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Jefferson and his Colleagues, A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty
Chapter XIV. Framing an American Policy
by Johnson, Allen
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The decline and fall of the Spanish Empire does not challenge the
imagination like the decline and fall of that other Empire with
which alone it can be compared, possibly because no Gibbon has
chronicled its greatness. Yet its dissolution affected profoundly
the history of three continents. While the Floridas were slipping
from the grasp of Spain, the provinces to the south were
wrenching themselves loose, with protestations which penetrated
to European chancelries as well as to American legislative halls.
To Czar Alexander and Prince Metternich, sponsors for the Holy
Alliance and preservers of the peace of Europe, these
declarations of independence contained the same insidious
philosophy of revolution which they had pledged themselves
everywhere to combat. To simple American minds, the familiar
words liberty and independence in the mouths of South American
patriots meant what they had to their own grandsires, struggling
to throw off the shackles of British imperial control. Neither
Europe nor America, however, knew the actual conditions in these
newborn republics below the equator; and both governed their
conduct by their prepossessions.
To the typically American mind of Henry Clay, now untrammeled by
any sense of responsibility, for he was a free lance in the House
of Representatives once more, the emancipation of South America
was a thrilling and sublime spectacle--"the glorious spectacle of
eighteen millions of people struggling to burst their chains and
to be free." In a memorable speech in 1818 he had expressed the
firm conviction that there could be but one outcome to this
struggle. Independent these South American states would be.
Equally clear to his mind was their political destiny. Whatever
their forms of government, they would be animated by an American
feeling and guided by an American policy. "They will obey the
laws of the system of the new world, of which they will compose a
part, in contradistinction to that of Europe." To this struggle
and to this destiny the United States could not remain
indifferent. He would not have the Administration depart from its
policy of strict and impartial neutrality but he would urge the
expediency--nay, the justice--of recognizing established
governments in Spanish America. Such recognition was not a breach
of neutrality, for it did not imply material aid in the wars of
liberation but only the moral sympathy of a great free people for
their southern brethren.
Contrasted with Clay's glowing enthusiasm, the attitude of the
Administration, directed by the prudent Secretary of State,
seemed cold, calculating, and rigidly conventional. For his part,
Adams could see little resemblance between these revolutions in
South America and that of 1776. Certainly it had never been
disgraced by such acts of buccaneering and piracy as were of
everyday occurrence in South American waters. The United States
had contended for civil rights and then for independence; in
South America civil rights had been ignored by all parties. He
could discern neither unity of cause nor unity of effort in the
confused history of recent struggles in South America; and until
orderly government was achieved, with due regard to fundamental
civil rights, he would not have the United States swerve in the
slightest degree from the path of strict neutrality. Mr. Clay, he
observed in his diary, had "mounted his South American great
horse . . . to control or overthrow the executive."
President Monroe, however, was more impressionable, more
responsive to popular opinion, and at this moment (as the
presidential year approached) more desirous to placate the
opposition. He agreed with Adams that the moment had not come
when the United States alone might safely recognize the South
American states, but he believed that concerted action by the
United States and Great Britain might win recognition without
wounding the sensibilities of Spain. The time was surely not far
distant when Spain would welcome recognition as a relief from an
impoverishing and hopeless war. Meanwhile the President coupled
professions of neutrality and expressions of sympathy for the
revolutionists in every message to Congress.
The temporizing policy of the Administration aroused Clay to
another impassioned plea for those southern brethren whose
hearts--despite all rebuffs from the Department of State--still
turned toward the United States. "We should become the center of
a system which would constitute the rallying point of human
freedom against the despotism of the Old World . . . . Why not
proceed to act on our own responsibility and recognize these
governments as independent, instead of taking the lead of the
Holy Alliance in a course which jeopardizes the happiness of
unborn millions?" He deprecated this deference to foreign powers.
"If Lord Castlereagh says we may recognize, we do; if not, we do
not . . . . Our institutions now make us free; but how long shall
we continue so, if we mold our opinions on those of Europe? Let
us break these commercial and political fetters; let us no longer
watch the nod of any European politician; let us become real and
true Americans, and place ourselves at the head of the American
system."
