Produced by The James J. Kelly Library of St. Gregory's
University, Alev Akman, and Dianne Bean
THE PATH OF EMPIRE,
A CHRONICLE OF THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER
By Carl Russell Fish
CONTENTS
I. THE MONROE DOCTRINE
II. CONTROVERSIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN
III. ALASKA AND ITS PROBLEMS
IV. BLAINE AND PAN-AMERICANISM
V. THE UNITED STATES AND THE PACIFIC
VI. VENEZUELA
VII. THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR WITH SPAIN
VIII. DEWEY AND MANILA BAY
IX. THE BLOCKADE OF CUBA
X. THE PREPARATION OF THE ARMY
XI. THE CAMPAIGN OF SANTIAGO DE CUBA
XII. THE CLOSE OF THE WAR
XIII. A PEACE WHICH MEANT WAR
XIV. THE OPEN DOOR
XV. THE PANAMA CANAL
XVI. PROBLEMS OF THE CARIBBEAN
XVII. WORLD RELATIONSHIPS
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
THE PATH OF EMPIRE
CHAPTER I. The Monroe Doctrine
In 1815 the world found peace after twenty-two years of continual war.
In the forests of Canada and the pampas of South America, throughout
all the countries of Europe, over the plains of Russia and the hills of
Palestine, men and women had known what war was and had prayed that its
horrors might never return. In even the most autocratic states subjects
and rulers were for once of one mind: in the future war must be
prevented. To secure peace forever was the earnest desire of two
statesmen so strongly contrasted as the impressionable Czar Alexander
I of Russia, acclaimed as the "White Angel" and the "Universal Savior,"
and Prince Metternich, the real ruler of Austria, the spider who was
for the next thirty years to spin the web of European secret diplomacy.
While the Czar invited all governments to unite in a "Holy Alliance" to
prevent war, Metternich for the same purpose formed the less holy but
more powerful "Quadruple Alliance" of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and
England.
The designs of Metternich, however, went far beyond the mere prevention
of war. To his mind the cause of all the upheavals which had convulsed
Europe was the spirit of liberty bred in France in the days of the
Revolution; if order was to be restored, there must be a return to the
former autocratic principle of government, to the doctrine of "Divine
Right"; it was for kings and emperors to command; it was the duty of
subjects to obey. These principles had not, it was true, preserved peace
in the past, but Metternich now proposed that, in the future, sovereigns
or their representatives should meet "at fixed periods" to adjust their
own differences and to assist one another in enforcing the obedience of
subjects everywhere. The rulers were reasonably well satisfied with
the world as it was arranged by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and
determined to set their faces against any change in the relations of
governments to one another or to their subjects. They regretted, indeed,
that the Government of the United States was built upon the sands of
a popular vote, but they recognized that it was apparently well
established and decently respectable, and therefore worthy of
recognition by the mutual protection society of the Holy Alliance.
The subjects of these sovereigns, however, did not all share the
satisfaction of their masters, and some of them soon showed that much as
they desired peace they desired other things even more. The inhabitants
of Spanish America, while their imperial mother was in the chaos of
Napoleon's wars, had nibbled at the forbidden fruit of freedom. They
particularly desired freedom to buy the products of British factories,
which cost less and satisfied better than those previously furnished
by the Spanish merchants, secure in their absolute monopoly. With peace
came renewed monopoly, haughty officials, and oppressive laws dictated
by that most stupid of the restored sovereigns, Ferdinand VII of Spain.
Buenos Aires, however, never recognized his rule, and her general, the
knightly San Martin, in one of the most remarkable campaigns of history,
scaled the Andes and carried the flag of revolution into Chili and Peru.
Venezuela, that hive of revolution, sent forth Bolivar to found the
new republics of Colombia and Bolivia. Mexico freed herself, and
Brazil separated herself from Portugal. By 1822 European rule had been
practically swept off the American mainland, from Cape Horn to the
borders of Canada, and, except for the empire of Dom Pedro in Brazil,
the newly born nations had adopted the republican form of government
which the European monarchs despised. The spirit of unrest leaped
eastward across the Atlantic. Revolutions in Spain, Portugal, and Naples
sought impiously and with constitutions to bind the hands of their
kings. Even the distant Greeks and Serbians sought their independence
from the Turk.
