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.

CHAPTER II. Controversies With Great Britain

No two nations have ever had more intimate relationships than the United
States and Great Britain. Speaking the same language and owning a common
racial origin in large part, they have traded with each other and in
the same regions, and geographically their territories touch for three
thousand miles. During the nineteenth century the coastwise shipping of
the United States was often forced to seek the shelter of the British
West Indies. The fisherfolk of England and America mingled on the Grand
Bank of Newfoundland and on the barren shores of that island and of
Labrador, where they dried their fish. Indians, criminals, and game
crossed the Canadian boundary at will, streams flowed across it, and
the coast cities vied for the trade of the interior, indifferent to the
claims of national allegiance. One cannot but believe that this intimacy
has in the long run made for friendship and peace; but it has also
meant constant controversy, often pressed to the verge of war by the
pertinacious insistence of both nations on their full rights as they saw
them.

The fifteen years following Adams's encounter with Canning saw the
gradual accumulation of a number of such disputes, which made the
situation in 1840 exceptionally critical. Great Britain was angered at
the failure of the United States to grant her the right to police the
seas for the suppression of the slave trade, while the United States,
with memories of the vicious English practice of impressment before the
War of 1812, distrusted the motives of Great Britain in asking for this
right. Nearly every mile of the joint boundary in North America was in
dispute, owing to the vagueness of treaty descriptions or to the errors
of surveyors. Twelve thousand square miles and a costly American fort
were involved; arbitration had failed; rival camps of lumberjacks
daily imperiled peace; and both the Maine Legislature and the National
Congress had voted money for defense. In a New York jail Alexander
McLeod was awaiting trial in a state court for the murder of an American
on the steamer Caroline, which a party of Canadian militia had cut out
from the American shore near Buffalo and had sent to destruction over
Niagara Falls. The British Government, holding that the Caroline was at
the time illegally employed to assist Canadian insurgents, and that
the Canadian militia were under government orders justifiable by
international law, assumed the responsibility for McLeod's act and his
safety. Ten thousand Americans along the border, members of "Hunters'
Lodges," were anxious for a war which would unleash them for the
conquest of Canada. Delay was causing all these disputes to fester, and
the public mind of the two countries was infected with hostility.

Fortunately in 1841 new administrations came into power in both England
and the United States. Neither the English Tories nor the American Whigs
felt bound to maintain all the contentions of their predecessors, and
both desired to come to an agreement. The responsibility on the American
side fell upon Daniel Webster, the new Secretary of State. With less
foreign experience than John Quincy Adams, he was more a man of the
world and a man among men. His conversation was decidedly less ponderous
than his oratory, and there was no more desirable dinner guest in
America. Even in Webster's lightest moments, his majestic head gave the
impression of colossal mentality, and his eyes, when he was in earnest,
almost hypnotized those upon whom he bent his gaze. A leading figure
in public life for twenty-five years, he now attained administrative
position for the first time, and his constant practice at the bar had
given something of a lawyerlike trend to his mind.

The desire of the British Government for an agreement with the United
States was shown by the selection of Washington instead of London as the
place of negotiation and of Lord Ashburton as negotiator. The head of
the great banking house of Baring Brothers, he had won his title by
service and was, moreover, known to be a friend of the United States.
While in Philadelphia in his youth, he had married Miss Bingham of that
city, and she still had American interests. In the controversies before
the War of 1812 Lord Ashburton had supported many of the American
contentions. He knew Webster personally, and they both looked forward
to the social pleasure of meeting again during the negotiations. The
two representatives came together in this pleasant frame of mind and did
most of their business at the dinner table, where it is reported that
more than diplomatic conversation flowed. They avoided an exchange of
notes, which would bind each to a position once taken, but first came to
an agreement and then prepared the documents.

It must not be supposed, however, that either Ashburton or Webster
sacrificed the claims of his own Government. Webster certainly was a
good attorney for the United States in settling the boundary disputes,
as is shown by the battle of the maps. The territorial contentions of
both countries hung largely upon the interpretation of certain clauses
of the first American treaty of peace. Webster therefore ordered a
search for material to be made in the archives of Paris and London. In
Paris there was brought to light a map with the boundary drawn in red,
possibly by Franklin, and supporting the British contention. Webster
refrained from showing this to Ashburton and ordered search in London
discontinued. Ironically enough, however, a little later there was
unearthed in the British Museum the actual map used by one of the
British commissioners in 1782, which showed the boundary as the United
States claimed it to be. Though they had been found too late to affect
the negotiations, these maps disturbed the Senate discussion of the
matter. Yet, as they offset each other, they perhaps facilitated the
acceptance of the treaty.

Rapidly Webster and Ashburton cleared the field. Webster obtained the
release of McLeod and effected the passage of a law to prevent a similar
crisis in the future by permitting such cases to be transferred to a
federal court. The Caroline affair was settled by an amicable exchange
of notes in which each side conceded much to the other. They did not
indeed dispose of the slave trade, but they reached an agreement by
which a joint squadron was to undertake to police efficiently the
African seas in order to prevent American vessels from engaging in that
trade.

Upon the more important matter of boundary, both Webster and Ashburton
decided to give up the futile task of convincing each other as to the
meaning of phrases which rested upon half-known facts reaching back
into the misty period of first discovery and settlement. They abandoned
interpretation and made compromise and division the basis of their
settlement. This method was more difficult for Webster than for
Ashburton, as both Maine and Massachusetts were concerned, and each must
under the Constitution be separately convinced. Here Webster used the
"Red Line" map, and succeeded in securing the consent of these States.
They finally settled upon a boundary which was certainly not that
intended in 1782 but was a compromise between the two conceptions
of that boundary and divided the territory with a regard for actual
conditions and geography. From Passamaquoddy Bay to the Lake of the
Woods, accepted lines were substituted for controversy, and the basis of
peace was thus made more secure. The treaty also contained provision
for the mutual extradition of criminals guilty of specified crimes, but
these did not include embezzlement, and "gone to Canada" was for years
the epitaph of many a dishonest American who had been found out.

The friendly spirit in which Webster and Ashburton had carried on their
negotiations inaugurated a period of reasonable amity between their two
nations. The United States annexed Texas without serious protest; in
spite of the clamor for "fifty-four forty or fight," Oregon was divided
peacefully; and England did not take advantage of the war with Mexico.
Each of these events, however, added to American territory, and these
additions gave prominence to a new and vexing problem. The United
States was now planted solidly upon the Pacific, and its borders were
practically those to which Adams had looked forward. Natural and unified
as this area looks upon the map and actually is today, in 1850
the extent of territorial expansion had overreached the means of
transportation. The Great Plains, then regarded as the Great American
Desert, and the Rockies presented impossible barriers to all but
adventurous individuals. These men, uniting in bands for self-protection
and taking their lives in their hands, were able with good luck to take
themselves but little else across this central region and the western
barrier. All ordinary communication, all mail and all freight, must go
by sea. The United States was actually divided into two very unequal
parts, and California and Oregon were geographically far distant
colonies.

The ocean highroad belonged to the United States in common with all
nations, but it took American ships to the opposite ends of the earth.
No regular shuttle of traffic sufficient to weave the nation together
could be expected to pass Cape Horn at every throw. The natural route
lay obviously through the Caribbean, across some one of the isthmuses,
and up the Pacific coast. Here however, the United States would have
to use territory belonging to other nations, and to obtain the right of
transit and security agreement was necessary. All these isthmus routes,
moreover, needed improvement. Capital must be induced to do the work,
and one necessary inducement was a guarantee of stable conditions of
investment.

This isthmus route became for a time the prime object of American
diplomacy. The United States made in 1846 satisfactory arrangements with
the Republic of New Granada (later Colombia), across which lay the
most southern route, and in 1853 with Mexico, of whose northern or
Tehuantepec route many had great expectations; but a further difficulty
was now discovered. The best lanes were those of Panama and of
Nicaragua. When the discovery of gold in California in 1848 made haste
a more important element in the problem, "Commodore" Vanderbilt, at that
time the shipping king of the United States, devoted his attention to
the Nicaragua route and made it the more popular. Here however, the
United States encountered not only the local independent authorities
but also Great Britain. Just to the north of the proposed route Great
Britain possessed Belize, now British Honduras, a meager colony but with
elastic boundaries. For many generations, too, she had concerned herself
with securing the rights of the Mosquito Indians, who held a territory,
also with elastic boundaries, inconveniently near the San Juan River,
the Caribbean entrance to the Nicaraguan thoroughfare. From Great
Britain, moreover, must come a large portion of the capital to be
employed in constructing the canal which was expected soon to cut the
isthmus.

The local situation soon became acute. Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and
the Mosquitoes all claimed the mouth of the San Juan; Honduras and
Nicaragua, the control of the Pacific outlet. British diplomatic and
naval officers clashed with those of the United States until, in their
search for complete control, both exceeded the instructions which they
had received from home. The British occupied Greytown on the San Juan
and supported the Mosquitoes and Costa Rica. The Americans won favor
in Nicaragua and Honduras, framed treaties allowing transit and canal
construction, and proposed the annexation of Tigre Island, which,
commanded the proposed Pacific outlet.

To untie these knots, Sir Henry Bulwer was sent to Washington to
negotiate with John M. Clayton, President Taylor's Secretary of
State. Neither of these negotiators was of the caliber of Webster and
Ashburton, and the treaty which they drew up proved rather a Pandora's
box of future difficulties than a satisfactory settlement. In the first
place it was agreed that any canal to be constructed over any of the
isthmuses was to be absolutely neutral, in time of war as well as of
peace. Both nations were to guarantee this neutrality, and other nations
were invited to join with them. No other nations did join, however, and
the project became a dual affair which, owing to the superiority of the
British Navy, gave Britain the advantage, or would eventually have
done so if a canal had been constructed. Subsequently the majority of
Americans decided that such a canal must be under the sole control of
the United States, and the treaty then stood as a stumbling block in the
way of the realization of this idea.

