore- 
stalled her  opponents  might  not  receive  subsequent  justi- 
fication. The  tales  of  atrocities  were  so  gross  as  to  seem  to 
the  great  majority  unbelievable,  and  did  not  sensibly  affect 

^  For  tiocuments,  see  American  Journal  of  International  Law;  American 
Association  for  International  Conciliation,  International  Conciliation;  Car- 
negie Endowment  for  International  Peace,  Publications;  for  brief  accounts, 
see  American  Year  Book  and  New  International  Year  Book;  for  history,  see 
Edgar  E.  Robinson  and  Victor  J.  West,  Foreign  Policy  of  Woodrow  Wilton 
(N.  Y.,  1917);  for  bibliography,  see  Historical  Outlook  (formerly  History 
Teachers'  Magazine),  1917-1918. 

491 


492  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

public  opinion  until  the  report  of  Lord  Bryce  brought  con- 
viction. Only  among  the  intellectuals  and  the  recent  immi- 
grants was  feeling  bitter;  the  great  majority  remained  open- 
minded,  very  many  remained  uninterested. 

If  the  people  of  the  United  States  were  unprepared  to 
judge  the  issues  of  the  struggle,  they  were  nevertheless 
American  prepared  to  meet  the  emergency.     The  con- 

idealism  tinuous  policy  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 

had  taught  them  to  keep  their  hands  off  questions  in  which 
they  were  not  concerned.  The  Monroe  Doctrine  and  the 
natural  conditions  on  which  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  based 
were  almost  universally  relied  upon  to  keep  the  nation  at 
peace,  while  it  was  believed  that  our  intrinsic  strength  was 
sufficient  to  produce  more  respect  for  our  neutral  rights 
than  in  the  great  conflicts  of  a  hundred  years  before.  To 
idealists  this  condition  of  inaction  was  tolerable  because 
from  the  days  of  Winthrop  the  leading  trend  of  American 
idealism  has  been  that  of  teaching  by  example.  We  were 
to  show  the  value  of  our  institutions  by  keeping  the  peace, 
bind  up  the  wounds  of  the  bleeding,  and,  sane  in  a  war-mad 
world,  take  the  lead  to  just  and  permanent  peace. 

The  war  was  first  brought  home  to  Americans  by  the  flight 
of  tens  of  thousands  of  their  compatriots  caught  in  the  war 
First  effects  area.  These  wanderers  flocking  to  their  em- 
o£  war  bassies  found  them  overwhelmed  already  by 

the  second  outstanding  result  of  the  war.  As  we  were  the 
greatest  neutral  power  in  the  world,  most  of  the  belligerent 
envoys,  on  leaving  the  capitals  to  which  they  were  accredited, 
left  their  archives  and  the  care  of  their  countrymen  in  charge 
of  our  representatives,  so  that  in  Berlin,  lines  of  Serbians, 
Russians,  British,  and  other  nationalities  stretched  for  blocks 
from  our  embassy,  and  there  and  elsewhere  staff  hours  ran 
to  twenty  in  the  day.  Nor  did  many  days  pass  before  the 
war  began  to  work  internal  changes  at  home.  Great  orders 
for  war  material  gave  promise  of  prosperity  to  certain  parts 
of  the  country,  while  the  curtailment  of  European  industry 


THE  GREAT  WAR  493 

sent  the  prices  of  some  raw  materials  crashing  down.  Par- 
ticularly was  the  latter  effect  felt  in  the  South.  Cotton 
manufacture  was  threatened  at  home  as  well  as  abroad  by 
the  possibility  that  German  dye  stuffs  would  be  cut  off,  and 
the  fall  in  the  price  of  cotton  seemed  likely  to  carry  with  it 
the  whole  structure  of  Southern  prosperity. 

The  key  to  all  these  problems  lay  in  ocean  transportation. 
In  1793  we  had  been  in  a  position  to  handle  all  our  foreign 
trade  in  our  own  vessels,  and  much  of  that  of  Ocean 
the  belligerent  countries.  Our  difficulties  lay  transportation 
in  securing  what  we  considered  just  treatment  for  our  vessels. 
In  1914  we  were  dependent  upon  foreign  merchant  marines, 
the  more  important  of  which  were  belligerent.  The  German 
marine  was  at  once  tied  up  by  fear  of  capture;  much  of  that 
of  Great  Britain  was  called  into  war  service.  It  would  be 
our  problem  to  create  a  marine,  and  in  the  meantime  we 
must  pay  heavy  scarcity  prices  for  freight,  and  we  would  be 
vitally  interested  in  the  attitude  of  the  belligerents  towards 
each  other's  vessels.  One  expedient  was  suggested  by  our 
Civil  War  experience:  the  transfer  of  enemy  ships  to  the 
American  flag,  particularly  the  splendid  fleets  of  the  German 
companies  tied  up  in  our  harbors.  Since  that  time,  how- 
ever, the  doctrine,  always  strongly  held  by  the  French,  that 
such  transfers  were  contrary  to  international  law  had  been 
generally  accepted,  and  had  been  embodied  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  London  of  1910,  which  codified  the  rules  of  sea  war- 
fare, and  which,  while  it  had  not  been  as  yet  generally  ac- 
cepted, nevertheless  had  considerable  moral  weight.  To 
test  this  point  certain  merchants  purchased  a  German  ship, 
the  Dacia,  and  sent  it  out  from  the  United  States  with  a 
cargo  of  cotton.  It  was  seized  by  the  French,  tried  in  prize 
court,  and  condemned.  Our  government  did  not  protest, 
and  no  further  attempt  was  made  to  utilize  this  resource 
until  much  later  in  the  war,  when  various  neutral  nations 
undertook  to  requisition  such  vessels.  By  that  time  it  was 
against  German  interests,  and  while  it  was  defensible  on  the 


494  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

ground  of  exigent  national  interest,  it  invariably  resulted 
in  war  or  a  state  of  semi-hostility. 

The  use  of  the  sea  and  of  belligerent  marines  was  not 
a  matter  which  we  could  settle  for  ourselves  alone;  it  de- 
pended  as  well  upon  the  policies  and  legal  con- 
ceptions of  the  nations  at  war.  The  policy  of 
Great  Britain  and  her  Allies  resembled  that  she  had  pursued 
during  the  Napoleonic  wars,  but  was  simpler.  She  wished 
to  keep  open  the  seas  for  her  own  commerce,  to  close  them 
absolutely  to  that  of  her  enemies;  her  economists  believed 
that  the  German  attempt  of  the  last  forty  years  to  build 
up  a  self-sufficing  economic  life  had  not  been  completely 
successful,  and  that  she  and  her  allies  could  be  defeated  by 
attrition.  The  German  policy  was  that  of  Napoleon,  not 
to  contest  the  seas,  but  by  various  means  to  harry  and  de- 
stroy the  commerce  of  Great  Britain. 

In  the  dependency  of  the  latter  upon  imported  foodstuffs 
lay  Germany's  great  hope.  In  both  cases  the  intervening 
century  had  made  one  striking  change.  Progress  in  economic 
organization  had  made  possible  the  concentration  of  all  a 
nation's  resources  in  the  struggle;  each  policy  must  be  com- 
plete. One  open  port  would  defeat  any  policy  of  exclusion; 
no  trade  was  without  its  relation  to  the  war;  the  older  doc- 
trines of  limited  contraband  and  partial  blockades  became 
practically  obsolete.  These  policies  were  self-evident;  the 
means  which  would  be  employed  to  execute  them  only  de- 
veloped with  the  progress  of  the  war. 

The  United  States  Government  handled  questions  of 
detail  as  they  appeared.  A  grant  by  Congress  and  the  use 
President  WH-  of  naval  vessels  assisted  thousands  of  stranded 
son's  policies  Americans.  The  new  strain  upon  our  diplo- 
matic service  was  met  in  January,  1915,  by  a  law  classifying 
all  diplomatic  positions,  except  the  highest,  thus  making  it 
professional  in  tone  and  elastic  in  action.  The  President 
recommended  that,  in  view  of  the  maritime  situation.  Con- 
gress authorize  the  creation  of  a  national  governmental 


THE  GREAT  WAR  485 

shipping  company.  This  proposal  was  not  acted  upon  for 
three  years,  but  American  registry  was  opened  to  foreign- 
built  ships,  and  all  private  shipbuilding  yards  were  soon 
filled  to  their  capacity.  To  preserve  peace  at  home,  as 
interest  grew  in  width  and  bitterness,  the  President  urged 
that  good  temper  be  maintained,  and,  taking  advantage  of 
a  new  method  of  addressing  the  people,  he  caused  all  war 
films  exhibited  to  be  preceded  by  a  request  from  him  that 
the  rival  elements  in  the  audience  should  refrain  from  ap- 
plause as  varying  scenes  were  shown.  As  each  belligerent 
indulged  in  acts  contrary  to  our  understanding  of  interna- 
tional law,  he  caused  the  American  case  to  be  vigorously 
presented.  He  felt  bound  to  abide  by,  and  called  upon  to 
demand  the  recognition  of,  international  law  as  it  stood 
when  the  war  began,  though  he  offered,  as  on  February  10th 
on  the  question  of  foodstuffs,  always  fruitlessly,  to  be  the 
agent  for  securing  modifications  mutually  agreed  to  by  both 
belligerents.  With  each  belligerent  he  dealt  separately,  re- 
fusing to  be  drawn  into  any  discussion  of  the  acts  of  the 
other,  or  of  our  dealing  with  the  other.  From  the  first  he 
repudiated  utterly  the  idea  that  one  group  of  nations  could 
justify  acts  against  us  by  claiming  that  they  were  in  retalia- 
tion for  acts  of  the  other. 

Whether  we  should  press  our  cases  at  once  or  by  degrees, 
or  press  one  and  leave  another  until  after  the  conclusion  of 
the  war,  he  regarded  as  a  matter  of  policy,  and  our  policy 
alone.  He  fully  recognized  that  in  the  existing  state  of  world 
organization  our  power  to  bring  about  a  reversal  of  a  dis- 
tasteful practice  rested  ultimately  upon  our  willingness  to 
fight,  and  as  early  as  February  10,  1915,  his  phrase,  "strict 
accountability,"  contained  the  germ  of  war.  His  secretary 
of  state,  Mr.  Bryan,  however,  refused  to  recognize  this  grim 
logic,  and  let  it  be  known  that  his  policy  excluded  resort  to 
war.  For  a  time,  therefore,  the  voice  of  the  administration 
was  confused  as  to  the  significance  of  our  protests. 

Our  difficulties  with  Great  Britain  and  her  Allies  arose 


496  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

in  the  first  place  over  the  question  of  contraband.  Great 
Britain  announced  that  she  would  regulate  her  conduct  by 
the  provisions  of  the  Declaration  of  London 
with  regard  to  absolute  and  conditional  contra- 
band, except  in  certain  particulars  where  the  development 
of  the  mechanism  of  war  had  made  new  materials  war  essen- 
tials. In  the  absence  of  a  binding  international  code  and  of 
treaties,  these  additions  could  give  rise  to  little  but  fruitless 
controversy.  Cotton  she  did  not  actually  include  until 
August  20,  1915.  The  greatest  diflSculty  was  with  regard  to 
food,  which  was  to  be  considered  contraband  only  on  con- 
dition that  it  was  for  governmental  military  uses.  Great 
Britain  regarded  the  governmental  control  of  food  in  Ger- 
many, established  on  an  important  scale  on  January  26, 1915, 
as  making  all  food  shipped  there  contraband.  The  leading 
case  was  that  of  the  Wilhelmina,  which  was  seized  on  Feb- 
ruary 9,  1915,  and  sent  to  a  prize  court.  Its  cargo  was  con- 
demned but  paid  for. 

The  question  of  what  was  contraband,  however,  was  not 
so  difficult  as  those  raised  by  the  manner  of  its  seizure. 
.  Great  Britain  did  not  reassert  the  right  of 

impressment  nor  did  the  United  States  deny 
the  right  of  visitation,  but  new  conditions  made  old  methods 
inapplicable.  Great  Britain  as  early  as  November  3,  1914, 
announced  the  establishment  in  certain  sea  areas  surround- 
ing Germany  and  her  Allies  of  "war  zones,"  made  unnavi- 
gable  by  fixed  mines.  Through  them  ran  sea  lanes  kept  free 
from  mines  by  British  patrols.  Neutral  vessels  using  these 
sea  lanes  were  to  be  brought  for  search  into  British  ports, 
the  most  important  of  which  was  Kirkwall  in  the  Orkneys. 
This  novel  poUcy  was  defended  on  the  ground  that  Germany 
had  resorted  to  the  illegal  laying  of  floating  mines  in  open 
sea,  rendering  all  commerce  dangerous,  and  that  the  exam- 
ination of  ships  at  sea  was  impossible  under  existing  condi- 
tions. In  so  far  as  it  was  an  extension  of  belligerent  rights, 
it  was  partly  offset  by  the  fact  that  it  freed  neutrals  from 


THE  GREAT  WAR  497 

the  chance  of  search  elsewhere  and  by  the  concession  that 
the  vessels  carrying  contraband  should  not  be  condemned 
and  sold.  On  the  whole  the  system  worked  well,  though  at 
first  it  involved  costly  delays,  and  in  its  central  points 
seemed  a  reasonable  adaptation  of  the  principles  of  inter- 
national law  to  changed  conditions. 

The  chief  difficulty  arose  from  the  fact  that  contiguous  to 
Germany  were  neutral  nations,  Holland,  Switzerland,  Nor- 
way, and  Sweden,  so  that  voyages  might  be    Enemy   desti- 
made  from  neutral  port  to  neutral  port  with    nation  and  con- 
1  1       •  1         1  •    .      /-.  1  M     tinuous  voyage 

goods  to  be  introduced  into  Germany  by  rail 

or  across  the  Baltic.  Great  Britain  resorted  to  the  doctrines 
of  the  enemy  destination  and  continuous  voyage,  as  inter- 
preted by  the  United  States  during  our  Civil  War,  to  justify 
the  stopping  of  such  cargoes  while  in  transit  on  the  ocean. 
It  was,  however,  easy  to  complicate  the  situation  by  ship- 
ping the  goods  to  an  agent  in  the  neutral  country,  and,  after 
they  had  become  part  of  the  stock  of  the  neutral  country, 
exporting  them  to  Germany.  This  led  Great  Britain  to 
attempt  to  determine  the  destination  of  goods,  not  by  the 
form  of  contract,  but  by  comparing  the  imports  of  the  neutral 
before  and  during  the  war,  and  by  prohibiting  the  passing, 
not  only  of  any  surplus,  but  of  such  amount  as  had  previously 
been  imported  for  export  to  Germany,  or  as  substitutes  for 
native  products  so  exported.  The  procedure  had  some 
precedent  in  the  United  States  investigations  of  Nassau 
trade  during  the  Civil  War,  but  in  that  case  it  had  been 
used  only  as  corroborative  evidence.  To  assist  in  the  ex- 
ecution of  this  policy  the  British  government  entered  into 
agreements  with  powers,  such  as  Holland,  and  firms,  in- 
cluding some  American  meat  packers,  which  in  return  for 
privileges  and  compensations  agreed  to  abide  by  the  limita- 
tions laid  down. 

This  close  supervision  of  neutral  trade  culminated  in  a 
joint  note  of  France  and  Great  Britain  to  neutral  nations  on 
March  1st,  1915,  which  announced  what  was  practically 


498  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

total  prohibition  of  trade  with  Germany,  to  be  obtained  by 
complete  supervision  of  the  trade  of  her  neighbors.  This 
Supervision  of  would  have  excited  less  legal  objection  had  it 
neutral  trade  rested  upon  the  principle  of  blockade,  but  Great 
Britain  was  loth  to  resort  to  this  method,  because  our  Civil 
War  practices,  so  useful  to  her  as  precedents,  were  not  so 
clearly  applicable  in  case  of  blockade  as  of  contraband,  and 
because  of  the  situation  of  the  Baltic.  She  could  prevent 
vessels  entering  that  sea,  but  not  trade  from  the  Baltic  ports 
to  Germany.  As  one  of  the  legal  conditions  of  blockade  is 
its  impartiality  this  might  affect  its  legahty.  Mr.  Balfour, 
however,  argued  that  so  long  as  the  blockading  nation  was 
impartial  in  its  action,  it  could  not  be  held  responsible  for 
the  accidents  of  nature.  A  further  obstacle  to  blockade  was 
the  well  accepted  principle  that  it  must  be  enforced  imme- 
diately off  the  hostile  coast,  while  contraband  could  be  seized 
anywhere  on  the  open  seas.  The  essential  element  of  a 
blockade's  legaHty,  however,  is  its  effectiveness,  and  this 
condition  could  be  fully  met;  its  enforcement  four  hundred 
miles  away,  instead  of  off  the  coast,  might  well  be  considered 
as  an  adjustment  to  meet  new  conditions.  At  any  rate  on 
March  13,  1915,  Great  Britain  began  to  shift  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  blockade,  and  in  1916  appointed  Lord  Robert  Cecil 
Blockade  Minister. 

This  shift  in  the  basis  of  her  policy  simplified  many  prob- 
lems.   Many  minor  causes  of  friction  were  settled  as  time 

^ went  on.    The  British  policy  did  not  endanger 

British  policy       ...        -r     i>  t  •  i     i  •  im         i 

life.    It  did  restrict  trade,  but,  owing  to  a  liberal 

system  of  compensation,  the  actual  loss  of  property  was 

probably  negligible  except  in  cases  where  a  clear  right  of 

seizure  existed.    All  cases  were  tried  in  courts  acknowledged 

to  be  honest,  and  the  strain  between  the  two  nations  was 

much  ameliorated  by  the  decision  in  the  case  of  the  Zamora 

in  1916  that  international  law  must  be  the  basis  of  judgment, 

and  by  the  statement  of  the  British  government  that  it 

would  submit  disputed  cases  to  arbitration.    In  fact  after 


THE  GREAT  WAR  499 

three  years  of  war,  in  1917,  the  only  important  source  of 
vexation  was  the  controversy  with  regard  to  the  control  of 
mail,  where  a  conflict  between  two  principles  of  international 
law  gave  each  nation  an  opportunity  to  feel  aggrieved. 

The  closing  of  the  Central  Powers  to  importation,  while 
the  seas  remained  open  to  Great  Britain  and  her  Allies, 
meant  that  the  latter  could  not  only  continue  Trade  in 
their  usual  trade  but  could  draw  upon  neutral  contraband 
countries  for  war  materials;  and  the  United  States  was  soon 
humming  with  the  manufactiu-e  of  munitions.  This  was  a 
condition  which  was  not  of  our  making  but  was  the  result 
of  the  naval  disparity  between  the  two  groups  of  belligerents. 
It  was  a  fully  recognized  neutral  right  to  trade  in  whatsoever 
it  wished  with  whomsoever  it  could;  the  duty  of  preventing 
such  trade  lay  upon  the  belligerent,  the  penalty  upon  the 
individual.  To  forbid  neutrals  to  supply  war  material  to 
belligerents,  moreover,  would  put  small  or  unprepared  states 
entirely  at  the  mercy  of  militaristic  neighbors.  Neverthe- 
less to  supply  one  party  and  not  the  other  had  a  specious 
look  of  partiality,  and  the  pacifist  and  Pro-German  group 
in  the  United  States  made  a  strong  effort  to  have  the  trade 
stopped.  Germany  had  engaged  too  much  in  such  traflSc 
in  the  past  effectively  to  protest,  but  in  June,  1915,  Austria 
sent  a  note  on  the  subject.  The  United  States  Government, 
adhering  to  the  principles  of  Washington's  first  proclamation 
of  neutrality,  refused  to  act. 

In  the  meantime  the  first  phase  of  Germany's  ocean  policy, 
raiding  by  commerce  destroying  cruisers,  had  brought  about 
a  clash  owing  to  the  destruction  of  the  American  Commerce 
sailing  vessel,  William  P.  Frye,  on  January  28,  ^^^^ 
1915.  The  United  States  protested  under  our  treaties  of 
1798  and  1828  with  Prussia.  Germany  finally  agreed  to 
compensate  for  the  actual  loss,  and  to  submit  the  question 
of  right  under  the  treaties  to  The  Hague.  The  subject,  how- 
,  ever,  soon  ceased  to  be  of  interest  owing  to  the  driving  of 
\  the  German  cruisers  from  the  seas. 


500  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

Already  Ihe  great  sea  issue  which  was  to  form  the  basis 
of  the  United  States'  case  for  war  was  forming.  The  main 
German  sub-  rehance  of  Germany  was  on  the  submarine, 
marine  poUcy  q^  February  4,  1915,  she  announced  that  her 
submarines  would  torpedo  at  sight  all  vessels  in  certain 
zones  surrounding  Great  Britain.  Such  a  policy  represented 
not  a  modification  of  international  law  to  meet  a  new  situa- 
tion but  a  complete  reversal  of  law.  Germany  defended  it 
as  in  retaUation  for  England's  food  and  zone  orders,  which 
again  were  based  in  part  on  retaliation  for  Germany's  sowing 
of  floating-mines.  At  bottom,  Germany,  like  Napoleon, 
recognized  no  law  except  might  but  promised  to  restore  law 
and  freedom  when  Great  Britain  should  be  beaten  down; 
and  her  prospective  generosity  inspired  about  as  much  con- 
fidence as  his.  The  United  States  on  February  10th  pro- 
tested this  action.  To  sink  without  warning  merchant  ships, 
whether  belligerent  or  neutral,  had  for  so  long  been  con- 
sidered as  a  barbarity  that  many  writers  on  international 
law  had  neglected  of  late  to  mention  it.  To  so  sink  neutral 
vessels  was  a  violation  of  all  sea  law.  To  sink  vessels  at  all 
without  search  was  opposed  to  all  spirit  of  law,  for  it  de- 
stroyed at  once  all  evidence  upon  which  a  judicial  review 
might  be  based,  and  made  the  commander  of  the  submarine 
judge,  jury,  and  executioner.  President  Wilson  stated  tliat 
should  any  American  vessel  or  citizen  be  a  victim  of  this 
policy  Germany  would  be  held  to  "strict  accountability." 
The  German  government  so  far  heeded  President  Wilson's 
protest  as  to  state  that  American  vessels  would  not  be  so 
attacked,  unless  by  accident,  and  asked  that  they  be  plainly 
marked. 

Such  accidents  did  occur  promptly  in  the  cases  of  the 
Gushing  and  the  Gulflight,  but  the  next  important  stage  in 

^  the  controversy  arose  from  the  sinking,  under 

The  Lusitama        .  "   ,  ,.     ,  ..  i 

circumstances  of  peculiarly  aggravating  de- 
liberation, of  the  British  steamer  Lusitania  on  May  7,  1915, 
with  the  loss  of  over  one  hundred  American  lives.    This 


THE  GREAT  WAR  501 

atrocity,  celebrated  by  a  medal  and  paeans  of  victory  in 
Germany,  brought  in  America  the  first  strong  demand  that 
we  enter  the  war.  It  will  in  fact  probably  be  a  mystery  to 
Americans  of  the  future  that  we  did  not  do  so.  The  fact 
was  that  not  only  that  portion  of  the  population  which  pre- 
ferred to  think  well  of  Germany,  but  great  elements  which 
hoped  that  circumstances  would  make  it  respectable  for  us 
to  stay  out  of  the  war,  hugged  the  delusion  that  the  English 
control  of  the  sea  and  her  censorship  prevented  our  hearing 
Germany's  case.  The  popular  ignorance  of  international 
law,  also,  made  it  easy  to  blur  the  case.  It  was  claimed, 
untruly,  that  the  Lusitania  was  armed;  and  the  policy  of 
Great  Britain  in  generally  arming  merchant  vessels,  although 
certainly,  within  limits,  perfectly  legal,  was  cleverly  drawn 
into  the  general  issue.  It  is  very  doubtful  if  the  adminis- 
tration could  have  secured  general  support  for  a  war  on  the 
issue  of  an  attack  on  a  British  vessel,  which  many  believed 
was  armed  and  so  made  equivalent  to  a  war  vessel. 

The  administration,  however,  was  more  concerned  that 
war  should  not  be  brought  about,  if  Germany  could  other- 
wise be  made  to  reverse  her  policy.  Our  pro-  Bryan  and 
test,  however,  so  obviously  held  war  in  leash  ^-^°sing 
that  Secretary  Bryan  resigned.  He  was  succeeded  by  Mr. 
Robert  Lansing,  a  trained  international  lawyer,  connected 
with  the  traditions  of  American  diplomacy  by  his  marriage 
with  the  daughter  of  John  W.  Foster,  whose  personal  reminis- 
cences of  that  service  went  back  fifty  years.  While  the 
Lusitania  case  remained  subject  to  discussion  until  war 
finally  broke  out,  Germany  did,  on  September  1,  agree  not  to 
sink  "liners,"  or  regular  passenger  ships,  without  warning, 
and  the  discussion  of  general  policy  continued.  "Accidents" 
also  continued  to  occur,  and  the  sinking  of  the  Sussex,  on 
March  24,  1916,  exhausted  all  patience.  The  American 
government  sent  on  April  19th  an  ultimatum  demanding 
the  immediate  reversal  of  German  policy.  In  a  note  of 
May  4,  1916,  whose  bitterness  of  tone  was  convincing  of  its 


602  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

sincerity,  Germany  yielded,  but  stated  that  she  might  change 
her  mind  unless  we  secured  from  Great  Britain  some  modi- 
fication of  her  policy. 

This  change  of  German  policy  coincided  with  the  presi- 
dential election.  President  Wilson  saw  that,  whatever  our 
Presidential  attitude  in  the  war,  the  economic  and  social 
election  cohesion  of  the  world  was  now  so  great  that 

it  was  no  longer  possible  for  us  to  remain  isolated.  He  saw 
that,  whatever  its  causes,  the  war  had  become  a  conflict  of 
law  against  lawlessness,  of  self-government  against  autocracy, 
in  which  the  defeat  of  the  German  imperial  dream  was  a 
world  necessity.  He  probably  saw  little  chance  of  our  keep- 
ing out  of  it.  So  long  as  that  was  possible,  however,  he  could 
not,  as  head  of  the  state,  speak  out.  Public  opinion  was  as 
yet  so  little  crystalized  that  the  administration  was  able  to 
get  through  Congress  a  totally  inadequate  army  bill,  only  in 
modified  form,  and  it  was  only  by  taking  advantage  of  the 
Mexican  situation  and  mobilizing  on  that  border  that  we 
secured  any  beginning  of  real  war  preparation,  save  in  our 
always  prepared  though  not  large  navy.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances issues  were  confused.  Some  Pro-Germa&is  voted 
for  the  Republican  candidate;  many  voters  supported  Wilson 
because  he  had  "kept  us  out  of  war.*'  The  net  result,  how- 
ever, was  an  expression  of  confidence  in  the  president's 
leadership;  lacking  a  majority  in  1912,  in  1916  he  carried 
the  country  by  half  a  million. 