Divine Right, just rescued from the French Revolution, was tottering
and had yet to test the strength of its new props, the "Holy" and the
"Quadruple" alliances, and the policy of intervention to maintain the
status quo. Congresses at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, at Troppau in 1820,
and at Laibach in 1821, decided to refuse recognition to governments
resting on such revolutions, to offer mediation to restore the old
order, and, if this were refused, to intervene by force. In the United
States, on the other hand, founded on the right of revolution and
dedicated to government by the people, these popular movements were
greeted with enthusiasm. The fiery Clay, speaker and leader of the House
of Representatives, made himself champion of the cause of the Spanish
Americans; Daniel Webster thundered forth the sympathy of all lovers of
antiquity for the Greeks; and Samuel Gridley Howe, an impetuous young
American doctor, crossed the seas, carrying to the Greeks his services
and the gifts of Boston friends of liberty. A new conflict seemed to be
shaping itself--a struggle of absolutism against democracy, of America
against Europe.
Between the two camps, both in her ideas and in her geographical
situation, stood England. Devoted as she was to law and order, bulwark
against the excesses of the French Terror and the world dominion that
Napoleon sought, she was nevertheless equally strong in her opposition
to Divine Right. Her people and her government alike were troubled at
the repressive measured by which the Allies put down the Revolution of
Naples in 1821 and that of Spain in 1823. Still more were they disturbed
at the hint given at the Congress of Verona in 1822 that, when Europe
was once quieted, America would engage the attention of Europe's
arbiters. George Canning, the English foreign minister, soon discovered
that this hint foreshadowed a new congress to be devoted especially to
the American problem. Spain was to be restored to her sovereignty, but
was to pay in liberal grants of American territory to whatever powers
helped her. Canning is regarded as the ablest English foreign minister
of the nineteenth century; at least no one better embodied the
fundamental aspirations of the English people. He realized that liberal
England would be perpetually a minority in a united Europe, as Europe
was then organized. He believed that the best security for peace was not
a union but a balance of powers. He opposed intervention in the internal
affairs of nations and stood for the right of each to choose its own
form of government. Particularly he fixed his eyes on America, where he
hoped to find weight to help him balance the autocrats of the Old World.
He wished to see the new American republics free, and he believed that
in freedom of trade England would obtain from them all that she needed.
Alarmed at the impending European intervention to restore the rule
of Spain or of her monarchical assignees in America, he sought an
understanding with the United States. He proposed to Richard Rush,
the United States minister in London, that the two countries declare
concurrently that the independence of Spanish America, was a fact,
that the recognition of the new governments was a matter of time and
circumstance, that neither country desired any portion of Spain's
former dominions, but that neither would look with indifference upon the
transfer of any portion of them to another power.
On October 9, 1823, this proposal reached Washington. The answer would
be framed by able and most experienced statesmen. The President, James
Monroe, had been almost continuously in public service since 1782. He
had been minister to France, Spain, and England, and had been Secretary
of State. In his earlier missions he had often shown an unwise
impetuosity and an independent judgment which was not always well
balanced. He had, however, grown in wisdom. He inspired respect by
his sterling qualities of character, and he was an admirable presiding
officer. William H. Crawford, his Secretary of the Treasury, John C.
Calhoun, his Secretary of War, William Wirt, his Attorney-General,
and even John McLean, his Postmaster-General, not then a member of the
Cabinet, were all men who were considered as of presidential caliber.
Foremost in ability and influence, however, was John Quincy Adams, the
Secretary of State. Brought up from early boyhood in the atmosphere
of diplomacy, familiar with nearly every country of Europe, he
had nevertheless none of those arts of suavity which are popularly
associated with the diplomat. Short, baldheaded, with watery eyes, he
on the one hand repelled familiarity, and on the other hand shocked some
sensibilities, as for example when he appeared in midsummer Washington
without a neckcloth. His early morning swim in the Potomac and his
translations of Horace did not conquer a temper which embittered many
who had business with him, while the nightly records which he made of
his interviews show that he was generally suspicious of his visitors.
Yet no American can show so long a roll of diplomatic successes.
Preeminently he knew his business. His intense devotion and his native
talent had made him a master of the theory and practice of international
law and of statecraft. Always he was obviously honest, and his word was
relied on. Fundamentally he was kind, and his work was permeated by
a generous enthusiasm. Probably no man in America, had so intense a
conviction not only of the correctness of American principles and
the promise of American greatness but of the immediate strength and
greatness of the United States as it stood in 1823.