More immediately important, however, and a great wrench to American
policies, was the provision that neither power "will ever erect or
maintain any fortifications commanding" the canal "or occupy, or
fortify, or colonize, or assume or exercise any dominion over... any part
of Central America." This condition violated Adams's principle that the
United States was not on the same footing with any European power in
American affairs and should not be bound by any self-denying ordinance,
and actually it reversed the principle against the United States. An
explanatory note accompanying the treaty recognized that this provision
did not apply to Belize and her dependencies, and Great Britain promptly
denied that it applied to any rights she already possessed in Central
America, including the Mosquito protectorate and certain Bay Islands
which were claimed by Great Britain as dependencies of Belize and by
Honduras as a part of her territory.

In vain did Webster, who succeeded Clayton, seek an agreement. His
term of office passed, and the controversy fell into the hands of Lord
Palmerston, the jingoistic spirit who began at this time to dominate
British foreign policy, and of James Buchanan, who, known to us as a
spineless seeker after peace where there was no peace, was at this time
riding into national leadership on a wave of expansionist enthusiasm.
Buchanan and Palmerston mutually shook the stage thunder of verbal
extravagance, but probably neither intended war. Poker was at this time
the national American game, and bluff was a highly developed art. The
American player won a partial victory. In 1856 Great Britain agreed
to withdraw her protectorate over the Mosquitoes, to acknowledge the
supremacy of Honduras over the Bay Islands, and to accept a reasonable
interpretation of the Belize boundary. Though this convention was never
ratified, Great Britain carried out its terms, and in 1860 Buchanan
announced himself satisfied.

The dreams of 1850, however, were not satisfied. A railroad was
completed across Panama in 1855, but no canal was constructed until
years after the great transcontinental railroads had bound California
to the East by bonds which required no foreign sanction. Yet the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty remained an entangling alliance, destined to give
lovers of peace and amity many more uncomfortable hours.

During the Civil War other causes of irritation arose between the United
States and Great Britain. The proclamation of neutrality, by which the
British Government recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent, seemed
to the North an unfriendly act. Early in the war occurred the Trent
affair, which added to the growing resentment. * It was held to be a
violation of professed neutrality that Confederate commerce destroyers
were permitted to be built and fitted out in British yards. The
subsequent transfer of hundreds of thousands of tons of American
shipping to British registry, owing to the depredations of these
raiders, still further incensed the American people. It was in the midst
of these strained relations that the Fenian Brotherhood in the United
States attempted the invasion of Canada.

     * See Stephenson, "Abraham Lincoln and the Union," in "The
Chronicles of America."

America laid claims against Great Britain, based not merely on the
actual destruction of merchantmen by the Alabama, the Florida, and other
Confederate vessels built in British yards, but also on such indirect
losses as insurance, cost of pursuit, and commercial profits. The
American Minister, Charles Francis Adams, had proposed the arbitration
of these claims, but the British Ministry, declined to arbitrate matters
involving the honor of the country. Adams's successor, Reverdy Johnson,
succeeded in arranging a convention in 1868 excluding from consideration
all claims for indirect damages, but this arrangement was unfavorably
reported from the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Senate. It was
then that Charles Sumner, Chairman of the Committee, gave utterance
to his astounding demands upon Great Britain. The direct claims of
the United States, he contended, were no adequate compensation for its
losses; the indirect claims must also be made good, particularly those
based on the loss of the American merchant marine by transfer to the
British flag. The direct or "individual" American losses amounted to
$15,000,000. "But this leaves without recognition the vaster damage
to commerce driven from the ocean, and that other damage, immense and
infinite, caused by the prolongation of the war, all of which may be
called NATIONAL in contradistinction to INDIVIDUAL." Losses to commerce
he reckoned at $110,000,000, adding that this amount must be considered
only an item in the bill, for the prolongation of the war was directly
traceable to England. "The rebellion was suppressed at a cost of more
than four thousand million dollars...through British intervention the
war was doubled in duration;... England is justly responsible for the
additional expenditure." Sumner's total bill against Great Britain,
then, amounted to over $2,000,000,000; "everyone," said he, "can make
the calculation."

Had an irresponsible member of Congress made these demands, they might
have been dismissed as another effort to twist the British lion's tail;
but Charles Sumner took himself seriously, expected others to take him
seriously, and unhappily was taken seriously by a great number of his
fellow countrymen. The explanation of his preposterous demand appeared
subsequently in a memorandum which he prepared. To avoid all possible
future clashes with Great Britain, he would have her withdraw from the
American continents and the Western Hemisphere. Great Britain might
discharge her financial obligations by transferring to the United States
the whole of British America! And Sumner seems actually to have believed
that he was promoting the cause of international good will by this
tactless proposal.

For a time it was believed that Sumner spoke for the Administration, and
public opinion in the United States was disposed to look upon his
speech as a fair statement of American grievances and a just demand for
compensation. The British Government, too, in view of the action of the
Senate and the indiscreet utterances of the new American Minister in
London, John Lothrop Motley, believed that President Grant favored an
aggressive policy. Further negotiations were dropped. Both Governments,
nevertheless, were desirous of coming to an understanding, though
neither wished to take the first step.

Fortunately it happened that Caleb Cushing for the United States and
John Rose for Canada were then engaged at Washington in the discussion
of some matters affecting the two countries. In the course of informal
conversations these accomplished diplomats planned for a rapprochement.
Rose presented a memorandum suggesting that all questions in dispute
be made the subject of a general negotiation and treaty. It was at
this moment that Sumner came forward with his plan of compensation
and obviously he stood in the way of any settlement. President Grant,
however, already incensed by Motley's conduct and by Sumner's opposition
to his own favorite project, the annexation of Santo Domingo, now broke
definitely with both by removing Motley and securing Sumner's deposition
from the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The way was
now prepared for an agreement with Great Britain.

On February 27, 1871, a Joint High Commission, composed of five
distinguished representatives from each Government, began its memorable
session at Washington. The outcome was the Treaty of Washington, signed
on May 8, 1871. The most important question--the "Alabama Claims"--was
by this agreement to be submitted to a tribunal of five arbitrators,
one to be selected by the President of the United States, another by the
Queen of Great Britain, a third by the King of Italy, a fourth by the
President of the Swiss Republic, and a fifth by the Emperor of Brazil.
This tribunal was to meet at Geneva and was to base its award 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 a base
of naval operations...; thirdly, to exercise due diligence in its own
ports and waters... to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations
and duties."

Another but less elaborate tribunal was to decide all other claims which
had arisen out of the Civil War. Still another arbitration commission
was to assess the amount which the United States was to pay by way of
compensation for certain privileges connected with the fisheries. The
vexed question of the possession of the San Juan Islands was to be left
to the decision of the Emperor of Germany. A series of articles provided
for the amicable settlement of border questions between the United
States and Canada. Never before in history had such important
controversies been submitted voluntarily to arbitration and judicial
settlement.

The tribunal which met at Geneva in December was a body of distinguished
men who proved fully equal to the gravity of their task. Charles Francis
Adams was appointed to represent the United States; Sir Alexander
Cockburn, to represent Great Britain; the commissioners from neutral
States were also men of distinction. J. C. Bancroft Davis was agent for
the United States, and William M. Evarts, Caleb Cushing, and Morrison R.
Waite acted as counsel. The case for the United States was not presented
in a manner worthy of the occasion. According to Adams the American
contentions "were advanced with an aggressiveness of tone and
attorney-like smartness, more appropriate to the wranglings of a
quarter-sessions court than to pleadings before a grave international
tribunal." The American counsel were instructed to insist not, indeed,
on indemnity for the cost of two years of war, but on compensation
because of the transfer of our commerce to the British merchant marine,
by virtue of the clause of the treaty which 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 contention
an act of bad faith. Excitement in England rose to a high pitch and the
Gladstone Ministry proposed to withdraw from the arbitration.

That the tribunal of arbitration did not end in utter failure was due to
the wisdom and courage of Adams. At his suggestion the five arbitrators
announced on June 19, 1872, that they would not consider claims for
indirect damages, because such claims did "not constitute, upon
the principles of international law applicable to such cases, good
foundation for an award of compensation, or computations of damages
between nations." These claims dismissed, the arbitrators entered into
an examination of the direct American claims and on September 14, 1872,
decided upon an award of fifteen and a half million dollars to the
United States. The Treaty of Washington and the Geneva Tribunal
constituted the longest step thus far taken by any two nations toward
the settlement of their disputes by judicial process.

CHAPTER III. Alaska And Its Problems

The impulse for expansion upon which Buchanan floated his political raft
into the presidency was not a party affair. It was felt by men of all
party creeds, and it seemed for a moment to be the dominant national
ideal. Slaveholders and other men who had special interests sought
to make use of it, but the fundamental feeling did not rest on their
support. American democracy, now confident of its growing strength,
believed that the happiness of the people and the success of the
institutions of the United States would prove a loadstone which would
bring under the flag all peoples of the New World, while those of the
Old World would strike off their shackles and remold their governments
on the American pattern. Attraction, not compulsion, was the method to
be used, and none of the paeans of American prophets in the editorials
or the fervid orations of the fifties proposed an additional battleship
or regiment.

No one saw this bright vision more clearly than did William H. Seward,
who became Secretary of State under Lincoln. Slight of build, pleasant,
and talkative, he gave an impression of intellectual distinction, based
upon fertility rather than consistency of mind. He was a disciple of
John Quincy Adams, but his tireless energy had in it too much of nervous
unrest to allow him to stick to his books as did his master, and there
was too wide a gap between his beliefs and his practice. He held as
idealistic views as any man of his generation, but he believed so firmly
that the right would win that he disliked hastening its victory at the
expense of bad feeling. He was shrewd, practical--maliciously practical,
many thought. When, in the heat of one of his perorations, a flash of
his hidden fires would arouse the distrust of the conservative, he
would appear to retract and try to smother the flames in a cloud of
conciliatory smoke. Only the restraining hand of Lincoln prevented him
from committing fatal blunders at the outset of the Civil War, yet his
handling of the threatening episode of the French in Mexico showed a
wisdom, a patient tact, and a subtle ingenuity which make his conduct of
the affair a classic illustration of diplomacy at almost its best. *

     * See "Abraham Lincoln and the Union" and "The Hispanic Nations
of the New World" (in "The Chronicles of America").