Strong  in  this  backing  he  began  at  once  a  constructive 
policy  towards  the  war.  On  December  18th,  he  asked  the 
End  of  period  Various  beUigerent  nations  to  state  the  terms 
of  isolation  upon  which  they  would  conclude  peace.    On 

January  22d,  he  addressed  the  Senate  on  the  general  question 
of  national  policy.  He  pointed  out  that  it  was  apparent 
that  the  world  was  so  knit  together  that  no  nation  could  in 
the  future  live  by  itself  alone,  that  the  terms  of  the  world 
peace  would  inevitably  influence  so  greatly  the  future  of  the 
United  States  that  we  could  not  stand  apart  from  their 


THE  GREAT  WAR  50S 

formulation,  that  some  form  of  world  union  had  become 
necessary  for  the  preservation  of  world  peace  and  interna- 
tional justice.  In  thus  prophesying  the  close  of  our  period 
of  isolation,  the  President  spoke  in  advance  of  the  sentiment 
of  the  majority  of  his  countrymen;  the  teaching  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  was  too  deeply  impregnated  to  vanish  in  a 
moment,  however  great  the  crisis.  His  words,  however,  gave 
impetus  to  thought  and  discussion,  and  people  began  to 
realize  that  the  isolation  proclaimed  in  1823  as  desirable  was 
only  a  means  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  that  time;  the 
principles  of  that  doctrine,  and  of  all  our  foreign  policy, 
were  the  right  of  self-determination  by  peoples  however 
small  and  weak,  undiminished  by  the  dominance  of  great 
powers  or  by  a  world  system  of  balance,  which  made  the 
disputes  of  each  a  peril  to  all.  That  and  democracy  were 
the  things  which  John  Quincy  Adams  had  stated  in  1823 
could  only  be  maintained  in  America  by  extending  our 
interest  to  all  America,  and  separating  our  continents  from 
Europe.  In  1917,  Woodrow  Wilson  announced  that  in  the 
world  of  that  date  they  could  only  be  made  safe  by  world 
organization. 

In  the  meantime   German  policy  was  not  stationary. 
Whether  her  acceptance  of  the  Sussex  note  was  a  subterfuge 
to  gain  time  for  preparation  or  represented  3.    p     ^     . 
triumph  of  the  moderate  party,  at  any  rate  in    submarine 
the  Fall  of  1916  the  extreme  war  party  led  by 
Admiral  von  Tirpitz  demanded  that  it  be  reversed.     Its 
leaders  fully  realized  that  such  a  reversal  would  probably 
bring  America  into  the  war,  but  they  believed  that  America 
could  be  held  out  of  the  war  by  internal  agitation  and  by  the 
submarines.    By  an  unlimited  use  of  the  latter  they  believed 
Great  Britain  could  be  starved  into  submission.    Their  policy 
triumphed,  and  on  January  31, 1917,  United  States  Ambassa- 
dor Gerard  was  informed  that  unrestricted  submarine  war- 
fare would  begin  at  midnight. 

The  entrance  of  the  United  States  into  the  war  was  now 


504  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

only  a  question  of  time  and  method,  but  that  continued  to 
be  a  question  of  great  importance  in  determining  the  whole- 
Severance  of  teartedness  of  the  popular  response.  On  Feb- 
dipiomatic  re-  ruary  3d,  the  President  declared  diplomatic  re- 
lations between  Germany  and  the  United  States 
severed,  and  on  February  26th,  recommended  to  Congress 
an  armed  neutrahty  like  that  of  1798.  A  few  days  later  the 
government  gave  out  for  publication  a  note  of  the  German 
Under-Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs,  Zimmermann, 
dated  January  17th,  in  which  he  instructed  the  German 
Ambassador  in  Mexico,  in  case  of  war  between  the  United 
States  and  Germany,  to  offer  Mexico  alliance  and  the  pos- 
session of  southern  portions  of  the  United  States,  and  to  ask 
Mexico  to  approach  Japan  with  an  offer  of  the  Pacific  Coast. 
This  note,  acknowledged  by  Zimmermann,  caused  almost  a 
revolution  in  the  opinion  of  that  diminishing  number  of 
Americans  of  German  stock  who  still  sympathized  with  their 
home  country.  It  capped  the  stories  of  German  intrigue 
which,  growing  in  volume,  had  till  then  fallen  in  many  cases 
upon  deaf  ears. 

There  was  indeed  no  doubt  of  the  constant  violation  of 
American  neutrality  by  the  agents  of  the  Central  Powers. 
V  lations  of  ^  September,  1915,  we  had  demanded  and 
American  obtained  the  recall  of  the  Austrian  Ambassador, 

neu     ly  Dumba,  for  endeavoring  to  incite  labor  disturb- 

ances among  Austrians  working  in  American  munition  plants. 
In  November,  1915,  we  had  sent  home  the  German  attaches, 
von  Papen  and  Boy-Ed,  for  plotting  the  bombing  of  bridges, 
ships,  and  munition  works.  The  German  Ambassador,  von 
Bemstorff,  had,  however,  succeeded  in  escaping  public  con- 
nection with  these  scandals,  and  those  obstinately  clinging  to 
their  belief  in  German  good  faith  refused  to  find  their  actions 
directly  inimical  to  the  United  States.  The  Zimmermann 
note,  followed  by  revelations  that  von  Bemstorff  himself 
had  been  directing  a  widespread  propaganda  to  mislead 
American  opinion,  had  spent  money  in  the  hope  of  corrupting 


THE  GREAT  WAR  505 

Congress,  and  had  been  the  guiding  spirit  in  murderous 
undertakings  by  which  American  Hves  were  lost,  allowed  no 
honest  doubt  that  Germany  had  been  throughout  the  war 
fighting  the  United  States. 

Although  Congress  was  prevented  by  a  "Uttle  group  of 
wilful  men,"  assisted  by  the  Senate  rules,  from  carrying  out 
the  President's  proposal  for  an  armed  neu-  Declaration  of 
trality,  an  overwhelming  majority  supported  **' 
it,  and  he  declared  it  in  force  by  executive  order,  for  which 
authority  had  been  found.  In  the  meantime,  however,  the 
threat  of  February  1st  had  become  a  fact;  American  vessels 
had  been  sunk.  In  the  meantime,  also,  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion had  brought  a  fresh  wave  of  enthusiastic  demands  that 
we  definitely  take  our  stand  with  the  Allies  for  democracy 
against  autocracy.  On  April  2d,  President  Wilson  recom- 
mended war,  and  on  April  6th,  Congress  voted  it.  So  over- 
whelming was  the  case  for  war,  and  so  able  had  been  the 
presentation  of  the  case  to  the  people,  that  never  before 
had  the  American  people  moved  with  so  great  a  unanimity 
as  in  taking  this  step  that  opened  a  new  epoch  in  the  history 
of  their  world  relationships. 


CHAPTER   XXXVI 
SUCCESS  AND  ITS  CAUSES 

Our  diplomacy  has,  on  the  whole,  served  the  national 
needs  and  purposes  exceptionally  well.  No  other  nation 
has  been  confronted  so  continually  by  the  problem  of  neu- 
trality, and  for  none  has  it  assumed  such  protean  shapes; 
yet  it  is  impossible  to  see  how  we  could,  with  foreknowledge, 
have  improved  our  handling  of  it  in  any  large  way.  For 
no  other  nation  has  the  problem  of  protecting  its  citizens 
abroad  been  so  difficult,  owing  to  the  great  numbers  of  our 
naturalized  citizens  and  the  variety  of  their  origin;  but  at  the 
present  day,  and  for  a  long  time  past,  an  American  pass- 
port is  nowhere  inferior  to  any  other  certificate  of  nationality. 
Although  our  merchant  flag  was  ill-treated  during  the  wars 
of  the  French  Revolution  and  the  Napoleonic  period,  we 
won  for  it  later,  in  the  teeth  of  Great  Britain,  a  freedom  al- 
most imique. 

The  poUcies  for  the  building  up  of  our  merchant  marine 
and  the  furtherance  of  our  commerce  have  been  chiefly  de- 
termined by  internal  considerations,  but  diplomacy  has  in 
all  cases  eventually,  though  with  difficulty,  laid  open  the 
path  for  the  execution  of  those  policies  internationally.  The 
government  has  been  able  to  offer  our  people  as  great  op- 
portunities for  the  exercise  of  their  activities  beyond  the 
national  boundaries  as  any  other  nation  has  enjoyed;  our 
Newfoundland  fisheries,  for  example,  have  been  even  more 
caressingly  watched  over  than  have  those  of  France.  It 
has  also  successfully  protected  them  in  the  enjoyment  of 
their  national  resources,  the  only  important  exception  being 
the  practical  destruction  of  the  seal  herd  of  Behring  sea. 
The  territory  desired  by  our  people  for  their  expansion  has 

506 


SUCCESS  AND  ITS  CAUSES  507 

been  obtained,  excepting  to  the  north.  There,  meeting  the 
equal  force  of  Great  Britain,  we  are  left  with  a  straight  line 
as  the  result  of  the  impact.  The  study  of  the  measuring 
of  each  stretch  of  that  line,  however,  reveals  the  fact  that  we 
obtained  all  that  we  had  the  power  to  demand. 

Erratic  and  experimental  divergencies  in  our  diplomacy 
have  been  few.  Of  these,  Jefferson's  embargo  must  be  consid- 
ered the  greatest,  and  it  was  diplomatically  unsuccessful  and 
disastrous.  To  err  with  Napoleon,  however,  does  not  indicate 
hghtness  of  mind;  and  the  embargo  in  the  United  States,  like 
the  continental  system  in  Europe,  hastened  an  internal  devel- 
opment that  was  sure  to  come.  Our  many  and  varied  attempts 
at  an  unnatural  expansion  failed  because  they  were  unnatural, 
and  left  no  serious  effects.  Our  foreign  wars  have  all  been 
turned  to  account — even  that  of  1812,  which  was  saved  from 
being  a  national  calamity  only  by  the  skill  of  our  diplomats  at 
Ghent. 

This  success  has  rested  upon  a  continuity,  both  of  detail 
and  of  general  policy,  which  is  remarkable  in  a  nation  that 
in  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  has  gone  through  all  the  stages 
of  evolution  from  a  second-rate  colony  to  a  great  power. 
This  continuity  must  in  a  considerable  degree  be  attributed 
to  that  juristic  tone  which  until  very  recently  has  been  a 
predominating  factor  in  our  public  life.  Well  advised  in  the 
beginning,  particularly  by  Franklin,  we  accepted  a  system  of 
international  law  which  appealed  to  our  ethical  sense  and 
fitted  our  position  and  interests.  To  this  we  clung  with  an 
x^unequaled  persistence  and  exactitude,  and  it  is  in  large  part 
/through  our  efforts  that  this  system  has  become  the  basis 
of  the  accepted  international  law  of  to-day. 

That  in  handling  innumerable  petty  cases  and  frequent 
pressing  crises  we  were  able  to  preserve  an  impressive  con- 
sistency of  practice,  was  not  primarily  due  to  the  efforts  of 
our  diplomatic  staff  in  foreign  countries.  Efficient  as  it  was 
at  some  periods,  and  brilliant  as  have  been  some  of  the  men 
composing  it  at  every  stage,  it  had  after  1829  no  element  of 


508  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

cohesion,  unless  between  1897  and  1913,  and  it  has  at  all 
times  been  marred  by  the  presence  of  incompetent  or  unsuit- 
able individuals.  The  home  administration  of  diplomacy, 
however,  has  exhibited  a  continuity  of  service  and  a  conspic- 
uous ability  which  give  it  rank  with  our  supreme  court.  John 
Jay,  John  Quincy  Adams,  William  Hunter,  and  John  Bassett 
Moore  cover  the  whole  period  of  our  diplomacy,  and  repre- 
sent an  almost  constant  service  within  the  state  department 
or  easy  availability  for  advice  to  it.  Other  series  equally 
striking  may  be  named.  Jefferson  and  Buchanan  were  al- 
ways powerful,  and  for  much  of  the  time  in  control,  from 
the  beginning  of  independence  to  Civil  war;  Seward  and 
Hay,  from  1849  to  1905.  William  Hunter  and  A.  A.  Adee 
together  served  in  the  state  department  from  1829  to  the 
present  day  (1915);  counting  the  years  when  they  over- 
lapped, their  combined  service  falls  just  six  years  short  of  a 
century.  Such  personal  oversight  has  meant  a  growth  from 
precedent  to  precedent  which  has  gradually  resulted  in  a 
self-carrying  tradition  for  those  minor  matters  that  do  not 
reach  the  public  ear.* 

The  consistency  with  which  general  policies  have  been 
applied  in  the  greater  episodes,  as  such  have  arisen,  is  due 
to  the  force  of  a  governing  public  opinion.  It  is  probably 
true  that  the  growth  of  democracy  has  made  diplomacy 
more  difficult  in  most  countries  than  it  previously  had  been. 
That  the  reverse  has  been  true  in  the  United  States  has  been 
due,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  juristic  habit  of  mind  already 
mentioned.  The  Monroe  Doctrine  has  been  popularly  re- 
garded as  a  law;  its  successive  extensions  have  been  looked 
upon  in  the  same  light  as  the  new  powers  which  the  courts 
have  successively  found  by  implication  in  the  constitution. 

More  important  has  been  the  simplicity  of  our  leading  and 
essential  policy.  The  harmonizing  of  conflicting  ideas, 
when  they  have  presented  themselves,  has  proved  beyond  our 
grasp.    The  one  deliberate  purpose  which  our  diplomacy  has 

*  Gaillard  Hunt,  Department  of  State  of  the  United  States,  N.  Y.,  1914. 


SUCCESS  AND  ITS  CAUSES  509 

completely  failed  to  bring  about  has  been  that  of  winning 
the  sympathy  and  acquiring  the  leadership  of  Spanish  Amer- 
ica. The  reason  is  obvious;  not  the  sentiment  of  Pan- Amer- 
icanism, but  the  deep-seated  nationalistic  conception  of 
United  States  dominance,  has  primarily  moved  us.  From 
the  day  in  1794  when  Wayne  rode  round  the  British  fort  at 
the  rapids  of  the  Maumee  and  dared  its  commander  to  fire, 
we  have,  with  the  exception  of  brief  periods  after  the  first 
abdication  of  Napoleon  and  during  the  Civil  war,  been  the 
dominant  American  power.  In  1823  we  announced  the 
fact  to  the  world,  and  at  the  same  time  first  became  generally 
conscious  of  it  ourselves.  Every  corollary  added  to  the  Mon- 
roe Doctrine  has  been  a  renewed  assertion  of  the  fact,  and 
has  presented  an  added  means  of  maintaining  it. 

Dominance  is  not  a  policy  but  a  talent:  the  responsibility 
is  for  its  use.  Our  employment  of  our  position  has  rested 
upon  a  feeling  that  long  antedated  it,  that  even  antedated 
our  ancestors'  migration  to  America,  They  wanted  to  be  let 
alone,  the  colonies  in  1776  wanted  to  be  let  alone,  to  seek  their 
future  in  their  own  way.  In  return  they  were  willing,  not 
exactly  to  let  every  one  else  alone,  but  at  least  to  confine 
their  activities  to  the  limits  within  which  they  were  actually 
in  control.  Franklin  rejected  the  idea  of  colonial  representa- 
tion in  the  English  Parliament;  he  wished  not  legislative 
participation  in  the  empire,  but  legislative  independence 
within  the  colonial  area.  This  was  the  reverse  side  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  In  America  we  were  dominant;  by  con- 
fining our  activities  to  America  we  could  be  dominant 
wherever  we  were  active.  It  is  this  simple  and  fundamental 
idea  that  has  impressed  itself  on  the  American  mind,  and 
has  become  the  touchstone  by  which  public  opinion  judges 
all  diplomatic  questions.  With  such  a  task  as  keeping  ad- 
justed a  balance  of  power,  democracy  is  probably  incompe- 
tent to  deal;  with  its  accustomed  practicality  the  democracy 
of  America  determined  that  it  would  have  no  balance  of  power 
in  America,  and  would  not  meddle  with  it  where  it  existed. 


510  AMERICAN  DIPLOMACY 

When  it  became  plain  that  neither  isolation,  nor  even 
separation  of  the  continents,  would  longer  serve  to  secure 
this  self-determination  that  Americans  had  always  desired 
for  themselves  and  respected  in  others,  their  natural  re- 
course was  to  world  organization,  which  would  bring  inter- 
national relations  into  the  realm  of  constitutional  politics 
with  which  they  were  familiar.  By  policy  and  law  they 
would  avoid  the  preparation  and  the  clash  of  armaments, 
and  by  agreements  which,  by  being  general,  would  be  dis- 
entangling, they  would  secure  for  others  as  well  as  for  them- 
selves that  freedom  to  devote  their  main  energy  to  the 
development  of  their  own  ideas,  for  which  they  had  con- 
tinuously striven. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  Lord,  Mexican  policy, 
253.  262,  270;  Oregon,  267. 

Abyssinia,  treaty  with  United  States, 
469. 

Acadia,  French,  boundary  dispute, 
230. 

Adams,  Charles  F.,  minister  to 
England,  8,  306,  316,  321,  372; 
instructions,  319;  protests  deliv- 
ery of  Confederate  rams,  322,  340; 
successor,  340;  in  Geneva  board, 
347;  characterized,  306;  cited, 
322,  382. 

Adams,  David  J.,  fishing-vessel, 
seized,  376. 

Adams,  John,  diplomat,  1,  115,  188; 
commissioner  to  France,  38;  Hol- 
land, 38;  peace  commissioner,  41, 
46,  48;  minister  to  England,  52, 
59,  60,  83,  372;  commercial 
treaties,  54;  treats  with  Barbary 
States,  56;  arranges  Dutch  loan, 
78;  vice-president,  81;  president, 
130;  appointments,  131,  138; 
French  policy,  133,  134,  137-139; 
views  on  neutrality,  92;  on  isola- 
tion, 211;  characterized,  38,  39; 
cited,  34,  39,  59,  60,  92,  133. 

Adams,  John  Q.,  diplomat,  2,  8, 
241.  306,  429,  508;  mission  to 
Prussia  and  Sweden,  129;  at  Ber- 
lin, 143;  minister  to  Russia.  163, 
170,  179,  188;  on  commission  to 
England,  179;  on  Ghent  commis- 
sion, 180,  183,  185;  secretary  of 
state,  188;  president,  188,  214; 
fisheries  policy.  192;  trade.  199; 
Florida.  199-202,  208,  341;  Span- 
ish-American, 207-218,  297;  slave- 
trade,  237;  objects  to  British  co- 
operation, 210-214,  293;  Pan- 
American  policy,  214,  215,  284, 
478;  slave-trade,  237;  Texas  policy, 
246,   247,   250-252;    member    of 


Congress,  227, 256;  supports  Jack- 
son, 228;  argues  VAmisted  case, 
239;  minister  to  England,  372; 
characterized,  188,  222;  opinions 
cited,  81,  104,  120,  126,  140,  189. 

Adams,  Samuel,  gains  foreign  sym- 
pathy, 24;  predicts  separation  of 
East  and  South,  41. 

Adams,  William,  peace  commission- 
er, 180. 

Adee,  A.  A.,  service  in  state  depart- 
ment, 508. 

Adet,  P.  A.,  minister  to  United 
States,  127;  recall,  128,  130; 
Canadian  intrigues,  131;  western, 
131. 

Adler,  German  warship,  400. 

Admiralty  Courts,  organized  by 
Gen^,  99;  British,  111,  112,  114, 
122,  156,  157,  236,  339. 

Africa,  trade  with  United  States, 
55,  85;  Napoleon's  dealings  with, 
131;  slaves  returned  to,  239; 
pirates  of,  351;  international 
relations,  464. 

Aguinaldo.  Emilio,  Philippine  leader, 
420. 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  treaty  of,  16. 

Alabama,  Confederate  cruiser,  339; 
claims  against,  345;  commission 
on,  347. 

Alaman,  Louis,  Mexican  secretary, 
cited,  243;  warnings  heeded,  247; 
Texan  views,  252;  views  on  Amer- 
ican expansion,  481. 

Alamo,  story  of,  248. 

Alaska,  Russian  fur-trade,  209; 
purchase  of.  358.  398.  406,  478, 
487;  seal  industry,  377,  434; 
boundary  dispute,  432;  settled, 
434;  status  of  inhabitants,  421. 

Alaska  Commercial  Company,  seal- 
ing monopoly,  377. 

Albert,  Prince,  labors  for  peace, 
317. 


513 


514 


INDEX 


Aldrich,  Sen.  Nelaon,  on  reciprocity, 
388,  471. 

Alexander  I,  of  Russia,  fosters 
Holy  Alliance,  204;  foreign  policy, 
179. 

Alexander  II,  of  Russia,  emancipa- 
tor, 312. 

Alexander  VI,  Pope,  confirms  Span- 
ish claims,  10;  demarcation  line, 
11,  12,  391,  417. 

Alexis,  Grand  Duke,  visits  Amer- 
ica, 360. 

Alfonso  XII,  king  of  Spain,  365. 

Algeciras,  conference  at,  402;  United 
States  takes  part,  464. 

Algiers,  official  piracy,  55,  56;  holds 
Americans  as  slaves,  56;  treaty 
with,  85;  raids  Atlantic,  114; 
American  expedition  against,  141; 
French  capture,  223;  Dey  of,  cited, 
141. 

Aliens,  control  of,  80. 

Allegheny  River,  17. 

Allen,  Ethan,  head  of  Cuban  com- 
mittee, 409. 

Alverstone,  Lord  Chief  Justice,  on 
Alaskan  boundary  commission, 
434. 

Amazon  River,  navigation  of,  287. 

Ambrister,  R.  C,  hanged,  200. 

V Ambuscade,  captures  Little  Sarah, 
103. 

Amelia  Island,  privateers  use,  200. 

American  Fur  Co.,  rivals,  173. 

American  Revolution,  diplomacy 
during,  1,  23;  causes,  35;  Euro- 
pean interest  in,  24, 25;  piracy,  56; 
after  effects  on  commerce,  62; 
frontier  loyalty,  67,  69;  trade 
during,  70,  81,  108. 

Americans,  relations  with  Indians, 
64-66,  72,  74,  116;  sympathies  in 
French  Revolution,  95,  96;  man 
French  privateers,  98,  102. 

Ames,  Fisher,  supports  Jay  treaty, 
122;  cited,  86,  144,  121. 

Amiens,  treaty  of,  143. 

VAmiated,  slave  carrier,  case  tried, 
239;  as  precedent,  368. 

Amoy,  port  opened,  223. 

Amsterdam,  printing  centre,  24; 
financial,  34;  market,  85;  burgo- 
master, 36. 

Amy  Warwick,  admiralty  case,  307. 


Andrew,  Gov.  J.  M.,  Trent  affair 
pleases,  316. 

Angell,  J.  B.,  on  Chinese  commission, 
398. 

Anglican  Church,  position  in  United 
States,  52. 

Antelope,  admiralty  case,  237. 

Apia  (Samoa),  consular  intrigues 
in,  399,  401. 

Appalachian  Mountains,  as  bound- 
ary, 98. 

Appalachicola  River,  as  bound- 
ary, 19. 

d'Aranda,  Count,  Spanish  minister, 
33;  treats  with  Jay,  44,  142. 

Arbitration,  familiar  to  English 
colonists,  22;  of  boundaries,  186; 
of  slave  indemnity,  191;  Indian 
annuities,  194;  northeast  bound- 
ary, 228,  234;  Creole  case,  239; 
northwest  boundary,  270;  seizure 
of  fishing  vessels,  287;  idea  of 
permanent,  279;  fisheries,  285; 
Civil  war  claims,  344-347;  Geneva 
court,  347,  348;  of  Spanish- Amer- 
ican claims,  350;  Cuban  claims, 
367;  Portuguese,  375;  French,  375; 
fisheries,  375;  sealing  rights,  378; 
between  American  powers,  385, 
386;  proposed  in  Venezuelan  dis- 
pute, 392,  393;  in  Maine  affair, 
414;  of  Alaska  boundary,  439, 434; 
of  fisheries,  435;  Pan-American 
court  of,  451;  Venezuelan  claims, 
447;  other  claims,  469;  "Pious 
fund"  claims,  474;  scope,  340, 
474,  475;  American  advocates  of, 
472,  473;  treaties,  474,  475,  481; 
Spanish- American  practice  of,  473, 
474. 

Arbuthnot,  Alexander,  hanged,  200. 

Archangel,  port  open,  163. 

Argentine  Republic,  commercial 
treaty  with,  285,  287;  later  rela- 
tions, 324;  European  relations, 
825;  competition  with,  373;  Ital- 
ian immigration,  384;  diplomatic 
service  to,  430;  foreign  minister, 
446;  dispute  with  Chile,  mediated, 
451;  attitude  toward  United 
States,  452;  reciprocity  treaty 
with,  470;  offers  mediation,  490. 

Arizona,  New  Mexico  includes^ 
279. 


INDEX 


515 


Arkansas,  early  history,  25S;  emi- 
grants, 257. 

Armed  Neutrality.     See  Neutrality. 

Armenians,  status  in  United  States, 
466. 

Armstrong,  Gen.  John,  letter  cited, 
150;  minister  to  France,  170. 

Arnold,  Benedict,  at  siege  of  Que- 
bec, 75. 

Aroostook  River,  trouble  in  valley, 
230,  235. 

Arthur,  C.  A.,  president,  370;  ap- 
pointments, 370;  reciprocity 
policy,  388. 

Ashburton,  Lord,  treats  with  Web- 
ster, 233,  234,  237;  views  cited, 
233;  letter  to,  239. 

Asia,  trade  with  United  States,  54, 
196,  223;  diplomatic  activity  in, 
353,  477;  American  interests,  464. 

Asquith,  H.  H.,  premier,  Mexican 
policy,  485. 

Astor,  J.  J.,  plans  for  Northwest,  173. 

Astoria  (Ore.),  founded,  173,  254; 
American  flag  over,  185;  prop- 
erty title,  185;  Americans  lose, 
265. 

Atlantic  cable,  effect  on  diplomatic 
intercourse,  300,  316,  371. 

Austin,  Stephen,  rouses  sympathy 
for  Texas,  248. 

Austria,  offers  mediation,  41;  war 
with     France,     95;     signs     Holy 
Alliance,   204;   quells   Italian   re- 
volt, 204;  England  seeks  alliance, 
240;     extradition     treaty,     284 
returns  Kotzka  to  United  States 
289;    mediator,    324,    375,    383 
policy   toward   Maximilian,   333 
irritation  against  United  States, 
333,  426;  trade-mark  treaty,  351 
naturalization,   356;    Russian  re- 
lations, 359;  Cuban,  366;  reciproc- 
ity with,  389;  diplomatic  service 
to,  430;  policy  in  Par  East,  458; 
protests  munitions  supply,  499. 

Azores,  Islands,  as  boundary,  10. 

B 

Babcock,  Gen.  O.  E.,  San  Domingo 
mission,  362,  363. 

Bacon,  Sen.  A.  C,  Mexican  pol- 
icy, 486. 


Baden,  naturalization  treaty  with, 
356. 

Baez,  Pres.  Buenaventura,  annexa- 
tion policy,  861-363. 

Bagot,  Sir  Charles,  minister  to 
United  States,  191. 

Bahamas,  British,  trade,  S08;  posi- 
tion  threatens  Gulf  trade,   360. 

