From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (31 page)

Manifest Destiny was a sectional rather than national phenomenon, its support strongest in the Northeast and Northwest and weakest in the South, which supported only the annexation of Texas. It was also highly partisan. A second American party system emerged in the 1840s with the rise of two distinct political entities, roughly equal in strength, that set the agenda for national politics and took well-defined positions on major issues. The lineal descendants of Jefferson's Republicans, the Democrats rallied around the policies of the charismatic hero Andrew Jackson. The Whigs, a direct offshoot of the National Republicans along with some disaffected Democrats, formed in opposition to what its followers saw as the
dangerous consolidation of executive power by "King Andrew I." Henry Clay was the leading national figure.
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The two parties differed sharply on the crucial issue of expansion. Looking backward to an idyllic agricultural society, the Democrats, like Jefferson, fervently believed that preservation of traditional republican values depended on commercial and territorial expansion. The Panic of 1837 and a growing surplus in agricultural production aroused their anxieties. Deeply alarmed by the rise of industrialization, urbanization, and class conflict in the Northeast, the very evils Jefferson had warned about, they saw expansion as a solution to the problems of modernization. The availability of new land in the West and acquisition of new markets for farm products would preserve the essentially agricultural economy upon which republicanism depended. An expanding frontier would protect Americans against poverty, concentration of population, exhaustion of the land, and the wage slavery of industrial capitalism. A sprawling national domain would preserve liberty rather than threaten it. Fortuitously, new technology like the railroad and telegraph that annihilated distance would permit administration of a vast empire. Expansion was fundamental to the American character, the Democrats insisted. The very process of the westward movement produced those special qualities that made Americans exceptional.
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More cautious and conservative, Whigs harbored deep fears of uncontrolled expansion. Change must be orderly, they insisted; the existing Union must be consolidated before the nation acquired more territory. The more rapidly and extensively the Union grew, the more difficult it would be to govern and the more it would be imperiled. The East might be left desolate and depopulated and sectional tensions increased. Whigs welcomed industrialism. In contrast to the Democrats, who promoted an activist role for government in external matters, they believed government's major task was to promote economic growth and disperse prosperity and capital in a way that would avert internal conflict, improve the lot of the individual, and enrich society. Government should promote the interests of the entire nation to ensure harmony and balance, ease sectional
and class tensions, and promote peace. Like the Democrats, the Whigs talked of extending freedom, but their approach was passive rather than active. "The eyes of the world are upon us," Edward Everett asserted, "and our example will probably be decisive of the cause of human liberty."
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The increasingly inflammatory debate over slavery heightened conflict over expansion. As early as the 1830s, abolitionists began to attack slaveholder domination of the political system, creating one of the first pressure groups to influence U.S. foreign policy. The still volatile issue of Haiti became their cause célèbre. Abolitionists such as Lydia Maria Child and their frequent supporter John Quincy Adams condemned those who opposed recognition of the black republic because a "colored ambassador would be so disagreeable to our prejudice." They pleaded for recognition as a matter of principle and for trade. They pushed for opening of the British market for corn and wheat to spur prosperity in the Northwest, breaking the stranglehold of the "slavocracy" on the national government. Urging the United States to join Britain in an international effort to police the slave trade and abolish slavery, they passionately opposed the acquisition of new slave states.
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Increasingly paranoid slaveholders, on the other side, warned that a vast abolitionist conspiracy threatened their peculiar institution and indeed the nation. Haiti also had huge symbolic importance for them, the bloodshed, political chaos, and economic distress there portending the inevitable results of emancipation elsewhere. They saw abolitionism as an international movement centered in London whose philanthropic pretensions covered sinister imperialist designs. By abolishing slavery, the British could undercut southern production of staples, destroy the U.S. economy, and dominate world commerce and manufacturing. They denounced British high-handedness in policing the slave trade. They mongered among themselves morbid rumors of nefarious British plots to foment revolution among slaves in Cuba, incite Mexicans and Indians against the United States, and invade the South with armies of free blacks. They conjured graphic images of entire white populations being
murdered except for the young and beautiful women reserved for "African lust." They condemned the federal government for not defending their rights from "foreign wrongs." They spoke openly of taking up the burden of defending slavery and even of secession. They ardently promoted the addition of new slave states. Pandering to the racial fears of northern Democrats, they suggested that extension of slavery into areas like Texas would draw the black population southward, even into Central America, ending the institution by natural processes and sparing the northern states and Upper South concentrations of free blacks.
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American expansionism in the 1840s was neither providential nor innocent. It resulted from design, rather than destiny, a carefully calculated effort by purposeful Democratic leaders to attain specific objectives that served mainly U.S. interests. The rhetoric of Manifest Destiny was nationalistic, idealistic, and self-confident, but it covered deep and sometimes morbid fears for America's security against internal decay and external danger. Expansionism showed scant regard for the "inferior" peoples who stood in the way. When combined with the volatile issue of slavery, it fueled increasingly bitter sectional and partisan conflict.
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Manifest Destiny had limits, most notably along the northern border with British Canada. Anglophobia and respect for Britain coexisted uneasily during the antebellum years. Americans still viewed the former mother country as the major threat to their security and prosperity and resented its refusal to pay them proper respect. At election time, U.S. politicians habitually twisted the lion's tail to whip up popular support. Upper-class Americans, on the other hand, admired British accomplishments and institutions. Responsible citizens understood the importance of economic ties between the two nations. A healthy respect for British power and a growing sense of Anglo-Saxon unity and common purpose—their "peculiar and sacred relations to the cause of civilization and freedom," O'Sullivan called it—produced very different attitudes and approaches toward Britain and Mexico. Americans continued to regard Canada as a base
from which Britain could strike the United States, but they increasingly doubted it would be used. They also came to accept the presence of their northern neighbor and evinced a willingness to live in peace with it. Even the zealot O'Sullivan conceded that Manifest Destiny stopped at the Canadian border. He viewed Canadians as possible junior partners in the process of Manifest Destiny but did not press for annexation when the opportunity presented itself, envisioning a peaceful evolution toward a possible merger at some unspecified future time.