In 1861 Seward said that he saw Russia and Great Britain building on
the Arctic Ocean outposts on territory which should belong to his own
country, and that he expected the capital of the great federal republic
of the future would be in the valley of Mexico. Yet he nevertheless
retained the sentiment he had expressed in 1846: "I would not give one
human life for all the continent that remains to be annexed." The Civil
War prevented for four years any action regarding expansion, and the
same conspiracy which resulted in the assassination of Lincoln brought
Seward to the verge of the grave. He recovered rapidly, however, and
while on a recuperating trip through the West Indies he worked for
the peaceable annexation of the Danish Islands and Santo Domingo. His
friend, Charles Sumner, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Affairs, was framing his remarkable project for the annexation of
Canada. President Johnson and, later, President Grant endorsed parts
of these plans. Denmark and Santo Domingo were willing to acquiesce for
money, and Sumner believed, although he was preposterously wrong, that
the incorporation of Canada in our Union would be welcomed by the best
sentiment of England and of Canada.

To willing ears, therefore, came in 1867 the offer of the Russian
Minister, Baron Stoeckl, to sell Alaska. The proposal did not raise a
question which had been entirely unthought of. Even before the Civil
War, numbers of people on the Pacific coast, far from being overawed
by the responsibility of developing the immense territories which they
already possessed, had petitioned the Government to obtain Alaska,
and even the proper purchase price had been discussed. The reasons
for Russia's decision to sell, however, have not been sufficiently
investigated. It is apparent from the conduct of the negotiation that it
was not a casual proposal but one in which Baron Stoeckl, at least, was
deeply interested. It is to be remembered that at this time Russia's
ambitions were in Asia, and that her chief rival was Great Britain.
Russia's power was on land; the seas she could not hope to control. The
first moment of war would put Russian rule in, Alaska at the mercy of
the British fleet. In those days when a Siberian railroad was an idle
dream, this icebound region in America was so remote from the center
of Russian power that it could be neither enjoyed nor protected. As
Napoleon in 1803 preferred to see Louisiana in the hands of the United
States rather than in those of his rival England, so Russia preferred
Alaska to fall to the United States rather than to Canada, especially as
she could by peaceful cession obtain money into the bargain.

Seward was delighted with the opportunity, but diplomatically concealed
his satisfaction and bargained closely. Stoeckl asked ten million
dollars; Seward offered five. Stoeckl proposed to split the difference;
Seward agreed, if Stoeckl would knock off the odd half million. Stoeckl
accepted, on condition that Seward add two hundred thousand as special
compensation to the Russian American Company. It was midnight of the
29th of March when $7,200,000 was made the price. Seward roused Sumner
from bed, and the three worked upon the form of a treaty until four
o'clock in the morning. No captains of industry could show greater
decision.

The treaty, however, was not yet a fact. The Senate must approve, and
its approval could not be taken for granted. The temper of the majority
of Americans toward expansion had changed. The experiences of the later
fifties had caused many to look upon expansion as a Southern heresy.
Carl Schurz a little later argued that we had already taken in all those
regions the climate of which would allow healthy self-government and
that we should annex no tropics. Hamilton Fish, then Secretary of State,
wrote in 1873 that popular sentiment was, for the time being, against
all expansion. In fact, among the people of the United States the idea
was developing that expansion was contrary to their national policy,
and their indisposition to expand became almost a passion. They
rejected Santo Domingo and the Danish Islands and would not press any
negotiations for Canada.

What saved the Alaska Treaty from a similar disapproval was not any
conviction that Alaska was worth seven million dollars, although Sumner
convinced those who took the trouble to read, that the financial bargain
was not a bad one. The chief factor in the purchase of Alaska was almost
pure sentiment. Throughout American history there has been a powerful
tradition of friendliness between Russia and the United States, yet
surely no two political systems have been in the past more diametrically
opposed. The chief ground for friendship has doubtless been the great
intervening distance which has reduced intercourse to a minimum. Some
slight basis for congeniality existed in the fact that the interests of
both countries favored a similar policy of freedom upon the high seas.
What chiefly influenced the public mind, however, was the attitude
which Russia had taken during the Civil War. When the Grand Duke Alexis
visited the United States in 1871, Oliver Wendell Holmes greeted him
with the lines:

     Bleak are our coasts with the blasts of December,
     Thrilling and warm are the hearts that remember
     Who was our friend when the world was our foe.

This Russian friendship had presented itself dramatically to the public
at a time when American relations with Great Britain were strained, for
Russian fleets had in 1863 suddenly appeared in the harbors of New York
and San Francisco. These visits were actually made with a sole regard
for Russian interests and in anticipation of the outbreak of a general
European war, which the Czar then feared. The appearance of the fleets,
however, was for many years popularly supposed to signify sympathy with
the Union and a willingness to defend it from attack by Great Britain
and France. Many conceived the ingenuous idea that the purchase price
of Alaska was really the American half of a secret bargain of which the
fleets were the Russian part. Public opinion, therefore, regarded the
purchase of Alaska in the light of a favor to Russia and demanded that
the favor be granted.

Thus of all the schemes of expansion in the fifty years between the
Mexican and the Spanish wars, for the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 was
really only a rectification of boundary, this alone came to fruition.
Seward could well congratulate himself on his alertness in seizing an
opportunity and on his management of the delicate political aspects of
the purchase. Without his promptness the golden opportunity might have
passed and never recurred. Yet he could never have saved this fragment
of his policy had not the American people cherished for Russia a
sentimental friendship which was intensified at the moment by anger at
the supposed sympathy of Great Britain for the South.

If Russia hoped by ceding Alaska to involve the United States in
difficulties with her rival Great Britain, her desire was on one
occasion nearly gratified. The only profit which the United States
derived from this new possession was for many years drawn from the
seal fishery. The same generation of Americans which allowed the
extermination of the buffalo for lap robes found in the sealskin sack
the hall mark of wealth and fashion. While, however, the killing of the
buffalo was allowed to go on without official check, the Government in
1870 inaugurated a system to preserve the seal herds which was perhaps
the earliest step in a national conservation policy. The sole right of
killing was given to the Alaska Commercial Company with restrictions
under which it was believed that the herds would remain undiminished.
The catch was limited to one hundred thousand a year; it was to include
only male seals; and it was to be limited to the breeding grounds on the
Pribilof Islands.

The seals, however, did not confine themselves to American territory.
During the breeding season they ranged far and wide within a hundred
miles of their islands; and during a great part of the year they were to
be found far out in the Pacific. The value of their skins attracted the
adventurous of many lands, but particularly Canadians; and Vancouver
became the greatest center for deep-sea sealing. The Americans saw the
development of the industry with anger and alarm. Considering the seals
as their own, they naturally resented this unlimited exploitation by
outsiders when Americans themselves were so strictly limited by law.
They also believed that the steady diminution of the herds was due to
the reckless methods of their rivals, particularly the use of explosives
which destroyed many animals to secure a few perfect skins.

Public opinion on the Pacific coast sought a remedy and soon found
one in the terms of the treaty of purchase. That document, in dividing
Alaska from Siberia, described a line of division running through Bering
Sea, and in 1881 the Acting Secretary of the Treasury propounded the
theory that this line divided not merely the islands but the water as
well. There was a widespread feeling that all Bering Sea within this
line was American territory and that all intruders from other nations
were poachers. In accordance with this theory, the revenue cutter Corwin
in 1886 seized three British vessels and hauled their skippers before
the United States District Court of Sitka. Thomas F. Bayard, then
Secretary of State under President Cleveland, did not recognize this
theory of interpreting the treaty, but endeavored to right the grievance
by a joint agreement with France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and Great
Britain, the sealing nations, "for the better protection of the fur seal
fisheries in Bering Sea."

A solution had been almost reached, when Canada interposed. Lord Morley
has remarked, in his "Recollections," how the voice of Canada fetters
Great Britain in her negotiations with the United States. While Bayard
was negotiating an agreement concerning Bering Sea which was on the
whole to the advantage of the United States, he completed a similar
convention on the more complicated question of the northeastern or
Atlantic fisheries which was more important to Canada. This latter
convention was unfavorably reported by the Senate Committee on Foreign
Affairs, which foreshadowed rejection. Thereupon, in May, 1888, Lord
Salisbury, the British Foreign Minister, withdrew from the Bering Sea
negotiation.

At this critical moment Cleveland gave place to Harrison, and Bayard
was succeeded by James G. Blaine, the most interesting figure in our
diplomatic activities of the eighties. These years marked the lowest
point in the whole history of our relations with other countries, both
in the character of our agents and in the nature of the public opinion
to which they appealed. Blaine was undoubtedly the most ill-informed
of our great diplomats; yet a trace of greatness lingers about him. The
exact reverse of John Quincy Adams, he knew neither law nor history, and
he did not always inspire others with confidence in his integrity. On
the other hand, the magnetic charm of his personality won many to a
devotion such as none of our great men except Clay has received. Blaine
saw, moreover, though through a glass darkly, farther along the path
which the United States was to take than did any of his contemporaries.
It was his fate to deal chiefly in controversy with those accomplished
diplomats, Lord Salisbury and Lord Granville, and it must have been
among the relaxations of their office to point out tactfully the defects
and errors in his dispatches. Nevertheless when he did not misread
history or misquote precedents but wielded the broadsword of equity, he
often caught the public conscience, and then he was not an opponent to
be despised.