The question of recognition was thus thrust into the foreground
of discussion at a most inopportune time. The Florida treaty had
not yet been ratified, for reasons best known to His Majesty the
King of Spain, and the new Spanish Minister, General Vives, had
just arrived in the United States to ask for certain
explanations. The Administration had every reason at this moment
to wish to avoid further causes of irritation to Spanish pride.
It is more than probable, indeed, that Clay was not unwilling to
embarrass the President and his Secretary of State. He still
nursed his personal grudge against the President and he did not
disguise his hostility to the treaty. What aroused his resentment
was the sacrifice of Texas for Florida. Florida would have fallen
to the United States eventually like ripened fruit, he believed.
Why, then, yield an incomparably richer and greater territory for
that which was bound to become theirs whenever the American
people wished to take it?
But what were the explanations which Vives demanded? Weary hours
spent in conference with the wily Spaniard convinced Adams that
the great obstacle to the ratification of the treaty by Spain had
been the conviction that the United States was only waiting
ratification to recognize the independence of the Spanish
colonies. Bitterly did Adams regret the advances which he had
made to Great Britain, at the instance of the President, and
still more bitterly did he deplore those paragraphs in the
President's messages which had expressed an all too ready
sympathy with the aims of the insurgents. But regrets availed
nothing and the Secretary of State had to put the best face
possible on the policy of the Administration. He told Vives in
unmistakable language that the United States could not subscribe
to "new engagements as the price of obtaining the ratification of
the old." Certainly the United States would not comply with the
Spanish demand and pledge itself "to form no relations with the
pretended governments of the revolted provinces of Spain." As for
the royal grants which De Onis had agreed to call null and void,
if His Majesty insisted upon their validity, perhaps the United
States might acquiesce for an equivalent area west of the Sabine
River. In some alarm Vives made haste to say that the King did
not insist upon the confirmation of these grants. In the end he
professed himself satisfied with Mr. Adams's explanations; he
would send a messenger to report to His Majesty and to secure
formal authorization to exchange ratifications.
Another long period of suspense followed. The Spanish Cortes did
not advise the King to accept the treaty until October; the
Senate did not reaffirm its ratification until the following
February; and it was two years to a day after the signing of the
treaty that Adams and Vives exchanged formal ratifications. Again
Adams confided to the pages of his diary, so that posterity might
read, the conviction that the hand of an Overruling Providence
was visible in this, the most important event of his life.
If, as many thought, the Administration had delayed recognition
of the South American republics in order not to offend Spanish
feelings while the Florida treaty was under consideration, it had
now no excuse for further hesitation; yet it was not until March
8, 1822, that President Monroe announced to Congress his belief
that the time had come when those provinces of Spain which had
declared their independence and were in the enjoyment of it
should be formally recognized. On the 19th of June he received
the accredited charge d'affaires of the Republic of Colombia.
The problem of recognition was not the only one which the
impending dissolution of the Spanish colonial empire left to
harass the Secretary of State. Just because Spain had such vast
territorial pretensions and held so little by actual occupation
on the North American continent, there was danger that these
shadowy claims would pass into the hands of aggressive powers
with the will and resources to aggrandize themselves. One day in
January, 1821, while Adams was awaiting the outcome of his
conferences with Vives, Stratford Canning, the British Minister,
was announced at his office. Canning came to protest against what
he understood was the decision of the United States to extend its
settlements at the mouth of the Columbia River. Adams replied
that he knew of no such determination; but he deemed it very
probable that the settlements on the Pacific coast would be
increased. Canning expressed rather ill-matured surprise at this
statement, for he conceived that such a policy would be a
palpable violation of the Convention of 1818. Without replying,
Adams rose from his seat to procure a copy of the treaty and then
read aloud the parts referring to the joint occupation of the
Oregon country. A stormy colloquy followed in which both
participants seem to have lost their tempers. Next day Canning
returned to the attack, and Adams challenged the British claim to
the mouth of the Columbia. "Why," exclaimed Canning, "do you not
know that we have a claim?" "I do not know," said Adams, "what
you claim nor what you do not claim. You claim India; you claim
Africa; you claim--" "Perhaps," said Canning, "a piece of the
moon." "No," replied Adams, "I have not heard that you claim
exclusively any part of the moon; but there is not a spot on THIS
habitable globe that I could affirm you do not claim; and there
is none which you may not claim with as much color of right as
you can have to Columbia River or its mouth."
