From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (26 page)

The United States also aggressively challenged British and Russian pretensions in the Pacific Northwest. Anglo-American relations improved markedly after the War of 1812. Recognizing a growing commonality of economic and political interests, the former enemies negotiated a limited trade agreement, began the difficult process of fixing a Canadian boundary, and, through the Rush-Bagot agreement of 1817 providing for reduction of armaments on the Great Lakes, averted a potentially dangerous naval arms race. The ever alert Adams also pried from Britain acceptance of the
alternat,
a diplomatic practice providing that the names of the two nations would be alternated when used together in the text of treaties, a symbolic achievement of no small importance.
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While moving toward rapprochement, the established imperial power and its upstart competitor also vied for preeminence in the Pacific Northwest. Many observers dismissed the mountainous Oregon country with its rocky, windblown coastline as bleak and inhospitable. Others, Adams included, saw the ports of Puget Sound and the prevalence of sea otters as keys to capturing the fabled East Asian trade. At the insistence of merchant prince John Jacob Astor, the United States after the War of 1812 reasserted claims to the mouth of the Columbia River abandoned during

the war. The aggressive Adams also sought to further U.S. interests by extending the boundary with Canada along the 49th parallel to the Pacific, a move that would have left Puget Sound, the Columbia River basin, and the Oregon country in U.S. hands. Britain would not go this far. Nor did it wish to confront the United States. In the Anglo-American Convention of 1818, the two nations agreed to leave the Oregon country open to both countries for ten years, tacitly accepting the legitimacy of U.S. claims. Persuaded that America was poised to extend its "civilization and laws to the western confines of the continent," Secretary of War and then ardent nationalist John C. Calhoun in 1817 drew up plans to locate a string of forts extending to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. Again under the guise of a scientific and literary expedition, the administration in 1819 dispatched Stephen Long to survey the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions. He was also to seize control of the fur trade and chip away at British influence.
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Anglo-American rivalry quickened after 1818. The Hudson's Bay Company bought out the old Northwest Company and under the watchful eye of the Royal Navy began systematically exploiting the area south of the Columbia River, hoping to discourage Americans from settling there. Astor's plans never reached fruition. Although Adams hesitated to challenge Britain directly, members of Congress such as Dr. John Floyd of Virginia and Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri increasingly warned of a British menace and urged settlement of the Oregon country. Congressional pressures were driving the United States toward a confrontation with Britain when Russia added a third side to the triangle.
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Russia's challenge in the Northwest, along with a revolution in Greece and the threat of European intervention to restore monarchical governments in Latin America, brought forth in December 1823 what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, one of the most significant and iconic statements of the principles of U.S. foreign policy and a ringing affirmation of U.S. preeminence in the Western Hemisphere and especially North America.
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Tsar Alexander's ukase (imperial edict) of 1821 is often viewed as a typical expression of Russia's age-old propensity for aggrandizement, but it was considerably less. On the basis of explorations, Russia claimed the Pacific coast of North America. The tsar had given the Russian-American Company a trade monopoly as far south as 55° north. The company established scattered trading posts along the Alaskan coast, but it lacked government support and faced growing U.S. competition. New England traders and poachers took most of the region's sea otters and began supplying the indigenous population with guns and whiskey. Further alarmed by talk of American settlements in the northwest, the Russian-American Company secured Alexander's assistance. Apparently without much thought, he issued on September 4, 1821, another ukase granting Russians exclusive rights for trading, whaling, and fishing in the area of Alaska and the Bering Sea and south along the coast to 51° (far south of Russia's main settlement near the present site of Sitka, Alaska). Under threat of confiscation and capture, the ukase also forbade foreign ships from approaching within 100 Italian miles (115 English miles) of Russian claims.
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The ukase aroused grave concern in the United States. Russia's territorial aspirations posed no direct threat, since the United States had never claimed above 49°. The hostile reaction reflected more U.S. pretensions than those of Russia. But the coastal restrictions challenged the principle of freedom of the seas and threatened one of the most profitable enterprises of Adams's New England constituents. Congressmen agitated for settlement of the Columbia basin and urged Monroe to defend U.S. interests. The tsar at precisely this time was arbitrating an Anglo-American dispute over slaves carried away during the War of 1812, so Monroe and Adams proceeded cautiously. At the first opportunity, however, Adams informed 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 colonial establishments."
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The outbreak of revolution in Greece posed the equally significant and not entirely unrelated issue of America's commitment to republican principles and the role it should play in supporting liberation movements abroad. In the spring of 1821, the Greeks revolted against Turkish rule. Early the following year, various resistance groups coalesced, issued an
American-style declaration of independence, and appealed to the world—and especially the "fellow-citizens of Penn, of Washington, and of Franklin"—for assistance.