Blaine at once undertook the defense of the contention that Bering Sea
was "closed" and the exclusive property of the United States, in
spite of the fact that this position was opposed to the whole trend of
American opinion, which from the days of the Revolution had always stood
for freedom of the high seas and the limitation of the water rights of
particular nations to the narrowest limits. The United States and Great
Britain had jointly protested against the Czar's ukase of 1821, which
had asserted Russia's claim to Bering Sea as territorial waters; and if
Russia had not possessed it in 1821, we certainly could not have bought
it in 1867. In the face of Canadian opinion, Great Britain could never
consent, even for the sake of peace, to a position as unsound as it was
disadvantageous to Canadian industry. Nor did Blaine's contention that
the seals were domestic animals belonging to us, and therefore subject
to our protection while wandering through the ocean, carry conviction to
lawyers familiar with the fascinating intricacies of the law, domestic
and international, relating to migratory birds and beasts. To the
present generation it seems amusing that Blaine defended his basic
contention quite as much on the ground of the inhumanity of destroying
the seals as of its economic wastefulness. Yet Blaine rallied Congress
to his support, as well as a great part of American sentiment.

The situation, which had now become acute, was aggravated by the fact
that most American public men of this period did not separate their
foreign and domestic politics. Too many sought to secure the important
Irish vote by twisting the tail of the British lion. The Republicans,
in particular, sought to identify protection with patriotism and were
making much of the fact that the recall of Lord Sackville-West, the
British Minister, had been forced because he had advised a correspondent
to vote for Cleveland. It spoke volumes for the fundamental good sense
of the two nations that, when relations were so strained, they could
agree to submit their differences to arbitration. For this happy outcome
credit must be given to the cooler heads on both sides, but equal credit
must be given to their legacy from the cool heads which had preceded
them. The United States and Great Britain had acquired the habit of
submitting to judicial decision their disputes, even those closely
touching honor, and this habit kept them steady.

In accepting arbitration in 1892, the United States practically gave up
her case, although Blaine undoubtedly believed it could be defended, and
in spite of the fact that it was ably presented by John W. Foster from
a brief prepared by the American counsel, Edward J. Phelps, Frederic R.
Coudert, and James C. Carter. The tribunal assembled at Paris decided
that Bering Sea was open and determined certain facts upon which a
subsequent commission assessed damages of nearly half a million against
the United States for the seizure of British vessels during the period
in which the American claim was being asserted. Blaine, however, did not
lose everything. The treaty contained the extraordinary provision that
the arbitration tribunal, in case it decided against the United States,
was to draw up regulations for the protection of the seal herds. These
regulations when drafted did not prove entirely satisfactory, and bound
only the United States and Great Britain. It required many years and
much tinkering to bring about the reasonably satisfactory arrangement
that is now in force. Yet to leave to an international tribunal not
merely the decision of a disputed case but the legislation necessary
to regulate an international property was in itself a great step in the
development of world polity. The charlatan who almost brought on war by
maintaining an indefensible case was also the statesman who made perhaps
the greatest single advance in the conservation of the world's resources
by international regulation.

CHAPTER IV. Blaine And Pan-Americanism

During the half century that intervened between John Quincy Adams and
James G. Blaine, the Monroe Doctrine, it was commonly believed, had
prevented the expansion of the territories of European powers in the
Americas. It had also relieved the United States both of the necessity
of continual preparation for war and of that constant tension in which
the perpetual shifting of the European balance of power held the nations
of that continent. But the Monroe Doctrine was not solely responsible
for these results. Had it not been for the British Navy, the United
States would in vain have proclaimed its disapproval of encroachment.
Nor, had Europe continued united, could the United States have withstood
European influence; but Canning's policy had practically destroyed
Metternich's dream of unity maintained by intervention, and in 1848 that
whole structure went hopelessly tumbling before a new order. Yet British
policy, too, failed of full realization, for British statesmen always
dreamed of an even balance in continental Europe which Great Britain
could incline to her wishes, whereas it usually proved necessary, in
order to preserve a balance at all, for her to join one side or the
other. Divided Europe therefore stood opposite united America, and our
inferior strength was enhanced by an advantageous position.

The insecurity of the American position was revealed during the Civil
War. When the United States divided within, the strength of the nation
vanished. The hitherto suppressed desires of European nations at once
manifested themselves. Spain, never satisfied that her American empire
was really lost, at once leaped to take advantage of the change. On a
trumped up invitation of some of the inhabitants of Santo Domingo, she
invaded the formerly Spanish portion of the island and she began war
with Peru in the hope of acquiring at least some of the Pacific islands
belonging to that state.

More formidable were the plans of Napoleon III, for the French, too,
remembered the glowing promise of their earlier American dominions. They
had not forgotten that the inhabitants of the Americas as far north as
the southern borders of the United States were of Latin blood, at least
so far as they were of European origin. In Montevideo there was a French
colony, and during the forties France had been active in proffering her
advice in South American disputes. When the second French Republic had
been proclaimed in 1848, one of the French ministers in South America
saw a golden chance for his country to assume the leadership of all
Latin America, which was at that time suspicious of the designs of
the United States and alarmed by its rapid expansion at the expense of
Mexico. With the power of the American Government neutralized in
1861, and with the British Navy immobilized by the necessity of French
friendship, which the "Balance" made just then of paramount interest to
Great Britain, Napoleon III determined to establish in Mexico an empire
under French influence.

It is instructive to notice that General Bernhardi states, in "Germany
and the Next War" which has attracted such wide attention and which has
done so much to convince Americans of the bad morals of autocracy, that
Great Britain lost her great chance of world dominance by not taking
active advantage of this situation, as did France and Spain. It is
indeed difficult to see what would have been the outcome had Great
Britain also played at that time an aggressive and selfish part. She
stayed her hand, but many British statesmen were keenly interested in
the struggle, from the point of view of British interests. They did not
desire territory, but they foresaw that the permanent separation of the
two parts of the United States would leave the country shorn of weight
in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. North and South, if separated,
would each inevitably seek European support, and the isolation of
the United States and its claim to priority in American affairs would
disappear. The balance of power would extend itself to the Western
Hemisphere and the assumption of a sphere of influence would vanish with
the unity of the United States.

Nor did the close of the Civil War reveal less clearly than its
beginning the real international position of the United States. When
the country once more acquired unity, these European encroachments were
renounced, and dreams of colonial empire in America vanished. There was
a moment's questioning as to the reality of the triumph of the North--a
doubt that the South might rise if foreign war broke out; but the
uncertainty was soon dispelled. It was somewhat embarrassing, if not
humiliating, for the Emperor of the French to withdraw from his Mexican
undertaking, but the way was smoothed for him by the finesse of
Seward. By 1866 the international position of the United States was
reestablished and was perhaps the stronger for having been tested.

In all these years, however, the positive side of the Monroe Doctrine,
the development of friendly cooperation between the nations of America
under the leadership of the United States, had made no progress. In
fact, with the virtual disappearance of the American merchant marine
after the Civil War, the influence of the United States diminished.
Great Britain with her ships, her trade, and her capital, at that time
actually counted for much more, while German trade expanded rapidly
in the seventies and eighties and German immigration into Brazil gave
Prussia a lever hold, the ultimate significance of which is not even yet
fully evident.

Under these circumstances, Blaine planned to play a brilliant role as
Secretary of State in President Garfield's Cabinet. Though the President
was his personal friend, Blaine regarded him as his inferior in
practical statecraft and planned to make his own foreign policy the
notable feature of the Administration. His hopes were dashed, however,
by the assassination of Garfield and by the accession of President
Arthur. The new Secretary of State, F T. Frelinghuysen, reversed
nearly all of his predecessor's policies. When Blaine returned to
the Department of State in 1889, he found a less sympathetic chief in
President Harrison and a less brilliant role to play. Whether his final
retirement before the close of the Harrison Administration was due
directly to the conflict of views which certainly existed or was a play
on his part for the presidency and for complete control is a question
that has never been completely settled.

Narrow as was Blaine's view of world affairs, impossible as was
his conception of an America divided from Europe economically and
spiritually as well as politically and of an America united in itself
by a provoked and constantly irritated hostility to Europe, he had an
American program which, taken by itself, was definite, well conceived,
and in a sense prophetic. It is interesting to note that in referring
to much the same relationship, Blaine characteristically spoke of the
United States as "Elder Sister" of the South American republics, while
Theodore Roosevelt, at a later period, conceived the role to be that of
a policeman wielding the "Big Stick."

Blaine's first aim was to establish peace in the Western Hemisphere by
offering American mediation in the disputes of sister countries. When he
first took office in 1881, the prolonged and bitter war existing between
Chili, Bolivia, and Peru for the control of the nitrate fields which lay
just where the territories of the three abutted, provided a convenient
opportunity. If he could restore peace on an equitable basis here, he
would do much to establish the prestige of the United States as a wise
and disinterested counselor in Spanish American affairs. In this his
first diplomatic undertaking, there appeared, however, one of the
weaknesses of execution which constantly interfered with the success of
his plans. He did not know how to sacrifice politics to statesmanship,
and he appointed as his agents men so incompetent that they aggravated
rather than settled the difficulty. Later he saw his mistake and made a
new and admirable appointment in the case of Mr. William H. Trescot of
South Carolina. Blaine himself, however, lost office before new results
could be obtained; and Frelinghuysen recalled Trescot and abandoned the
attempt to force peace.

A second object of Blaine's policy was to prevent disputes between
Latin American and European powers from becoming dangerous by acting as
mediator between them. When he took office, France was endeavoring to
collect from Venezuela a claim which was probably just. When Venezuela
proved obdurate, France proposed to seize her custom houses and to
collect the duties until the debt was paid. Blaine protested, urged
Venezuela to pay, and suggested that the money be sent through the
American agent at Caracas. He further proposed that, should Venezuela
not pay within three months, the United States should seize the custom
houses, collect the money, and pay it to France. Again his short term
prevented him from carrying out his policy, but it is nevertheless
of interest as anticipating the plan actually followed by President
Roosevelt in the case of Santo Domingo.