Fully aware as Adams was of the danger that threatened both America and
liberty, he was not in favor of accepting Canning's proposal for the
cooperation of England and the United States. He based his opposition
upon two fundamental objections. In the first place he was not prepared
to say that the United States desired no more Spanish territory. Not
that Adams desired or would tolerate conquest. At the time of the
Louisiana Purchase he had wished to postpone annexation until the assent
of the people of that province could be obtained. But he believed that
all the territory necessary for the geographical completeness of the
United States had not yet been brought under the flag. He had just
obtained Florida from Spain and a claim westward to the Pacific north of
the forty-second parallel, but he considered the Southwest--Texas, New
Mexico, and California--a natural field of expansion. These areas, then
almost barren of white settlers, he expected time to bring into the
United States, and he also expected that the people of Cuba would
ultimately rejoice to become incorporated in the Union. He wished
natural forces to work out their own results, without let or hindrance.
Not only was Adams opposed to Canning's proposed self-denying ordinance,
but he was equally averse to becoming a partner with England. Such
cooperation might well prove in time to be an "entangling alliance,"
involving the United States in problems of no immediate concern to its
people and certainly in a partnership in which the other member would
be dominant. If Canning saw liberal England as a perpetual minority in
absolutist Europe, Adams saw republican America as a perpetual inferior
to monarchical England. Although England, with Canada, the West Indies,
and her commerce, was a great American power, Adams believed that
the United States, the oldest independent nation in America, with a
government which gave the model to the rest, could not admit her to
joint, leadership, for her power was in, not of, America, and her
government was monarchical. Already Adams had won a strategic advantage
over Canning, for in the previous year, 1822, the United States had
recognized the new South American republics.
Great as were the dangers involved in cooperation with England, however,
they seemed to many persons of little moment compared with the menace of
absolutist armies and navies in the New World or of, perhaps, a French
Cuba and a Russian Mexico. The only effective obstacle to such foreign
intervention was the British Navy. Both President Monroe and Thomas
Jefferson, who in his retirement was still consulted on all matters of
high moment, therefore favored the acceptance of Canning's proposal as
a means of detaching England from the rest of Europe. Adams argued,
however, that England was already detached; that, for England's
purposes, the British Navy would still stand between Europe and
America, whatever the attitude of the United States; that compromise or
concession was unnecessary; and that the country could as safely take
its stand toward the whole outside world as toward continental Europe
alone. To reject the offer of a country whose assistance was absolutely
necessary to the safety of the United States, and to declare the
American case against her as well as against the more menacing forces
whose attack she alone could prevent, required a nerve and poise which
could come only from ignorant foolhardiness or from absolute knowledge
of the facts. The self-assurance of Adams was well founded, and no
general on the field of battle ever exhibited higher courage.
Adams won over the Cabinet, and the President decided to incorporate in
his annual message to Congress a declaration setting forth the attitude
of the United States toward all the world, and in particular denying the
right of any European power, England included, to intervene in American
affairs. In making such a statement, however, it was necessary to offer
compensation in some form. The United States was not prepared to offer
Canning's self-denying ordinance barring the way to further American
expansion, but something it must offer. This compensating offset Adams
found in the separation of the New World from the Old and in abstention
from interference in Europe. Such a renunciation involved, however, the
sacrifice of generous American sympathies with the republicans across
the seas. Monroe, Gallatin, and many other statesmen wished as active
a policy in support of the Greeks as of the Spanish Americans. Adams
insisted, however, that the United States should create a sphere for its
interests and should confine itself to that sphere. His plan for peace
provided that European and American interests should not only not clash
but should not even meet.
The President's message of December 2, 1823, amounted to a rejection of
the Holy Alliance as guardian of the world's peace, of Canning's request
for an entente, and of the proposal that the United States enter upon
a campaign to republicanize the world. It stated the intention of the
Government to refrain from interference in Europe, and its belief that
it was "impossible that the allied powers should extend their political
system to any portion of either continent [of America] without
endangering our peace and happiness." The message contained a strong
defense of the republican system of government and of the right of
nations to control their own internal development. It completed the
foreign policy of the United States by declaring, in connection with
certain recent encroachments of Russia along the northwest coast, that
the era of colonization in the Americas was over. The United States was
to maintain in the future that boundaries between nations holding
land in America actually existed and could be traced--a position which
invited arbitration in place of force.