Bainbridge,  Capt.  William,  brings 
"tribute"  to  Algiers,  141. 

Balkan  states,   conference  of,   468. 

Baltic  Sea,  control  of,  497. 

Baltimore  (Md.),  trade  centre,  161. 

Baltimore,  marines  from,  killed,  390. 

Bancroft,  George,  minister  to  Ger- 
many, 355;  ability,  255;  makes 
treaty,  356;  mission  to  Spain,  361; 
England,  372;  cited,  278. 

Banks,  Gen.  N.  P.,  member  of  Con- 
gress, 362. 

"The  Banks."    See  Newfoundland. 

Barbados,  reciprocity  with,  470. 

Barbary  States,  pirates,  13,  55; 
consular  service  to,  81;  United 
States  pays  "tribute,"  84,  132; 
treaties  with,  85,  141,  222;  piracy 
stopped,  196,  204,  223;  profits  of 
pirates,  351. 

Barclay,  Thomas,  concludes  Mo- 
rocco treaty,  56. 

Baring,  Sir  Thomas,  American  pol- 
icy, 343. 

Baring  Brothers,  firm  of,  233. 

Barlow,  Joel,  French  sympathy,  96; 
minister  to  France,  171. 

Barrett,  John,  diplomatic  service, 
430. 

Barron,  Commodore  James,  com- 
mands Chesapeake,  159. 

Basle,  treaty  of,  terms,  123,  130. 

Bassano,  Due  de,  French  foreign 
minister,  170. 

Bastile,  fall  of,  94. 

Bathurst,  Lord,  treaty  interpreta- 
tion, 192;  letters  to,  cited,  82,  181. 

Bavaria,  desires  commercial  treaty, 
53;  naturalization  treaty  with, 
356. 

Baxter,  Henry,  agent  in  Hondu- 
ras, 352. 

Bayard,  J.  A.,  peace  commissioner, 
179,  180,  183. 

Bayard,  T.  F.,  secretary  of  state, 
870,  378,  891,  400.  403;  minister 


516 


INDEX 


to  England,  373;  Samoan  pol- 
icy, 400. 

Bayonne,  trade  decree,  166. 

Beaumarchais,  Pierre  de,  agent  of 
Vergennes,  26;  cited,  27. 

Beauregard,  Gen.  P.  G.  T.,  English 
sympathy  for,  314. 

Beckwith,  Maj.  George,  British 
agent,  90;  cited,  90. 

Beecher,  H.  W.,  English  in6u- 
ence,  322. 

Behring  Sea,  fisheries,  5,  434,  506; 
jurisdiction  disputed,  377,  378, 
387. 

Behring  Straits,  boundary  through, 
358. 

Belgium,  commercial  treaty  with, 
285;  extradition,  350;  trade-mark, 
351;  navigation,  352;  naturaliza- 
tion, 356;  diplomatic  service  to, 
430;  export  trade,  452. 

Belize,  British  settlement,  292,  293; 
boundaries,  295,  381,  382. 

Benjamin,  J.  P.,  Confederate  secre- 
tary, 311;  French  policy,  331. 

Benton,  W.  S.,  British  subject, 
killed  in  Mexico,  446,  486. 

Benton,  Sen.  T.  H.,  Oregon  views, 
256. 

Berlin,  American  commissioner  to, 
31;  Samoan  conference  at,  401; 
General  Act  of,  401,  425,  454; 
financial  centre,  427;  diplomatic 
service  to,  455;  treaty,  of,  465. 

Berlin  Decree,  terms,  158;  revoked, 
168. 

Bermuda  Islands,  ownership,  29; 
American  acquisition  suggested, 
40;  reciprocity  with,  470. 

Bermuda,  admiralty  case,  308. 

Bernard,  Montague,  on  claims  com- 
mission, 345. 

Bernhardi,  Gen.  von,  on  British 
policy,  cited,  333. 

Berthier,  Alexandre,  cited,  149. 

Biddle,  Nicholas,  author,  148. 

Bigelow,  John,  in  France,  321. 

Bismarck,  Prince  Otto  von,  relations 
with  Bancroft,  355;  Samoan  pol- 
icy, 401. 

Black  Warrior,  seized  by  Spain,  300, 
801. 

Blaine,  J.  G.,  diplomat,  8;  secretary 
of  state,  370,  403;  reciprocity  ad- 


vocate, 373,  388,  389;  arbitration. 
472;  Behring  Sea  contention,  378, 
379;  Panama  policy,  381,  383; 
Spanish-American,  384-386,  391, 
394,  444;  Pan- Americanism,  386, 
478;  trouble  with  Chili,  390; 
presidential  ambition,  390;  Ha- 
waiian policy,  404;  "Elder  Sister," 
448;  characterized,  371,  387,  390, 
391;  cited,  381,  385,  388,  404; 
The  Foreign  Policy  of  the  Garfield 
Administration,  cited,  387. 

Blanca,  Florida,  Spanish  minister, 
26. 

Blockade.     See  International  Law. 

Blount,   William,   conspirator,   134. 

Bluefields  (Nicaragua),  British  ma- 
rines land  at,  383. 

Boer  War,  impending,  428;  diplo- 
matic difficulties,  431. 

Bogota,  American  minister  recalled, 
440. 

Bogota,  Colombian  gunboat,  441. 

Bolivar,  Gen.  Simon,  revolutionary 
leader,  89,  203,  206. 

Bolivia,  commercial  treaty  with, 
223,  285,  287;  Peru-Chili  war,  386. 

Bonaparte,  Joseph,  King  of  Spain, 
150,  203. 

Bonaparte,  Louis,  King  of  Holland, 
167. 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  dealings  with 
United  States,  8,  101,  138,  139, 
142-146,  148-150,  154,  155,  164- 
170,  175,  178,  201,  209;  Africa, 
131 ;  navy  defeated,  152;  on  Louis- 
iana, cited,  145,  146;  orders  to 
Dantzig,  166;  English  policy,  155, 
158;  at  Elba,  155;  Russian  policy, 
169,  170,  179;  fall  of,  177,  179; 
continental  system,  165,  167,  190, 
494,  507. 

Bond,  Sir  Robert,  Newfoundland 
premier,  434. 

Bond,  Pbineas,  British  consul,  87; 
letter  cited,  122,  154. 

Borneo,  commercial  treaty  with,  286. 

Boston,  port  of,  177,  316. 

Boundaries,  Northeast,  15,  16,  117, 
186,  228-232,  234;  Hudson  Bay 
region,  16;  Florida,  19,  20,  124; 
Continental  Congress  discusses, 
40,  46;  peace  commissioners  dis- 
cuss {1782),  46,  48;  {,18U).  182; 


INDEX 


617 


Cherokee,  72;  Northwestern,  194; 
Western,  201,  202;  Louisiana,  148- 
151;  Canadian-American,  186; 
507;  commissions  appointed,  186, 
defined,  218;  Texas,  266,  271; 
between  islands,  337,  347. 

Bounties,  to  American  fishermen, 
193,  194. 

Bowles,  W.  A.,  adventurer,  89; 
letter  cited,  89. 

"Boxer"  troubles,  455,  461. 

Brandy,  trade  in  French,  61. 

Brant,  Joseph,  Iroquois  leader,  65. 

Brazil,  settled  by  Portuguese,  11, 12; 
Portugal  loses,  203;  empire  of,  204; 
slavery  m,  236;  commercial  treat- 
ies, 216,  navigation  question,  287; 
relations  with  United  States,  324, 
452;  Europe,  325;  German  immi- 
gration, 384;  war  with  Portugal, 
324;  represented  on  Geneva  board, 
347;  reciprocity  with,  389;  Brit- 
ish dispute,  arbitrated,  394;  dip- 
lomatic service  to,  430;  offers  me- 
diation, 490. 

Breda,  Treaty  of,  14. 

Bremen,  commercial  treaty  with, 
197. 

Bright,  John,  favors  North,  315. 

British  America,  fisheries,  192; 
trade  with,  197;  Sumner's  pol- 
icy, 341. 

British  Guiana,  reciprocity  treaty 
with,  470. 

Brittany,  fishermen  of,  108,  110. 

Brougham,  Lord,  questions  British 
policy,  254. 

Brown,  John,  colonizing  schemes,  75. 

Brunei.treaty  with,  286. 

Bryan,  C.  P.,  diplomatic  service, 
430. 

Bryan,  W.  J.,  secretary  of  state, 
448,  480;  draws  up  Colombian 
treaty,  453;  note  to  Balkan  States, 
468;  arbitration  advocate,  473, 
475;  Japanese  policy,  480;  Mex- 
ican, 486. 

Buchanan,  James,  secretary  of  state, 
268,  282;  minister  to  England, 
282,  294,  300,  372;  mission  to 
Spain,  301;  president,  282;  expan- 
sionist, 281,  282,  297,  300;  dip- 
lomatic policy,  304;  Calif omian, 
275;  Mexican.  277,  278.  297,  328. 


489;  Central  American,  295,  296; 
Cuban,  299,  367;  opinion  of  Clay- 
ton-Bulwer  treaty,  293;  diplomat- 
ic service,  2,  499;  characterized. 
282;  cited,  278,  297,  328. 

Bucharest,  conference  of  Balkan 
states  at,  468. 

Buenos  Ayres,  revolt  in,  203;  United 
States  envoy  to,  206;  English  in- 
vestments, 215;  commercial  treat- 
ies, 216. 

Buffalo  (N.  Y.),  Pan-American 
Exposition  at,  451. 

Buffer  State,  of  Indians,  proposed, 
181,  183,  184,  246. 

Bullock,  Capt.  J.  D.,  makes  ship 
contracts,  339. 

Bulwer,  Sir  H.  L.,  makes  treaty, 
282,  293. 

Bunau  Varilla,  Panama  agent,  441, 
442. 

Bureau  of  American  Republics 
established,  388. 

Burgoyne,  Gen.  John,  surrender,  29. 

Burke,  Edmund,  friend  of  America, 
314. 

Burliugame,  Anson,  mission  from 
China,  354. 

Burr,  Aaron,  at  siege  of  Quebec,  75; 
French  sympathies,  104;  vice- 
president,  147;  conspiracy,  147. 
148. 

Burton,  A.  A.,  commission  secre- 
tary. 364. 

Bustamante,  Anastasio,  Mexican 
president,  247. 

Butler,  Anthony,  minister  to  Mexico. 
221. 

Butter,  trade  in,  76,  110. 


Cabot,  John,  explorer,  10,  13. 

Cadore,  Due  de,  French  foreign 
minister,  letter,  cited,  168. 

Caicos,  reciprocity  with,  470. 

Calhoun,  J.  C,  a  "War  Hawk," 
171;  secretary  of  state,  221,  225, 
261,  268;  on  maritime  law  ques- 
tion, 238;  Texas  policy,  261-266, 
272,  298,  342,  363;  Oregon,  267- 
269;  diplomatic  ability,  221,  261; 
letter  to,  cited,  259;  opinions,  261. 

California,  Spain  holds.  205,  209. 


518 


INDEX 


257;  Russian  fort  in,  209;  Russia 
gives  up  claim  to,  213;  American 
interests,  245,  253,  257-259,  274; 
British.  257-259;  Mexico,  274, 
278;  gained  from  Mexico,  279; 
gold  discovered,  286,  291;  Alaskan 
interest,  358;  coast  line  impor- 
tant, 398;  Chinese  problem,  397, 
398;  Japanese,  462,  480. 

California,  Lower,  ownership,  275. 

Calvo,  Carlos,  collection  of  claims 
theory,  446. 

Cambon,  J.  M.,  French  ambassa- 
dor, 417. 

Campo  Bello  Island,  Fenians  at- 
tack, 338. 

Campos,  Gen.  Martinez  de,  Cuban 
governor,    368;    campaign,    411. 

Canada,  French  colony,  13,  17; 
English  conquer,  17;  ceded,  18; 
trade  encouraged,  60;  governor- 
generals,  63,  67,  114,  230;  French 
sympathies  in,  97,  102.  131,  232; 
British  loyalty,  153, 178;  American 
trade,  176;  desires  northern  New 
York,  181;  annexation  proposed, 
174,  182,  232.  299;  Sumner's  view, 
342,  344;  Cobden's,  342;  fishing 
regulations.  194.  285.  376.  434, 
435;  revolts  in.  232;  reciprocity 
treaty.  285;  expires.  376;  (1911). 
rejected,  435,  436;  Dominion 
organized,  334;  Americans  pro- 
test, 336;  Fenians  invade.  338; 
minister  of  justice,  345;  relations 
with  England,  346,  434,  435; 
extradition  act.  374;  Alaska  seal 
interests,  377,  378,  434. 

Canadian  Gazette,  policy,  181. 

Canals,  Hudson-Lake  Champlain, 
197;  Erie  Canal,  197;  Isthmian, 
290,  291,  380,  382,  436-444,  469, 
480,  481. 

Canning,  George,  dealings  with 
J.  Q.  Adams,  8,  293;  minister  of 
foreign  affairs,  164,  188,  206,  237, 
293,  334,  382;  rejects  Erskine's 
agreement,  165,  166;  Spanish- 
American  policy,  210-217;  ability, 
189,  215;  cited,  214. 

Cannon,  J.  G.,  introduces  war  prep- 
aration bill,  413. 

Canovas,  del  Castillo,  Antonio, 
Spanish  prime  minister,  death,  413. 


Canso,  Gut  of,  waters  closed,  193. 

Canton,  trade  with.  55,  286. 

Cape  Cod,  blockade  south  of,  176; 
north  of,  177. 

Cape  Horn,  route  via,  286. 

Cape  Verde  Islands,  as  boundary,  10. 

Caracas  (Venezuela),  intrigues  in, 
89;  American  agent  at,  385. 

Caribbean  Sea,  privateers,  207; 
commerce,  286,  360;  American 
interests,  444,  448,  450-452,  464, 
477,479,481.489. 

Carmichael.  William,  American  min- 
ister to  Spain,  123. 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  presents  arbi- 
tration palace,  451;  peace  palace, 
473;  pacifist,  473. 

Carnegie  Institution,  historical 
study,  244. 

Caroline,  Canadians  seize,  232,  233; 
case  settled,  234. 

Carranza,  Gen.  Vincenzio,  denies 
authority  of  Huerta,  484;  consti- 
tutionalist leader,  486;  not  recog- 
nized, 489. 

Carroll.  John,  appointed  bishop.  52. 

Cartier,  Jacques.  American  discover- 
ies, 13. 

Cass.  Lewis,  minister  to  France, 
240;  secretary  of  state,  241,  282. 

Castlereagh.  Lord,  in  peace  negotia- 
tions. 179;  instructs  commis- 
sioners, 182;  slave-trade  policy, 
236. 

Catherine  II  of  Russia,  doctrine  of 
armed  neutrality,  37,  179. 

Cattrell,  Stephen,  Canadian  official, 
cited.  67. 

Central  America,  commercial  treaty 
with,  216,  285;  route  via,  290; 
neutrality  guaranteed,  293;  Amer- 
ican immigration,  296;  status  of 
British  Honduras,  382;  United 
States  acquires  territory  in,  436; 
arbitration  court,  451. 

Civil  service  reform,  development, 
431. 

Civil  war,  diplomacy  during.  8; 
neutral  rights,  6;  encourages  hu- 
manitarianism,  241;  diplomatic 
effects,  331,  368;  Irish  enlistments, 
338;  commercial  straits,  360; 
claims  against  England,  339-348. 

Chaleurs,  Bay  of,  boundary,  20,  230. 


INDEX 


519 


Chamberlain,  Joseph,  protection 
advocate,  427. 

Champlain,  Lake,  as  boundary,  20; 
settlements  along,  67;  battle  on, 
178;  outlet,  231. 

Charles  III,  of  Spain,  vacillation, 
26,  31,  42. 

Charles  V,  of  Germany,  colonial 
policy,  12;  foresight,  290. 

Charleston  (S.  C.)  British  agents 
at,  90,  310;  Genfit  reaches,  98; 
schemes  in,  99;  French  privateers 
at,  103;  British  Consul  at,  310. 

Chatham,  Earl  of.  See  William 
Pitt. 

Cheese,  trade  in,  58. 

Chesapeake,  affair  with  Leopard,  159, 
165,  174. 

Chile,  commercial  treaty  with,  223; 
relations  strained,  375,  390,  409; 
accepts  mediation,  385,  451; 
Bolivia-Peru  war,  386;  president, 
cited,  387;  civil  war,  390;  resents 
United  States  arrogance,  452; 
offers  mediation,  490. 

China,  trade  with  United  States,  55; 
commercial  treaty  with,  223,  286; 
five  ports  opened,  223;  open  to 
missions,  286;  Burlingame  treaty, 
354;  missionary  interests,  396, 455, 
460;  Boxer  troubles,  455—457; 
emigration  question,  397,  398,  449, 
460;  diplomatic  service  to,  430; 
international  interests  in,  454, 455; 
relations  with  Japan,  455,  461; 
United  States,  432;  integrity  of, 
456-458,  459,  463,  477;  neutrality 
recognized,  458;  "six  power" 
loan,  460;  revolution,  459;  arbi- 
tration, 475. 

Chinese,  employed  in  Pacific  coast, 
286;  exclusion  of,  397,  398. 

Canadian  problem,  432. 

Chincha  Island,  Spain's  claims,  327. 

Ching,  Prince,  represents  China, 
457. 

Choate,  Rufus,  Senator,  report 
cited,  225. 

Chocolate,  trade  in,  108. 

Choiseul,  Due  de,  predicts  American 
Revolution,  25. 

Christopher  Island,  ownership,  35. 

Church  of  England.  See  Anglican 
Church. 


Claiborne,  W.  C.  C,  governor  of 
Orleans  territory,  151. 

Claims,  Spanish-American,  226,  284, 
350,  375.  469;  French  spoliation, 
226-228,  375;  Mexican,  251,  274, 
328,  350,  375,  474;  Civil  war, 
339-348;  British,  344,  469;  Rus- 
sian, 469;  Portuguese,  375;  against 
Tycoon,  353;  Spanish,  410;  prob- 
lems under  Monroe  Doctrine, 
446;  Treaties,  226,  345,  375. 

Clarendon,  Lord,  British  minister, 
295;  convention  with  Johnson, 
rejected,  343. 

Clark,  G.  R.,  takes  western  forts, 
83,  69;  colonizing  schemes,  75; 
French  sympathy,  97;  French 
commission,  102;  forces  separa- 
ted, 105. 

Clark,  William,  explorer,  148. 

Clarkson,  Thomas,  opposes  slave- 
trade,  236. 

Clay,  Henry,  a  "War  Hawk,"  174, 
178;  peace  commissioner,  179, 
180,  185,  189;  attacks  administra- 
tion, 189,  206;  secretary  of  state, 
189,  214,  291;  Pan-American  pol- 
icy, 214,  284,  478;  conciliates 
France,  228;  influence  of,  371; 
characterized,  189;  cited,  291. 

Clayton,  J.  M.,  secretary  of  state, 
282;  English  treaty,  282,  292,  293. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  appointments, 
370,  372,  389;  free  trade  advocate, 
373;  fisheries  policy,  376;  canal, 
382;  Pan-American,  387;  Vene- 
zuela, 391;  opposes  reciprocity, 
388;  conception  of  Monroe  Doc- 
trine, 392,  394;  Hawaiian  policy, 
405,  406;  Cuban,  409,  412;  Turk- 
ish, 465;  civil  service  under,  431; 
cited,  382,  394. 

Coahuila,  Texas  joined  to,  247,  248; 
governor,  484. 

Coasting  trade,  embargo  not  applica- 
ble, 160,  177;  cut  off  by  war,  177; 
canal  tolls  exemption,  437. 

Cobden,  Richard,  American  views, 
cited,  341,  342. 

Cochrane,  Admiral  Thomas,  aids 
Spanish-America,  206. 

Cockbum,  Sir  Alexander,  on  Geneva 
board,  347. 

Cocoa,  trade  in,  119,  15S. 


520 


INDEX 


Coffee,  trade  in,  108,  109,  119,  153, 
284;  in  McKinley  tariff,  388. 

Collot-d'Herbois,  Jean  M.,  French 
agent,  134;  instructions,  cited, 
131. 

Colombia,  commercial  treaty  with, 
216;  United  States  inBuence,  217, 
385;  extradition,  285;  Panama 
neutrality  treaty  (1846),  291,  295, 
379,  380,  385,  439,  440;  grants 
de  Lesseps  canal  concession,  379; 
boundary  dispute,  385;  affected 
by  reciprocity,  389;  diplomatic 
service  to,  430,  440;  rejects  Her- 
ran-Hay  treaty,  439;  Pearson 
syndicate,  450;  treaty  {1915),  450; 
resentment  against  United  States, 
452. 

Colon  (Panama),  revolt  in,  441. 

Colonial  wars,  causes,  15,  16. 

Colorado,  Italians  lynched  in,  427. 

Colorado  River,  free  navigation,  279. 

Columbia  River,  6rst  white  man 
enters,  93;  Lewis  and  Clark,  148; 
Americans  settle  on,  173;  claim, 
253,  267;  navigation  free,  346. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  effect  of 
discoveries,  10. 

Comet,  carries  slaves,  238. 

Coraly,  J.  M.,  minister  to  Hawaii, 
404. 

Commerce,  relations  with  diplomacy, 
5,  54-57,  77,  85-87,  222,  506;  pi- 
rates menace,  55;  defence  meas- 
ures, 156,  281;  non-importation 
agreements,  156,  157;  non-inter- 
course, 163,  164,  166,  167;  em- 
bargoes, 115,  160,  161;  prospers, 

163,  283;  declines,  190;  war  of 
181S  affects,  187,  196;  encourage- 
ment of,  241,  283;  consular  aid, 
373,  476;  balance  of  trade,  58, 
284,  427,  467;  special  licenses,  153, 

164,  167,  177;  open  door  policy, 
455;  in  war  of  191//.,  493;  via 
Scheldt,  5;  Danish  Straits,  5; 
Spanish  colonial  15,  57;  Amer- 
ican, 53,  62, 109;  Dutch,  109;  with 
British  North  America,  5,  67,  68, 

118,  197;  British  Empire,  57-62, 

119,  152;  Latin-America,  5,  161, 
286,  287,  452;  Asia,  5,  54,  55, 199, 
223,  455;  Africa,  54,  55;  Europe, 
61.  62.   152-154.  156.  159.  163. 


164,  224,  225;  West  Indies,  5,  6^ 
77,  118,  119,  156,  161,  198,  222, 
298;  Pacific,  92,  93,  118,  197,  285, 
396,  398,  403,  461,  462;  Mediter- 
ranean. 55,  56,  62,  77, 85, 125, 141, 
196.  See  also  Reciprocity  and 
Merchant  Marine. 

Confederacy,  blockade  runners,  308, 
309;  commerce  destroyers,  319, 
336;  rams,  322;  diplomacy  of,  310, 
311,  321,  330;  British  relations, 
316-319,  321-323,  339;  recogni- 
tion of,  442. 

Confederation,  diplomacy  of,  1; 
British  distrust,  60;  failures  of, 
62,  68,  71,  72,  77,  79,  124;  diplo- 
matic problems,  64,  67,  190; 
growth  of  population,  69;  West- 
ern problems,  73. 

Conger,  E.  H.,  commissioner  to 
China,  457. 

Congo  Free  State,  treaty  with,  375. 

Congress,  creates  departments,  80; 
discusses  merchant  marine,  85-87; 
resentment  against  England,  87; 
considers  Jay  treaty,  122;  increases 
army  and  navy,  133;  reports  to, 
156;  non-importation  agreement, 
157;  special  session,  160;  passes 
embargo,  160;  non-intercourse 
act,  169;  war  sentiment,  171;  de- 
clares war,  174;  Spanish-American 
resolutions,  206;  neutrality  acts, 
207,  232;  calls  out  militia,  230; 
abolishes  slave-trade,  237;  recog- 
nizes Texan  republic,  251;  debates 
annexation,  265;  annexes,  274; 
Oregon  question,  269;  receives 
Polk's  war  message,  276;  military 
policy,  281;  Mexican  policy,  297; 
Cuban,  302;  passes  Morrill  Tar- 
iff, 314;  opposes  Maximilian's 
empire,  331;  refuses  Denmark 
treaty,  361;  relations  to  diplo- 
macy, 370;  authorizes  interna- 
tional copyright,  374;  Panama 
canal  action,  380,  439;  Pan- 
American,  387;  Chinese  exclusion 
acts,  397,  398;  Cuban  action,  416, 
425;  Philippine,  425;  seal  fisheries, 
434;  votes  lynching  indemnities, 
427;  canal  tolls,  437;  abrogates 
Russian  treaty,  466;  immigration 
policy,  467.  468;  refuses  ship  sub- 


INDEX 


521 


sidies,  469;  powers  over  treaties, 

471;  acts  on  sale  of  munitions,  483; 

Mexican  policy,  485,  486;  votes 

war  with  Germany,  505. 
Connecticut    River,    source,     S831, 

235. 
Connolly,  John,  British  agent,  68. 
Constantinople,    American    college 

at,  465. 
Constitution,     strengthens     central 

authority,    79;    executive   under, 

80,  105;  Congress,  powers,  80, 
2S25;  ambiguities,  80,  471. 

Constitution,  wins  fight,  190. 
Consular  service,  early  organization, 

81,  82;  growth,  221;  "pupils," 
283,  430;  commercial  importance 
increases,  373;  poUtics  dominates, 
373;  bill  of  188i,  amended,  387; 
improvement  in,  430,  431;  pop- 
ular interest,  431. 

Continental  Congress,  first  meeting, 
23;  measures  adopted,  23;  mes- 
sage from  Beaumarchais,  27; 
parties  in,  31,  46;  appoints  com- 
missioners, 32,  33,  41;  members, 
39,  81;  considers  peace  terms,  40, 
41,  44;  instructs  peace  commis- 
sioners, 46;  treatment  of  Loyalists, 
48,  64;  relations  with  Papacy,  51; 
relations  with  Anglican  Church, 
52. 

Contraband.  See  International  Law. 

Convention  of  1802,  renewed,  202, 

Convention  of  1818.  terms,  192-195; 
ambiguities,  193. 

Convention  of  1828,  terms,  269. 

Convention  of  18S1.  terms,  223. 

Convention  for  the  Arbitration  of 
Pecuniary  Claims,  parties  to, 
472. 

Convention  on  Artistic  and  Literary 
Copyrights,  parties  to,  472. 

Convention  regulating  the  Importa- 
tion of  Spirituous  Liquors  into 
Africa,  United  States  adheres  to, 
472. 

Convention  of  London,  terms,  328, 
329;  United  States  does  not  sign, 
328. 

Coolies,  importation  of  Chinese, 
354;  smuggling  of,  461. 

Cooper,  J.  F.,  diplomatic  service, 
221. 


Copyrights,  international,  351,  874, 
469. 

Corea,  treaty  with,  375;  separated 
from  China,  455. 

Cornwallis,  Lord,  surrenders,  42. 

Cormn,  seizes  British  vessels,  377. 

Costa  Rica,  commercial  treaty,  285; 
boundary  dispute,  385;  arbitra- 
tion, 475. 

