Jackstraws is a game which most of us have played in our youth. You
empty on a table a box of miniature toy rakes, shovels, picks, axes, all
sorts of tools and implements. These lie under each other and above
each other in intricate confusion, not unlike cross timber in a western
forest, only instead of being logs, they are about two inches long and
very light. The players sit round the table and with little hooks try
in turn to lift one jackstraw out of the heap, without moving any of the
others. You go on until you do move one of the others, and this loses
you your turn. European diplomacy at any moment of any year reminds you,
if you inspect it closely, of a game of jackstraws. Every sort and shape
of intrigue is in the general heap and tangle, and the jealous nations
sit round, each trying to lift out its own jackstraw. Luckily for us,
we have not often been involved in these games of jackstraw hitherto;
unluckily for us, we must be henceforth involved. If we kept out, our
luck would be still worse.
Immediately after our Revolution, there was one of these heaps of
intrigue, in which we were concerned. This was at the time of the
negotiations leading to the Treaty of Paris, to which I made reference
at the close of the last section. This was in 1783. Twenty years later,
in 1803, occurred the heap of jackstraws that led to the Louisiana
Purchase. Twenty years later, in 1823, occurred the heap of jackstraws
from which emerged the Monroe Doctrine. Each of these dates, dotted
along through our early decades, marks a very important crisis in
our history. It is well that they should be grouped together, because
together they disclose, so to speak, a coherent pattern. This coherent
pattern is England’s attitude towards ourselves. It is to be perceived,
faintly yet distinctly, in 1783, and it grows clearer and ever more
clear until in 1898, in the game of jackstraws played when we declared
war upon Spain, the pattern is so clear that it could not be mistaken by
any one who was not willfully blinded by an anti-English complex. This
pattern represents a preference on England’s part for ourselves to other
nations. I do not ask you to think England’s reason for this preference
is that she has loved us so much; that she has loved others so much
less--there is her reason. She has loved herself better than anybody. So
must every nation. So does every nation.
Let me briefly speak of the first game of jackstraws, played at Paris
in 1783. Our Revolution was over. The terms of peace had to be drawn.
Franklin, Jay, Adams, and Laurens were our negotiators. The various
important points were acknowledgment of our independence, settlement
of boundaries, freedom of fishing in the neighborhood of the Canadian
coast. We had agreed to reach no settlement with England separately
from France and Spain. They were our recent friends. England, our recent
enemy, sent Richard Oswald as her peace commissioner. This private
gentleman had placed his fortune at our disposal during the war, and was
Franklin’s friend. Lord Shelburne wrote Franklin that if this was not
satisfactory, to say so, and name any one he preferred. But Oswald was
satisfactory; and David Hartley, another friend of Franklin’s and also
a sympathizer with our Revolution, was added; and in these circumstances
and by these men the Treaty was made. To France we broke our promise to
reach no separate agreement with England. We negotiated directly with
the British, and the Articles were signed without consultation with the
French Government. When Vergennes, the French Minister, saw the terms,
he remarked in disgust that England would seem to have bought a peace
rather than made one. By the treaty we got the Northwest Territory and
the basin of the Ohio River to the Mississippi. Our recent friend, the
French King, was much opposed to our having so much territory. It was
our recent enemy, England, who agreed that we should have it. This was
the result of that game of jackstraws.
Let us remember several things: in our Revolution, France had befriended
us, not because she loved us so much, but because she loved England so
little. In the Treaty of Paris, England stood with us, not because
she loved us so much, but because she loved France so little. We must
cherish no illusions. Every nation must love itself more than it loves
its neighbor. Nevertheless, in this pattern of England’s policy in 1783,
where she takes her stand with us and against other nations, there is a
deep significance. Our notions of law, our notions of life, our notions
of religion, our notions of liberty, our notions of what a man should be
and what a woman should be, are so much more akin to her notions than
to those of any other nation, that they draw her toward us rather
than toward any other nation. That is the lesson of the first game of
jackstraws.