Blaine was just as much opposed to the peaceful penetration of European
influence in the Western Hemisphere as to its forceful expression. The
project of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, to be built and owned
by a French company, had already aroused President Hayes on March 8,
1880, to remark: "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."
Blaine added that the passage of hostile troops through such a canal
when either the United States or Colombia was at war, as the terms of
guarantee of the new canal allowed, was "no more admissible than on the
railroad lines joining the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the United
States."

It is characteristic of Blaine that, when he wrote this dispatch, he was
apparently in complete ignorance of the existence of the Clayton-Bulwer
Treaty, in which the United States accepted the exactly opposite
principles--had agreed to a canal under a joint international guarantee
and open to the use of all in time of war as well as of peace.
Discovering this obstacle, he set to work to demolish it by announcing
to Great Britain that the treaty was antiquated, thirty years old, that
the development of the American Pacific slope had changed conditions,
and that, should the treaty be observed and such a canal remain
unfortified, the superiority of the British fleet would give the nation
complete control. Great Britain, however, could scarcely be expected to
regard a treaty as defunct from old age at thirty years, especially as
she also possessed a developing Pacific coast. Moreover, if the treaty
was to British advantage, at least the United States had accepted it.
Great Britain, therefore, refused to admit that the treaty was not in
full force. Blaine then urged the building of an American canal across
the Isthmus of Nicaragua, in defiance of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty--a
plan which received the support of even President Arthur, under whom a
treaty for the purpose was negotiated with the Republic of Nicaragua.
Before this treaty was ratified by the Senate, however, Grover
Cleveland, who had just become President, withdrew it. He believed in
the older policy, and refused his sanction to the new treaty on the
ground that such a canal "must be for the world's benefit, a trust
for mankind, to be removed from the chance of domination by any single
power."

The crowning glory of Blaine's system, as he planned it, was the
cooperation of the American republics for common purposes. He did not
share Seward's dream that they would become incorporated States of the
Union, but he went back to Henry Clay and the Panama Congress of 1826
for his ideal. During his first term of office he invited the republics
to send representatives to Washington to discuss arbitration, but his
successor in office feared that such a meeting of "a partial group of
our friends" might offend Europe, which indeed was not improbably part
of Blaine's intention. On resuming office, Blaine finally arranged
the meeting of a Pan-American Congress in the United States. Chosen
to preside, he presented an elaborate program, including a plan for
arbitrating disputes; commercial reciprocity; the establishment of
uniform weights and measures, of international copyright, trade-marks
and patents, and, of common coinage; improvement of communications; and
other subjects. At the same time he exerted himself to secure in
the McKinley Tariff Bill, which was just then under consideration, a
provision for reciprocity of trade with American countries. This meeting
was not a complete success, since Congress gave him only half of what
he wanted by providing for reciprocity but making it general instead of
purely American. Nevertheless one permanent and solid result was secured
in the establishment of the Bureau of American Republics at Washington,
which has become a clearing house of ideas and a visible bond of common
interests and good feeling.

Throughout the years of Blaine's prominence, the public took more
interest in his bellicose encounters with Europe, and particularly with
Great Britain, than in his constructive American policy; and he failed
to secure for either an assured popular support. His attempt to widen
the gulf between Europe and America was indeed absurd at a time when the
cable, the railroad, and the steamship were rendering the world daily
smaller and more closely knit, and when the spirit of democracy,
rapidly permeating western Europe, was breaking down the distinction
in political institutions which had given point to the pronouncement
of 1823. Nevertheless Blaine did actually feel the changing industrial
conditions at home which were destroying American separateness, and
he made a genuine attempt to find a place for the United States in the
world, without the necessity of sharing the responsibilities of all the
world, by making real that interest in its immediate neighbors which his
country had announced in 1823. Even while Blaine was working on his plan
of "America for the Americans," events were shaping the most important
extension of the interests of the United States which had taken place
since 1823.

CHAPTER V. The United States And The Pacific

Long before the westward march of Americans had brought their flag to
the Pacific, that ocean was familiar to their mariners. From Cape Horn
to Canton and the ports of India, there ploughed the stately merchantmen
of Salem, Providence, and Newburyport, exchanging furs and ginseng for
teas, silks, the "Canton blue" which is today so cherished a link with
the past, and for the lacquer cabinets and carved ivory which give
distinction to many a New England home. Meanwhile the sturdy whalers of
New Bedford scoured the whole ocean for sperm oil and whalebone, and the
incidents of their self-reliant three-year cruises acquainted them with
nearly every coral and volcanic isle. Early in the century missionaries
also began to brave the languor of these oases of leisure and the
appetite of their cannibalistic inhabitants.

The interest of the Government was bound to follow its adventurous
citizens. In 1820 the United States appointed a consular agent at
Honolulu; in the thirties and forties it entered into treaty relations
with Siam, Borneo, and China; and owing to circumstances which were by
no means accidental it had the honor of persuading Japan to open her
ports to the world. As early as 1797 an American vessel chartered by the
Dutch had visited Nagasaki. From time to time American sailors had been
shipwrecked on the shores of Japan, and the United States had more
than once picked up and sought to return Japanese castaways. In 1846
an official expedition under Commodore Biddle was sent to establish
relationships with Japan but was unsuccessful. In 1853 Commodore Perry
bore a message from the President to the Mikado which demanded--though
the demand was couched in courteous language--"friendship, commerce,
a supply of coal and provisions, and protection for our shipwrecked
people." After a long hesitation the Mikado yielded. Commodore Perry's
success was due not solely to the care with which his expedition was
equipped for its purpose nor to his diplomatic skill but in part to the
fact that other countries were known to be on the very point of forcing
an entrance into the seclusion of Japan. Few Americans realize how
close, indeed, were the relations established with Japan by the United
States. The treaty which Townsend Harris negotiated in 1858 stated that
"The President of the United States, at the request of the Japanese
Government, will act as a friendly mediator in such matters of
difference as may arise between the Government of Japan and any European
power." Through his personal efforts Harris may almost be said to have
become the chief adviser of the Japanese Government in the perplexities
which it encountered on entering international society.

Not only did the United States allow itself a closer intimacy with this
new Pacific power than it would have done with a state of Europe, but
it exhibited a greater freedom in dealing with the European powers
themselves in the Far East than at home or in America. In 1863 the
United States joined--in fact, in the absence of a naval force it
strained a point by chartering a vessel for the purpose--with a concert
of powers to force the opening of the Shimonoseki Straits; subsequently
acting with Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands, the United
States secured an indemnity to pay the cost of the expedition; and in
1866 it united with the same powers to secure a convention by which
Japan bound herself to establish certain tariff regulations.

Nor were the relations of the United States with the Pacific Ocean and
its shores confined to trade and international obligations. The American
flag waved over more than ships and a portion of the Pacific coast.
Naval officers more than once raised it over islands which they
christened, and Congress authorized the President to exercise temporary
authority over islands from which American citizens were removing guano
and to prevent foreign encroachment while they were so engaged. In the
eighties, fifty such islands of the Pacific were in the possession of
the United States.

In 1872 an American naval officer made an agreement with the local
chieftain of Tutuila, one of the Samoan Islands, for the use of Pago
Pago, which was the best harbor in that part of the ocean. The United
States drifted into more intimate relationship with the natives until
in 1878 it made a treaty with the Samoan king allowing Americans to use
Pago Pago as a coaling station. In return the United States agreed: "If
unhappily, any differences should have arisen, or shall hereafter arise,
between 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." In 1884 the Senate insisted on securing a similar
harbor concession from Hawaii, and within the next few years the
American Navy began to arise again from its ashes. The obligation
incurred in exchange for this concession, however, although it resembled
that in the Japanese treaty, was probably an unreflecting act of good
nature for, if it meant anything, it was an entangling engagement such
as the vast majority of Americans were still determined to avoid.

The natives of Samoa did not indulge in cannibalism but devoted the
small energy the climate gave them to the social graces and to pleasant
wars. They were governed by local kings and were loosely united under a
chief king. At Apia, the capital, were three hundred foreigners, nearly
all connected in one way or another with trade. This commerce had long
been in the hands of English and Americans, but now the aggressive
Germans were rapidly winning it away. Three consuls, representing
the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, spent their time in
exaggerating their functions and in circumventing the plots of which
they suspected each other. The stage was set for comic opera, the
treaty with the United States was part of the plot, and several acts had
already been played, when Bismarck suddenly injected a tragic element.

In 1884, at the time when the German statesman began to see the vision
of a Teutonic world empire and went about seeking places in the sun,
the German consul in Samoa, by agreement with King Malietoa, raised the
German flag over the royal hut, with a significance which was all too
obvious. In 1886 the American consul countered this move by proclaiming
a United States protectorate. The German consul then first pressed home
a quarrel with the native king at a time opportunely coinciding with the
arrival of a German warship, the Adler; he subsequently deposed him and
put up Tamasese in his stead. The apparently more legitimate successor,
Mataafa, roused most of the population under his leadership. The Adler
steamed about the islands shelling Mataafa villages, and the American
consul steamed after him, putting his launch between the Adler and the
shore. In the course of these events, on December 18, 1888, Mataafa
ambushed a German landing party and killed fifty of its members.

German public opinion thereupon vociferously demanded a punishment which
would establish the place of Germany as a colonial power in the Pacific.
Great Britain, however, was not disposed to give her growing rival a
free hand. The United States was appealed to under the Treaty of 1878,
and American sentiment determined to protect the Samoans in their heroic
fight for self-government. All three nations involved sent warships to
Apia, and through the early spring of 1889 their chancelleries and the
press were prepared to hear momentarily that some one's temper had
given way in the tropic heat and that blood had been shed--with what
consequences on the other side of the globe no man could tell.