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Rebellions in Canada in 1837–38 raised the threat of a third Anglo-American war, but they evoked from most Americans a generally restrained response. At the outset, to be sure, some saw the Canadian uprisings, along with events in Texas, as part of the onward march of republicanism. Along the border, some Americans offered the rebels sanctuary and support. Incidents such as the burning of the American ship
Caroline
by Canadian soldiers on U.S. territory in December 1837 inflamed tensions. As it became clear that the rebellions were something less than republican in origin and intent, tempers cooled. Borderland communities where legal and illegal trade flourished feared the potential costs of war. President Martin Van Buren declared U.S. neutrality and after the
Caroline
incident dispatched War of 1812 hero Gen. Winfield Scott to enforce it. Traveling the border country by sled in frigid temperatures, often alone, Scott zealously executed his orders, expressing outrage at the destruction of the
Caroline
and promising to defend U.S. territory from British attack but warning his countrymen against provocative actions. On one occasion, he admonished hotheads that "except it be over my body, you shall
not
pass this line." Another time, as a preemptive measure, he bought out from under rebel supporters a ship he suspected was to be used for hostile activities. Scott's intervention helped ease tensions along the border. In terms of Manifest Destiny, Americans continued to believe that Canadians would opt for republicanism, but they respected the principle of self-determination rather than seeking to impose their views by force.
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Conflict over the long-disputed boundary between Maine and New Brunswick also produced Anglo-American hostility—and restraint. Local
interests on both sides posed insuperable obstacles to settlement. For years, Maine had frustrated federal efforts to negotiate. Washington did nothing when the state government or its citizens defied federal law or international agreements. When Canadian lumberjacks cut timber in the disputed Aroostook River valley in late 1838, tempers flared, sparking threats of war. The tireless and peripatetic Scott hastened to Maine to reassure its citizens and encourage local officials to compromise. As with the Canadian rebellions, cooler heads prevailed. The so-called Aroostook War amounted to little more than a barroom brawl, the major casualties bloody noses and broken arms. But territorial dispute continued to threaten the peace.
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Conflict over the slave trade added a more volatile dimension to Anglo-American tension. In the 1830s, Britain launched an all-out crusade against that brutal and nefarious traffic in human beings. The United States outlawed the international slave trade in 1808 but, because of southern resistance, did little to stop it. Alone among nations, it refused to participate in multilateral efforts. Slave traders thus used the U.S. flag to cover their activities. The War of 1812 still fresh in their minds and highly sensitive to affronts to their honor, Americans South
and
North loudly protested when British ships began stopping and searching vessels flying the Stars and Stripes. An incident in November 1841 raised a simmering dispute to the level of crisis. Led by a cook named Madison Washington, slaves aboard the
Creole
en route from Virginia to New Orleans mutinied, took over the ship, killed a slave trader, and sailed to the Bahamas. Under pressure from the local population, British authorities released all 135 of the slaves because they landed on free territory. Furious with British interference with the domestic slave trade and more than ever convinced of a sinister plot to destroy slavery in the United States, southerners demanded restoration of their property and reparations. But the United States had no extradition treaty with Britain and could do nothing to back its citizens' claims.
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The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 solved several burning issues and confirmed the limits of Manifest Destiny. By this time, both sides sought to ease tensions. An avowed Anglophile, Secretary of State Daniel Webster viewed commerce with England as essential to U.S. prosperity. The new British government of Sir Robert Peel was friendly toward the United States and sought respite from tension to pursue domestic reform
and address more urgent European problems. By sending a special mission to the United States, Peel struck a responsive chord among insecure Americans—"an unusual piece of condescension" for "haughty" England, New Yorker Philip Hone conceded.
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The appointment of Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, to carry out the mission confirmed London's good intentions. Head of one of the world's leading banking houses, Ashburton was married to an American, owned land in Maine, and had extensive investments in the United States. He believed that good relations were essential to the "moral improvement and the progressive civilization of the world." Ashburton steeled himself for the rigors of life in the "colonies" by bringing with him three secretaries, five servants, and three horses and a carriage. He and Webster entertained lavishly. Old friends, they agreed to dispense with the usual conventions of diplomacy and work informally. Webster even invited representatives of Maine and Massachusetts to join the discussions, causing Ashburton to marvel how "this Mass of ungovernable and unmanageable anarchy" functioned as well as it did.
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The novice diplomats used unconventional methods to resolve major differences. On the most difficult issue, the Maine–New Brunswick boundary, they worked out a compromise that satisfied hotheads on neither side and then used devious means to sell it. Each conveniently employed different maps to prove to skeptical constituents their side had got the better of the deal—or at least avoided losing more. Webster had more difficulty negotiating with Maine than with his British counterpart. He used $12,000 from a secret presidential slush fund to propagandize his fellow New Englanders to accept the treaty. This knot untied, the two men with relative ease set a boundary between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods. They defused the still-sensitive
Caroline
issue and agreed on an extradition treaty to help deal with matters like the
Creole.
Resolution of differences on the slave trade was most difficult. Eventually, the treaty provided for a joint squadron, but the United States, predictably, did not uphold the arrangement. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty testified to Anglo-American good sense when that quality seemed in short supply. It confirmed U.S. acceptance of the sharing of North America with British Canadians. It resolved numerous problems that might have provoked war and set the two nations on a course toward eventual rapprochement. The