With equal sang-froid, the Secretary of State met threatened
aggression from another quarter. In September of this same year,
the Czar issued a ukase claiming the Pacific coast as far south
as the fifty-first parallel and declaring Bering Sea closed to
the commerce of other nations. Adams promptly refused to
recognize these pretensions and declared to Baron de Tuyll, the
Russian Minister, "that we should contest the right of Russia to
ANY territorial establishment on this continent, and that we
should assume distinctly the principle that the American
continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial
establishments."[*]
[* Before Adams retired from office, he had the satisfaction of
concluding a treaty (1824) with Russia by which the Czar
abandoned his claims to exclusive jurisdiction in Bering Sea and
agreed to plant no colonies on the Pacific Coast south of 54
degrees 40 minutes.}
Not long after this interview Adams was notified by Baron Tuyll
that the Czar, in conformity with the political principles of the
allies, had determined in no case whatever to receive any agent
from the Government of the Republic of Colombia or from any other
government which owed its existence to the recent events in the
New World. Adams's first impulse was to pen a reply that would
show the inconsistency between these political principles and the
unctuous professions of Christian duty which had resounded in the
Holy Alliance; but the note which he drafted was, perhaps
fortunately, not dispatched until it had been revised by
President and Cabinet a month later, under stress of other
circumstances.
At still another focal point the interests of the United States
ran counter to the covetous desires of European powers. Cuba, the
choicest of the provinces of Spain, still remained nominally
loyal; but, should the hold of Spain upon this Pearl of the
Antilles relax, every maritime power would swoop down upon it.
The immediate danger, however, was not that revolution would here
as elsewhere sever the province from Spain, leaving it helpless
and incapable of self-support, but that France, after invading
Spain and restoring the monarchy, would also intervene in the
affairs of her provinces. The transfer of Cuba to France by the
grateful King was a possibility which haunted the dreams of
George Canning at Westminster as well as of John Quincy Adams at
Washington. The British Foreign Minister attempted to secure a
pledge from France that she would not acquire any
Spanish-American territory either by conquest or by treaty, while
the Secretary of State instructed the American Minister to Spain
not to conceal from the Spanish Government "the repugnance of the
United States to the transfer of the Island of Cuba by Spain to
any other power." Canning was equally fearful lest the United
States should occupy Cuba and he would have welcomed assurances
that it had no designs upon the island. Had he known precisely
the attitude of Adams, he would have been still more uneasy, for
Adams was perfectly sure that Cuba belonged "by the laws of
political as well as of physical gravitation" to the North
American continent, though he was not for the present ready to
assist the operation of political and physical laws.
Events were inevitably detaching Great Britain from the concert
of Europe and putting her in opposition to the policy of
intervention, both because of what it meant in Spain and what it
might mean when applied to the New World. Knowing that the United
States shared these latter apprehensions, George Canning
conceived that the two countries might join in a declaration
against any project by any European power for subjugating the
colonies of South America either on behalf or in the name of
Spain. He ventured to ask Richard Rush, American Minister at
London, what his government would say to such a proposal. For his
part he was quite willing to state publicly that he believed the
recovery of the colonies by Spain to be hopeless; that
recognition of their independence was only a question of proper
time and circumstance; that Great Britain did not aim at the
possession of any of them, though she could not be indifferent to
their transfer to any other power. "If,"said Canning, "these
opinions and feelings are, as I firmly believe them to be, common
to your government with ours, why should we hesitate mutually to
confide them to each other; and to declare them in the face of
the world?"
Why, indeed? To Rush there occurred one good and sufficient
answer, which, however, he could not make: he doubted the
disinterestedness of Great Britain. He could only reply that he
would not feel justified in assuming the responsibility for a
joint declaration unless Great Britain would first unequivocally
recognize the South American republics; and, when Canning balked
at the suggestion, he could only repeat, in as conciliatory
manner as possible, his reluctance to enter into any engagement.