Next comes 1803. Upon the Louisiana Purchase, I have already touched;
but not upon its diplomatic side. In those years the European game of
diplomacy was truly portentous. Bonaparte had appeared, and Bonaparte
was the storm centre. From the heap of jackstraws I shall lift out only
that which directly concerns us and our acquisition of that enormous
territory, then called Louisiana. Bonaparte had dreamed and planned
an empire over here. Certain vicissitudes disenchanted him. A plan to
invade England also helped to deflect his mind from establishing an
outpost of his empire upon our continent. For us he had no love. Our
principles were democratic, he was a colossal autocrat. He called us
“the reign of chatter,” and he would have liked dearly to put out
our light. Addington was then the British Prime Minister. Robert R.
Livingston was our minister in Paris. In the history of Henry Adams, in
Volume II at pages 52 and 53, you may find more concerning Bonaparte’s
dislike of the United States. You may also find that Talleyrand
expressed the view that socially and economically England and America
were one and indivisible. In Volume I of the same history, at page
439, you will see the mention which Pichon made to Talleyrand of the
overtures which England was incessantly making to us. At some time
during all this, rumor got abroad of Bonaparte’s projects regarding
Louisiana. In the second volume of Henry Adams, at pages 23 and 24, you
will find Addington remarking to our minister to Great Britain, Rufus
King, that it would not do to let Bonaparte establish himself in
Louisiana. Addington very plainly hints that Great Britain would back
us in any such event. This backing of us by Great Britain found very
cordial acceptance in the mind of Thomas Jefferson. A year before the
Louisiana Purchase was consummated, and when the threat of Bonaparte
was in the air, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Livingston, on April 18, 1802,
that “the day France takes possession of New Orleans, we must marry
ourselves to the British fleet and nation.” In one of his many memoranda
to Talleyrand, Livingston alludes to the British fleet. He also points
out that France may by taking a certain course estrange the United
States for ever and bind it closely to France’s great enemy. This
particular address to Talleyrand is dated February 1, 1803, and may be
found in the Annals of Congress, 1802-1803, at pages 1078 to 1083. I
quote a sentence: “The critical moment has arrived which rivets the
connexion of the United States to France, or binds a young and growing
people for ages hereafter to her mortal and inveterate enemy.” After
this, hints follow concerning the relative maritime power of France
and Great Britain. Livingston suggests that if Great Britain invade
Louisiana, who can oppose her? Once more he refers to Great Britain’s
superior fleet. This interesting address concludes with the following
exordium to France: “She will cheaply purchase the esteem of men and
the favor of Heaven by the surrender of a distant wilderness, which
can neither add to her wealth nor to her strength.” This, as you will
perceive, is quite a pointed remark. Throughout the Louisiana diplomacy,
and negotiations to which this diplomacy led, Livingston’s would seem to
be the master American mind and prophetic vision. But I must keep to my
jackstraws. On April 17, 1803, Bonaparte’s brother, Lucien, reports
a conversation held with him by Bonaparte. What purposes, what
oscillations, may have been going on deep in Bonaparte’s secret mind,
no one can tell. We may guess that he did not relinquish his plan about
Louisiana definitely for some time after the thought had dawned upon him
that it would be better if he did relinquish it. But unless he was lying
to his brother Lucien on April 17, 1803, we get no mere glimpse, but
a perfectly clear sight of what he had come finally to think. It was
certainly worth while, he said to Lucien, to sell when you could what
you were certain to lose; “for the English... are aching for a chance
to capture it.... Our navy, so inferior to our neighbor’s across the
Channel, will always cause our colonies to be exposed to great risks....
As to the sea, my dear fellow, you must know that there we have to lower
the flag.... The English navy is, and long will be, too dominant.”
That was on April 17. On May 2, the Treaty of Cession was signed by the
exultant Livingston. Bonaparte, instead of establishing an outpost of
autocracy at New Orleans, sold to us not only the small piece of land
which we had originally in mind, but the huge piece of land whose
dimensions I have given above. We paid him fifteen millions for nearly
a million square miles. The formal transfer was made on December 17 of
that same year, 1803. There is my second jackstraw.
Thus, twenty years after the first time in 1783, Great Britain stood
between us and the designs of another nation. To that other nation her
fleet was the deciding obstacle. England did not love us so much,
but she loved France so much less. For the same reasons which I have
suggested before, self-interest, behind which lay her democratic kinship
with our ideals, ranged her with us.