Cotton,  trade  in,  119,  164,  196,  224, 
225.  253,  262,  284;  as  "King," 
310,  311,  315,  316,  821;  contra- 
band {1915),  496. 

Coudert,  F.  R.,  on  seal-fisheries 
commission,  379. 

Crampton,  Sir  J.  F.  T.,  British  min- 
ister, dismissed,  288. 

Creole,  slave  mutiny  on,  238;  case 
settled,  239. 

Crimean  war,  neutral  problems,  288. 

Crockett,  David,  frontier  hero,  248. 

Cuba,  United  States  reversionary  in- 
terest, 6,  78,  208-210,  245;  owner- 
ship, 203,  205,  206;  England's 
relations,  217;  seeks  independence, 
217;  European  interest,  282; 
slavery  in,  236,  297,  301,  302; 
revolution  in,  350;  position  threat- 
ens Gulf  commerce,  360;  Santo 
Domingo  relations,  326;  reciproc- 
ity with,  389,  470;  insurrection 
of  1895,  409,  420;  methods  of 
war,  409,  411,  412;  American 
sympathy,  409;  interests,  410; 
policy,  297-302,  365,  368,  413- 
419,  425,  426,  427,  444,  449,  478, 
487;  Spain  promises  autonomy, 
413;  Roosevelt's  service  in,  424; 
owns  Isle  of  Pines,  425. 

Culebra  Island,  sale  refused,  861, 

Culebrita  Island,  sale  refused,  1, 
361. 

CuUom,  Sen.  Shelby,  in  foreign 
affairs  committee,  474;  views  in 
reciprocity  treaties,  470. 

Cumberland  River,  settlements  in, 
69,  102;  intrigues  of  settlers,  77, 
89;  junction,  105. 

Curtis,  B.  R.,  on  Geneva  board, 
347. 

Cushing,  Caleb,  diplomat,  844;  on 
Geneva  board,  347;  minister  to 
Spain,  366;  instructions,  cited, 
366,  367. 


522 


INDEX 


Dacia,  seizure  of,  493. 

Dallas,  G.  M.,  minister  to  England, 
295. 

Dana,  Francis,  commissioner  to 
Russia,  31,  170;  policy,  264. 

Dana,  R.  H.,  Trent  capture  pleases, 
316. 

Danelson,  A.  J.,  United  States 
agent  in  Texas,  273. 

Danish  Islands,  sale  refused,  360, 
361,  425. 

Danish  sound,  right  of  free  passage, 
5,  287. 

Danton,  G.  J.,  French  leader,  103. 

Dantzig,  Napoleon's  orders  to,  166. 

Darien,  colonists,  205. 

Dauphin,  pirates  capture,  56. 

Davie,  Gov.  W.  R.,  on  French  com- 
mission, 137. 

Davis,  Sen.  C.  K.,  Spanish  treaty 
commissioner,  418. 

Davis,  J.  C.  B.,  prepares  American 
claims  case,  347. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  commissions  pri- 
vateers, 309,  312,  315;  as  diploma- 
tist, 310,  312;  appointments,  310, 
811 ;  message  to  his  Congress,  323; 
British  policy,  311;  neutral  pol- 
icy,   312;    Lowell   satirizes,    318. 

Davis,  R.  H.,  author,  440. 

Day,  W.  R.,  conducts  Spanish  nego- 
tiations, 414,  415,  418;  terms 
cited,  418;  secretary  of  state,  418. 

Dayton,  W.  L.,  minister  to  France, 
331. 

Deane,  Silas,  agent  to  France,  23, 
24;  reaches  Paris,  27;  recall,  31. 

Debt,  foreign,  source  of  danger,  78. 

Debts,  collection  of  British,  48,  60, 
64,  118. 

Declaration  of  Independence,  effect 
on  American  policy,  23,  27. 

Declaration  of  London  (1910), 
terms,  493. 

Declaration  of  Paris,  terms,  288, 
309;  not  signed  by  United  States, 
288,  416;  Seward  and,  309;  atti- 
tude of  Confederacy,  312. 

Delaware  River,  Swedes  settle  on, 
14. 

Democracy,  American  experience 
in,  8,  508,  509. 


Democrats,  platform  of  1856,  cited, 
360. 

Denmark,  armed  neutrality,  37;  com- 
mercial treaty,  197 ;  claims,  226 ;  for- 
bids slave-trade,  236;  Danish  soimd 
question,  287;  Civil  war  policy, 
313;  proposed  cession  of  St.  Thom- 
as, 360,  361;  reciprocity,  470,  475. 

Destination,  enemy,  and  continuous 
voyage,  497. 

Detroit  (Mich.),  British  fort,  63; 
garrison,  90;  militia,  84. 

Deutsche  Handels-und-Plantagen- 
gesellschaft  fUr  Siidseeinseln  zu 
Hambiu"g,  interests  in  Samoa,  399. 

Dewey,  George,  Mexican  coast 
service,  417;  capture  of  Manila, 
417,  420;  Philippine  views,  419, 
420;  made  admiral,  423. 

Diaz,  Felix,  aids  Huerta,  483;  Japan 
mission,  487. 

Diaz,  Pres.  Porfirio,  length  of  serv- 
ice, 481;  meets  Taft,  481;  over- 
throw, 483. 

Dickens,  Charles,  urges  international 
copyright,  351. 

Diplomacy,  American,  birth  of,  1; 
golden  age,  2;  aids  expansion,  2; 
politics  dominates,  2,  220,  259, 
264.  281,  283,  304,  370;  Civil 
war  problems,  3;  nadir  of,  3; 
study  of,  4;  protects  fisheries,  5; 
international  routes,  5;  popular 
control  of,  8;  first  event  in,  11,  12; 
basic  documents,  18,  19;  early 
problems,  20;  colonial  experience, 
21,  22;  direct  methods,  21;  rela- 
tions to  Congress,  80,  370;  to 
parties,  304;  service  not  attract- 
ive, 81,  371,  372;  special  missions, 
81;  consular  service,  81,  82,  373; 
organization  during  Revolution, 
23,  24;  successes,  50,  139,  185, 
213,  222;  failures,  77,  79,  87,  188; 
gains  French  support,  31;  seeks 
that  of  Spain,  33;  religious  prob- 
lems, 52;  Western,  73,  77;  bril- 
liant period,  188;  daring,  218; 
bluff,  271,  295;  in  Nootka  Sound 
affair,  88,  93;  in  French  claims 
case,  226-228;  based  on  neutrality, 
6,  100,  101,  152,  428;  recognition 
of  new  governments,  101,  208, 
484;    secures    extradition.    117; 


INDEX 


523 


favors  international  commissions, 
117,  397;  Hamilton's  influence, 
138;  problems  change,  190,  196, 
242,  245,  286,  288,  289.  336,  398, 
401;  "shirt-sleeve,"  220,  241.  271, 
304,  370,  457;  p)ermanent  arbitra- 
tion policy,  279;  service  system- 
atized, 283;  relation  to  commerce, 
196,  284,  286,  406,  471,  476;  inter- 
national waterways,  287,  351; 
marine  jurisdiction,  287;  trans- 
portation policy,  290-295;  Cuban, 
298-302.  365-368;  triumph  of 
Northern,  323;  anti-British  feel- 
ing a  factor,  336,  338;  service  to 
negro  states,  349;  extension  of 
field.  351,  353,  357.  396.  406; 
significance  of  Civil  war  problems, 
368,  369;  afiFected  by  Atlantic 
cable,  371 ;  social  side  emphasized, 
81,  372,  430;  appointment  of  am- 
bassadors, 423;  represents  admin- 
istrations, 430;  afiFected  by  Span- 
ish war,  428,  438,  454,  477;  high 
standards,  463;  "Open  Door" 
policy,  458,  477;  "Dollar"  di- 
plomacy, 459,  476;  peace  move- 
ment, 472;  continuity,  4,  188,  429, 
475,  507,  508;  broken,  370;  per- 
sonal. 8,  22,  137.  180,  188,  189, 
220,  221,  242,  261,  283,  304,  507, 
508. 

Dissenters,  favor  North,  315. 

Divine  right,  doctrine  of,  204,  205, 
207,  209.  211. 

Dolphin,  admiralty  case.  308. 

Dominican  Republic.  Cuban  rela- 
tions, 326;  Spanish,  327,  329; 
American,  344,  384;  first  treaty 
349;  annexation  proposed,  361- 
364;  mediation  accepted,  390;  rec- 
iprocity treaty  with;  public  debt, 
446;  United  States  protectorate, 
448,  484;  revolution  in,  484. 

Dooley,  Mr.,  on  diplomatic  service, 
cited,  371. 

Dorchester,  Lord,  Canadian  Gov- 
ernor-general, 67;  injudicious 
speech.  83,  114,  116. 

Dorset,  Duke  of.  cited,  60. 

Douglass,  Frederick,  commission  sec- 
retary, 364. 

Drago,  L.  M.,  public  debt  doctrine, 
446,  447. 


Droit  (Tauhaine,  abolished,  54,  224. 

Droit  detraction,  abolished,  224. 

Dumas,  C.  W.  F.,  friend  of  Frank- 
lin, 26. 

Dumauriez,  Gen.  C.  F.,  letter  cited, 
96. 

Durham,  Lord,  Canadian  report, 
232. 

Dutch,  plunder  Spanish  colonies,  13; 
settle  in  Hudson,  13;  cede  Amer- 
ican claims,  14;  England  gives 
neutral  rights,  14,  36;  theory  of 
international  law,  29,  54;  smug- 
glers, 35;  neutrality  aids  American 
Revolution,  22,  35;  consider 
armed  neutrality,  38;  England 
declares  war  on,  38;  relations  with 
Indians,  65;  loan  to  United  States, 
78;  cede  western  Guiana,  391. 

E 

East,  sectional  interests,  71,  98. 

East  India  Company,  monopoly,  54. 

East  Indies,  trade  with,  197. 

Eastport  (Me.),  British  demand,  182. 

Ecuador,  commercial  treaty  with, 
223;  extradition,  350;  natural- 
ization. 356;  claims,  375;  reciproc- 
ity, 470. 

Edward  VII,  of  England,  arbiter, 
451. 

Egan,  Patrick,  minister  to  Chili, 
390. 

Egypt,  French  expedition  to,  136; 
treaty  with  United  States,  375. 

Elba,  Island  of.  Napoleon  at,  155. 

Elbe  River,  navigation  opened,  352. 

Elliot,  Capt.  Charles,  British  agent 
in  Texas,  265,  266. 

Ellsworth,  Oliver,  chief  justice,  137; 
on  French  commission,  137. 

Emanuel,  admiralty  case,  156. 

Embargo,  of  179k,  provisions,  115; 
of  1807. 160;  effects,  160-162.  177; 
Washington  Irving's  ridicule  of, 
cited,  161;  repeal  of,  162;  and 
Napoleon,  165,  166;  failure,  507. 

Encomium,  carries  slaves,  238. 

English  Channel,  Russians  fear  to 
pass,  359. 

Enterprise,  carries  slaves,  238. 

Erie,  Lake,  as  boundary,  46;  battle 
on,  178. 


524 


INDEX 


Erskine,  D.  M.,  minister  to  United 
States,  159;  instructions,  164;  re- 
call, 165,  166. 
Essequibo  River,  Dutch  on,  391. 
Essex,  admiralty  case,  156,  308. 
Ethiopia.    See  Abyssinia. 

Europe,  interest  in  American  Revolu- 
tion, 24,  25;  opinion  of  United 
States  [1789),  78;  of  Jay  treaty, 
122;  Spanish-American  attitude, 
203,  204,  324,  325,  328,  385;  col- 
lection of  debts  447,  449;  inter- 
vention in  America,  204,  210- 
213,  282,  324,  451;  respects 
Monroe  doctrine,  218,  324;  revo- 
lutions in,  204,  208,  280;  expatria- 
tion problems,  289;  recognizes 
Texas  republic,  259;  needs  cotton, 
310;  balance  of  power,  3,  184,  205, 
369,  427,  467,  477;  interest  in  Civil 
war  claims,  347;  protests  Russian 
outrages,  359;  military  system, 
368,  473;  opinion  of  Pan-Amer- 
ican Congress,  387;  of  acquisition 
of  Philippines,  426,  466;  inter- 
national agreements,  402;  rela- 
tions with  Turkey,  465,  466;  with 
Far  East,  477;  emigration  prob- 
lems, 467-469;  Mexican  interests, 
485;  War  of  19U,  491. 

Evarts,  W.  H.,  in  Geneva  board, 
347;  secretary  of  state,  370,  380, 
382,  386,  391. 

Everett,  Alexander,  letter  of  Adams 
to.  207. 

Everett,  Edward,  minister  to  Eng- 
land, 262,  372,  403;  dispatch  on 
Cuba,  282,  299;  secretary  of  state, 
282,  294;  on  TreiU  affair,  316. 

Executive,  relations  with  Senate, 
428,  471. 

Expansion,  American,  Mexican  view, 
243,  244;  historical,  244,  245; 
Sumner's,  342;  theory  of,  280,  300, 
801,  486,  487-489;  leaders,  282, 
297,  300;  Central  American  prob- 
lems, 296;  Cuban,  300,  302;  Alas- 
kan, 358,  369;  San  Domingo,  862; 
Hawaiian,  404;  Philippine,  420; 
Mexican,  486,  489;  debated  in 
Congress,  364;  era  of  internal, 
837;  territorial,  476. 

Expatriation.  See  International  Law. 

Extradition.  Sc^InteniatioiialLaw. 


Fairchild,  Lucius,  mituster  to  Spun, 
instructions,  385. 

Fall,  Sen.  A.  B.,  Mexican  policy,  487. 

Fallen  Timbers,  battle  at,  84. 

"Family  Alliance,"  provisions,  18, 
32,88. 

Far  East,  international  interests  in, 
454. 

Fauchet,  J.  A.  J.,  minister  to  United 
States,  106;  dispatches  captured, 
120;  relations  with  Randolph, 
120,  121;  successor,  127;  cited, 
106,  130,  158,  254. 

Federalists,  commercial  policy,  85; 
British  sympathies,  120,  129; 
use  of  special  missions,  144;  lose 
control,  139;  theories,  146,  147, 
422. 

Fenian  movement,  American  phases, 
338,  341,  347,  356. 

Ferdinand,  King  of  Aragon,  10. 

Ferdinand  VIII,  restored,  203;  co- 
lonial system,  205. 

Filibustering,  Cuban,  298. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  president,  239; 
appointments,  239;  Hawaiian  pol- 
icy, 403. 

Finances,  Revolutionary  War  debt, 
78;  French  loan,  97,  101;  under 
Hamilton,  82,  97. 

Fish,  Hamilton,  secretary  of  state, 
343,  362,  365,  366,  382,  412,  454; 
in  British  claims  commission,  344; 
Isthmian  policy,  cited,  352;  Japan- 
ese, 353,  354;  Hawaiian,  403,  404; 
characterized,  365;  length  of  serv- 
ice, 370. 

Fish,  trade  in,  55,  57,  58,  61,  108, 
163, 196;  free  entry  conceded,  346. 

Fisheries,  Congress  discusses,  40,  41; 
in  peace  terms  (1782),  43,  45,  48; 
U81S),  182.  185;  protection  of,  5, 
506;  whale,  285;  convention  of 
1818,  192,  193;  bounties,  284; 
treaty  of  185 i,  285;  expiration  of, 
337;  treaty  of  1871,  346,  348,  352, 
375;  expiration  of,  376;  arbitra- 
tion of  claims,  375;  Blaine's 
policy,  387;  disputes,  432,  434, 
435. 

Fitzherbert,  Alleyne,  succeeds  Gren- 
ville»4d. 


INDEX 


525 


Florida,  as  boundary,  12;  ceded  to 
England,  19;  divided,  19;  bound- 
aries, 20,  46,  70;  Spain  desires, 
26,  32.  33;  seizes  forts,  33;  regains, 
50;  England  desires,  91,  200; 
France,  143;  Indians  in,  200; 
boundaries  of  West,  46,  48,  70,  71, 
124,  149,  150;  Pitt's  policy,  135; 
United  States  desires,  144,  181; 
Spanish  claims,  199-201;  Jackson 
invades,  200,  234;  ceded  to  United 
States,  202,  208,  218,  245,  341; 
United  States  reversionary  inter- 
est, 208,  245;  Seminole  rising,  250; 
position  aflfects  Gulf  trade,  360. 

Florida,  Confederate  cruiser,  339. 

Flour,  trade  in,  76,  111. 

Floyd,  John,  interest  in  Oregon,  255. 

Forbes,  J.  M.,  provisions  Sebasto- 
pol,  288. 

Forsyth,  John,  Secretary  of  State, 
220. 

Foster,  A.  J.,  minister  to  United 
States,  174. 

Foster,  J.  W.,  diplomatic  experience, 
304;  Secretary  of  State,  370,  389, 
405. 

Foster,  W.  E.,  in  British  Cabinet, 
315. 

Fouche,  Joseph,  in  Napoleon's  cabi- 
net, 167. 

Fox,  C.  J.,  opinion  on  peace  terms, 
42;  retires,  45;  returns  to  office, 
59;  foreign  minister,  158;  appoint- 
ments, 165;  death,  158. 

Foxes,  Falmouth  family,  aid  Amer- 
ican prisoners,  30. 

France,  claims  in  America,  13;  Eng- 
lish rival,  15;  Indians  aid,  15;  pri- 
vateers, 15;  treaties  with  England, 
16;  claims  Ohio  valley,  16,  17;  alli- 
ance with  Spain,  18;  cedes  col- 
onies, 18, 19;  aids  American  Revo- 
lution, 22,  25-27,  30;  American 
agents  to,  23,  31;  secret  agents  of, 
25;  urges  Spain  to  aid,  26;  treaties 
with  U.  S.,  29;  war  with  England, 
80,  32;  relations  with  Holland,  36; 
Russia,  37,  38;  recognizes  Amer- 
ican Independence,  319;  reason 
for  aiding  Americans,  91;  attitude 
toward  neutrals,  38,  108,  109, 126, 
138;  in  American  peace  negotia- 
tions, 42-46, 48-50;  protects  Catb- 


olics  in  Orient,  51,  455;  payments 
to  Barbary  pirates,  56;  seeks 
American  trade,  61;  relations 
with  Indians,  64,  65;  loan  to 
United  States,  78;  in  Family  Alli- 
ance, 88;  National  Assembly, 
powers,  92;  Convention,  98;  Rev- 
olution begins,  94;  republic  pro- 
claimed, 96;  United  States  recog- 
nizes, 101;  war  with  "tyrants," 
95,  96,  99;  hopes  for  United  States 
aid,  96;  instructs  Gen^t,  97,  98; 
recalls,  104;  Spanish-American 
policy,  97,  106,  130,  213,  214,  299, 
325,  326-333,  384,  385;  difficulties 
of  Republic,  106;  successes,  116; 
triumph  of  Revolution,  132;  trade 
decrees,  127, 128, 166-170;  in  elec- 
tion of  1796,  130;  seeks  Louisiana, 
130;  friction  with  United  States, 
128,  133,  136;  convention  of  1800, 
138;  obtains  Louisiana,  142,  147; 
English  treaty,  143;  war  with  Eng- 
land, 152;  non-intercourse  act 
affects,  163-165;  colonial  trade, 
153,  161,  308;  diplomatic  service 
to,  189,  226,  240,  301,  331,  365, 
429;  restores  Spanish  monarchy, 
204;  friction  over  American  claims, 
226-228,  375;  forbids  slave-trade, 
236;  helps  suppress,  240;  recog- 
nizes Texas,  253;  desires  Califor- 
nia, 274;  Revolution  of  18-i8,  280; 
extradition  treaty,  284;  in  Crimean 
war,  288;  relations  with  Confed- 
eracy, 309,  311;  with  Mexico,  312, 
331,859;  with  Russia, 359;  Hawaii, 
403;  gains  St.  Bartholomew  Island, 
335;  trade-mark  treaty,  351;  in- 
terests in  Asia,  353,  402,  454,  455; 
de  Lesseps  canal,  381;  Spanish 
bondholders  anxious,  426;  policy 
in  Far  East,  458;  friendly  attitude 
to  United  States,  467;  reciprocity, 
223,  224;  with,  389,  470,  471,  475; 
interests  in  Mexico,  482,  484,  486; 
seizes  Dacia,  493;  fisheries  inter- 
ests, 506. 

Francis  I,  of  France,  sends  colonies, 
10. 

Franco-Prussian  war,  American  neu- 
trality questioned,  350. 

Frankfort,  conference  at,  36. 

Franklin,  Benjamm,  diplomat,  1,  8, 


526 


INDEX 


18,  188;  general  agent,  21,  26,  27, 
30;  popularity  in  Paris,  28,  99 
French  sympathies,  95;  tact,  30 
minister  to  France,  31,  311,  321 
peace  commissioner,  41,  44,  45,  49 
dealings  with  papal  nuncio,  51,  52 
with  Barbary  States,  56;  makes 
commercial   treaties,   54;   Adams 
disapproves,    39;    outvoted,    46; 
ability,  429;  characterized,  27,  28; 
influence  endures,  507;  cited,  39, 
43,  49,  53,  56;  letter  to, 

Fraser  River,  claim  to  valley,  267. 

Frederick  the  Great,  attitude  toward 
neutrals,  38;  statue  presented, 
467. 

"Fredonian  Republic,"  proclaimed, 
247. 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  History  of  Fed- 
eral Government  from  Foundation 
of  Achaian  League  to  Disruption 
of  United  States,  cited,  314. 

Frelinghuysen,  F.  T.,  secretary  of 
state,  370,  385,  387,  391;  Panama 
policy,  381;  Nicaragua,  382. 

Fremont,  J.  C.,  explores  California, 
258,  274. 

French  colonists,  negotiate  with 
English,  21. 

French  Institute,  papers  before,  131. 

French  Revolution,  affects  America, 
1;  dawn  of,  94;  Terror,  94,  95; 
effect  on  trade,  108;  diplomacy 
during,  132. 

French  Spoliation  Claims,  138,  139. 

Freneau,  Philip,  editor,  103. 

Frontier,  transportation  on,  63; 
character  of  population,  63;  In- 
dian peril,  65,  66,  82-84, 172,  249, 
250;  loyalty  develops,  82, 147,  245; 
friction  with  British,  116,  172- 
174,  230;  favors  war,  174;  Cana- 
dian friction,  232,  233;  ambi- 
tions, 245. 

Frye,  Sen.  W.  P.,  letter  to  cited,  388; 
Spanish  treaty  commissioner,  418. 

Fuchow,  port  opened,  223. 

Fundy,  Bay  of,  tributaries,  228. 

Fur  trade,  in  Ohio  valley,  16;  im- 
portance, 55,  93;  effect  of  Treaty 
of  Paris,  64;  nationality  of  traders, 
172,  182;  rivalries,  172,  173; 
American  policy,  192;  in  Oregon, 
255. 


G 


Gadsden,  James,  concludes  treaty, 
290. 

Gaines,  Gen.  E.  P.,  Indian  campaign, 
250. 

Gallatin,  Albert,  secretary  of  treas- 
ury, 141;  estimates,  154;  peace 
commissioner,  179,  180,  183,  185; 
European  respect  for,  180,  189; 
arranges  arbitration,  230,  267;  let- 
ters to,  cited,  208,  237;  missions 
to  England,  372. 

Galilean  party,  in  Continental  Con- 
gress, 31. 

Galveston  (Tex.),  United  States 
occupies,  200;  fleet  at,  482. 

Gambier,  Lord,  peace  commissioners, 
180. 

Gardoqui,  Don  Diego  de,  Spanish 
representative,  33,  57,  70,  71,  75, 
77. 

Garfield,  J.  A.,  president,  370;  ap- 
pointments, 370;  foreign  policy, 
384. 

Gayoso  de  Lenns,  Manuel,  Spanish 
commandant,  76;  cited,  123. 

Geary  Act,  passage  of,  398. 

Gengt,  Edmund  C,  minister  to 
United  States,  96;  instructions, 
96-98,  131;  cited,  98;  correspond- 
ence, 129;  reaches  Charleston,  98; 
Philadelphia,  99;  cabinet  discusses, 
99, 125;  recognized,  101;  intrigues, 
101-103;  recall  demanded,  103; 
appeals  to  people,  103;  recalled, 
104;  cited,  103;  successor,  106; 
disturbing  factor,  107. 

Geneva,  Alabama  claims  commis- 
sion at,  345;  international  inter- 
est, 347. 

Geneva  Convention,  rules  of  war, 
472. 

George  III,  of  England,  23;  asks 
Russian  support,  37;  letter  of 
Louis  XVI,  30;  library,  59;  con- 
versation with  John  Adams,  cited, 
59,  60;  Indian  regard  for,  66;  loses 
colonies,  89. 

George  V,  arbiter,  451. 

Georgia,  boundary  disputes,  19,  20; 
retaliatory  laws,  61. 

Georgia,  Strait  of,  as  boundary,  270. 

Gerarid,  C.  A.,  French  minister,  41, 


INDEX 


527 


Germany,  diplomatic  service  to,  221, 
224,  355,  429,  430;  commercial 
treaties  with,  224,  225,  471;  extra- 
dition, 284;  Civil  War  policy,  313; 
arbitrates  channel  boundary,  347, 
848;  forms  Empire,  350;  natural- 
ization treaties,  355,  356;  Cuban 
relations,  366;  Spanish- American 
trade,  384,  452;  Samoan  relations, 
899-401,  425;  colonial  ambition, 
401,  419,  420,  426,  454,  455;  rank 
of  navy,  424;  policy  in  Far  East, 
458;  friendly  feeling  for  United 
States,  467;  interests  in  Mexico, 
482,  484,  486,  487;  submarine 
policy  (1915),  500. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  commissioner  to 
France,  131,  132. 

Gettysburg,  moral  efifects  of  battle, 
322. 

Ghent,  peace  negotiations  at,  2,  180, 
188,  at5,  507;  checked,  183;  con- 
tinued, 184;  concluded,  186. 

Gibraltar,  Spain  wants  to  regain, 
26,  43,  44,  49. 

Gibraltar,  Straits  of,  Portuguese 
fleet  guards,  114. 

Gillespie,  Lieut.  A.  H.,  sent  to  Mont- 
erey, 274. 

Ginn,  Edwin,  paciflst,  473. 

Ginseng,  commercial  importance, 
65,  93. 

Girondists,  fall  of,  103. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  colonial  policy, 
842;  American,  348,  347,  356; 
cited,  320. 

Goderich,  Viscount,  in  claims  com- 
mission, 345. 

Godoy,  Don  Manuel,  Spanish  states- 
man, 143. 

Goliad,  story  of,  248. 

Goulbum,  Henry,  peace  commis- 
sioners, 180,  183;  British  minister, 
246. 

Grain,  trade  in,  55,  58,  61,  67,  108, 
110,  315,  competition  in,  373, 
tariflF,  388. 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  victories,  322; 
opinion  of  French  policy  in  Mex- 
ico, 332,  343;  president,  335;  Mon- 
roe Doctrine  corollary,  cited,  335, 
478;  foreign  policy,  343,  344,  361, 
S65;  appointments,  847;  message 
cited,  368. 


