The Transformation of American Foreign Relations 1865–1900

423 Pages·1976·19.488 MB·english

by  Charles S. Campbell

THE TRANSFORMATION
OF AMERICAN
FOREIGN RELATIONS,
*
1865 1900
By CHARLES S. CAMPBELL
ILLUSTRk!ED
'
tfj
1817
H A R PER & R 0 W, P U B L I S H E R S .
New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London
l
The
New American Nation Series
EDITED BY
HENRY STEE.LE COM MAGER
AND
RICHARD B. MORRIS
We are grateful to Prentice-Hall, Inc., for permission to use the following maps: The
maps on pp. 125 and 300 are from A History of United States Foreign Policy, by Julius
W. Pratt, 3rd edition, copyright© 1965, 1972, by Prentice-Hall, Inc. The map on
p. 196 is from A Diplomatic History of the American People, by Thomas A. Bailey, copy
right 1940, I946, 1950 © 1955, 1958, 1969, 1974 by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
TilE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN FOREIGN RELATIONS, 1865-1900. Copyright @
1976 by Charles S. Campbell. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of
America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East
53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. Published simultaneously in Canada by Fitzhenry
& Whiteside Limited, Toronto.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Campbell, Charles Soutter, date
The transformation of American foreign relations,
1865-1900.
(The New American Nation series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
l. United States-Foreign relations-1865-1898.
I. Title.
E661.7.C36 1976 327.73 75-23877
ISBN 0-06-010618-2
76 77 78 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
FoR PATRICK AND FAMILY
Contents
EDITORS' INTRODUCTION Xlll
PREFACE xvn
1. POSTWAR FRUSTRATIONS 1
2. THE QUASI SETTLEMENT WITH
GREAT BRITAIN 25
3· A CARIBBEAN NAVAL BASE AND AN ISTHMIAN
CANAL: THE 1870s AND 1880s 50
4· COMMITMENTS IN HAWAII AND SAMOA 67
5· COMMERCIAL EXPANSION IN THE 1880s 84
6. THE FAR EAST 107
7. ANGLO-AMERICAN-CANADIAN
CoNTROVERSIES IN THE NoRTHEASTERN
FISHERIES AND THE BERING SEA 122
8. CURRENTS OF THE 1890s AND TERRITORIAL
EXPANSION 140
g. U:li!JINGO jiM 161
10. THE HAWAIIAN REVOLUTION OF 1893 AND
ITS AFTERMATH 177
VII
Vlll CONTENTS
1 1. THE VENEZUELA BOUNDARY DISPUTE: A
TURNING POINT IN ANGLO-AMERICAN
RELATIONS 194
12. STALEMATE: AN AMERICAN ISTHMIAN CANAL
AND HAWAII 222
13. CHRONIC REBELLION IN CUBA 239
14· WAR WITH SPAIN 258
15. FAIT ACCOMPLI AT MANILA BAY 279
16. TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 296
17. ANGLO-AMERICAN AMITY 319
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY 339
INDEX 379
\~--~-~------~--·----·~--
Illustrations
These illustrations, grouped in a separate section,
will be found following page 14 0.
1. Secretary of State William H. Seward
2. Senator Charles Sumner
3. President Ulysses S. Grant
4. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish
5. Prime Minister William E. Gladstone
6. Sir John A. Macdonald, Prime Minister of Canada
7. Foreign Secretary Lord Granville
8. The Geneva Conference-the American Arbitrator and Coun
sel
9. Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice and British Arbi-
trator at Geneva
10. President and Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes
11. The Projected Nicaragua Canal
12. The United States Coaling Station, Pago Pago, with King
Tamasese (left) and King Malietoa
13. President James A. Garfield
14. Secretary of State James G. Blaine
15. President Chester A. Arthur
16. President Grover Cleveland
17. Secretary of State Frederick T. Frelinghuysen
18. John W. Foster, Minister to Mexico and Spain and, later, Sec
retary of State
ix
X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
19. Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard
20. Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico
21. Commodore Robert W. Shufeldt
22. Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury
23. Senator George Frisbie Hc,>ar
24. Captain Alfred T. Mahan
25. Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy
26. President Benjamin Harrison
27. Sir Julian Pauncefote, British Minister and then Arilbassador
to the United States
28. Secretary of State Richard Olney
29. John Sherman, Senator and then Secretary of State
30. Senator John T. Morgan
31. Thomas B. Reed, Speaker of the House of Representatives
32. Theodore Roosevelt in his new uniform
33. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge
34. President William McKinley
35. Secretary of State John Hay
36. Senator Redfield Proctor
37. The Battle of Manila Bay
38. Jules Cambon, French Minister to the United States, signs the
armistice with Spain on August 12, 1898
39. William W. Rockhill, John Hay's Adviser on Far Eastern Pol
Icy
40. Rear Admiral George Dewey in Manila
CARTOONS AND MAPS XI
CARTOONS
"Hoity-Toity!!!" p. 10
The "Men of Business" p. 36
Our President Puts His Foot Down and the British Lion
Will Have to Wriggle Out p. 40
The Cut Direct p. 130
The Poor Victim! p. 137
The Sad State of the U.S. Navy p. 157
A Fair Exchange p. 167
A Strategical Standpoint p. 183
A Simple Definition p. 199
Not One Cent for Bunkum-Fifty Millions for Defence
p. 254
The Prize Brand p. 283
MAPS
The Bering Sea and Pribilof Islands p. 125
The Venezuela-British Guiana Boundary Dispute p. 196
U.S. Expansion, 1867-1899 p. 300
Editors' Introduction
T HE years between the Civil War and the war with Spain wit
nessed a major turning point in American foreign policy. Those
years found the central American traditions of missions and an
ticolonialism transformed beyond recognition. The first of these
traditions had already been drastically altered, if not dissolved, in
the acid bath of Manifest Destiny. Long before the Civil War many
Americans had avowed the doctrine that the whole continent of
North America, stretching across to the Pacific, belonged by right
to the American people, a reality achieved by the annexation of
Texas and the war with Mexico.
The second concept, a vigorous anticolonialism, had been exem
plified both in the attitude of the Founding Fathers toward other
people's empires as well as in that of Congress, which had consis
tently provided for the admission of newly acquired territory as
states of the Union on a footing of equality with the original ones.
In the years after 1865, however, an aggressive expansionism
viewed the Caribbean and the Pacific as American lakes and, toward
the end of the century, the acquisition by the United States of
overseas possessions inhabited by people of alien cultures precipi
tated the issue of colonialism.
In this probing anlysis of America's diplomacy in the years 1865
. to 1900, Dr. Campbell has convincingly demonstrated how deeply
· rooted was the anticolonial tradition, how opponents of expansion
ism came within an inch of blocking the purchase of Alaska, how all
the attempts in the 1870s and 1880s to establish a naval base in the
xiii