To place my third jackstraw, which follows twenty years after the
second, uninterruptedly in this group, I pass over for the moment our
War of 1812. To that I will return after I have dealt with the third
jackstraw, namely, the Monroe Doctrine. It was England that suggested
the Monroe Doctrine to us. From the origin of this in the mind of
Canning to its public announcement upon our side of the water, the
pattern to which I have alluded is for the third time very clearly to be
seen.
How much did your school histories tell you about the Monroe Doctrine? I
confess that my notion of it came to this: President Monroe informed the
kings of Europe that they must keep away from this hemisphere. Whereupon
the kings obeyed him and have remained obedient ever since. Of George
Canning I knew nothing. Another large game of jackstraws was being
played in Europe in 1823. Certain people there had formed the Holy
Alliance. Among these, Prince Metternich the Austrian was undoubtedly
the master mind. He saw that by England’s victory at Waterloo a threat
to all monarchical and dynastic systems of government had been created.
He also saw that our steady growth was a part of the same threat. With
this in mind, in 1822, he brought about the Holy Alliance. The first
Article of the Holy Alliance reads: “The high contracting Powers, being
convinced that the system of representative government is as equally
incompatible with the monarchical principle as the maxim of sovereignty
of the people with the Divine right, engage mutually, in the most
solemn manner, to use all their efforts to put an end to the system of
representative governments, in whatever country it may exist in Europe,
and to prevent its being introduced in those countries where it is not
yet known.”
Behind these words lay a design, hardly veiled, not only against South
America, but against ourselves. In a volume entitled With the Fathers,
by John Bach McMaster, and also in the fifth volume of Mr. McMaster’s
history, chapter 41, you will find more amply what I abbreviate here.
Canning understood the threat to us contained in the Holy Alliance.
He made a suggestion to Richard Rush, our minister to England. The
suggestion was of such moment, and the ultimate danger to us from the
Holy Alliance was of such moment, that Rush made haste to put the matter
into the hands of President Monroe. President Monroe likewise found the
matter very grave, and he therefore consulted Thomas Jefferson. At that
time Jefferson had retired from public life and was living quietly at
his place in Virginia. That President Monroe’s communication deeply
stirred him is to be seen in his reply, written October 24, 1823.
Jefferson says in part: “The question presented by the letters you
have sent me is the most momentous which has ever been offered to my
contemplation since that of independence.... One nation most of all
could disturb us.... She now offers to lead, aid and accompany us....
With her on our side we need not fear the whole world. With her, then,
we should most seriously cherish a cordial friendship, and nothing would
tend more to unite our affections than to be fighting once more, side by
side, in the same cause.”
Thus for the second time, Thomas Jefferson advises a friendship with
Great Britain. He realizes as fully as did Bonaparte the power of her
navy, and its value to us. It is striking and strange to find Thomas
Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, writing in
1823 about uniting our affections and about fighting once more side by
side with England.
It was the revolt of the Spanish Colonies from Spain in South America,
and Canning’s fear that France might obtain dominion in America, which
led him to make his suggestion to Rush. The gist of the suggestion was,
that we should join with Great Britain in saying that both countries
were opposed to any intervention by Europe in the western hemisphere.
Over our announcement there was much delight in England. In the London
Courier occurs a sentence, “The South American Republics--protected by
the two nations that possess the institutions and speak the language of
freedom.” In this fragment from the London Courier, the kinship at
which I have hinted as being felt by England in 1783, and in 1803, is
definitely expressed. From the Holy Alliance, from the general European
diplomatic game, and from England’s preference for us who spoke her
language and thought her thoughts about liberty, law, what a man should
be, what a woman should be, issued the Monroe Doctrine. And you will
find that no matter what dynastic or ministerial interruptions have
occurred to obscure this recognition of kinship with us and preference
for us upon the part of the English people, such interruptions are
always temporary and lie always upon the surface of English sentiment.
Beneath the surface the recognition of kinship persists unchanged and
invariably reasserts itself.
That is my third jackstraw. Canning spoke to Rush, Rush consulted
Monroe, Monroe consulted Jefferson, and Jefferson wrote what we have
seen. That, stripped of every encumbering circumstance, is the story of
the Monroe Doctrine. Ever since that day the Monroe Doctrine has rested
upon the broad back of the British Navy. This has been no secret to
our leading historians, our authoritative writers on diplomacy, and our
educated and thinking public men. But they have not generally been
eager to mention it; and as to our school textbooks, none that I studied
mentioned it at all.