Granville,  Lord,  in  British  Cabinet, 
320;  on  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty, 
381,  382. 

Gray,  Capt.  Robert,  enters  Colum- 
bia River,  93,  148. 

Gray,  Sen.  George,  Spanish  treaty 
commissioner,  418. 

Great  Britain,  defeats  Armada,  18; 
Florida  ceded  to,  19;  Spain  makes 
war  on,  32;  negotiates  with,  33; 
treaties  with  {1763),  70,  {1783), 
70;  French  colonial  rival,  15;  treat- 
ies with  France,  16;  Canada  ceded 
to,  18;  claims  in  America,  13,  14; 
desires  Ohio  valley,  17;  European 
hatred  of,  24;  Franco- American 
alliance  against,  29,  30;  friction 
with  Holland,  35,  36;  war,  38; 
payment  to  Barbary  pirates,  56; 
discusses  American  peace  terms, 
42-50;  distrusts  Confederation, 
60,  61;  first  American  minister,  87; 
in  Nootka  Sound  affair,  88-93; 
resists  French  Revolution,  94,  95, 
203,  205;  war  with  France,  99, 
152;  Napoleon's  policy  toward, 
155,  158,  169;  pride  in  victory 
over  France,  180;  United  States, 
trade,  57-63,  86,  87,  198,  222, 
285;  embargo  affects,  161;  non- 
intercourse  act,  163,  165;  relations 
with  neutrals,  14,  36-38,  102, 
105,  108,  110,  118,  163;  interna- 
tional law  position,  54,  110-116, 
124,  129,  159,  168,  169,  179,  183, 
191,  193,  197,  236,  241-309,  316, 
339,  349,  350;  need  of  impress- 
ment, 113;  naval  supremacy,  14, 
108,  152,  189,  237;  trade  policy, 
59,  60,  153,  154,  156-160,  164, 
198,  199,  205,  206,  270;  orders  in 
council.  111,  112,  120,  156,  159, 
161,  164,  168,  169, 177,  183;  holds 
frontier  forts,  63,  64,  84,  116,  178; 
agrees  to  evacuate,  117;  frontier 
policy,  68, 116, 147;  Louisiana,  134, 
135;  relations  with  Indians,  64- 
66,  68,  82,  83,  116,  172.  182,  185, 
292,  294,  295,  383;  friction  with 
United  States,  114,  174;  pays  in- 
demnity, 118;  in  War  of  1812, 
174-178;  peace  negotiations,  178- 
185;  convention  of  1818,  192- 
195;    dislike    of    America,    181; 


528 


INDEX 


upholds  balance  of  power,  205; 
Spanish-American  policy,  206, 
209-217,  324,  334,  384;  anti- 
slavery,  216,  236,  246,  253,  254, 
262,  263-265,  298,  301,  321,  333, 
367;  Oregon,  254-257.  265,  267- 
271;  Texas,  253, 254,  260-266, 269- 
271;  California,  257-259,  269,  274, 
275;  spoliation  claims  against,  226, 
Northeastern  boundary  dispute, 
228-232,  234;  Canadian  policy; 
232,  294,  348,  378,  432,  434,  435, 
464;  diplomatic  service  to,  188, 
189,  222,  278,  282,  294,  295,  300, 
306,  340,  343,  344,  372,  373,  429, 
430;  high  grade  of,  372;  in  Crimean 
war,  288;  Russian  relations,  359; 
central  American  policy,  292-296; 
Clayton-Bulwer  treaty,  293,  381, 
882;  Cuban  policy,  299,  366,  civil 
war  policy,  310-323,  359;  after- 
math, 336,  339-344;  claims  com- 
mission, 344-348;  in  relation  to 
Monroe  Doctrine,  333,  343;  in- 
terests in  Asia,  353;  expatriation 
problems,  356;  in  seal-fisheries  dis- 
pute, 378,  379;  Venezuela  affair, 
391-394;  Japanese  relations,  353, 
397,  402;  Samoan,  399-401,  425; 
Hawaiian,  403,  405;  rank  of  navy, 
424;  cordial  toward  United  States, 
427,  428;  exp>orts,  452;  policy  in 
Far  East,  454, 455, 458;  authorizes 
reciprocity  with  colonies,  470; 
Russian  treaty  (1825),  432;  Alaska 
boimdary  dispute,  432, 434;  fisher- 
ies, 435;  seal  fisheries  treaty,  434; 
Isthmian  policy,  436-438;  canal 
tolls  dispute,  480;  interests  in 
Mexico,  482,  484,  486;  marine 
poUcy  {1915),  496. 

Great  Lakes,  navigation  rights, 
432. 

Greece,  insurrection  in,  204,  212; 
Americans  aid,  207;  commercial 
treaty  with,  223. 

Green,  B.  E.,  views  in  California, 
259. 

Green,  Duff,  confidant  of  Calhoun, 
264;  in  Texas,  265. 

Greenville,  treaty  at,  84,  122. 

Grenville,  Lord,  foreign  minister, 
87,  89,  90,  116,  117,  122. 

Grenville.  Thomas,  British  minister 


to  France,  42;  additional  powers, 
44;  recalled,  45; 

Grenville,  W.  W.,  letter  to,  cited, 
67. 

Gresham,  W.  Q.,  secretary  of  state, 
389;  death,  392. 

Grey  Earl  de,  on  claims  commis- 
sion, 345. 

Greytown  (Nic),  English  seize, 
292. 

Guadaloupe  Island,  rich  in  sugar, 
18;  exhange  proposed,  49;  traide, 
108,  134. 

Guam  Island,  ceded  to  United 
States,  419. 

Guantanamo  (Cuba),  naval  station, 
444. 

Guatemala,  commercial  treaty  with, 
285;  boundary  dispute,  385,  386. 

Guiana,  boundary  disputed,  391, 
394. 

Guillemot,  Eugene,  agent  to  Uru- 
guay, cited,  325,  326. 

Guizot,  F,  P.  G.,  French  premier, 
240. 

Gunn,  James,  Georgia  Senator,  135. 

Gwin,  Sen.  W.  McK.,  Alaskan  pol- 
icy, 358. 

H 

Hague,  The,  American  minister  to, 
136. 

Hague  Conference  {1899),  called 
by  Czar,  473;  acts  of,  473; 
(1907),  endorses  modified  Drago 
Doctrine,  447;  recommendations, 
475. 

Hague  Permanent  Court  of  Arbi- 
tration, 8,  453;  functions,  444; 
settles  fisheries  dispute,  435;  Vene- 
zuelan claims  submitted  to,  449; 
established,  473;  palace  presented, 
473;  Spain  and  Mexico  resort  to, 
474;   scope   of   jurisdiction,   474, 

Hahnville  (La.),  Italian  lynched  at, 
427. 

Haldiman,  Gen.  Frederick,  refuses 
to  surrender  frontier  ports,  63. 

Hale,  J.  P.,  minister  to  Spain,  in- 
structions, 328. 

Hale,  Sen.  W.  G.,  tariff  views,  388. 

Halifax,  American  trade,  177;  route 
via,  182, 230;  admiralty  court,  157. 


INDEX 


529 


Hamburg,  commercial  treaty  with, 
197;  interests  in  Samoa,  399. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  financial  pol- 
icy, 82,  97,  106;  meets  English 
agent,  90;  English  sympathies, 
91,  92,  95;  French  policy,  99-101, 
136-138;  differs  with  Jefferson, 
99,  104,  125;  Republicans  distrust, 
115;  intimacy  with  British  minis- 
ter, 120;  stoned,  120;  commands 
army,  135;  cited,  135. 

Hammond,  George,  British  minis- 
ter, 64,  87,  181;  frontier  policy, 
116;  successor,  122. 

Hammond,  J.  H.,  letter  to,  cited, 
264. 

Hannegan,  E.  A.,  Indiana  senator, 
vote,  279. 

Hanover,  commercial  treaty  with, 
224;  navigation,  352. 

Harmer,  Gen.  Josiah,  Indians  de- 
feat, 83. 

Harris,  Sir  James,  British  diplomat, 
37. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  presidential 
ambition,  390;  counsel  for  Ven- 
ezuela, 394;  appointments,  304, 
370. 

Harrison,  W.  H.,  Indian  dealings, 
172. 

Hartford  Convention,  proposed,  184. 

Hartly,  David,  commission,  58. 

Harvard  University,  Germanic  Mu- 
seum, 467. 

Hats,  Leghorn,  trade  in,  55. 

Havana,  route  via,  316,  410,  411; 
Maine  destroyed  in  harbor,  413. 

Hawaii,  American  relations,  223, 
245,  286,  297,  352,  353,  360,  362, 
402-406,  424,  487;  missionaries 
in,  402;  British,  403,  405;  Jap- 
anese, 461,  462. 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  colonial  dreams 
of,  205. 

Hay,  John,  diplomat,  8,  188,  508; 
secretary  of  state,  304,  429;  am- 
bassador to  England,  429;  deal- 
ings with  England,  431,  434,  436; 
Canada,  434;  Panama,  441;  China, 
455-458;  views  on  Drago  Doc- 
trine, 447;  Turkey,  464;  Rou- 
mania,  468;  arbitration  attitude, 
473-475;  characterized,  429,  457; 
cited,  368. 


Hayes,  R.  B.,  president,  S04;  ap- 
pointments, 304,  370;  on  Mon- 
roe Doctrine,  394;  Chinese  ex- 
clusion, 397;  Panama  canal  pol- 
icy, message  cited,  380. 

Hayti,  negro  republic,  217,  264; 
diplomatic  relations  with,  349, 
375;  affected  by  reciprocity,  389; 
arbitration  treaty  with,  475. 

Heber,  Bishop  Reginald,  mission- 
ary zeal,  255;  "From  Green- 
land's Icy  Mountains,"  255. 

Hemp,  trade  in,  110. 

Henfield,  Gideon,  arrested,  102. 

Henry  VII,  of  England,  sends  Ca- 
bot's expedition,  10. 

Henry,  Prince,  visits  United  States, 
467. 

Henry,  John,  British  agent,  174, 
176. 

Henry,  Patrick,  gains  foreign  sym- 
pathy, 24;  refuses  mission  to 
France,  137. 

Hermosa,  carries  slaves,  238. 

Herran,  P.  A.,  Colombian  minister, 
arranges  treaty,  439,  443. 

Herrera,  J.  J.,  Mexican  president, 
275. 

Hervey,  Lionel,  British  agent  in 
Mexico,  215;  recall,  215,  216. 

Hesse,  naturalization  treaty  with, 
356. 

Hides,  in  McKinley  tariff,  388. 

Hill,  D.  J.,  diplomatic  service,  429. 

History  Teachers'  Magazine,  cited, 
243. 

Hoar,  E.  R.,  on  British  claims  com- 
mission, 345. 

Hoar,  Sen.  George,  cited,  442. 

Holland,  claims  in  America,  13; 
decline,  14,  110;  trade  during 
Revolution,  22,  34-36;  war  with 
England,  38,  43;  treaty  with 
United  States,  39;  in  American 
peace  negotiations,  44-46;  peace 
with  England,  50;  diplomatic  ser- 
vice to,  81,  140,  188;  American 
trade,  164,  167. 

Holland,  war  with  France,  95; 
France  annexes,  167;  neutrality 
problems,  497;  Japanese  rela- 
tions, 353,  402. 

Holmes,  O.  W.,  greeting  to  Alexis, 
cited,  360. 


530 


INDEX 


Holy  Alliance,  terms,  204;  failures, 
208;  relations  with  England,  237. 

Honduras,  Bay  of,  English  in,  292, 
294,  295;  Honduras,  Isthmus  of, 
route  via,  295;  treaty  concerning, 
352;  English  occupation,  381, 
382;  Honduras,  Republic  of,  rec- 
iprocity with,  389;  public  debt, 
446,  459;  American  protectorate, 
448;  forcible  intervention,  449; 
treaty  with,  459. 

Honolulu,  gunboats  in  harbor  of, 
405. 

Hopewell,  treaty  of,  83. 

Horses,  trade  in,  58. 

Horseshoe  Bend,  battle  at,  178. 

Hortalie,  Rodriguez,  and  Company, 
aids  American  Revolution,  26. 

House  of  Representatives,  relation 
to  diplomacy,  80,  121;  to  Senate, 
225,  428;  impeachments,  134;  res- 
olutions, 331,  334;  speakers,  171, 
413;  members,  86,  227,  300; 
Fenian  sympathy,  338. 

Houston,  Samuel,  Tennessee  gov- 
ernor, 248;  Texas  leader,  248- 
250,  260. 

Howe,  John,  British  agent,  176. 

Howe,  S.  S.,  on  San  Domingo  com- 
mission, 364;  aids  Greece,  207. 

Howick,  Lord,  issues  order  in  coun- 
cil, 159;  dispatch,  cited,  159. 

Hudson,  Hendrik,  American  dis- 
coveries, 13. 

Hudson  Bay,  rival  claims,  16;  Brit- 
ish control  trade,  118. 

Hudson  Bay  Company,  American 
rival,  173;  absorbs  Northwest- 
em  Co.,  186;  in  Oregon,  255; 
protect  priests,  256;  claims  nego- 
tiated, 344. 

Hudson  River,  Dutch  colony  on, 
13,  14. 

Huerta,  Gen.  Victoriano,  govern- 
ment not  recognized,  479,  483, 
489;  defeats  Madero,  483;  presi- 
dent, 483;  European  recognition, 
483,  486;  Japan  policy,  487. 

Hughes,  Archbishop  John,  visits 
Ireland,  338. 

Huguenots,  massacre  of  French, 
12. 

Hillseman,  Baron,  Austrian  minis- 
ter, 282. 


Humphreys,  David,  minister  to 
Spain,  140. 

Hungary,  revolution  in,  281. 

Hunter,  R.  M.  T.,  Confederate  secre- 
tary, 310. 

Hunter,  William,  service  in  state 
department,  307,  418,  508. 

"Hunters'  Lodges,"  organized,  233. 

Huron,  Lake,  as  boundary,  46,  186, 
235. 

Huskisson,  William,  British  trade 
policy,  198. 

rHuys,  Drouyn  de,  French  foreign 
minister,  331;  cited,  332. 


Iberville  River,  as  boundary,  19, 
149-151. 

He  d'Orleans,  ceded  to  Spain,  19. 

Illinois,  emigrants,  257. 

Immigration,  Chinese,  397,  398, 
449, 460;  Japanese,  461 ;  European, 
467-469;  Roumanian,  468;  un- 
due stimulation  of,  469. 

Imperialism,  United  States  dis- 
claims, 280,  281;  tendency  toward, 
423-426. 

Impressment.  See  International 
Law. 

Independence  (Mo.),  emigrant  cen- 
tre, 257. 

Indiana,  Indian  tribes,  65,  84;  ter- 
ritorial governor,  172. 

Indians,  in  colonial  wars,  15;  in 
War  of  1812,  178;  Continental 
Congress,  seeks  support,  23;  sell 
lands,  172;  "buffer  state"  pro- 
posed, 181,  183,  184,  246;  fur 
trade,  192;  annuities,  194;  among 
frontier  population,  63;  relations 
with  English,  65,  66,  114,  116, 
118,  172,  182,  185;  Americans, 
65,  66,  69,  72,  172;  Cherokee, 
treaty,  72,  83;  intrigues,  89; 
Chickamauga,  72;  Chickasaw,  72; 
Choctaw,  72;  Creeks,  72;  chief, 
73,  83,  89;  treaty,  83;  intrigues, 
89;  Delaware,  65;  Florida,  200, 
201,  250;  Iroquois,  relations  with 
English,  17;  colonial  negotiations 
with,  21;  power  of  confederacy, 
64,  65;  Miami,  65;  Mosquito, 
British  relations,  292,  294,  29d. 


INDEX 


531 


88S;  Northwestern  tribes,  65; 
Oregon,  missions  to,  255,  256; 
Texas,  248-250;  Shawnee,  65; 
Southwestern,  72;  Spanish  trade 
with,  73,  74,  123;  raid  against,  76; 
Wyandot,  65;  Yucatan,  296; 
wars  with,  83,  84,  117;  treaty, 
122,  182. 

Industrial  Property,  Act  for  Pro- 
tection of  parties  to,  472. 

Industrial  Property,  Convention 
for  International  Protection  of, 
374. 

Inness,  Harry,  colonizing  schemes, 
75. 

International  co-operation,  374,  378. 

International  Institute  of  Agricul- 
ture, 472. 

International  law,  tendencies,  7; 
affecting  colonial  claims,  17;  in- 
formal system,  21;  continental 
views,  54,  111;  rights  of  foreign- 
ers, 53;  strain  of  Napoleonic 
wars,  187;  armed  neutrality,  37, 
110,  179;  blockade.  111,  119,  159, 
168,  169,  174,  175,  177,  288,  307- 
812,  315,  494;  building  enemies* 
ships,  340,  342;  collection  of 
debts,  446,  447;  continuous  voy- 
age, 308,  309,  318,  497,  498;  con- 
traband,  36,  54,  100,  111,  119, 
124,  128,  129,  138,  154.  288,  318, 
442,  495,  496;  embezzlement,  235; 
expatnation,  see  naturalization; 
extradition,  117,  235,  284,  350, 
851,  374,  388,  469;  flag,  use  of, 
240,  312.  367;  free  ships,  free 
goods,  29.  36.  54,  110.  119.  124, 
129,  138,  207,  288;  hospital  ships, 
472;  impressment,  113,  157-159, 
164,  175,  182,  289,  356,  496;  in- 
demnity, 182,  191,  238,  239; 
marine  territorial  jurisdiction, 
287;  mines.  496;  most  favored 
nation,  224.  464,  465;  naturaliza- 
tion, 7,  114,  289,  355-357,  466, 
468;  navigation,  right  of,  70, 
71,  119,  197,  285,  287,  378,  380. 
888;  neutral  goods  in  enemies' 
ships,  288;  privateering,  54.  102, 
103,  105,  106.  119,  288.  309,  416; 
prizes,  102,  105,  118,  119,  124; 
recognition  of  governments,  442, 
484;  "Rule  of  1756,"  terms,  112; 


validity  of  treaties,  99-101,  191; 
violation  of  territory,  234;  visit 
and  search,  54,  113,  157,  159,  164, 
236.  237,  239,  241,  282,  309,  316, 
318,  349,  350;  waterways,  5,  70, 
197,  287,  291;  wounded,  treat- 
ment of,  288,  472. 

International  oflBce  of  Public  Health, 
parties  to,  472. 

International  Red  Cross  Conven- 
tion, signatories,  472. 

International  Sanitary  Convention, 
parties  to,  472. 

Ireland,  colonies  appeal  to,  23; 
Fenians  plan  to  free,  338. 

Irish,  political  power  in  United 
States,  338,  390. 

Isabella,  Queen,  of  Castile,  10. 

Isabella,  Queen  of  Spain,  over- 
thrown, 365. 

Isle  of  Pines,  given  to  Cuba,  425. 

Isolation,  no  longer  possible,  502. 

Italy,  United  States  trade,  166; 
commercial  treaty,  471;  revolt 
in,  204;  Civil  War  policy,  313; 
represented  in  Geneva  board.  347; 
Kingdom  of,  350;  extradition 
treaty,  350;  offers  mediation  in 
Cuba,  366;  emigration  to  Argen- 
tina, 384;  United  States,  469; 
irritation  over  lynchings.  426,  427; 
American  ambassador  to,  429, 
430;  interests  in  Far  East,  455, 
458;  arbitration  treaty,  475. 

Itaia,  seized.  390. 

Izard,  Ralph,  commissioner  to  Tus- 
cany, 31;  dislikes  French,  34. 


Jackson.  Andrew,  deals  with  Flor- 
ida Indians,  200;  seizes  Spanish 
forts,  200,  201;  diplomatic  serv- 
ice under,  220,  304;  methods, 
241;  problems  of  policy,  480;  ap- 
pointments, 221.  248,  250;  Brit- 
ish policy,  222;  French,  226-228; 
Texas,  250,  252,  265,  341;  mes- 
sages cited,  227,  228,  251. 

Jackson,  F.  J.,  minister  to  United 
States,  165,  176. 

Jacobins,  American  club,  99,  103. 

Jamaica,  position  threatens  Gulf 
trade,  360;  reciprocity  with,  470. 


532 


INDEX 


Jameson,  J.  F.,  views  on  American 
expansion,  243,  244. 

Japan,  commerce  with,  286;  Perry's 
expedition,  286,  303;  American 
relations,  353,  396,  461-463,  480; 
European,  353,  402;  commercial 
treaty  with,  397,  454;  arbitration, 
475;  seal  fisheries,  434;  protests 
Hawaiian  annexation,  424;  dip- 
lomatic service  to,  430;  affected 
by  Monroe  Doctrine,  449,  450; 
world-power,  454,  459;  relations 
with  China,  455,  458;  war  with 
Russia,  458;  Manchurian  policy, 
459,  461;  Canadian,  461;  Mex- 
ican, 486,  487. 

Jay,  John,  diplomat,  1;  commis- 
sioner to  Spain,  32,  33;  distrusts 
Spain,  34;  France,  34.  44^0,  91, 
137;  in  peace  negotiations,  44-46, 
58,  74,  142;  secretary  of  foreign 
affairs,  57,  70,  71;  mission  to 
England,  115,  126,  128,  372;  in- 
structions, 115;  welcome,  116; 
concludes  treaty,  84,  117-119; 
error  in,  119;  burned  in  eflBgy, 
120;  views  on  French  treaty,  99; 
chief  justice,  81,  115;  Mississippi 
proposal,  417;  independent  action 
371;  length  of  service,  508;  char- 
acterized, 32;  cited,  32,  34. 

Jecker  and  Company,  firm  of,  buys 
bonds,  329. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  peace  commis- 
sioner, 41;  makes  commercial 
treaty,  54;  treats  with  Barbary 
states,  56;  minister  to  France,  54, 
81;  secretary  of  state,  81;  resigns, 
104;  views  on  merchant  marine, 
85,  86,  196;  on  validity  of  treaties, 
99,  100;  on  expansion,  476;  on 
neutrality,  102,  103,  106;  on  iso- 
lation, 211,  438;  French  sympa- 
thies, 95,  136;  fears  English,  91 
differs  with  Hamilton,  99,  125 
presidential  candidate,  129,  130 
president,  140;  appointments,  141 
157,  158;  problems  of  policy,  480 
Barbary  states  policy,  141,  222 
Cuban,  208,  209;  Louisiana,  144 
145,  148;  trade,  155-157,  190, 
498;  closes  American  harborS; 
160;  Madison  consults,  163 
length    of    public    service,    508 


theories,  140,  154,  160,  165,  181; 
justifies  Louisiana  purchase,  442; 
cited,  28,  85,  86,  91,  95,  106,  208, 
209,  470. 

Jews,  protest  against  persecution 
of,  357;  treatment  by  Roumania, 
468. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  president,  362, 
365;  message,  cited,  362. 

Johnson,  Reverdy,  treats  with  Eng- 
land, 340,  373;  convention  re- 
jected, 343. 

Jones,  Anson,  president  of  Texas, 
266,  272. 

Jones,  J.  P.,  American  commodore, 
30;  enters  Texel,  36;  French  sym- 
pathies, 96. 

Juan  de  Fuca,  Straits  of,  channel, 
337,  348. 

Juarez,  Gen.  B.  P.,  resists  French 
in  Mexico,  332;  captures  Maxi- 
milian, 333. 

Juarez  (Mex.),  fighting  at,  482. 

K 

Kaiulani,  Hawaiian  princess,  404. 

Kamamaha,  King  of  Hawaii,  402. 

Kanakas,  employed  on  Pacific  coast, 
286. 

Kaskaskia  (III.),  Clark  captures, 
33,  69. 

Kasson,  J.  A.,  on  Samoan  commis- 
sion, 401;  reciprocity  treaty  com- 
missioner, 470. 

Kentucky,  relations  with  England, 
67,  68;  pioneers,  69;  governor,  102; 
intrigues  with  Spain,  76,  123; 
France,  102,  105;  constitutional 
convention,  76;  admitted  to 
Union,  82;  militia  praised,  174. 

Key  West,  position  isolated,  360; 
importance   of   railroad   to,   444. 

Kiauchau,  port  leased,  455. 

King,  Rufus,  minister  to  England, 
129,  135,  189,  372;  successor,  158; 
suggests  Philippine  trade  con- 
cessions, 417;  fears  loss  of  West, 
71;  cited,  135;  letter  to,  cited,  137. 

King's  Mountain,  battle  of,  69. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  While  Man's 
Burden,  cited,  421. 

Knox,  Gen.  Henry,  secretary  of 
war,  cited,  83;  letter  to,  cited,  84. 


INDEX 


583 


Knox,  P.  C,  secretary  of  state,  448, 
459,  483;  visits  Caribbean  states, 
452;  proposes  Colombian  treaty, 
453;  Chinese  policy,  459;  "dollar 
diplomacy,"  476. 

Koerner,  G.,  minister  to  Spain,  in- 
structions, 327. 

Kossuth,  Louis,  visits  America, 
280,  281. 

Kossta,  Martin,  case  of,  282,  289. 

Kwangchau  Bay,  port  opened,  223; 
port  leased,  455. 

Kwang-Chow.    See  Kwangchau. 


Labrador,  fisheries,  192. 

Ladrone  Islands,  American  inter- 
ests, 418,  419. 

Lafayette,  Marquis  de,  American 
sympathy,  27,  94;  proscribed,  99. 

Laird,  William,  British  ship-builder, 
322,  340. 

Lakes,  Great,  trade  route,  68;  navi- 
gation rights  on,  182,  191,  346. 

La  Plata  River,  navigation  of,  287; 
dispute  over  mouth  of,  325. 

Lard,  trade  in,  225. 

Laredo    (Mex.),    fighting    at,    482. 

Larkin,  T.  O.,  consul  at  Monterey, 
274. 

La  Salle,  Robert  Cavalier,  Sieur  de, 
explorer,  201. 

Laurens,  Henry,  commissioner  to 
Netherlands,  31,  38;  captured 
on  ocean,  38;  peace  commissioner, 
41;  imprisoned,  42. 

Laurier,  Sir  Wilfred,  government 
defeated,  436. 

Lazzari,  Mgr.,  diary  of  American 
Revolution,  24. 

Leather  goods,  trade  in,  373. 

Lebrun,  C.  F.,  letters  to,  cited,  96, 
102. 

Leclerc,  Gen.  V.  E.,  San  Domingo 
expedition,  143;  death,  145. 

Lee,  Arthur,  deals  with  Beaumar- 
chais,  27;  commissioner  to  France, 
31;  irritates  Spain,  31;  dislikes 
French,  34. 

Lee,  Fitzhugh,  consul-general  at 
Havana,  412,  415. 

Lee,  R.  E.,  surrender,  331. 

Lee,  William,  commissioner  to  Ber- 


lin, 81;  meets  de  Neufville,  87; 
drafts  treaty,  37,  38. 

Legar^,  H.  S.,  secretary  of  state, 
221;  Hawaiian  policy,  403;  death, 
260. 

Leisbman,  J.  G.  A.,  diplomatic 
service,  430. 