Very different, however, was the news that finally limped in, for there
was no cable. On March 16, 1889, a hurricane had swept the islands,
wrecking all but one of the warships. The common distress had brought
about cooperation among all parties. Tales of mutual help and mutual
praise of natives and the three nations filled the dispatches. The play
turned out to be a comedy after all. Yet difficulties remained which
could be met only by joint action. A commission of the three nations
therefore was arranged to meet in Berlin. The United States insisted on
native government; Germany, on foreign control. Finally they agreed to
a compromise in the form of a General Act, to which Samoa consented.
The native government was retained, but the control was given to a Chief
Justice and a President of the Municipal Council of Apia, who were to
be foreigners chosen by the three powers. Their relative authority is
indicated by the fact that the king was to receive $1800 a year, the
Chief Justice, $6000, and the President, $5000.

Small as was the immediate stake, this little episode was remarkably
significant of the trend of American development. Begun under Grant and
concluded under Blaine and Harrison, the policy of the United States
was the creation of no one mind or party nor did it accord with American
traditions. Encountering European powers in the Pacific, with no
apparent hesitation though without any general intent, the United States
entered into cooperative agreements with them relating to the native
governments which it would never have thought proper or possible in
other parts of the world. The United States seemed to be evolving a new
policy for the protection of its interests in the Pacific. This first
clash with the rising colonial power of Germany has an added interest
because it revealed a fundamental similarity in colonial policy between
the United States and Great Britain, even though they were prone to
quarrel when adjusting Anglo-American relations.

While the Samoan affair seemed an accidental happening, there was taking
shape in the Pacific another episode which had a longer history and was
more significant of the expansion of American interests in that ocean.
Indeed, with the Pacific coast line of the United States, with the
superb harbors of San Francisco, Portland, and Puget Sound, and with
Alaska stretching its finger tips almost to Asia, even Blaine could not
resist the lure of the East, though he endeavored to reconcile American
traditions of isolation with oceanic expansion. Of all the Pacific
archipelagoes, the Hawaiian Islands lie nearest to the shores of the
United States. Although they had been discovered to the European world
by the great English explorer, Captain Cook, their intercourse had, for
geographic reasons, always been chiefly with the United States. Whalers
continually resorted to them for supplies. Their natives shipped on
American vessels and came in numbers to California in early gold-mining
days. American missionaries attained their most striking success in the
Hawaiian Islands and not only converted the majority of the natives but
assisted the successive kings in their government. The descendants
of these missionaries continued to live on the islands and became the
nucleus of a white population which waxed rich and powerful by the
abundant production of sugar cane on that volcanic soil.

In view of this tangible evidence of intimacy on the part of the United
States with the Hawaiian Islands, Webster in 1842 brought them within
the scope of the Monroe Doctrine by declaring that European powers must
not interfere with their government. Marcy, Secretary of State, framed
a treaty of annexation in 1853, but the Hawaiian Government withdrew its
assent. Twenty years later Secretary Fish wrote: "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
persons in the country who question the policy of any insular
acquisition, perhaps even any extension of territorial limits, there are
also those of influence and 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."

All immediate action, however, was confined to a specially intimate
treaty of reciprocity which was signed in 1875, and which secured
a substantial American domination in commerce. When Blaine became
Secretary of State in 1881, he was, or at least he affected to be,
seriously alarmed at the possibility of foreign influence in Hawaiian
affairs, particularly on the part of Great Britain. The native
population was declining, and should it continue to diminish, he
believed that the United States must annex the islands. "Throughout the
continent, north and south," he wrote, "wherever a foothold is found
for American enterprise, it is quickly occupied, and the 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 enterprise even in mid-ocean." As the feeling
grew in the United States that these islands really belonged to the
American continent, Blaine even invited Hawaii to send representatives
to the Pan-American Congress of 1889. When he again became Secretary
of State, he was prepared to give indirect support at least to American
interests, for the new queen, Liliuokalani, was supposed to be under
British influence. On the arrival of a British gunboat in Honolulu, J.
L. Stevens, the American Minister, went so far as to write on February
8, 1892: "At this time there seems to be no immediate prospect of its
being safe to have the harbor of Honolulu left without an American
vessel of war."

Revolution was, indeed, impending in Hawaii. On January 14, 1893, the
Queen abolished the later constitution under which the Americans had
exercised great power, and in its place she proclaimed the restoration
of the old constitution which established an absolutism modified
by native home rule. At two o'clock on the afternoon of the 16th of
January, the resident Americans organized a committee of safety; at
half-past four United States marines landed at the call of Stevens. The
Queen was thereupon deposed, a provisional government was organized, and
at its request Stevens assumed for the United States the "protection"
of the islands. Without delay, John W. Foster, who had just succeeded
Blaine as Secretary of State, drew up a treaty of annexation, which he
immediately submitted to the Senate.

On March 4, 1893, Cleveland became President for the second time. He
at once withdrew the treaty and appointed James H. Blount special
commissioner to investigate the facts of the revolt. While the report
of Commissioner Blount did not, indeed, convict Stevens of conspiring to
bring about the uprising, it left the impression that the revolt would
not have taken place and certainly could not have succeeded except for
the presence of the United States marines and the support of the
United States Minister. Cleveland recalled Stevens and the marines, and
requested the provisional government to restore the Queen. This Sanford
Ballard Dole, the President of the new republic, refused to do, on the
contention that President Cleveland had no right to interfere in the
domestic affairs of Hawaii. On the legality or propriety of Stevens's
conduct, opinion in Congress was divided; but with regard to Dole's
contention, both the Senate and the House were agreed that the islands
should maintain their own domestic government without interference from
the United States. Thus left to themselves, the Americans in Hawaii
bided their time until public opinion in the United States should prove
more favorable to annexation.

CHAPTER VI. Venezuela

Probably no President ever received so much personal abuse in his own
day as did Grover Cleveland. In time, however, his sterling integrity
and fundamental courage, his firm grasp of the higher administrative
duties of his office, won the approval of his countrymen, and a
repentant public sentiment has possibly gone too far in the other
direction of acclaiming his statesmanship. Unlike Blaine, Cleveland
thought soundly and consistently; but he was more obstinate, his vision
was often narrower, and he was notably lacking both in constructive
power and in tact, particularly in foreign relations. In his first
Administration, through his Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard,
Cleveland had negotiated fairly amicably with Great Britain, and when
he failed to secure the Senate's assent to a treaty on the irritating
question of the northeastern fisheries, he arranged a modus vivendi
which served for many years. In American affairs he opposed not only
the annexation of Hawaii but also the development of the spirit of
Pan-Americanism. He was, however, no more disposed than was Blaine to
permit infractions of that negative side of the Monroe Doctrine which
forbade European interference in America. His second Administration
brought to the forefront of world diplomacy an issue involving this
traditional principle.

The only European possession in South America at this time was Guiana,
fronting on the Atlantic north of Brazil and divided among France,
Holland, and Great Britain. Beyond British Guiana, the westernmost
division, lay Venezuela. Between the two stretched a vast tract of
unoccupied tropical jungle. Somewhere there must have been a boundary,
but where, no man could tell. The extreme claim of Great Britain would
have given her command of the mouth of the Orinoco, while that of
Venezuela would practically have eliminated British Guiana. Efforts to
settle this long-standing dispute were unavailing. Venezuela had from
time to time suggested arbitration but wished to throw the whole area
into court. Great Britain insisted upon reserving a minimum territory
and would submit to judicial decision only the land west of what
was known as the Schomburgh line of 1840. As early as 1876 Venezuela
appealed to the United States, "the most powerful and oldest of the
Republics of the new continent," for its "powerful moral support
in disputes with European nations." Several times the United States
proffered its good offices to Great Britain, but to no effect. The
satisfactory settlement of the question grew more difficult as time went
on, particularly after the discovery of gold in the disputed region had
given a new impulse to occupation.

President Cleveland took a serious view of this controversy because it
seemed to involve more than a boundary dispute. To his mind it called
into question the portion of Monroe's message which, in 1823, stated
that "the American continents... are henceforth not to be considered as
subjects for future colonization by any European powers." According
to this dictum, boundaries existed between all nations and colonies of
America; the problem was merely to find these boundaries. If a European
power refused to submit such a question to judicial decision, the
inference must be made that it was seeking to extend its boundaries.
In December, 1894, Cleveland expressed to Congress his hope that an
arbitration would be arranged and instructed his Secretary of State to
present vigorously to Great Britain the view of the United States.

Richard Olney of Boston, a lawyer of exceptional ability and of
the highest professional standing, was then Secretary of State. His
Venezuela dispatch, however, was one of the most undiplomatic documents
ever issued by the Department of State. He did not confine himself to
a statement of his case, wherein any amount of vigor would have been
permissible, but ran his unpracticed eye unnecessarily over the whole
field of American diplomacy. "That distance and three thousand miles of
intervening ocean make any permanent political union between a European
and an American state unnatural and inexpedient," may have been a
philosophic axiom to many in Great Britain as well as in the United
States, but it surely did not need reiteration in this state paper, and
Olney at once exposed himself to contradiction by adding the phrase,
"will hardly be denied." Entirely ignoring the sensitive pride of the
Spanish Americans and thinking only of Europe, he continued: "Today the
United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat
is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition."

The President himself did not run into any such uncalled-for
extravagance of expression, but his statement of the American position
did not thereby lose in vigor. When he had received the reply, of the
British Government refusing to recognize the interest of the United
States in the case, Cleveland addressed himself, on December 17, 1895,
to Congress. In stating the position of the Government of the United
States, he declared that to determine the true boundary line was its
right, duty, and interest. He recommended that the Government itself
appoint a commission for this purpose, and he asserted that this line,
when found, must be maintained as the lawful boundary. Should Great
Britain continue to exercise jurisdiction beyond it, the United
States must resist by every means in its power. "In making these
recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred, and
keenly realize all the consequences that may follow." Yet "there is no
calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows
a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of
national self-respect and honor beneath which axe shielded and defended
a people's safety and greatness."