Both Canning and Adams won victories, but neither realized his full
hopes. Canning prevented the interference of Europe in Spanish America,
broke up the Quadruple Alliance, rendered the Holy Alliance a shadow,
and restored a balance of power that meant safety for England for almost
a hundred years; but he failed to dictate American policy. Adams on his
part detached the United States from European politics without throwing
England into the arms of Europe. He took advantage of the divisions of
the Old World to establish the priority of the United States in American
affairs; but he failed in his later attempt to unite all the Americas in
cordial cooperation. Earnest as was his desire and hard as he strove in
1825 when he had become President with Clay as his Secretary of State,
Adams found that the differences in point of view between the United
States and the other American powers were too great to permit a
Pan-American policy. The Panama Congress on which he built his hopes
failed, and for fifty years the project lay dormant.
Under the popular name of the Monroe Doctrine, however, Adams's policy
has played a much larger part in world affairs than he expected.
Without the force of law either in this country or between nations,
this doctrine took a firm hold of the American imagination and became
a national ideal, while other nations have at least in form taken
cognizance of it. The Monroe Doctrine has survived because Adams did
not invent its main tenets but found them the dominating principles of
American international politics; his work, like that of his contemporary
John Marshall, was one of codification. But not all those who have
commented on the work of Adams have possessed his analytical mind, and
many have confused what was fundamental in his pronouncement with what
was temporary and demanded by the emergency of the time.
Always the American people have stood, from the first days of their
migration to America, for the right of the people of a territory to
determine their own development. First they have insisted that their own
right to work out their political destiny be acknowledged and made safe.
For this they fought the Revolution. It has followed that they have in
foreign affairs tried to keep their hands free from entanglements
with other countries and have refrained from interference with foreign
politics. This was the burden of Washington's "Farewell Address," and it
was a message which Jefferson reiterated in his inaugural. These are
the permanent principles which have controlled enlightened American
statesmen in their attitude toward the world, from the days of John
Winthrop to those of Woodrow Wilson.
It was early found, however, that the affairs of the immediate neighbors
of the United States continually and from day to day affected the
whole texture of American life and that actually they limited American
independence and therefore could not be left out of the policy of the
Government. The United States soon began to recognize that there was a
region in the affairs of which it must take a more active interest. As
early as 1780 Thomas Pownall, an English colonial official, predicted
that the United States must take an active part in Cuban affairs. In
1806 Madison, then Secretary of State, had instructed Monroe, Minister
to Great Britain, that the Government began to broach the idea that the
whole Gulf Stream was within its maritime jurisdiction. The message
of Monroe was an assertion that the fate of both the Americas was of
immediate concern to the safety of the United States, because the fate
of its sister republics intimately affected its own security. This
proved to be an enduring definition of policy, because for many
years there was a real institutional difference between the American
hemisphere and the rest of the world and because oceanic boundaries were
the most substantial that the world affords.
Adams, however, would have been the last to claim that his method
of securing the fundamental purposes of the United States was itself
fundamental. It is particularly important for Americans to make a
distinction between the things which they have always wished to obtain
and the methods which they have from time to time used. To build a
policy today on the alleged isolation of the American continents would
be almost as absurd as to try to build a government on the belief in
Divine Right. The American continents are no longer separated from the
rest of the world by their national institutions, because the spirit of
these institutions has permeated much of Europe, Asia, and even Africa.
No boundaries, not even oceans, can today prohibit international
interference. But while the particular method followed in 1823 is no
longer appropriate, the ends which the United States set out to attain
have remained the same. Independence, absolute and complete, including
the absence of all entanglements which might draw the country into other
peoples' quarrels; the recognition of a similar independence in all
other peoples, which involves both keeping its own hands off and also
strongly disapproving of interference by one nation with another--these
have been the guiding principles of the United States. These principles
the Government has maintained by such means as seemed appropriate to the
time. In colonial days the people of America fought in courts for
their charter rights; at the time of the Revolution, by arms for
their independence from England; during the Napoleonic wars, for their
independence from the whole system of Europe. The Monroe Doctrine
declared that to maintain American independence from the European system
it was necessary that the European system be excluded from the Americas.
In entering the Great War in the twentieth century the United States has
recognized that the system of autocracy against which Monroe fulminated
must disappear from the entire world if, under modern industrial
conditions, real independence is to exist anywhere.
It is the purpose of the following chapters to trace the expansion of
American interests in the light of the Monroe Doctrine and to explain
those controversies which accompanied this growth and taxed the
diplomatic resources of American Secretaries of State from the times of
Adams and Webster and Seward to those of Blaine and Hay and Elihu Root.
The diplomacy of the Great War is reserved for another volume in this
Series.