Le  Louis,  admiralty  case,  236. 

Leo  Xni,  proposed  as  Cuban  me- 
diator, 414,  415. 

Leopard,  affair  with  Chesapeake, 
159,  174. 

Leslie.    See  Panton,  Leslie  and  Co. 

Lesseps,  Ferdinand  de,  head  of 
canal  company,  380,  439. 

Lew  Chew  Islands,  commercial 
treaty  with,  286. 

Lewis,  Sir  G.  C,  American  views, 
320. 

Lewis,  Meriwether,  explorer,  148. 

Lexington,  Battle  of,  rouses  America, 
159. 

Liberia,  American  relations,  349; 
international  receivership,  464. 

Li  Hung  Chang,  represents  China, 
457. 

Liliuokalani,  Queen  of  Hawaii,  404^ 
abolishes  constitution,  405. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  compared  with 
Franklin,  28;  diplomatic  influence, 
305,  306,  310,  317,  322;  appoint- 
ments, 304-306,  354;  proclaims 
blockade,  307,  315;  English  opin- 
ion of,  314;  Emancipation  proc- 
lamation, 321;  effects,  321;  letter 
to  London  working-men,  322; 
private  secretary,  429;  political 
wisdom,  457;  problems  of  policy, 
480;  cited,  304. 

Lincoln,  Robert,  minister  to  Eng- 
land, 373,  392. 

Lind,  John,  mission  to  Mexico,  485. 

Linn,  L.  F.,  Missouri  senator,  255; 
Oregon  bill,  256. 

Liston,  Robert,  British  minister, 
122,  134. 

Littie  Belt,  fights  President,  174. 

Little  Democrat,  French  privateer, 
103. 

Little  Sarah,  captured,  108. 

Livingston,  Edward,  House  leader, 
121;  diplomatic  ability,  220; 
death,  220. 

Livingston,    Robert,    secretary    of 


i^S4 


INDEX 


foreign  affairs,  23,  57;  minister  to 
France,  140,  146,  149,  150,  226, 
227;  letters  to,  cited,  34,  53,  92. 

Lodge,  H.  C,  Senate  leader,  428; 
on  Alaskan  boundary  commis- 
sion, 434;  seal  fisheries,  379;  Mag- 
dalena  Bay  resolution,  450,  487; 
immigration  views,  467. 

Logan,  Dr.  George,  peace  mission, 
136. 

L6me,  Dupuy  de,  Spanish  minister, 
indiscretion,  413. 

London,  73,  81,  123,  129,  165,  180, 
210,  262,  429,  455;  interest  in 
American  Revolution,  24;  loses 
American  trade,  35;  distributing 
centre,  61;  financial,  362,  427;  fur- 
market,  64. 

Lopez,  Gen.  Narcisco,  Cuban  leader, 
298;  death,  299. 

Louis  XVI,  interest  in  America,  25; 
adopts  middle  course,  260;  recog- 
nizes American  Independence, 
30,  42;  powers,  92;  beheaded,  99; 
American  treaty,  100. 

Louis  Napoleon,  Civil  War  policy, 
•  313,  330,  331;  colonial  plans,  313; 
Mexican,  329-333;  offers  media- 
tion, 330;  British  relations,  334. 

Louis  Philippe,  American  policy, 
227. 

Louisburg,  English  capture,  15,  16; 
give  back,  16. 

Louisiana,  French  possession,  17; 
ceded  to  England  and  Spain,  19; 
England  desires,  91,  134;  France, 
97,  98,  102,  130;  Spanbh  policy, 
73,  74,  123,  124;  governor,  75; 
cedes  to  France,  142,  143;  France 
to  United  States,  145,  146,  165, 
188,  199,  224;  problems,  147; 
boundaries,  148-151,  185,  194, 
202;  loyalty  doubtful,  181;  effect 
of  purdiase,  187;  justification  of, 
443. 

LourenQO  Marques  Railroad,  seized 
by  Portugal,  375. 

L'Ouverture,  Toussaint,  rules  San 
Domingo,  134, 136;  captured,  148. 

Lowell,  J.  R.,  diplomatic  service, 
221,  373;  "Bigelow  Papers," 
cited,  318. 

Loyalists,  interests  safeguarded,  48; 
lenien<7  recommended,  60;  treat- 


ment of,  64;  settle  in  Ontario,  66; 
in  Natchez,  71;  bitter  feeling,  66; 
in  War  of  18 IS,  178;  compensation 
refused,  118. 

Lubeck,  commercial  treaty  with,  197. 

Lumber,  trade  in,  58,  67,  846. 

Luzerne,  Anne  Cesar  de  la,  French 
minister  to  United  States,  83;  in- 
structions, 50. 

Lyons,  Lord,  British  minister,  S17. 

M 

Macdonald,  Sir  J.  A.,  on  claims 
commission,  345. 

McGillivray,  Alexander,  Creek  chief, 
73;  visits  New  York,  83;  rival,  89; 
cited,  77. 

Machinery,  farm,  trade  in,  373. 

McClellan,  Gen.  G.  B.,  fails  before 
Richmond,  320. 

McKean,  Thomas,  Pennsylvania 
judge,  136. 

McKenzie,  Alexander,  explorer,  254. 

MacKenzie,  A.  S.,  confers  with  Santa 
Anna,  276. 

Mackerel,  trade  in,  58,  108;  desert 
Canadian  waters,  375. 

McKinley,  William,  elected  presi- 
dent, 408;  api>ointments,  412, 
429;  Cuban  policy,  413;  Hawaiian, 
424;  Philippine,  419,  420;  de 
Ldme's  opinion  of,  413;  forbids 
privateering,  416;  civil  service 
under,  431;  proposes  Pan-Amer- 
ican Congress,  451;  foreign  policy, 
476;  cited,  419. 

McLane,  Louis,  secretary  of  state, 
220;  minister  to  England,  instruc- 
tions, 222. 

McLaughlin,  Dr.  John,  Hudson 
Bay  Co.,  factor,  255. 

McLeod,  Alexander,  case  of,  233, 
234. 

Macon  Bill,  No.  2,  provisions,  167. 

Madagascar,  treaty  with,  349. 

Madawaska,  French  fief,  230. 

Madero,  Francisco,  leads  revolution, 
482;  elected  president,  483;  over- 
thrown, 483. 

Madison,  James,  diplomat,  8;  mem- 
ber of  Congress,  86;  declines  oflSce, 
104;  secretary  of  state,  141;  Flor- 
ida policy,  149-151;  minister  to 


INDEX 


535 


England,  158;  president,  163; 
re-election,  175;  foreign  policy, 
163,  211;  British,  165,  108-170, 
174,  179,  184;  English  resent- 
ment, 181;  views,  cited,  100,  158; 
letter  to,  209. 

Madison  Island,  annexation,  398. 

Madrid,  33,  73,  130.  150,  327,  861, 
410. 

Madrid,  Treaty  of,  14. 

Magdalena  Bay,  Japanese  interest 
in,  449,  487. 

Magellan,  Ferdinand,  circumnavi- 
gates world,  11. 

Mahan,  Rear  Adm.  A.  T.,  naval  au- 
thority, 423. 

Maine,  boundary  dispute,  230,  234, 
235,  272;  lumber  trade,  346. 

Maine,  destruction  of,  413;  cause 
disputed,  413,  414;  arbitration 
ofiFered,  415. 

Malietoa,  King  of  Samoa,  400. 

Malmesbury,  Earl  of.  Southern 
sympathy,  314. 

Malta,  desires  United  States  trade, 
55. 

Manchester,  Duke  of,  commission, 
58. 

Manchuria,  relations  with  Japan, 
459,  461. 

Mangouret,  M.  A.,  French  consul, 
99. 

"  Manifest  Destiny,"  theory  of,  199, 
200,  296,  301;  scouted  by  Carl 
Schurz,  364, 

Manila,  captured  by  Dewey,  417, 
419;  held  by  United  States,  418; 
German  attitude,  419. 

Manila  Bay,  battle  of,  417,  420. 

Manufactures,  growth  of,  284. 

Marbois,  Barbe,  French  agent,  145, 
146;  MSmoire,  captured,  45. 

Marcy,  W.  L.,  dispateh  on  Koszta 
case,  282,  289;  secretary  of  state, 
282.  283,  285,  288,  297,  300,  302; 
reciprocity  treaty,  337;  fisheries, 
352;  relations  with  Pierce,  365; 
Hawaiian  policy,  403. 

Maria,  purates  capture,  56. 

Marshall,  John,  constitutional  au- 
thority, 2;  commissioner  to  France, 
131,  132;  secretary  of  state,  138; 
court  decisions,  237. 

Martinique,  trade,  108, 134. 


Mason,  G.  T,,  Virginia  senator,  120. 

Mason,  J.  M.,  Confederate  com- 
missioner, 311;  captured,  316; 
released,  318. 

Mason,  J.  Y.,  minister  to  France, 
301;  special  Spanish  mission,  301. 

Massachusetts,  limits  curtailed,  46; 
interest  in  fisheries,  48;  merchant 
marine,  163;  whigs  control,  227; 
boundary  dispute,  230,  235. 

Mataafa,  Samoan  leader,  400,  401. 

Matamoras  (Mex.),  port,  308,  309. 

Maumee  River,  British  fort  on,  83, 
84,  116,  509. 

Maurepas,  Comte  de,  French  prime 
minister,  25. 

Maximilian,  Archduke,  Mexican  em- 
peror, 330,  331;  United  States 
f>olicy  toward,  332,  442;  death, 
333,  427. 

Meade,  Gen.  George,  in  Civil  War, 
322. 

Mecklenburg-Schwerin,  commercial 
treaty  with,  285. 

Mediation,  offered,  in  American 
Revolution,  41;  in  War  of  1812, 
178;  Spanish-American,  208,  324; 
French  claims  dispute,  228;  Civil 
War,  330;  Cuban  insurrections, 
366,  412;  Hayti-Dominican  dis- 
pute, 384,  390;  European,  in 
American  disputes,  384-386,  444; 
offered  by  A.  B.  C.  powers,  490. 

Mediterranean  Sea,  piracy  on,  55, 
56;  abolished,  196;  commerce,  85, 
141,  159. 

Merchant  marine,  development,  85- 
87,  109,  110,  152-154,  157,  163, 
169,  190,  284;  risks,  154,  156,  161, 
164,  177;  reciprocity  aids,  196, 
197;  subsidies,  284,  469;  regis- 
tration rules,  470,  493;  in  Civil 
War,  309,  312;  decline  after  war, 
336,  337,  353,  359,  469,  493. 

Merrimac,  Monitor  defeats,  319. 

Merritt,  Gen.  Wesley,  advises  peace 
commission  {1898),  419. 

Merry,  Anthony,  British  minister, 
147. 

Mexico,  as  boundary,  12;  mines,  74, 
75,  89,  123;  revolts  from  Spain, 
203;  independence,  213;  France 
desires,  205;  Napoleon's  views  on, 
209;  Russian  relations,  213;  seeks 


5d6 


mDEX 


alliances,  214;  English  relations, 
90,  215,  216,  253,  270,  271,  275, 

276,  278,  328,  329;  plans  of  Con- 
gress, 216,  276;  land  policy,  246; 
commercial  treaties,  216,  223, 
224,  279;  slavery  in,  246,  247;  dip- 
lomatic service  to,  221,  258,  273; 
claims  treaty,  226,  375;  report  to 
Congress  of,  cited,  243;  American 
interests  in,  245,  248,  297,  452, 
481;  defers  payment,  328;  Texas 
question,  248-254,  260,  263,  265, 
271-276;  California,  257-259,  274, 
275,  279;  war  with  United  States, 

277,  278;  terms  of  peace,  279; 
Gadsden  treaty,  290;  Yucatan 
revolt,  296;  revolution  chronic, 
297,  328,  481;  trade  with  Con- 
federacy, 309;  relations  with 
Second  Empire,  328-333;  dis- 
courages American  settlers,  247; 
Spanish  relations,  328,  329;  allies 
collect  duties  in,  329;  Empire 
founded,  320;  arbitration  of  claims, 
350,  474;  naturalization  treaty, 
356;  arbitration,  475,  481;  bound- 
ary dispute,  385,  386;  minister, 
cited,  387;  favors  arbitration 
court,  451;  relations  with  United 
States  1915.  444,  479,  481;  foreign 
interests  in,  481,  486;  American, 
482,  485-487;  Madero  govern- 
ment, 482;  Huerta,  483,  484,  486. 

Mexico,  City  of,  Americans  take, 
277;  French,  329;  Second  Pan- 
American  Congress,  451;  foreign 
colony  in,  482. 

Mexico,  Gulf  of,  tributaries,  32, 187; 
commerce  on,  33;  control  of,  253, 
360,  444. 

Michaux,  Andr6,  French  agent,  102. 

Michilimackinac  (Mich.),  British 
fort,  63;  trade-centre,  173. 

Michigan,  Lake,  right  of  navigation, 
285,  346. 

Middle  West,  demands  open  Mis- 
sissippi, 5. 

Midway  Islands,  annexation,  399, 
406.  425. 

Milan  decree,  terms,  158;  revoked, 
168. 

Military  service,  liability  of  natural- 
ized citizens,  357. 

Milk  River,  source,  195. 


Mines,  Mexican,  74,  75,  89,  90,  12S; 
foreign  interests  in,  4iBl,  482; 
nitrate,  386. 

Mirabeau,  Comte  de,  defeat  in 
Assembly,  92. 

Miranda,  Francisco  de,  adventurer, 
89;  revolutionary  plans,  90,  96, 
134,  135,  139,  203,  290;  death, 
203. 

Miro,  Estevem,  Louisiana  governor, 
75;  intrigues,  76,  77;  cit«l,  76. 

Mirs  Bay,  port  leased,  455. 

Missionaries,  American,  in  Oregon, 
255,  256;  in  Pacific,  396;  China, 
286,  455,  460;  Hawaii,  402; 
Turkey,  465;  desire  Philippines  as 
field,  421. 

Mississippi  River,  as  boundary,  19, 
40, 41, 46,74, 135,151,201;  source, 
116,  118;  Spain  holds,  5,  32,  33, 
63,  70,  75,  87,  90;  French  hold 
mouth,  16;  Americans,  181;  free 
navigation  demanded,  41,  43,  48, 
57,  70,  72,  97,  197,  245;  opposed 
by  East,  71;  granted,  124,  125, 
147;  English  demand,  182,  185, 
195;  French  designs  in  valley,  142; 
America  secures,  194;  fur-trade 
on  upper,  173;  outlet  for  commerce 
of,  360,  444. 

Missouri,  Spanish  intrigues  in,  75; 
slavery  struggle  in,  252;  emigrants, 
257;  senator,  255. 

Missouri  River,  as  boundary,  148; 
source,  195;  fur- trade  on,  173. 

Mobile  (Ala.),  French  colony,  19, 
149;  Americans  occupy,  151; 
British  threaten,  181. 

Mohammedans,  plunder  Spanish 
colonies,  13. 

Mohonk,  Lake,  conferences  at,  473. 

Molasses,  trade  in,  119. 

Mongolia,  independence  recognized, 
459. 

Monitor,  defeats  Merrimac,  319. 

Monongahela  River,  joins  Allegheny, 
17. 

Monroe,  James,  minister  to  France, 
104;  welcome,  107,  115,  126;  mis- 
sion, 127;  recall,  128;  indiscretion, 
128,  129,  131,  132;  poor  diplomat, 
141, 188;  Louisiana  purchase,  144- 
146,  149,  150;  minister  to  Eng- 
land, 158, 372;  special  mission,  158; 


INDEX 


537 


secretary  of  state,  170,  188;  in- 
structs peace  commissioners,  182; 
president,  188;  Spanish-American 
policy,  201,  210,  211,  251;  Oregon, 
255;  states  "doctrine,"  211,  212, 
324. 
Monroe  Doctrine,  development,  1, 
2;  basis,  211;  stated,  212,  213; 
Canning's  opinion  of,  214,  215, 
882;  influence  on  national  policy, 

217,  218,  353,  359;  extensions  of, 

218,  296,  334,  403,  417,  420,  448, 
450,  477-479,  484,  508,  509;  real 
author,  218;  Polk  revives,  268, 
281,  325;  Polk's  corollary,  296; 
eflFect  of  Clayton-Bulwer  treaty, 
293,  382;  practiced  efiFects,  324, 
826;  during  Civil  War,  324-334; 
in  Maximilian  affairs,  333;  Grant's 
corollary,  334;  base  of  Panama 
policy  {1880),  380;  Blaine  and 
Olney's  conception  of,  384-395; 
affects  Caribbean  situation,  444, 
450,  477;  question  of  claims,  446, 
448;  Roosevelt's  corollary,  448; 
Lodge's  corollary,  450;  Wilson's 
corollaries,  450,  478,  484;  Spanbh- 
America  resents,  452;  Mexican 
problems,  482. 

Monterey  (Cal.),  American  consul, 
instructions,  274;  British  consul, 
257;  Americans  seize,  258. 

Montevideo,  French  relations, 
325. 

Montreal,  trade  centre,  67,  118,  122, 
125,  173,  197;  Americans  desire, 
174. 

Moore,  J.  B.,  Spanish  treaty  com- 
mission secretary,  418;  state  de- 
partment   counsellor,    480,     508. 

Moose  Island,  British  demand,  182, 
186. 

Morgan,  Col.  George,  Western 
schemes,  75. 

Morgan,  J.  P.,  interests  in  Honduras, 
459. 

Mori  Daizen,  chastised  by  Europe, 
853. 

Mormons,  American,  in  Mexico, 
482. 

Momy,  Due  de,  Mexican  policy, 
329. 

Morocco,  oflScial  piracy,  55;  treaty 
with,  66,  85;  international  agree- 


ment with,  402;  Algeciras  con- 
ference,  402,  464. 

Morris,  Gouvemeur,  mission  to 
England,  87;  minister  to  France, 
104;  recall,  104. 

Morton,  L.  P.,  diplomatic  expe- 
rience, 304. 

Mosquitoes  (Indian  tribe),  292,  295, 
383.     See  Nicaragua. 

Motley,  J.  L.,  minister  to  England, 
343,  373;  instructions,  844;  re- 
moval, 344;  to  Austria,  383;  con- 
cludes treaty  with  England, 
356. 

Moultrie,  Gov.  William,  receives 
Genfit,  98. 

Mount  Vernon,  Washington  at, 
120. 

Munster,  treaty  of,  14. 

Murray,  W.  V.,  minister  to  Holland, 
136;  on  French  commission, 
137. 

Muscat,  commercial  treaty  with, 
223. 


N 

Nacogdoches,  Americans  occupy, 
250. 

Najato,  prince  of,  353. 

Naples,  interest  in  American  Revo- 
lution, 24;  American  trade,  55, 164, 
167;  insurrection  in,  204;  com- 
mercial treaty,  223;  claims  treaty, 
226;  extradition,  285. 

Nashville  (Tenn.),  pioneers,  69. 

Nassau,  port  of,  238,  308. 

Natchez  (Miss.),  possession  dis- 
puted, 33,  71;  American  interests, 
245;  trade  centre,  70;  command- 
ant, 76. 

Natchitoches,  French  fort,  202. 

National  Era,  Mexican  policy,  278. 

National  Gazette,  policy,  103. 

Naturalization.  See  International 
Law. 

Navarro,  Martin,  Spanish  intendant, 
cited,  73,  74. 

Navigation.   See  International  Law. 

Navy,  in  War  of  18118,  178;  in  Civil 
War,  409;  rebuilding,  409. 

Navy,  steady  increase  in,  423; 
efficiency  tested,  424;  rank,  424; 
helps  stranded  Americans,  494. 


538 


INDEX 


Navy  Island,  militia  rendezvous, 
232. 

Necker,  Jacques,  French  statesman, 
48. 

Nelson,  Hugh,  minister  to  Spain, 
209,  210;  instructions,  cited,  297. 

Nelson,  Justice  Samuel,  on  British 
Claims  commission,  345. 

Nesselrode,  Count  Karl  Robert, 
English  sympathy,  169. 

Netherlands,  King  of,  arbitrates, 
230,  235;  interests  in  Asia,  353; 
diplomatic  service  to,  429;  arbi- 
tration treaty,  475.    See  Holland. 

Neutrality,  position  of  Holland 
(1688),  14,  22,  (1776),  35,  36, 
(2779),  38;  lax  enforcement,  22; 
doctrine  of  armed,  37,  38;  John 
Adams's  views,  92;  Jefferson's,  102, 
104;  Washington's,  125;  cabinet 
discusses,  99;  proclamation  issued, 
100,  105;  law  of  17H,  105;  prob- 
lems {1789-1812),  6, 90-92,95,100, 
107, 127-129, 136,152,169,170;ob- 
ligations  (1789-1812),  106,  118, 
169;  rights  (1789-1812),  14,  108, 
110-114,  118,  124,  126,  127,  156, 
159,  167,  170,  175;  indemnity  for 
violations,  118,  124;  England  pro- 
claims, 206;  United  States,  207; 
problems  (1812-1829),  196,  207, 
208;  Great  Britain's  interpretation 
lax,  336,  338;  American  actof  iS5S, 
845;  problems  (1829-1872).  232, 
249-251,  288,  299,  327,  330,  332, 
839;  obligations  (1829-1872),  288, 
809,  339,  345;  rights  (1829-1872), 
288,  308,  309,  312,  342,  345,  390, 
495;  in  Franco-Prussian  war,  350; 
of  Isthmian  routes,  352,  380;  in 
Cuban  insurrection,  365,  409,  412; 
in  Boer  war,  431 ;  of  China,  in  Rus- 
sian-Japanese war,  458;  in  Mex- 
ican revolutions,  483;  in  Euro- 
pean war,  494-499. 

Neufville,  Jean  de,  drafts  treaty, 
36. 

Neuville,  Baron  Hyde  de,  minister 
to  United  States,  200,  201. 

New  Brunswick,  boundary  dispute, 
230,  235. 

New  England,  settlement  of,  13; 
captures  Canadian  ports,  15; 
fishing  interests,  40,  41,  19i^  877; 


commercial,  71;  embargo  hurts, 
161;  carrying  trade,  55,  177. 

New  England  Society,  of  New  York, 
address  to,  cited,  305. 

New  Granada.    See  Colombia. 

New  Hampshire,  claims  Vermont 
lands,  67. 

New  Madrid  (Mo.),  proposed  col- 
ony, 75. 

New  Mexico,  United  States  claims, 
274;  obtains,  279,  341. 

New  Orleans  (La.),  French  settle, 
16;  ceded  to  England,  19;  trade 
centre,  70,  98;  Americans  desire, 
73;  English  designs  against,  90; 
French,  102;  place  of  deposit,  124, 
144,  145;  Pitt's  plan  for,  135; 
Spanish  intendant,  144;  ceded  to 
United  States,  146;  Pakenham's 
expedition  against,  181,  184; 
filibustering  expeditions  from,  298; 
Italian  lynched  at,  427. 

New  York,  Indian  tribes,  64;  claims 
Vermont  lands,  67;  Canada  de- 
sires northern,  181;  Canadian 
trade,  197;  militia  equip  in, 
232. 

New  York  City,  Indian  chiefs  visit, 
83;  British  agent  at,  90;  trade 
centre,  161,  173,  199,  285,  427, 
452,  467;  filibustering  expeditions, 
298;  Russian  fleet  visits,  359;  Cu- 
ban head-quarters,  409. 

Newfoundland,  ceded  to  England, 
16;  fisheries,  40,  41,  45,  48,  108, 
192,  285,  434,  435.  506;  embargo 
hurts,  161;  War  of  1812,  177;  not 
a  part  of  Canada,  434. 

Niagara  (N.  Y.),  fort,  63, 182;  media- 
tion conference  at,  490. 

Niagara  River,  Iroquois  on,  65;  in- 
ternational waterway,  181;  Fe- 
nians cross,  338. 

Nicaragua,  international  route,  135, 
290;  rival  of  Panama,  291,  292, 

295,  440;  Indians,  292;  British 
relations,    292,    383;    American 

296,  297;  extradition  treaty  with, 
850;  right  of  way  through,  352 
proposed  canal  treaty,  382,  383 
reciprocity  with,  889;  canal  pol 
icy,  439;  protectorate  over,  448 
forcible  intervention,  449;  treaty 
(1916),  450. 


INDEX 


539 


Nicholas  II  of  Russia,  calls  first 
Hague  Conference,  47S. 

Ningpo,  port  opened,  223. 

Nipissing,  Lake,  as  boundary,  20, 
40.  46. 

Nitrate  mines.  South  American,  386. 

Non-importation,  colonial  agree- 
ments, 156;  law  of  1806, 157. 

Non-intercourse  act,  terms,  163; 
effects,  164,  166,  167;  renewed, 
169. 

Nootka  Sound,  English  settlement, 
88;  Spanish  ships  raid,  88;  con- 
troversy over,  89-92;  neutrality 
difficult,  100;  Treaty  of,  92. 

North,  Lord,  resigns,  42;  return  to 
office,  59. 

North  Carolina,  settles  Tennessee, 
69;  Indian  relations,  72;  governor, 
137. 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  in  claims 
commission,  345. 

North  German  Union,  naturaliza- 
tion treaty,  355. 

Northwest,  British  policy  in,  68, 116, 
172;  Indian  tribes,  172;  north- 
west coast,  Russian  advance,  205, 
206,  209,  212. 

Northwest  Territory,  governor,  83. 

Northwestern  Fur  Co.,  rival,  173; 
title  to  Astoria,  185;  absorbed, 
185. 

Norway,  commercial  treaty  with, 
197;  extradition,  285;  natural- 
ization, S56;  arbitration,  475; 
neutrality  {1915).  497. 

Nova  Scotia,  desired  by  United 
States,  40. 

Nueces  River,   as  boundary,   271. 

O 

Ohio,  Indian  tribes,  65,  84. 

Ohio  River,  claims  to  valley,  16,  17; 
ceded  to  England,  19;  as  bound- 
ary, 20,  40,  116;  branches,  68; 
junction,  105;  pioneers  in  valley, 
245. 

Oil,  trade  in,  164,  285;  free  entry 
conceded,  346. 

Oldenburg,  conunercial  treaty  with, 
285. 

Olliwochica,  Indian  leader,  172. 

Olney,  Richard,  secretary  of  state, 


8,  S91,  392;  Venezuela  policy,  391; 
conception  of  Monroe  Doctrine, 
392-395,  478;  characterized,  391, 
395;  cited,  392,  395. 

Onis,  Don  Luis  de,  negotiates  with 
Adams,  200,  201,  246. 

Ontario,  loyalists  settle  in,  66;  re- 
lations with  England,  178. 

Ontario,  Lake,  as  boundary,  46; 
naval  fights  in,  178,  190. 

Orange  Free  State,  treaty  with,  350. 

Oregon,  American  claims,  93,  148, 
186,  195,  202,  214,  245,  265,  267, 
269,  278;  joint  occupation,  195, 
254-257,  269,  271;  treaty  signed. 
270;  fur-trade  in,  255;  mission- 
aries, 255,  256;  rush  of  settlers, 
257, 291;  importance  of  coast  line, 
898;  attitude  toward  Mexico 
(1915),  486. 