Perhaps no American document relating to diplomacy ever before made so
great a stir in the world. Its unexpectedness enhanced its effect, even
in the United States, for the public had not been sufficiently aware of
the shaping of this international episode to be psychologically prepared
for the imminence of war. Unlike most Anglo-American diplomacy, this
had been a long-range negotiation, with notes exchanged between the home
offices instead of personal conferences. People blenched at the thought
of war; stocks fell; the attention of the whole world was arrested. The
innumerable and intimate bonds of friendship and interest which would
thus have to be broken merely because of an insignificant jog in a
boundary remote from both the nations made war between the United States
and Great Britain seem absolutely inconceivable, until people realized
that neither country could yield without an admission of defeat both
galling to national pride and involving fundamental principles of
conduct and policy for the future.

Great Britain in particular stood amazed at Cleveland's position. The
general opinion was that peace must be maintained and that diplomats
must find a formula which would save both peace and appearances. Yet
before this public opinion could be diplomatically formulated, a new
episode shook the British sense of security. Germany again appeared as
a menace and, as in the case of Samoa, the international situation thus
produced tended to develop a realization of the kinship between Great
Britain and the United States. Early in January, 1896, the Jameson raid
into the Transvaal was defeated, and the Kaiser immediately telegraphed
his congratulations to President Krtiger. In view of the possibilities
involved in this South African situation, British public opinion
demanded that her diplomats maintain peace with the United States, with
or without the desired formula.

The British Government, however, was not inclined to act with undue
haste. It became apparent even to the most panicky that war with the
United States could not come immediately, for the American Commission of
Inquiry must first report. For a time Lord Salisbury hoped that Congress
would not support the President--a contingency which not infrequently
happened under Cleveland's Administration. On this question of foreign
relations, however, Congress stood squarely behind the President. Lord
Salisbury then toyed with the hope that the matter might be delayed
until Cleveland's term expired, in the hope he might have an opportunity
of dealing with a less strenuous successor.

In the summer of 1896, John Hay, an intimate friend of Major McKinley,
the probable Republican candidate for the presidency, was in England,
where he was a well-known figure. There he met privately Arthur J.
Balfour, representing Lord Salisbury, and Sir William Harcourt, the
leader of the Opposition. Hay convinced them that a change in the
Administration of his country would involve no retreat from the existing
American position. The British Government thereupon determined to yield
but attempted to cover its retreat by merging the question with one
of general arbitration. This proposal, however, was rejected, and Lord
Salisbury then agreed to "an equitable settlement" of the Venezuela
question by empowering the British Ambassador at Washington to begin
negotiations "either with the representative of Venezuela or with the
Government of the United States acting as the friend of Venezuela."

The achievement of the Administration consisted in forcing Great Britain
to recognize the interest of the United States in the dispute with
Venezuela, on the ground that Venezuela was one of the nations of the
Western Hemisphere. This concession practically involved recognition of
the interest of the United States in case of future disputes with other
American powers. The arbitration treaty thus arranged between Great
Britain and Venezuela under the auspices of the United States submitted
the whole disputed area to judicial decision but adopted the rule that
fifty years of occupation should give a sufficient title for possession.
The arbitration tribunal, which met in Paris in 1899, decided on a
division of the disputed territory but found that the claim of Great
Britain was, on the whole, more nearly correct than that of Venezuela.

Cleveland's startling and unconventional method of dealing with this
controversy has been explained by all kinds of conjectures. For example,
it has been charged that his message was the product of a fishing
trip on which whisky flowed too freely; on the other hand, it has been
asserted that the message was an astute political play for the thunder
of patriotic applause. More seriously, Cleveland has been charged by one
set of critics with bluffing, and by another with recklessly running
the risk of war on a trivial provocation. The charge of bluffing comes
nearer the fact, for President Cleveland probably had never a moment's
doubt that the forces making for peace between the two nations would be
victorious. If he may be said to have thrown a bomb, he certainly had
attached a safety valve to it, for the investigation which he proposed
could not but give time for the passions produced by his message to
cool. It is interesting to note in passing that delay for investigation
was a device which that other great Democrat, William Jennings Bryan,
Cleveland's greatest political enemy, sought, during his short term as
Secretary of State under President Wilson, to make universal in a series
of arbitration treaties--treaties which now bind the United States and
many other countries, how tightly no man can tell.

While, however, Cleveland's action was based rather on a belief in peace
than on an expectation of war, it cannot be dismissed as merely a
bluff. Not only was he convinced that the principle involved was worth
establishing whatever the cost might be, but he was certain that the
method he employed was the only one which could succeed, for in no other
way was it possible to wake England to a realization of the fact that
the United States was full-grown and imbued with a new consciousness of
its strength. So far was Cleveland's message from provoking war that it
caused the people of Great Britain vitally to realize for the first time
the importance of friendship with the United States. It marks a change
in their attitude toward things American which found expression not only
in diplomacy, but in various other ways, and which strikingly revealed
itself in the international politics of the next few years. Not that
hostility was converted into affection, but a former condescension gave
way to an appreciative friendliness towards the people of the United
States.

The reaction in America was somewhat different. Cleveland had united the
country upon a matter of foreign policy, not completely, it is true,
but to a greater degree than Blaine had ever succeeded in doing. More
important than this unity of feeling throughout the land, however,
was the development of a spirit of inquiry among the people. Suddenly
confronted by changes of policy that might bring wealth or poverty, life
or death, the American people began to take the foreign relations of
the United States more seriously than they had since the days of the
Napoleonic wars. Yet it is not surprising that when the Venezuela
difficulty had been settled and Secretary Olney and Sir Julian
Pauncefote, the British Ambassador, had concluded a general treaty of
arbitration, the Senate should have rejected it, for the lesson that
caution was necessary in international affairs had been driven home.
Time was needed for the new generation to formulate its foreign policy.

CHAPTER VII. The Outbreak Of The War With Spain

Before the nineteenth century ended, the Samoan, Hawaiian, and
Venezuelan episodes had done much to quicken a national consciousness in
the people of the United States and at the same time to break down their
sense of isolation from the rest of the world. Commerce and trade were
also important factors in overcoming this traditional isolation. Not
only was American trade growing, but it was changing in character.
Argentina was beginning to compete with the United States in exporting
wheat and meat, while American manufacturers were reaching the point
where they were anxious for foreign markets in which they felt they
could compete with the products of Great Britain and Germany.

In a thousand ways and without any loss of vigor the sense of American
nationality was expressing itself. The study of American history was
introduced into the lower schools, and a new group of historians began
scientifically to investigate whence the American people had come and
what they really were. In England, such popular movements find instant
expression in literature; in the United States they take the form of
societies. Innumerable patriotic organizations such as the "Daughters
of the American Revolution" and a host of others, sought to trace out
American genealogy and to perpetuate the memory of American military and
naval achievements. Respect for the American flag was taught in schools,
and the question was debated as to whether its use in comic opera
indicated respect or insult. This new nationalism was unlike the
expansionist movement of the fifties in that it laid no particular
stress upon the incorporation of the neighboring republics by a process
of federation. On the whole, the people had lost their faith in the
assimilating influence of republican institutions and did not desire to
annex alien territory and races. They were now more concerned with the
consolidation of their own country and with its place in the world. Nor
were they as neglectful as their fathers had been of the material means
by which to accomplish their somewhat indefinite purposes.

The reconstruction of the American Navy, which had attained such
magnitude and played so important a part in the Civil War but which
had been allowed to sink into the merest insignificance, was begun by
William E. Chandler, the Secretary of the Navy under President Arthur.
William C. Whitney, his successor under President Cleveland, continued
the work with energy. Captain Alfred T. Mahan began in 1883 to publish
that series of studies in naval history which won him world-wide
recognition and did so much to revolutionize prevailing conceptions of
naval strategy. A Naval War College was established in 1884, at Newport,
Rhode Island, where naval officers could continue the studies which they
had begun at Annapolis.

The total neglect of the army was not entirely the result of
indifference. The experience with volunteers in the Civil War had given
almost universal confidence that the American people could constitute
themselves an army at will. The presence of several heroes of that war
in succession in the position of commander-in-chief of the army had
served to diffuse a sense of security among the people. Here and there
military drill was introduced in school and college, but the regular
army attracted none of the romantic interest that clung about the navy,
and the militia was almost totally neglected. Individual officers, such
as young Lieutenant Tasker Bliss, began to study the new technique of
warfare which was to make fighting on land as different from that of the
wars of Napoleon as naval warfare was different from that of the time of
Nelson. Yet in spite of obviously changing conditions, no provision
was made for the encouragement of young army officers in advanced and
up-to-date Studies. While their contemporaries in other professions were
adding graduate training to the general education which a college gave,
the graduates of West Point were considered to have made themselves in
four years sufficiently proficient for all the purposes of warfare.

By the middle nineties thoughtful students of contemporary movements
were aware that a new epoch in national history was approaching. What
form this national development would take was, however, still uncertain,
and some great event was obviously required to fix its character.
Blaine's Pan-Americanism had proved insufficient and, though the baiting
of Great Britain was welcome to a vociferous minority, the forces making
for peace were stronger than those in favor of war. Whatever differences
there were did not reach to fundamentals but were rather in the nature
of legal disputes between neighbors whom a real emergency would quickly
bring to the assistance of each other. A crisis involving interest,
propinquity, and sentiment, was needed to shake the nation into an
activity which would clear its views.

At the very time of the Venezuela difficulty, such a crisis was taking
shape in the Caribbean. Cuba had always been an object of immediate
concern to the United States. The statesmen of the Jeffersonian period
all looked to its eventually becoming part of American territory. Three
quarters of a century before, when the revolt of the Spanish colonies
had halted on the shores of the mainland, leaving the rich island of
Cuba untouched, John Quincy Adams, on April 28, 1823, in a lengthy and
long-considered dispatch to Mr. Nelson, the American Minister to Spain,
asserted that the United States could not consent to the passing of Cuba
from the flag of Spain to that of any other European power, that under
existing conditions Cuba was considered safer in the hands of Spain than
in those of the revolutionaries, and that the United States stood for
the maintenance of the status quo, with the expectation that Cuba would
ultimately become American territory.