Not once only but three times Canning repeated his overtures,
even urging Rush to write home for powers and instructions.
The dispatches of Rush seemed so important to President Monroe
that he sent copies of them to Jefferson and Madison, with the
query--which revealed his own attitude--whether the moment had
not arrived when the United States might safely depart from its
traditional policy and meet the proposal of the British
Government. If there was one principle which ran consistently
through the devious foreign policy of Jefferson and Madison, it
was that of political isolation from Europe. "Our first and
fundamental maxim," Jefferson wrote in reply, harking back to the
old formulas, "should be never to entangle ourselves in the
broils of Europe, our second never to suffer Europe to
intermeddle with Cis-Atlantic affairs." He then continued in this
wise:
"America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from
those of Europe, and peculiarly her own. She should therefore
have a system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe.
While the last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism,
our endeavor should surely be, to make our hemisphere that of
freedom. One nation, most of all, could disturb us in this
pursuit; she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. By
acceding to her proposition, we detach her from the band of
despots, bring her mighty weight into the scale of free
government and emancipate a continent at one stroke which might
otherwise linger long in doubt and difficulty . . . . I am
clearly of Mr. Canning's opinion, that it will prevent, instead
of provoking war. With Great Britain withdrawn from their scale
and shifted into that of our two continents, all Europe combined
would not undertake such a war . . . . Nor is the occasion to be
slighted which this proposition offers, of declaring our protest
against the atrocious violations of the rights of nations, by the
interference of any one in the internal affairs of another, so
flagitiously begun by Buonaparte, and now continued by the
equally lawless alliance, calling itself Holy."
Madison argued the case with more reserve but arrived at the same
conclusion: "There ought not to be any backwardness therefore, I
think, in meeting her [England] in the way she has proposed." The
dispatches of Rush produced a very different effect, however,
upon the Secretary of State, whose temperament fed upon suspicion
and who now found plenty of food for thought both in what Rush
said and in what he did not say. Obviously Canning was seeking a
definite compact with the United States against the designs of
the allies, not out of any altruistic motive but for selfish
ends. Great Britain, Rush had written bluntly, had as little
sympathy with popular rights as it had on the field of Lexington.
It was bent on preventing France from making conquests, not on
making South America free. Just so, Adams reasoned: Canning
desires to secure from the United States a public pledge
"ostensibly against the forcible interference of the Holy
Alliance between Spain and South America; but really or
especially against the acquisition to the United States
themselves of any part of the Spanish-American possessions." By
joining with Great Britain we would give her a "substantial and
perhaps inconvenient pledge against ourselves, and really obtain
nothing in return." He believed that it would be more candid and
more dignified to decline Canning's overtures and to avow our
principles explicitly to Russia and France. For his part he did
not wish the United States "to come in as a cock-boat in the wake
of the British man-of-war!"
Thus Adams argued in the sessions of the Cabinet, quite ignorant
of the correspondence which had passed between the President and
his mentors. Confident of his ability to handle the situation, he
asked no more congenial task than to draft replies to Baron Tuyll
and to Canning and instructions to the ministers at London, St.
Petersburg, and Paris; but he impressed upon Monroe the necessity
of making all these communications "part of a combined system of
policy and adapted to each other." Not so easily, however, was
the President detached from the influence of the two Virginia
oracles. He took sharp exception to the letter which Adams
drafted in reply to Baron Tuyll, saying that he desired to
refrain from any expressions which would irritate the Czar; and
thus turned what was to be an emphatic declaration of principles
into what Adams called "the tamest of state papers."
The Secretary's draft of instructions to Rush had also to run the
gauntlet of amendment by the President and his Cabinet; but it
emerged substantially unaltered in content and purpose. Adams
professed to find common ground with Great Britain, while
pointing out with much subtlety that if she believed the recovery
of the colonies by Spain was really hopeless, she was under moral
obligation to recognize them as independent states and to favor
only such an adjustment between them and the mother country as
was consistent with the fact of independence. The United States
was in perfect accord with the principles laid down by Mr.