Orinoco  River,  Spanish  on,  391; 
Venezuelan  control  of,  394. 

Ostend  Manifesto,  terms  cited, 
301. 

Oswald,  Richard,  British  minister 
to  France,  42,  43;  new  commis- 
sion, 45. 

Oswego  (N.  Y.),  British  fort,  63. 

Ottoman  Empire,  commercial  treaty 
with,  223;  in  Crimean  war,  288; 
diplomatic  service  to,  430;  extra- 
dition treaty,  350;  relations  with 
United     States,     464-466. 


Pacific  Ocean,  commerce,  92,  93; 
international  co-operation  on,  353, 
354,  369;  interpretation  of  term, 
379;  growth  of  American  influence, 
396,  402, 463;  territorial  expansion 
on,  398,  454;  islands  acquired, 
898.  399,  404,  418,  425. 

Pacifists,  against  munition  trade,  499 

Padillo,  Panama  gunboat,  441. 

Pagopago,  naval  station,  400,  425. 

Paine,  Thomas.  French  sympathy, 
96. 

Pakenham,  Sir  Richard,  British 
minister.  262;  correspondence 
with,  263,  267. 

Pakenham,  Gen.  Sir  Edward  M., 
New  Orleans  expedition,  181. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  Central  Amer- 


540 


INDEX 


ican  policy,  294;  Civil  War,  SIS, 
317,  319;  cited,  317. 

Panama,  iaternational  route,  135, 
286,  290;  Spanish- American  con- 
gress, 214, 291;  United  States  dele- 
gates, 216;  American  interests  in, 
245;  neutrality  guaranteed  (treaty 
of  me),  291,  385,  442;  Nicaragua 
a  rival,  291,  439,  440;  railroad 
built,  295;  de  Lesseps  canal,  380; 
title  bought  by  United  States,  439; 
relations  with  Colombia,  439- 
442, 453;  United  States  recognizes, 
442;  guarantees  independence, 
443;  constitution,  cited,  443;  re- 
lations with  United  States,  443. 

Panama  Canal,  fortifications,  436- 
438;  tolls,  437,  480,  481;  strategic 
importance,  444;  opening,  469. 

Panama  City,  revolt  in,  441. 

Pan-American  Congress,  success  of 
first,  388;  Hawaii  not  included, 
403;  sessions,  451. 

Pan-American  Exposition,  at  Buf- 
falo, 451. 

Pan-American  Union,  director-gen- 
eral, 430. 

Pan-Americanism,  policy  of  Adams 
and  Clay,  214;  of  Blaine,  386; 
action  of  Congress,  387;  later, 
451. 

Panton,  Leslie  &  Co.,  Indian  trade, 
73. 

Papacy,  relations  with  United  States, 
61,  55. 

Papal  bulls,  confirm  Spanish  claims, 
10;  importance,  10,  11. 

Papal  States,  diplomatic  service  to, 
280;  plan  to  defend,  338. 

Paraguay,  commercial  treaty  with, 
285,  287;  arbitration,  475. 

Parana  River,  navigation  of,  opened, 
287. 

Paredes  y  A.,  Gen.  M.,  Mexican 
president,  policy,  275,  276. 

Paris,  73.  81, 138, 150.  204,  311, 418; 
interest  in  American  Revolution, 
24;  American  representatives  in, 
27,  28,  83,  96,  99,  104,  132,  145, 
188,  345;  international  bureau, 
weights  and  measures,  351;  seal 
fisheries  arbitration  court,  379; 
Venezuelan,  394;  engineering  con- 
gress, 380;  financial  centre,  427. 


Paris,  treaty  of  (1781S),  18;  discus- 
sion of  terms,  40-50,  66;  Indians 
angry  at,  65 ;  interpretation,  67, 70, 
115,  117.  139,  186.  192,  194,  195; 
(189S),  418-422. 

Parker,  Josiah,  Virginia  Member  of 
Congress,  121. 

Parliament,  toleration  of  Lord  Shel- 
bume,  59;  passes  navigation  act; 
{,1788),  60. 

Parrott,  W.  S.,  United  States  agent 
in  Mexico,  273. 

Passamaquoddy  Bay,  islands,  186. 

Patriotism,  demonstrations  of,  cul- 
tivated, 408. 

Pauncefote,  Sir  Julian,  discusses 
Venezuelan  dispute,  393;  friendly 
to  America,  431;  Hay  treaty,  436. 

Peace  movement,  growth  of,  472, 
473,  502. 

Pearl  Harbor,  coaling  station,  404. 

Pearl  River,  as  boundary,  151. 

Pearson  syndicate,  Colombian  plans, 
450. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  American  policy, 
233,  269,  270. 

Peking,  foreign  embassies  besieged, 
455,  456;  relieved,  457. 

Pensacola  (Fla.),  Spanish  colony, 
19;  trading-post,  73;  Jackson 
seizes,  200,  201. 

Perceval,  Spencer,  issues  order  in 
council,  159. 

Perdido  River,  as  boundary,  19, 
149-159. 

Perignon,  Gen.  Marquis  de,  minister 
to  Spain,  130. 

Perry,  Commodore  Matthew,  Jai>- 
an  treaty,  286. 

Persia,  commercial  treaty  with,  285. 

Peru,  mines,  75;  revolution  in,  203 
commercial  treaty  with,  223,  285 
claims,  226;  war  with  Spain,  827 
arbitration  of  claims,  350;  Bo- 
livia-Chili war,  386;  arbitration 
treaty,  475;  new  government  rec- 
ognized, 479. 

PcferAoJJ,  admiralty  case,  309. 

Petroleum,  supersedes  whale-oil,  S5S. 

Pharmacopoeal  Formulas  for  Po- 
tent Drugs,  agreement  to  unify, 
472. 

Phelps.  E.  J.,  on  seal-fisheries  com- 
mission,  379. 


INDEX 


541 


Philadelphia,  seat  of  Continental 
Congress,  23,  24,  S3,  45,  70,  75; 
frivolity  of,  39;  port,  70,  76.  87, 
103;  trade  centre,  161;  Genfit  at, 
99.  101. 

Philip  II,  of  Spain,  succeeds  to 
throne,  12. 

Philippines,  ownership,  12;  relations 
with  United  States.  245;  reciproc- 
ity with,  389;  early  history,  417; 
negotiations  for,  418;  American 
sentiment  concerning.  420,  421, 
476.  487;  army  of  occupation, 
423;  Japanese  relations,  461. 

Pickering,  Timothy,  secretary  of 
state.  121,  135.  288;  maritime  law 
policy.  129;  English  sympathies, 
121,  137;  successor,  138;  cited, 
129.  176. 

Pierce.  Franklin,  president,  281; 
first  message,  281;  expansionist, 
282;  appointments,  282.  292,  300, 
365;  Cuban  policy.  300;  cited,  300. 

Pike.  Capt.  Zebulon.  explorer,  148. 

Pinchon,  L.  A.,  French  minister, 
144. 

Pinckney,  Charles,  minister  to  Spain, 
140. 

Pinckney,  C.  C,  minister  to  France, 
128;  not  received,  129-131;  one  of 
commission.  131,  137;  reply  to 
Talleyrand.  132;  cited,  137. 

Pinckney,  Thomas,  minister  to 
England,  87,  123;  envoy  to  Spain, 
123;  concludes  treaty,  124;  re- 
placed, 129. 

Pinkney,  William,  mission  to  Eng- 
land, 158,  372;  tact,  165;  recall, 
169. 

Piracy,  menace  to  colonies.  13;  of 
Barbary  States,  55.  114,  132; 
slave-trade  question,  237. 

Pitt,  William,  Earl  of  Chatham, 
friend  of  colonies,  17,  25;  trade 
policy,  110. 

Pitt,  William,  premier,  60,  88,  89; 
fears  frontier  clash,  116;  French 
policy.  132;  Louisiana.  134. 

Pius  IX,  assumes  pontificate,  280. 

Piatt  Amendment,  terms,  425,  426; 
enforced,  449. 

Plattsburg.  battle  of,  181. 

Poinsett,  Joel,  mission  to  Buenos 
Ayres,  206. 


Poles,  treatment  by  Russia,  359. 

Polk.  James  K.,  elected  president, 
265;  appointments,  273,  282; 
Texas  policy,  266,  267.  278.  440; 
Oregon.  267-271.  393;  Mexican, 
271-279,  341;  California,  267.  274, 
277;  extends  Monroe  Doctrine, 
296,  325,  478;  characterized,  267, 
279;  cited,  276,  277. 

Polly,  admiralty  case.  156. 

Pompey  the  Great,  destroys  pirates. 
56. 

Pontiac.  conspiracy  of,  65. 

Poor  Richard's  Almanac,  author,  27. 

Porcupine  River,  navigation  free, 
346. 

Porfirio  Diaz  (Mex.),  fighting  at, 
482. 

Pork,  trade  in,  58,  76,  110,  467;  in 
McKinley  tariff.  388. 

Port  Arthur,  leased  to  Russia,  455. 

Port  Royal.    See  Louisburg. 

Porter.  Admiral  David,  annexes 
Madison  island,  398. 

Porter,  Admiral  David  D.,  inspec- 
tion cruise.  361. 

Porto  Bello,  Panama  town,  441. 

Porto  Rico,  ownership,  35,  135,  203; 
effort  to  free,  217;  slavery  in.  236; 
reciprocity  with,  389;  United 
States  acquires,  421 ;  strategic  im- 
portance, 444;  change  of  owners, 
478.  487. 

Portugal,  colonial  relations  with 
Spain,  11, 12;  United  States  trade 
with.  56,  57,  163;  diplomatic  ser- 
vice to.  81,  140,  430;  guards  Gib- 
raltar, 114;  loses  Brazil,  203; 
commercial  treaty,  223,  471; 
claims,  226;  forbids  slave-trade, 
236;  war  with  Brazil.  324;  pays 
American  claims,  375;  arbitra- 
tion treaty,  475. 

President,  fights  Little  Belt.  174.  _ 

Press,  influence  in  causing  Spanish 
war,  411. 

Pribilof  Islands,  sealing  industry, 
377,  379.  434. 

Prim,  Juan,  Count  de  Reus,  Mex- 
ican expedition,  329;  Cuban  pol- 
icy, 366. 

Privateering.  See  International  Law. 

Privateers,  French,  15,  98, 102,  103; 
American,  29;  in  war  with  France, 


642 


INDEX 


133;  of  18ie,  177;  Spanish-Amer- 
ican, 200,  207;  Confederacy,  309, 
312,  315. 

Prizes.    See  International  Law. 

Proctor,  Sen.  Redfield,  report  on 
Cuba,  412. 

Provisions,  contraband.  111.  119- 
121,  124,  128,  154,  164,  496;  com- 
petition in  trade,  373. 

Prussia,  American  commissioner  to, 
31;  commercial  treaties  with,  53, 
64,  129,  197;  privateering  pro- 
hibited, 54;  diplomatic  service  to, 
81,  140,  188;  war  with  France,  95; 
war  debt,  167;  signs  Holy  Alli- 
ance, 204;  head  of  ZoUverein,  224; 
England  seeks  alliance  with,  240; 
Cuban  relations,  366. 

Puget  Sound,  ownership,  267,  270; 
coast  importance,  398. 

Q 

Quebec,  province  created,  20;  bound- 
aries, 33,  40,  46,  228. 

Quebec  Act,  provisions,  20. 

Quebec,  City  of,  French  stronghold, 
13,  16;  Americans  besiege,  75; 
trade  centre,  118,  125,  197;  route 
via,  182,  230. 

Quitman,  Gen.  J.  A.,  Cuban  filibus- 
tering, 298;  Member  of  Congress, 
SOO. 

B 

.Railroads.    See  Transportation. 

Rambouillet,  decree  of,  167,  168. 

Randolph,  Edmund,  secretary  of 
state,  104;  indiscretion,  120,  121; 
Vindication,  120. 

Randolph,  John,  opinion  of  non- 
importation, cited,  157;  minbter 
to  Russia,  221. 

Rayneval,  Gerard,  secretary  to 
Vergennea,  33;  mission  to  Eng- 
land, 44. 

Reciprocity,  {1815-1829).  196-199; 
(18S0-1860),  treaties,  223-225, 
285,  337,  346,  352,  376,  389,  403, 
404;  "most  favored  nation"  dis- 
pute, 224;  policy  of  Blaine,  373, 
888;  endorsed  by  Pan-American 
Congress,  388;  with  Canada,  432, 


435,  486;  under  DIngley  tariff, 
470;  Payne-Aldrich,  471;  Under- 
wood,  471. 

Reed,  T.  B.,  opposes  Spanish  war, 
413. 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  Spanish  treaty 
commissioner,  418;  ambassador 
to  England,  430. 

"Restook,"  230. 

Review  of  Reviews,  editor,  440,  450. 

Rhett,  R.  B.,  Southern  leader,  310. 

Rhode  Island,  France  said  to  desire, 
78. 

Rice,  trade  in,  55,  57,  225. 

Richelieu  River,  trade  route,  67. 

Richmond  (Va.),  Confederate  cap- 
ital, 320. 

Riga,  port  open,  163. 

Right  of  search.  See  International 
Law. 

Rio  Grande,  boundary,  148,  201, 
246,  277,  279;  source,  272,  274; 
as  American  troops  on,  273,  276; 
navigation  of,  481. 

Rio  Janeiro,  Pan-American  Con- 
gress, 451. 

Rios,  Don  E.  M.,  Spanish  treaty 
commissioner,  418. 

Roberts  College,  protected  by  Tur- 
key, 465. 

Robertson,  James,  intrigues  with 
Spain,  77. 

Robespierre,  M.  M.  I.,  French 
leader,  103. 

Rochambeau,  Comte  de,  statue  of, 
presented,  467. 

Rockhill,  W.  W.,  commissioner  to 
China,  report  cited,  457. 

Rockingham,  Marquis  of,  favors 
peace,  42;  death,  45. 

Rocky  Mountains,  as  boundary, 
194,  271. 

Rodney,  Adm.  G.  B.,  seizes  St. 
Eustatius,  38. 

Roebuck,  J.  A.,  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, 320,  322,  331. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  aids  Spain, 
15;  first  American  bishop,  51,  52; 
political  sympathies,  207;  mis- 
sions in  Oregon,  256;  Far  East, 
455. 

Romanzoff,  Count,  French  symp»- 
thy,  169. 

Rome,  diplomatic  centre,  10. 


INDEX 


543 


Romero,  Sefior  Matias,  Mexican 
minister,  cited,  387. 

Roosevelt,  Alice,  christens  German 
yacht,  467. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  voices  impe- 
rialist spirit,  423;  navy  policy, 
424;  relations  with  Hay,  429;  civi^ 
service  under,  431 ;  Panama  policy, 
439-443;  doctrine  of  police  powei; 
447-450,  452;  Santo  Domingo  in- 
tervention, 448;  Spanish-American 
fears,  452;  South  American  trip, 
453;  mediator,  458;  arbitration 
attitude,  473-475;  foreign  policy, 
476,   484;   cited,   440,   441,   451. 

Root,  Elihu,  secretary  of  state,  on 
Alaska  boundary  commission,  434; 
visits  South  America,  452;  Japa- 
nese  policy,  461,  462;  arbitration 
advocate,  473,  475;  ability,  429. 

Rose,  John,  English  diplomat,  344. 

Roumania,  relations  with  United 
States,  468. 

Rouse's  Point,  in  dispute,  231. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  influence  in  Amer- 
ica, 24. 

"Rule  of  1766"  See  International 
Law. 

Rush,  Richard,  minister  to  England, 
189,  191,  210,  237,  372;  instruc- 
tions cited,  210. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  foreign  secre- 
tary, 8,  313,  322,  323,  340;  Civil 
War  papers,  317,  320. 

Russell,  tfonathan,  legation  secre- 
tary, 170;  peace  commissioner, 
180,  185. 

Russell,  William,  Times  correspond- 
ent, cited,  310. 

Russia,  international  relations,  37, 
178,  179,  209,  213.  240,  313,  331, 
857,  359,  379,  432;  offers  media- 
tion, 41, 178, 179;  American  trade, 
53,  163,  169;  diplomatic  service 
to,  81,  163,  221,  430;  dealings 
with  Miranda,  89;  British  treaty, 
111;  French  invasion,  155,  170, 
178;  arbitrator,  191,  signs  Holy 
Alliance,  204;  policy  in  northwest, 
205,  206,  209,  211-214,  218,  254, 
281;  Crimean  war,  288;  neutrality 
treaty,  288;  Civil  War  policy, 
813,  359,  360;  frees  serfs,  313; 
Alaska  treaty,  358.  359;  treat> 


ment  of  Jews,  357, 466;  Poles,  359; 
treaty  with  England,  432;  seal 
fisheries  treaty,  434;  policy  in 
Far  East,  454,  455,  458,  459;  Con- 
gress abrogates  treaty  with,  428, 
466;  war  with  Japan,  458,  462. 

Russian  American  Company,  com- 
pensation, 358. 

Ryswick,  Treaty  of,  16. 


Sabine  River,  as  boundary,  201,  202, 
246. 

Sackett's  harbor,  British  demand, 
182. 

Sagasta,  P.  M.,  Spanish  prime  min- 
ister, 413,  416. 

St.  Augustine  (Fla.),  French  designs 
on.  99. 

St.  Bartholomew  Island,  ownership, 
35;  ceded  to  France,  335. 

St.  Clair,  Gov.  Arthur,  Indians  de- 
feat, 83,  116. 

St.  Croix  Island,  ownership.  35. 

St.  Croix  River,  as  boundary,  46, 117, 
186;  source,  228;  command  of,  182. 

St.  Eustatius  Island,  entrepdt,  35; 
governor,  36;  British  seize,  38. 

St.  Germain,  treaty  of,  13. 

St.  John  Island,  cession  proposed, 
360. 

St.  John  River  (Florida),  Huguenot 
massacre  on,  13. 

St.  John  river  (New  Brunswick), 
as  boundary,  40,  46;  valley  in  dis- 
pute, 228;  international  waterway, 
235,  346, 

St.  Joseph  (Mich.),  British  fort 
burned,  33. 

St.  Lawrence  river,  as  boundary, 
20,  40,  46,  186,  228;  British  hold, 
63,  68,  87,  197;  settlements  in 
basin,  66,  67;  opened  to  United 
States,  125;  international  water- 
way, 181;  right  of  navigation, 
197,  285;  granted,  346,  348;  trib- 
utaries, 228. 

St.  Louis  (Mo.),  trade-centre,  173. 

St.  Marks  (Fla.),  Spanish  fort,  200, 
201. 

St.  Nicholas,  port  leased,  360, 

St  Petersburg  (Petrograd),  American 
minister  at,  170,  188,  455. 


544 


INDEX 


St.  Thomas  Island,  cession  proposed, 
360. 

Saligny,  Alphonso  de,  French  agent 
in  Texas,  265. 

Salisbury,  Ix)rd,  dealings  with  Amer- 
ica, 8;  in  seal-fisheries  dispute, 
378, 379;  in  Ciayton-Bulwer  treaty 
dispute,  382;  Venezuelan,  393; 
cited,  428. 

Samana  Bay,  desirable  naval  station, 
361,  363,  401. 

Samoa,  international  interests  in, 
399-401,  406,  425;  American  re- 
lations, 245,  399-401,  406,  425;  in- 
dependence recognized,  401,  402; 
division  of  islands,  425,  454. 

San  Francisco,  Russian  fleet  visits, 
359;  collector  of  port,  377;  San 
Francisco,  bay  as  boundary,  92; 
importance,  275,  398. 

San  Jos6  (Costa  Rica),  arbitration 
court  palace,  451. 

San  Ildefonso,  treaty  of,  143. 

San  Jacinto,  battle  of,  250. 

San  Jacinto,  stops  Trent,  316. 

San  Juan  archipelago,  ownership, 
337,  345.  347,  348. 

San  Juan  river,  mouth  of,  292,  383. 

San  Marino,  treaty  with  United 
States,  469. 

Sanmun,  port  leased,  455. 

San  Salvador,  commercial  treaty 
with,  285;  extradition,  350;  arbi- 
tration, 475. 

Santa  Anna,  Gen.  Antonio  Lopez  de, 
revolutionary  leader,  247-249, 
251;  exiled,  276;  Polk's  negotia- 
tions with,  276;  intrigues,  277. 

Santa  F€,  Texan  expedition  against, 
252;  Mexican  post,  272. 

Santiago  of  Chili,  Pan-American 
Congress  at,  451. 

Santo  Domingo,  divisions  of,  326; 
trade,  108,  109,  134,  165,  166; 
leader,  134,  136;  Le  Clerc's  ex- 
pedition to,  143,  145;  freedom, 
153;  protectorate,  448. 

Sardinia,  commercial  treaty  with, 
223;  insurrection  in,  204;  in  Cri- 
mean war,  288. 

Savoy,  Amadeo  de,  king  of  Spain, 
865. 

Saxony,  desires  commercial  treaty, 
69. 


Scheldt  River,  commerce  via,  5; 
navigation  opened,  352. 

Schenck,  R.  C.,  minister  to  Eng- 
land, 344. 

Schenectady,  burned,  15. 

Schofield,  Gen.  J.  M.,  on  Mexican 
duty,  332;  mission  to  Napoleon, 
332. 

Schurz,  Carl,  diplomatic  experience, 
304;  minister  to  Spain,  327,  329; 
speech  on  expansion,  364;  Phil- 
ippine views,  420;  cited,  424, 

Scotch-Irish,  in  Kentucky,  69. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  cited,  239. 

Scott,  Sir  William,  admiralty  deci- 
sions, 156,  236,  308. 

Scott,  Gen.  Winfield,  on  North- 
eastern frontier,  230. 

Seabury,  Samuel,  consecration  as 
bishop,  52. 

Seals,  fisheries  problem,  377,  432, 
434,  506. 

Sectionalism,  influences  diplomacy, 
71,  282. 

Senate,  relation  to  diplomacy,  80; 
acts  on  Jay  treaty,  119;  members, 
174,  222,  225,  364,  428;  relation 
to  House,  225,  428;  to  executive, 
428;  acts  on  Zollverein  treaty, 
225;  Oregon,  270;  San  Domingo, 
363;  Canadian  reciprocity,  376, 
878, 435;  Algeciras  "  General  Act," 
464;  Turkish  atrocities,  465;  ar- 
bitration, 474,  475;  treaty  making 
power,  471. 

Servia,  treaty  with,  375. 

Sevastopol,  in  Crimean  War,  288. 

Seven  Years'  War,  trade  during,  109 

Servier,  John,  Tennessee  leader,  69, 
77. 

Sewall,  H.  M.,  consul  at  Samoa, 
400. 

Seward,  W.  H.,  dealings  with  Eng- 
land, 241,  318,  319,  321,  339,  340, 
382;  France,  331-333;  Mexico, 
329;  Spain,  326,  327;  privateering 
policy,  309;  slave-trade,  349; 
naturalization,  355;  views  on  ex- 
pansion, 281,  305,  306,  326,  333, 
358-362,  403,  487;  length  of  pub- 
lic service,  370,  508;  indiscretion, 
305,  317,  342;  characterized,  305, 
306;  cited,  340,  355,  362,  382. 

Shanghai,  port  opened,  223. 


INDEX 


545 


Shaw,  Albert,  letter  to,  cited,  440; 
editorial,  cited,  450. 

SheflSeld,  Lord,  "Observations  on 
the  Commerce  of  the  United 
States,"  influence,  59. 

Shelburne,  Lord,  liberal  opinions, 
42,  60;  controls  ministry,  45;  re- 
signs, 58;  cited,  45. 

Shelby,  Isaac,  Kentucky  governor, 
102;  cited,  105. 

Shenandoah,  Confederate  cruiser, 
339. 

Sherman,  John,  secretary  of  state, 
414;  Cuban  policy,  412;  successor, 
418;  cited,  412. 

Shimonoseki,  indemnity  returned, 
397,  454. 

Shimonoseki  Straits,  closed,  353. 

Ship-building,  American  industry, 
58;  government  policy  toward, 
85,  469,  470;  growth,  109;  de- 
cline, 336. 

Short,  William,  American  minister  to 
Spain,  123,  140. 

Siam,  commercial  treaty  with,  223, 
286. 

Silks,  trade  in,  55,  284. 

Singleterry,  John,  arrested,  102. 

Sitka  (Alaska),  United  States  court 
at,  378. 

Slavery,  Missouri  question,  252; 
Texas,  253,  254,  262;  in  Cuba, 
298,  301,  302,  367;  growth  of 
opposition,  321,  354;  Alex.  H. 
Stephens  views,  323. 

Slave  trade,  African,  55,  58;  pro- 
hibited, 79;  English  opposition 
to,  191,  216.  236;  European,  236; 
American,  236,  237;  Mexican, 
246;  suppression  difficult,  236, 
238,  239,  241;  declared  piracy, 
237;  legislation  after  1862,  349, 
374. 

Slidell,  John,  minister  to  Mexico, 
273-275;  Confederate  commis- 
sioner, 311;  captured,  316;  re- 
leased, 318;  agent  in  France,  331. 

Smiley,  A.  K.,  paciflst,  473. 

Smith,  Adam,  influences  Lord  Shel- 
burne, 58. 

Smith,  Ashabel,  Texas  representa- 
tive, 264. 

Smith,  J.  P.,  on  Chinese  commis- 
sicn,  398. 


Smith,  Robert,  secretary  of  state, 
163;  successor,  170. 

Smuggling,  by  Dutch,  35,  36;  be- 
tween England  and  France,  164. 

Society  of  Holy  Trinity  for  Re- 
demption of  Captives,  activity, 
55,  56. 

Sorrel  River,  trade  route,  67. 

Soudan,    British    withdrawal,    342. 

Soul^,  Pierre,  minister  to  Spain, 
283,  300;  independence  in  office, 
371. 

South,  in  diplomatic  service,  304. 

South  America,  commerce,  5. 

South  Sea  Bubble,  speculation, 
205. 

Southwest,  character  of  settlers,  69; 
trade,  69;  relations  with  Indians, 
83,  89. 