Widely acknowledged as the birthplace of modern democracy, Greece became the cause célèbre of the era. "Greek fever" took hold in the United States. Americans viewed the revolution as an offspring of their own and the Turks as the worst form of barbarians and infidels. Pro-Greek rallies were staged in numerous towns and cities; speakers called for contributions and volunteers. In one of the most famous exhortations, Harvard professor Edward Everett enjoined Americans to fulfill "the great and glorious part which this country is to act, in the political regeneration of the world."
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The issue divided the U.S. government. Always the skeptic, Adams dismissed the Greek infatuation as "all sentiment" and feared that support for the rebels would jeopardize trade negotiations with Turkey. On the other hand, minister to France Gallatin urged employment of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean squadron against the Turks. Former president Madison advocated a public declaration in favor of Greek independence. Congressmen Clay and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts used their famed eloquence to press for the dispatch of an official agent to Greece. Clay indignantly protested that U.S. support for liberty was being compromised by a "miserable invoice of figs and opium." Monroe was leaning toward recognition when a more pressing challenge led the administration to take a public stand on the several issues it confronted.
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The possibility of European intervention to suppress the Latin American revolutions was the most serious threat to face the United States since the War of 1812. Following the Napoleonic wars, Tsar Alexander had taken the lead in mobilizing the Continental powers to check the forces of revolution. A religious fanatic whose propensity for prayer was said to have caused calluses on his knees, Alexander later became obsessed with a fear of revolution and increasingly associated opposition with godliness. For reasons of state, he refused to help the Turks suppress the Greeks. At the Congress of Verona in November 1822, however, he secured an allied commitment to restore the fallen monarchy in Spain. French troops subsequently accomplished this mission. With the
Spanish monarchy restored, talk swept Europe of an allied move to restore Spain's Latin American colonies or establish in Latin America independent monarchies.
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The United States had responded cautiously to the Latin American revolutions. Adams was delighted with the further dissolution of European colonialism and hoped eventually to secure trade advantages from an independent Latin America. At the same time, he believed that the Spanish and Catholic influence was too strong to permit the growth of republicanism among the new nations. He did not share the enthusiasm of Clay and others who foresaw a group of Latin American nations that were closely tied to the United States and that might build institutions resembling those of the North Americans. Nor did he wish to antagonize Spain as long as the Florida question was unresolved and the
threat
of recognition gave him leverage with Onis. Over the protests of Clay and others, the administration withheld recognition until 1822 and sought to implement an "impartial neutrality." Clay's position was popular, however, and clandestine organizations in East Coast ports provided arms, supplies, and mercenaries for the rebels. Loopholes in the neutrality laws permitted the fitting-out in U.S. ports of privateers that preyed on Spanish shipping.
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Whatever its attitudes toward Latin America, the United States could only view with alarm the possibility of European intervention. The threat revived memories of those early years when the omnipresent reality of foreign intrusion endangered the very survival of the new republic. It could foreclose commercial opportunities that now seemed open in the hemisphere.

Curiously, in light of past antagonisms, it was the old Yankeephobe British foreign secretary George Canning who brought the issue of European intervention to the forefront. During conversations with a shocked U.S. minister Richard Rush in the summer of 1823, Canning proposed a joint statement opposing European intervention to restore the Spanish colonies and disavowing American and British designs on the new nations. The motives for this quite extraordinary proposal remain a matter of speculation. Canning may already have committed himself to recognition of the Latin American nations and was seeking U.S. support against critics at home and abroad. Many Americans,
Adams included, suspected a clever British trick to keep Cuba out of U.S. hands.
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Whatever the case, Canning's "great flirtation" set off a prolonged debate in Washington. As was his custom, Monroe consulted with his illustrious Virginia predecessors before going to his cabinet. Jefferson and Madison swallowed their Anglophobia and counseled going along with Canning. Persuaded that European intervention was likely if not certain, Calhoun agreed.
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Adams disagreed, and on most issues he prevailed. He astutely and correctly minimized the likelihood of European intervention. As secretary of state and a presidential aspirant, he may have feared that joining with Britain would leave him vulnerable to charges of being too cozy with an old enemy.
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He was also alert to the advantages of acting alone. Acceptance of Canning's proposal might for the short run jeopardize chances of getting Cuba or Texas. An independent stance might advance prospects of trade with Latin American nations. "It would be more candid, as well as more dignified," he advised the cabinet, "to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France than to come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war."
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Reaffirming his long-held view that U.S. political interests lay primarily on the North American continent and warning against an unnecessary affront to the European powers, Adams talked Monroe out of recognizing Greece. The president overruled his secretary of state only on the form the statement should take, including it in his annual message to Congress rather than the diplomatic dispatches Adams would have preferred (as that would have given him more credit).

What much later came to be called the Monroe Doctrine, in whose formulation Adams played the crucial role, was contained in separate parts of the president's December 2, 1823, message to Congress. Asserting the doctrine of the two spheres, which had some precedent in European treaties, he sharply distinguished between the political systems of the Old World and the New and affirmed that the two should not impinge on
each other. He went on to enunciate a "non-colonization principle," a bold and pretentious public reiteration of the position Adams had taken privately with the Russian and British ministers: The American continents "by the free and independent conditions which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects of colonizations by any European power." Monroe went on to affirm that generally, and in the specific case of Greece, the United States would not interfere in the "internal affairs" of Europe. On the most pressing issue, he set forth a non-intervention principle, warning the Holy Allies and France that the United States would regard as "dangerous" to its "peace and safety" any European effort to "extend their system to any portion of the hemisphere."
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