Canning: it desired none of the Spanish possessions for itself
but it could not see with indifference any portion of them
transferred to any other power. Nor could the United States see
with indifference "any attempt by one or more powers of Europe to
restore those new states to the crown of Spain, or to deprive
them, in any manner whatever, of the freedom and independence
which they have acquired." But, for accomplishing the purposes
which the two governments had in common--and here the masterful
Secretary of State had his own way--it was advisable that they
should act separately, each making such representations to the
continental allies as circumstances dictated.
Further communications from Baron Tuyll gave Adams the
opportunity, which he had once lost, of enunciating the
principles underlying American policy. In a masterly paper dated
November 27, 1823, he adverted to the declaration of the allied
monarchs that they would never compound with revolution but would
forcibly interpose to guarantee the tranquillity of civilized
states. In such declarations "the President," wrote Adams,
"wishes to perceive sentiments, the application of which is
limited, and intended in their results to be limited to the
affairs of Europe . . . . The United States of America, and their
government, could not see with indifference, the forcible
interposition of any European Power, other than Spain, either to
restore the dominion of Spain over her emancipated Colonies in
America, or to establish Monarchical Governments in those
Countries, or to transfer any of the possessions heretofore or
yet subject to Spain in the American Hemisphere, to any other
European Power."
But so little had the President even yet grasped the wide sweep
of the policy which his Secretary of State was framing that, when
he read to the Cabinet a first draft of his annual message, he
expressed his pointed disapprobation of the invasion of Spain by
France and urged an acknowledgment of Greece as an independent
nation. This declaration was, as Adams remarked, a call to arms
against all Europe. And once again he urged the President to
refrain from any utterance which might be construed as a pretext
for retaliation by the allies. If they meant to provoke a quarrel
with the United States, the administration must meet it and not
invite it. "If they intend now to interpose by force, we shall
have as much as we can do to prevent them," said he, "without
going to bid them defiance in the heart of Europe." "The ground I
wish to take," he continued, "is that of earnest remonstrance
against the interference of the European powers by force with
South America, but to disclaim all interference on our part with
Europe; to make an American cause and adhere inflexibly to that."
In the end Adams had his way and the President revised the
paragraphs dealing with foreign affairs so as to make them
conform to Adams's desires.
No one who reads the message which President Monroe sent to
Congress on December 2, 1823, can fail to observe that the
paragraphs which have an enduring significance as declarations of
policy are anticipated in the masterly state papers of the
Secretary of State. Alluding to the differences with Russia in
the Pacific Northwest, the President repeated the principle which
Adams had stated to Baron Tuyll: "The occasion has been judged
proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and
interests of the United States are involved, that the American
continents, by the free and independent condition which they have
assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as
subjects for future colonization by any European powers." And the
vital principle of abstention from European affairs and of
adherence to a distinctly American system, for which Adams had
contended so stubbornly, found memorable expression in the
following paragraph:
"In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to
themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with
our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or
seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparations
for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of
necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be
obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political
system of the allied powers is essentially different in this
respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that
which exists in their respective Governments; and to the defense
of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood
and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened
citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity,
this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and
to the amicable relations existing between the United States and
those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on
their part to extend their system to any portion of this
hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the
existing colonies and dependencies of any European power we have
not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments
who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose
independence we have, on great consideration and on just
principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for
the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other
manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light
than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the
United States."
Later generations have read strange meanings into Monroe's
message, and have elevated into a "doctrine" those declarations
of policy which had only an immediate application. With the
interpretations and applications of a later day, this book has
nothing to do. Suffice it to say that President Monroe and his
advisers accomplished their purposes; and the evidence that they
were successful is contained in a letter which Richard Rush wrote
to the Secretary of State, on December 27, 1823:
"But the most decisive blow to all despotick interference with
the new States is that which it has received in the President's
Message at the opening of Congress. It was looked for here with
extraordinary interest at this juncture, and I have heard that
the British packet which left New York the beginning of this
month was instructed to wait for it and bring it over with all
speed . . . . On its publicity in London . . . the credit of all
the Spanish American securities immediately rose, and the
question of the final and complete safety of the new States from
all European coercion, is now considered as at rest."
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