Spain,  holds  Mississippi  River,  5; 
trouble  with  colonies,  6;  papal 
aid,  10,  15;  colonial  relations 
with  Portugal,  11,  12;  extends 
empire,  12;  pirates  molest  col- 
onies, 13;  Armada  defeated,  13; 
recognizes  rival  colonies,  14,  21; 
colonial  commerce,  15;  aids 
France,  18;  cedes  Florida,  19;  ac- 
quires Louisiana,  19;  neutrality 
lax,  22;  aids  American  Revolution, 
26,  27,  108;  offers  mediation,  32; 
war  with  England,  32,  37;  Am- 
erican commissioner  to,  31,  32, 
34;  American  policy,  33,  91; 
seizes  British  forts  in  Florida,  33; 
Michigan,  34;  neutral  trade,  38; 
in  American  peace  negotiations, 
43-45,  49,  50;  gains  Floridas,  50; 
payments  to  Barbary,  56;  United 
States  trade,  57,  63,  77,  163,  166, 
167,  177;  controls  Mississippi, 
69,  70,  71,  87,  147,  197;  treaties 
with  England,  70;  Western  in- 
trigues, 73-77,  123;  Indian  pol- 
icy, 73,  74,  83,  123;  diplomatic 
service  to,  81,  123,  209,  283.  300. 
301,  327,  366,  385.  412,  430;  in 
Nootka  Sound  affair.  88-93;  Fam- 
ily alliance.  88;  effect  of  Jay 
treaty,  122;  vacillation.  123; 
war  with  France.  95,  97,  99; 
treaty  with  United  States,  124. 
134;  international  law  position, 
124,     237;     evacuates     disputed 


546 


INDEX 


ports,  139,  142;  cedes  Louisiana, 
143,  147,  150;  Bonaparte  regime, 
150,  203;  disputed  boundary, 
199-202;  cedes  Floridas,  202, 
207;  insurrection  in,  204;  mon- 
archy restored,  204;  relations 
witli  Spanish-America,  203,  210- 
213,  251,  296,  326-329,  361,  384, 
387,  391;  claims  treaty,  226, 
350,  375;  forbids  slave  trade, 
236;  gives  up  Oregon  claim,  254; 
Cuban  relations,  298,  326,  330, 
365-368;  domestic  situation,  365; 
emancipation  policy,  367;  in 
Virginius  aflFair,  366,  367;  reci- 
procity with,  389;  commercial 
treaty,  471;  war  with  America, 
409-417;  peace  terms,  418-421, 
487;  Cuban  debt  problem.  418, 
426;  arbitration  with  Mexico, 
474;  United  States,  475;  inter- 
ests in  Mexico,  482. 

Spanish- America,  mines,  75;  rev- 
olutionary leaders,  89,  96,  97,  203; 
discontent  in,  135;  European 
relations,  385;  Burr's  designs  on, 
147;  trade  valuable,  155;  revo- 
lutions, 203,  205,  226;  United 
States  trade  with,  206;  interest 
in,  7,  208,  209;  relations  with, 
210-219,  226,  284,  319,  384,  390, 
406,  442,  464,  484,  489,  490,  509; 
England's  relations  with,  206, 209- 
217,  319,  334;  calls  a  congress, 
214;  Pan-American  attitude,  387, 
390,  451;  foreign  concessions  in, 
450,  460;  relations  with  Japan, 
461;  joins  in  Sanitary  Conven- 
tions, 472. 

Spooner,  Sen.  J.  C,  amends  reci- 
procity treaties,  471. 

Spooner  Act,  provisions,  439. 

Springbok,  admiralty  case,  308. 

Stanley,  Lord,  foreign  policy,  340. 

Staples,  loan  to  Mexico,  215. 

Steinberger,  A.  B.,  German  agent, 
400. 

Stephens,  A.  H.,  favors  fleet,  311. 

Steuben,  Baron  Friedrich  von,  de- 
mands surrender  of  frontier  posts, 
63. 

Stevens,  Edward,  American  consul 
136. 

Stevens,  J.  L.,  minister  to  Hawaii, 


cited,  404;  favors  annexation,  405; 
recalled,  406. 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  interest  in  Samoa, 
399. 

Stickine  River,  navigation  free,  346. 

Stockton,  Admiral  R.  F.,  sent  to 
Monterey,  274. 

Stoeckl,  Baron,  Russian  minister, 
sale  of  Alaska,  358. 

Straus,  Oscar,  minister  to  Turkey, 
430,  466;  betters  conditions,  466. 

Suarez,  Pino,  Mexican  vice-presi- 
dent, killed,  483. 

Suez  Canal,  director  of,  380. 

Sugar,  trade  in,  108,  109,  119.  153; 
Hawaiian,  353;  in  McKinley 
tariff,  388. 

Sullivan,  Gen.  John,  expedition 
against  Iroquois,  64. 

Sumner,  Charles,  senator,  306,  339, 
340,  364;  views  in  foreign  policy, 
317,  340-344.  347;  removed  from 
chairmanship,  344,  364;  works 
for  Alaska  treaty,  358,  359;  char- 
acterized, 306,  307,  342;  cited, 
341. 

Superior,  Lake,  as  boundary,  46. 

Supreme  Court,  powers  over  treat- 
ies, 80. 

Suwo,  prince  of,  353. 

Sweden,  American  colonists,  14; 
armed  neutrality,  37;  treaties 
with,  54,  129,  197,  285,  356,  475; 
American  minister  to,  188;  for- 
bids slave-trade,  236;  cedes  St. 
Bartholomew  to  France,  335; 
American  cession  refused,  362; 
neutrality  (19^5),  492. 

Switzerland,  commercial  treaty  with, 
285;  represented  in  Geneva  board, 
347;  diplomatic  service  to.  429, 
430;  trade  agreement  with  United 
States.  471;  arbitration.  475;  neu- 
trality problems  {1915),  497. 

Syria,  missions  in,  465. 

Syrians,  status  in  United  States, 
466. 


Tackle,  T.,  British  agent,  cited,  82, 

181. 
Taft,  W.  H.,   president,  435;   seal 

fisheries  treaty,  434;  reciprocity. 


INDEX 


647 


485;  immigration  policy,  468; 
Japan,  450;  arbitration,  475; 
Mexican,  481,  482. 

Talien-wan,  port  leased,  455. 

Talleyrand,  C.  M.  de,  American 
policy,  131-133,  136-138,  142, 
143;  cited,  142,  143.  149,  150. 

Tallulah  (La.),  Italian  lynched  at, 
427. 

Tamasese,  King  of  Samoa,  400. 

Tar,  trade  in,  57. 

TariflF,  customs,  85;  protects  fish- 
eries, 193,  194;  affects  ship-build- 
ing, 336,  470;  Morrill,  314; 
McKinley,  388;  Wilson,  389; 
Dingley,  470,  471;  Payne- Aldrich, 
471;  Underwood,  471. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  Mexican  cam- 
paigns, 273,  276;  diplomatic  serv- 
ice under,  304;  instructions  to, 
cited,  273;  president,  304. 

Tea,  commercial  importance  of,  54, 
55.  196,  199.  284. 

Tecumseh,  forms  confederacy,  172. 

Tehuantepec,  Isthmus  of,  canal  pro- 
posed, 216,  290,  295. 

Temple,  Sir  John,  British  consul- 
general,  87. 

Tennessee,  offshoot  of  North  Caro- 
lina, 69;  Spanish  intrigues,  77; 
admitted  to  Union,  82;  French 
intrigues,  102,  105;  English,  134; 
governors,  134,  248. 

Tepic  (Cal.),  British  consul,  257. 

Texas,  Spanish  boundaries,  201, 
202;  United  States  reversionary 
interest,  208,  209,  245,  246;  claims 
treaty,  226;  rush  of  settlers,  245, 
481;  land  titles,  245;  "Fredonian 
republic,"  247;  joined  to  Coahuila, 
247;  Mexican  forts  in,  247;  Amer- 
ican leaders,  248;  Indian  negotia- 
tions, 248;  declares  independence, 
248;  gained  American  aid,  249; 
annexation  question,  250,  251- 
254,  259-266,  272,  274,  341; 
slavery.  253.  262-266.  298.  301; 
boundary.  271,  279;  truce  with 
Mexico.  273;  United  States  gains, 
279;  attitude  toward  Mexico 
(1915),  486. 

Texel,  John  Paul  Jones  at,  36. 

Thames,  battle  of.  178. 

Thiers,  M.  J.  L.  A.,  cited,  166. 


Thompson,  Waddy,  minister  to  Mex- 
ico, cited,  258,  274. 

Thornton,  Sir  Edward,  British  agent, 
144;  on  claims  commission,  345. 

Tibet,  relations  to  Great  Britain, 
459. 

Tiger  Island,  naval  station  sought, 
382. 

Tippecanoe,  battle  of,  172. 

Tobacco,  trade,  57,  76,  164,  225; 
Cuban  plantations,  410. 

Tobago.  France  acquires,  50. 

Tordesillas,  treaty  of.  11,  13. 

Tower,  Charlemagne,  diplomatic 
service,  430. 

Trade-mark  treaties,  351,  469. 

Trafalgar,  battle  at,  152. 

Transportation,  ocean,  63,  70,  289, 
317;  trans-continental  railroads, 
289,  290,  352,  382,  437;  canals, 
290-293,  295,  346,  380-383;  Isth- 
mian railroad,  295,  303.  352. 

Transvaal.  British  withdrawal,  342. 

Treaties,  arbitration,  474,  475,  481; 
claims,  226,  345,  375;  commercial, 
14,  29,  39,  53,  54,  118,  119,  124, 
129,  197,  216,  223,  279,  285-287, 
352,  397;  extradition,  350,  374; 
model,  474;  naturalization,  355, 
856;  reciprocity,  223-225,  285, 
337,  346,  352,  376,  389,  403,  404, 
470;  seal  fisheries,  434;  trade- 
marks, 351,  374;  of  Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle,  16;  Alaska  Purchase,  358- 
361;  Amiens,  143;  Basle,  123,  130; 
Berlin,  465;  Breda,  14;  Clayton- 
Bulwer,  terms,  293,  295,  334,  438; 
interpretation,  282,  293,  381-383; 
abrogated,  436;  Family  Alliance, 
18,  26,  32;  Florida  Purchase,  202; 
Gadsden  Purchase,  290,  295; 
of  Ghent,  2.  70;  negotiated,  178- 
185,  235;  terms,  185, 186, 190,  237; 
interpretation,  191;  error  in  sur- 
vey, 231;  Greenville,  84,  122; 
Guadaloupe  Hidalgo,  277-279; 
Hay-Pauncefote.  436-438;  Holy 
Alliance,  88,  123,  204;  failures, 
208;  manifesto,  209;  Hopewell, 
83;  Jay's,  provisions,  117, 119, 173, 
192,  197,  235;  adventures,  119- 
122;  effects,  122,  123,  126,  127, 
130;  neutral  clause  expires,  157; 
Louisiana    Purchase,    146,    147; 


548 


INDEX 


Madrid,  14;  Munster,  14;  Nootka 
Sound,  92.  267;  Oregon,  270;  Paris 
(1763),  18.  19,  40-50,  77,  115; 
Paris  (189S),  426;  Portsmouth, 
458;  Quadruple  Alliance,  stops 
Barbary  piracy,  196,  204;  Spanish- 
American  attitude,  212;  Ryswick, 
16;  St.  Germain,  13;  San  Ildefonso, 
143,  149,  150;  San  Lorenzo,  124; 
Tordesillas,  11,  13;  Utrecht,  16; 
Victoria,  12;  Washington,  345, 
352,  364,  375;  Wayne's,  122,  182; 
Webster-Ashburton,  234, 235,  269; 
Westminster,  14;  Zaragoza,  12. 
See  names  of  countries. 

Trent,  aflfair  of,  316-318. 

Trescot,  W.  H.,  South  American 
mission,  386.  387;  on  Chinese 
commission.  398;  ability,  401. 

Trevelyan,  Sir  G.  O.,  upholds  Amer- 
ican Revolution,  314. 

Tripoli,  oflScial  piracy,  55. 

Trist.  N.  P.,  peace  commissioner, 
277,  278. 

Troppau,  meeting  of  allies,  204. 

Tuhl.  Baron  de,  Russian  minister, 
209. 

Tunis,  oflBcial  piracy,  55;  treaty,  85. 

Turgot,  A.  R.  J.,  attitude  toward 
America,  25,  26;  reputation,  43. 

Turk  Island,  reciprocity  with,  470. 

Turner.  Sen.  George,  in  Alaskan 
boundary  commission,  434. 

Turpentine,  trade  in,  58. 

Turreau,  L.  M.,  minister  to  United 
States,  166. 

Tuscany,  American  commissioner 
to,  31. 

Tutuila  Island,  naval  station,  400; 
ceded  to  United  States,  425. 

Tyler,  John,  president,  225;  foreign 
policy,  225,  233,  239,  256;  Texas, 
260,  264,  266;  unpopularity,  225, 
264. 

Tweed,  Boss,  surrendered  by  Spain, 
351. 

Two  Sicilies,  commercial  treaty 
with,  223;  extradition,  285;  neu- 
trality, 288. 

U 

United  States,  isolation  policy,  1, 
2,  125,   134,  137,   139,  171,   187, 


190,  211,  212,  220.  324,  375,  407, 
438,  463,  477,  492;  worid-power, 
3,  4;  problems  of  neutrality,  6, 
90-92,  100,  152.  154.  156,  169, 
170,  175,  207,  208,  232,  249-251. 
288.  330.  332.  339,  350,  352,  409, 
483;  treaty  with  France.  29;  seeks 
recognition  by  Spain,  32;  England, 
44;  in  peace  negotiations,  43-46; 
English  trade,  57;  foreign  debt,  77; 
treaties  with  England,  70.  77; 
direction  of  foreign  policy,  81; 
financial  strength,  82;  Indian  pol- 
icy, 82-84.  172.  194,  245;  rela- 
tions with  Barbary  States,  84,  85; 
in  Nootka  Sound  affair,  90-93; 
French  diplomacy  in,  96;  recog- 
nizes French  republic,  101;  recalls 
Morris,  104;  neutral  claims,  109, 
110,  113,  158,  288;  England  in- 
jures trade,  112;  naturalization 
policy,  114,  289,  355-357;  treaty 
with  Spain,  124;  resents  British 
aggressions,  114,  158,  160,  166; 
passes  embargo,  115;  sends  em- 
bassy, 115;  compromises  treaty 
difficulties.  117-119;  friction  with 
France,  128.  133,  136,  226-228; 
foreign  intrigues  in,  131;  Conven- 
tion of  1800, 138, 143;  buys  Louisi- 
ana, 146;  carrying  trade,  156,  157, 
161,  167,  169,  196,  198,  222;  in 
War  of  1812-H,  174-178;  peace 
negotiations,  178-185;  effect  on 
neutral  trade.  185;  position  in 
1815, 186;  European  prestige,  189; 
growth  of  navy.  189,  190.  424; 
in  Florida  dispute,  199-202;  rec- 
ognizes de  facto  governments. 
212,  280;  Spanish- American  sym- 
pathy, 206,  207;  problems,  210- 
219;  trade,  223;  slavery  sentiment, 
217,  237;  claims  treaties,  226-228; 
Northeastern  boundary  dispute, 
228-235;  abolishes  slave-trade, 
236;  enforcement  lax,  238,  247; 
public  land  policy,  246;  Texas 
sympathy,  248;  recognition.  251; 
annexation  question,  253-254. 
260-266,  271-276;  Missouri  ques- 
tion, 252;  Oregon,  255-257,  267, 
270,  271;  California,  257-259,  274; 
Mexican  War  sentiment,  277,  278; 
increase  of  territory,  279;  expan- 


INDEX 


549 


sion  process,  Mexican  view,  243, 
244;  historical,  244,  245;  theory  of, 
280, 281 ;  sympathy  with  European 
revolutions,  280,  281;  Isthmian 
policy,  290-295,  390,  406,  436- 
438, 450, 477, 481 ;  Cuban,  299-302, 
865-368;  Southern  blockade,  307- 
312,  315;  irritation  at  England, 
316,  322,  336,  337;  Spanish-Amer- 
ican policy,  324,  327,  350,  385, 
489;  dealings  with  Second  Empire, 
in  Mexico,  329-333;  Irish  immi- 
gration, 338;  enlistments,  338; 
war  claims  against  England,  339- 
348;  seal-fisheries  dispute,  378, 
879;  interest  in  de  Lesseps  canal, 
380;  interpretation  of  Clayton- 
Bulwer  treaty,  381,  382;  proposed 
Nicaragua  canal  treaty,  382; 
Venezuela  dispute,  391-394;  re- 
lations with  China,  397.  398; 
Samoa,  399-401;  Hawaii,  402- 
406,  424;  isolation  policy  violated, 
402;  in  Spanish  war,  409-^17; 
peace  terms,  418-422;  changes  in 
pohcy,  421,  422,  425;  imperialist 
spirit  in,  424;  colonial  policy,  425, 
443;  Chinese  immigration  ques- 
tion, 397,  398,  432;  Alaska  bound- 
ary, 432,  434;  fisheries,  435;  Pan- 
ama treaty,  443;  Santo  Domingo 
protectorate,  448;  intervention 
doctrine,  449;  continental  co- 
operation, 451;  Spanish-American 
distrust  of,  452,  489,  490,  500;  in- 
terest in  Far  East,  455;  Chinese 
policy,  456-462;  relations  with 
Japan,  461-463,  481;  Africa,  464; 
Turkey,  464-466;  Mexico,  481- 
490;  international  agreements, 
472;  neutrality  problems  {1915), 
494-499. 

United  States,  wins  fight,  190. 

Upshur,  A.  P.,  secretary  of  state, 
220,  260,  262;  killed,  260. 

Uruguay,  European  relations,  325. 

Uruguay  River,  navigation  of, 
opened,  287. 

Utrecht,  treaty  of,  16. 


Valparaiso  (Chili),  killing  of  marines 
at,  390. 


Van  Alen,  J.  J.,  appointment  to 
Italy,  criticized,  372. 

Van  Berkel,  E.  T.,  Amsterdam  bur- 
gomaster, 36. 

Van  Bibber,  Abraham,  American 
agent,  cited,  36. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  secretary  of 
state,  2,  220,  222;  president,  252; 
minister  to  England,  372;  Texas 
policy,  252. 

Vancouver  Island,  English  settle- 
ment, 88,  270;  American  claim, 
267,  271. 

Vanderbilt,  Commodore  Cornelius, 
promoter,  292,  337. 

Vaughan,  Benjamin,  secret  mission, 
45;  returns  to  France,  45;  letter, 
cited,  59. 

Venezuela,  revolution,  203;  com- 
mercial treaty,  223;  arbitration 
of  claims,  350;  convention  with, 
375;  French  claims,  385;  reciproc- 
ity affects,  389;  British  contro- 
versy, 391,  393,  394;  American 
interests,  391,  393-395;  inter- 
vention threatened,  449;  inter- 
national blockade,  447. 

Venice,  desires  United  States  trade, 
55. 

Vera  Cruz  (Mex.),  United  States 
occupies,  489;  leaves,  490. 

Vergennes,  Count  de,  urges  aid  to 
America,  25;  directs  French  pol- 
icy, 26,  28,  31,  33,  36,  39;  subor- 
dinates, 96;  in  peace  negotiations, 
43,  44,  46,  49,  61,  137;  difficult 
position,  43;  characterized,  43; 
cited,  25. 

Vermont,  in  Revolution,  67,  69; 
sends  commissioners  to  Canada, 
67;  British  control  possible,  68; 
not  recognized  by  Congress,  67; 
admitted  to  Union,  82;  trade 
agreements  with  England,  87,  118, 
122,  197. 

Verona,  Congress  of,  204;  principles, 
cited,  204. 

Verrazano,  Giovanni  de,  explorer, 
13. 

Vicksburg,  moral  effects  of  capture, 
322. 

Victor,  Gen.  C.  P.,  on  Louisiana  ex- 
pedition, 143;  instructions,  148, 
149.  201. 


550 


INDEX 


Victoria,  Queen,  appointments,  347. 

Victoria,  treaty  of,  12. 

Vienna,  American  commissioner  to, 
31. 

Vienna,  Congress  of,  180;  wrangles, 
184. 

Vienna,  Decree  of,  166,  167. 

Villa,  Gen.,  revolutionary  leader, 
486. 

Vincennes  (Ind.),  French  settle,  16; 
Clark  captures,  33,  69. 

Virginia,  English  colony,  13;  in 
French  and  Indian  war,  17;  re- 
taliatory laws,  61;  emigrants,  69; 
Kentucky  part  of,  76;  convention 
of,  1788,  72;  hurt  by  embargo, 
162. 

Virginius,  affair  of,  367,  368. 

"Visit  and  Search."  See  Interna- 
tional Law. 

Voltaire,  F.  M.  A.  de,  cited,  17. 

W 

Wade,  B.  F.,  on  San  Domingo  com- 
mission, 363. 

Wagram,  battle  of,  effects,  166. 

Waite,  M.  R.,  on  Geneva  board,  347, 

Wake  Island,  United  States  occupies, 
425. 

Walker,  William,  Nicaragua  in- 
trigues, 296,  297. 

Walpole,  Lord,  on  maritime  law, 
cited,  179. 

War  of  1812.  causes,  6, 175;  effects,  2. 

War  Hawks,  beliefs,  171,  175. 

Ward,  H.  G.,  British  minister,  247. 

Warville,  Brissot  de,  American 
voyage,  96. 

Washburne,  Elihu,  secretary  of  state, 
865;  minister  to  France,  365. 

Washington,  George,  president,  1 ;  in 
French  and  Indian  war,  17;  sup- 
porters, 31;  appointments,  80,  81, 
87,  104;  foreign,  63,  91,  99-101, 
104,  123,  129,  188,  211;  success  of. 
124; Indian  policy,  82.  83, 125, 173; 
task  unfinished,  93,  125;  accepts 
Bastile  Key,  94;  neutrality  proc- 
lamation, 100;  supplementary, 
105;  receives  Genfet,  101;  press 
attacks,  103;  disapproves  Jay 
treaty,  120;  signs,  120;  contest 
with  House,  121;  farewell  address. 


125,     438;     commander-in-chief, 

135;  formality  of,   140;  strength 

of  character,  95, 125;  cited  63, 123. 

Washington  (D.  C),  179,  191,  200, 

210,  227,  250,  256,  262,  294,  307, 

326,  344,  345,  358,  387,  400,  401, 

413,  441,  442;  burned,  184;  seat 

of  government,   276;   Bureau  of 

American  Republics  at,  388. 

Wasp,  wins  fight,  190. 

Waterways,    international,    5,    70, 

197,  287,  291,  346,  351. 
Wayne,  Gen.  Anthony,  moves 
against  Indians,  83,  116;  defeats 
them,  84,  117;  treaty,  122;  Cum- 
berland manoeuvers,  105;  on 
Maumee.  509. 
Webster,  Daniel,  oration  for  Greece, 
207;  secretary  of  state,  222,  233; 
Ashburton  treaty,  234,  237;  Brit- 
ish policy,  234,  239-241,  294,  403; 
Oregon,  269;  California,  274; 
Mexico,  258,  260,  278;  presiden- 
tial ambitions,  235;  characterized, 
221;  letters  cited,  233,  252,  271, 
282. 
Weed,  Thuriow,  in  England,  321; 

letter  cited,  331. 
Weights   and   measures,   joint   bu- 
reau of,  351. 
Wei-hai-wei,  port  leased,  455. 
Welles,    Gideon,    blockade    policy, 

307;  confidence  in  navy,  319. 
Wellesley,  Marquis  of,  minister  of 

foreign  affairs,  168. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  victory  over 
French,  178;  desires  American 
peace,  180;  American  campaign 
proposed,  184;  aids  Spain,  205. 
West,  development,  71;  sectional- 
ism, 71,  72;  discontent,  72,  77,  82, 
144,  172-175;  foreign  intrigues, 
72-77,  98,  102,  116,  131;  loyalty, 
148,  152;  in  War  of  1812,  178. 
West  Indies,  Spanish,  12;  owner- 
ship, 25;  diplomatic  importance, 
20;  England  sends  troops  to,  49; 
Spanish  claims  relinquished,  418; 
British,  29;  trade  important  to 
America,  58,  77,  161,  176,  193, 
198,  199;  forbidden,  59-61,  87, 
153,  198,  199,  218;  temporarily 
open,  122,  124;  direct  trade  open, 
222;  admiralty  courts,  112,  114, 


INDEX 


551 


122;  slave-trade  forbidden,  238; 
slaves  freed,  238;  French,  trade 
with  America,  61,  134,  156,  158, 
165,  176,  308;  with  France,  108; 
with  England,  156;  guarantee,  99, 
101;  ready  for  war,  102;  need 
neutral  trade,  106;  England  block- 
ades, 112. 

Westminster,  Treaty  of,  14. 

Weyler  y  Nicolau,  Gen.  Valeriano, 
Cuban  campaign,  411. 

Whale  oil,  trade  in,  61,  396;  petro- 
leum supersedes,  353. 

Wharton,  Francis,  letter  to,  cited, 
261. 

Wheat.  See  Grain. 

Wheaton,  Henry,  diplomatic  ability, 
221;  German  negotiations,  224, 
225;  An  Inquiry  into  the  Va- 
lidity of  the  British  Claim  to  a 
Right  of  Visitation  and  Search, 
cited,  240. 

Whiskey  Rebellion,  "confessions" 
of  Randolph,  120. 

White,  A.  D.,  on  San  Domingo  com- 
mission, 364. 

White,  Henry,  diplomatic  promo- 
tion, 429. 

Wilkes,  Capt.  Charles,  visits  Oregon 
coast,  256;  stops  Trent,  316; 
exceeds  powers,  318. 

Wilkinson,  James,  colonizing  scheme, 
75;  at  siege  of  Quebec,  75;  in- 
trigues with  Spain,  76,  123,  136; 
Burr,  147;  occupies  Mobile,  151; 
Texas  speculations,  245. 

Willamette  River,  American  settlers 
on,  267. 

William  III,  of  England,  14,  36. 

Williams,  G.  H.,  on  British  claims 
commission,  345. 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  president,  430; 
diplomatic  policy,  430;  civil  ser- 
vice, 431;  canal  tolls,  437,  481; 


European  claims,  446;  opposes  for- 
eign "  concessions,"  450,  460,  480; 
Spanish-American  attitude,  452; 
Chinese  policy,  460;  vetoes  lit- 
eracy test,  468;  merchant  marine 
policy,  470;  foreign,  476,  479,  480, 
489,  494;  Japanese,  480;  Mexican, 
484,  489;  Philippine,  487. 

Wine,  trade  in,  223. 

Wisconsin,  fur-trade,  173. 

Woodford,  S.  L.,  minister  to  Spain, 
412-415. 

Woods,  Lake  of,  as  boundary,  46, 
116,  186,  194,  235. 

Wordsworth,  William,  cited,  94. 

WUrttemburg,  naturalization  treaty 
with,  356. 

Wu  Ting  Fang,  Chinese  minister, 
460. 

Wyse,  Capt,  concession  from  Co- 
lombia, 379. 


X.  Y.  Z.  correspondence,  13S. 


Yangtse  River  valley,  railroad,  459. 
Yazoo  River,  as  boundary,  20,  48, 

70,     71,     139;    settlements,    75; 

settlements  planned,  75. 
York,  Sir  Joseph,  British  minister, 

38. 
Yorktown,  British  surrender,  22,  42. 
Yrujo,  C.  M.,  Spanish  minister,  144. 
Yucatan,     international     relations, 

296,  478. 
Yukon  River,  navigation  free,  346; 

gold  discovered,  432. 


Zaragoza,  treaty  of,  li2. 


180°     Longitude      150^  West       from    120^     Greenwich       90 


-l&J. 


/ /A, 


T 


MAP  SHOWING  DEVELOPMENT  OF 
U.S.  CONSULAR  SERVICE  1776-1891 

Since  1891  Posts  are  too  numerous  to  be  represented 


•  Posts  established  1776-1815 

•  "  "  1816-1829 
X        "              "          1830-1861 


_L 


longitude        60°    East       from     90°     Greenwich       120' 


150"