By the late forties and the fifties, however, the times had changed,
and American policy had changed with them. It was becoming more and more
evident that, although no real revolution had as yet broken out, the
"Pearl of the Antilles" was bound to Spain by compulsion rather than by
love. In the United States there was a general feeling that the time had
at last come to realize the vision of Jefferson and Adams and to annex
Cuba. But the complications of the slavery question prevented immediate
annexation. As a slave colony which might become a slave state, the
South wanted Cuba, but the majority in the North did not.

After the Civil War in the United States was over, revolution at length
flared forth in 1868, from end to end of the island. Sympathy with the
Cubans was widespread in the United States. The hand of the Government,
however, was stayed by recent history. Americans felt keenly the right
of governments to exert their full strength to put down rebellion, for
they themselves were prosecuting against Great Britain a case based on
what they contended was her too lax enforcement of her obligations to
the American Government and on the assistance which she had given to
the South. The great issue determined the lesser, and for ten years the
United States watched the Cuban revolution without taking part in it,
but not, however, without protest and remonstrance. Claiming special
rights as a close and necessarily interested neighbor, the United States
constantly made suggestions as to the manner of the contest and its
settlement. Some of these Spain grudgingly allowed, and it was in part
by American insistence that slavery was finally abolished in the island.
Further internal reform, however, was not the wish and was perhaps
beyond the power of Spain. Although the revolution was seemingly brought
to a close in 1878, its embers continued to smolder for nearly a score
of years until in 1895 they again burst into flame.

War in Cuba could not help affecting in a very intimate way the people
of the United States. They bought much the greater part of the chief
Cuban crops, sugar and tobacco. American capital had been invested in
the island, particularly in plantations. For years Cubans of liberal
tendencies had sent their sons to be educated in the United States, very
many of whom had been naturalized before returning home. Cuba was but
ninety miles from Florida, and much of our coastwise shipping passed
in sight of the island. The people of the United States were aroused
to sympathy and to a desire to be of assistance when they saw that the
Cubans, so near geographically and so bound to them by many commercial
ties, were engaged against a foreign monarchy in a struggle for
freedom and a republican form of government. Ethan Allen headed a
Cuban committee in New York and by his historic name associated the new
revolution with the memory of the American struggle for freedom. The
Cuban flag was displayed in the United States, Cuban bonds were sold,
and volunteers and arms were sent to the aid of the insurgents.

Owing to the nature of the country and the character of the people, a
Cuban revolution had its peculiarities. The island is a very long and
rugged mountain chain surrounded by fertile, cultivated plains. The
insurgents from their mountain refuges spied out the land, pounced upon
unprotected spots, burned crops and sugar mills, and were off before
troops could arrive. The portion of the population in revolt at any
particular time was rarely large. Many were insurgents one week and
peaceful citizens the next. The fact that the majority of the population
sympathized with the insurgents enabled the latter to melt into the
landscape without leaving a sign. A provisional government hurried
on mule-back from place to place. The Spanish Government, contrary to
custom, acted at this time with some energy: it put two hundred thousand
soldiers into the island; it raised large levies of loyal Cubans; it was
almost always victorious; yet the revolution would not down. Martinez
Campos, the "Pacificator" of the first revolution, was this time unable
to protect the plains. In 1896 he was replaced by General Weyler, who
undertook a new system. He started to corral the insurgents by a chain
of blockhouses and barbed wire fences from ocean to sea--the first
completely guarded cross-country line since the frontier walls of the
Roman Empire in Europe and the Great Wall of China in Asia. He then
proceeded to starve out the insurgents by destroying all the food in the
areas to which they were confined. As the revolutionists lived largely
on the pillage of plantations in their neighborhood, this policy
involved the destruction of the crops of the loyal as well as of the
disloyal, of Americans as well as of Cubans. The population of the
devastated plantations was gathered into reconcentrado camps where,
penned promiscuously into small reservations, they were entirely
dependent upon a Government which was poor in supplies and as careless
of sanitation as it was of humanity. The camps became pest-holes,
spreading contagion to all regions having intercourse with Cuba, and in
vain the interned victims were crying aloud for succor.

This new policy of disregard for property and life deeply involved
American interests and sensibilities. The State Department maintained
that Spain was responsible for the destruction of American property
by insurgents. This Spain denied, for, while she never officially
recognized the insurgents as belligerents, the insurrection had passed
beyond her control. This was, indeed, the position which the Spanish
Treaty Claims Commission subsequently took in ruling that to establish a
claim it would be necessary to show that the destruction of property was
the consequence of negligence upon the part of Spanish authorities or
of military orders. Of other serious grievances there was no doubt.
American citizens were imprisoned, interned in reconcentrado camps, and
otherwise maltreated. The nationality of American sufferers was in some
cases disputed, and the necessity of dealing with each of these doubtful
cases by the slow and roundabout method of complaint to Madrid, which
referred matters back to Havana, which reported to Madrid, served but
to add irritation to delay. American resentment, too, was fired by
the sufferings of the Cubans themselves as much as by the losses and
difficulties of American citizens.

One change of extreme importance had taken place since the Cuban revolt
of 1868-78. This was the development of the modern American newspaper.
It was no longer possible for the people at large to remain ignorant
of what was taking place at their very doors. Correspondents braved the
yellow fever and imprisonment in order to furnish the last details of
each new horror. Foremost in this work were William Randolph Hearst, who
made new records of sensationalism in his papers, particularly in the
New York Journal, and Joseph Pulitzer, proprietor of the New York World.
Hearst is reported to have said that it cost him three millions to
bring on the Spanish American War. The net result of all this newspaper
activity was that it became impossible for the American people to remain
in happy ignorance of what was going on in the world. Their reaction to
the facts was their own.

President Cleveland modeled his policy upon that of Grant and Grant's
Secretary, Hamilton Fish. He did not recognize the independence of the
Cuban republic, for that would have meant immediate war with Spain; nor
did he recognize even its belligerency. Public men in the United States
were still convinced that Great Britain had erred in recognizing the
belligerency of the Southern Confederacy, and consistency of foreign
policy demanded that the Government should not accord recognition to a
Government without a navy, a capital, or fixed territory. This decision
made it particularly difficult for the President to perform his
acknowledged duty to Spain, of preventing aid being sent from the
United States to the insurgents. He issued the proper proclamations, and
American officials were reasonably diligent, it is true, but without any
of the special powers which would have resulted from a recognized state
of war they were unable to prevent a leakage of supplies. As a result
General Weyler had some ground for saying, though with characteristic
Spanish extravagance, that it was American aid which gave life to the
revolt.

President Cleveland energetically pressed all cases involving American
rights; he offered mediation; he remonstrated against the cruelty
of Weyler's methods; he pointed out that the United States could not
forever allow an island so near and so closely related to be in flames
without intervention. Spain, however, assumed a rather lofty tone,
and Cleveland was able to accomplish nothing. Senator Lodge and other
Republicans violently attacked his policy as procrastinating, and the
nation as a whole looked forward with interest to the approaching change
in administration.

William McKinley, who became President on March 4, 1897, was not
actively interested in foreign affairs. This he illustrated in a
striking way by appointing as Secretary of State John Sherman of Ohio,
a man of undoubtedly high ability but one whose whole reputation rested
upon his financial leadership, and who now, at the age of seventy-four,
was known to be incapacitated for vigorous action. To the very moment of
crisis, McKinley was opposed to a war with Spain; he was opposed to the
form of the declaration of war and he was opposed to the terms of
peace which ended the war. Emphatically not a leader, he was, however,
unsurpassed in his day as a reader of public opinion, and he believed
his function to be that of interpreting the national mind. Nor did
he yield his opinion in a grudging manner. He grasped broadly the
consequences of each new position which the public assumed, and he was a
master at securing harmonious cooperation for a desired end.

The platform of the Republican party had declared: "The Government
of Spain having lost control of Cuba, and being unable to protect the
property or lives of resident American citizens, or to comply with its
treaty obligations, we believe that the Government of the United States
should actively use its influence and good offices to restore peace and
give independence to the island." With this mandate, McKinley sought to
free Cuba, absolutely or practically, while at the same time maintaining
peace with Spain. On June 26, 1897, Secretary Sherman sent a note to
the Spanish Minister, protesting against the Spanish methods of war and
asserting that "the inclusion of a thousand or more of our own citizens
among the victims of this policy" gives "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 obligation 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, conducted almost
within sight of our shores and grievously affecting 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."

Negotiations between the United States and Spain have always been
peculiarly irritating, owing to temperamental differences between the
two peoples. McKinley, however, had in mind a program for which there
was some hope of success. He was willing to agree to some form of words
which would leave Spain in titular possession of the island, thereby
making a concession to Spanish pride, for he knew that Spain was always
more loath to surrender the form than the substance. This hope of the
President was strengthened, towards the end of 1897, by a dramatic
incident in the political life of Spain. On the 8th of August, the
Spanish Prime Minister, the Conservative Antonio Canovas del Castillo,
was assassinated, and was succeeded on the 4th of October by the
Liberal, Praxedes Mateo Sagasta.

The new Spanish Government listened to American demands and made large
promises of amelioration of conditions in Cuba. General Blanco was
substituted for General Weyler, whose cruelty had made him known in the
American press as "the Butcher"; it was announced that the reconcentrado
camps would be broken up; and the Queen Regent decreed the legislative
autonomy of Cuba. Arrangements had been made for the handling of minor
disputes directly with the Governor-General of Cuba through the American
Consul General at Havana, General Fitzhugh Lee. On December 6, 1897,
McKinley, in his annual message to Congress, counseled patience.
Convinced of the good intentions of the new Spanish Government, he
sought to induce American public sentiment to allow it time to act. He
continued nevertheless to urge upon Spain the fact that in order to be
effective action must be prompt.

Public sentiment against Spain grew every day stronger in the United
States and was given startling impulse in February, 1898, by two of
those critical incidents which are almost sure to occur when general
causes are potent enough to produce a white heat of popular feeling. The
Spanish Minister in the United States, Senor Dupuy de Lome, had aroused
the suspicion, during his summer residence on the north shore of