From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (24 page)

Between 1820 and 1840, the U.S. economy began to mature. Construction of roads and canals brought scattered communities together and, along with the steamboat, shrank distances. These innovations dramatically transformed the predominantly agricultural, subsistence economy of Jefferson's time. Americans increasingly prided themselves on political separation from Europe, but the United States was an integral part of an Atlantic-centered international economy. European capital and technology fueled U.S. economic growth. Particularly in agriculture, the nation produced far more than could be consumed at home. Commerce with Europe remained essential to its prosperity.
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Purposeful leaders actively employing the organized power of the national government pushed this process along. Republican ideology was tempered by the exigencies of war. Shortages of critical items forced even Jefferson to concede the necessity of manufactures. Clay went further, promoting an "American System" that aimed at national self-sufficiency by developing domestic manufactures and expanding the home market through such Federalist devices as protective tariffs, a national bank, and federally financed internal improvements. Some Republicans clung to the Jeffersonian vision of a virtuous republic of small farmers. But with the market revolution, new National Republicans dreamed of national wealth and power based on commercial and territorial expansion. Like Clay, they adopted a neo-mercantilist approach that sought to expand
exports of agricultural and raw materials and protect domestic manufactures through tariffs.
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The War of 1812 gave a tremendous boost to nationalism. Americans entered the postwar era more optimistic than ever. Their faith in themselves and their nation's destiny knew few bounds. Their boastful pride in their own institutions often annoyed visitors. "A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country," the perceptive Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville complained, "but he would like to be allowed to criticize something and that he is absolutely refused." "I love national glory," one congressman exulted.
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American horizons broadened. Even the optimistic Jefferson could envision nothing more than a series of independent republics in North America. His successor as the architect of U.S. expansion, John Quincy Adams, foresaw a single nation stretching from Atlantic to Pacific. As secretary of state and president he worked tirelessly to realize this destiny.

The quality of American statecraft remained high in the postwar era. Most policymakers had acquired practical experience in the school of diplomatic hard knocks. Cosmopolitan representatives of a still provincial republic, they generally acquitted themselves with distinction. The last—usually viewed as the least—of the Virginia Dynasty, James Monroe was an experienced and capable diplomatist. Described by contemporaries as a "plain man" with "good heart and amiable disposition," he was industrious, a shrewd judge of people and problems, and excelled at getting strong-willed men to work together.
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Monroe's secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, towered above his contemporaries and is generally regarded among the most effective of all those who have held the office. The son of a diplomat and president, Adams brought to his post a wealth of experience and extraordinary skills. He knew six European languages. His seventeen years abroad gave him unparalleled knowledge of the workings of European diplomacy. A man of prodigious industry, he oversaw, with the assistance of eight clerks, the workings of the State Department, writing most dispatches himself and creating a filing system that would be used until 1915. He regularly rose before dawn to pray. His early morning swims in the Potomac, clad only in green goggles and a skullcap, were the stuff of Washington legend. Short, stout, and balding, with a wandering eye—his frequent adversary
Stratford Canning called him "Squinty"—Adams could be cold and austere. Throughout his life, he struggled to live up to the high expectations set by his illustrious parents, John and Abigail. Haunted by self-doubt and fears of failure, he drove himself relentlessly. He was proud that his foes found him an "unsocial savage." Through force of intellect and mastery of detail he was a diplomat of enormous skill.
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Adams was also an ardent expansionist whose vision of American destiny was well ahead of his time. A profoundly religious man, he saw the United States as the instrument of God's will and himself as the agent of both. Sensitive to the needs of the shipping and mercantile interests of his native New England, he viewed free trade as the basis for a new global economic order. He fought doggedly to break down mercantilist barriers. His vision extended literally to the ends of the earth. He relished in 1820 the possibility of a confrontation with Britain over newly discovered Graham Land on the northwest coast of Antarctica, a region he conceded was "something between Rock and Iceberg."
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The focus of Adams's attention was North America. As early as 1811, he had foreseen a time when all of the continent would be "one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usage and customs." That the United States in time should acquire Canada and Texas, he believed, was "as much the law of nature as that the Mississippi should flow to the sea." He told the cabinet in 1822 that "the world should become familiarized with the idea of considering our proper dominion to be the entire continent of North America." As secretary of state, he took giant steps toward achieving that goal. As president from 1825 to 1829, he—with his own secretary of state, Clay—continued to pursue it.
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Monroe introduced important modifications to U.S. diplomatic practice. In keeping with republican principles, he instructed his envoys to "respectfully but decisively" decline the gifts that were the lubricant of European diplomacy. Adams recommended that individuals who had served abroad for more than six years should return home to be "new tempered."
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At the same time, Monroe had suffered numerous slights at
the hands of the great powers during his own diplomatic career, and he was eager to command their respect. Persuaded that Jefferson's pell-mell "protocol" had lowered American prestige among Europeans, he reverted to the more formal practice of Washington, receiving foreign envoys by appointment and in full diplomatic dress. U.S. diplomats wore a "uniform," a blue cloth coat with silk lining and gold or silver embroidery, and a plumed hat. When Monroe took office, the capital still showed scars of the British invasion. When he left, the city's appearance and social life had begun to rival European capitals, achieving a "splendour which is really astonishing," according to one American participant. As much as Jefferson's style had symbolized the republican simplicity of an earlier era, Monroe's marked the rise of the United States to new wealth and power.
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The formulation of policy changed little under Monroe and Adams. Monroe employed Washington's cabinet system, submitting major foreign policy issues for the full consideration of department heads. The demise of Federalism after 1815 left only one party for the next decade, but foreign policy remained an area of heated political battle. The so-called Era of Good Feelings was anything but. Throughout the administrations of Monroe and Adams, ambitious cabinet members exploited foreign policy issues to gain an edge on potential rivals. As the economy expanded and diversified, interest groups pushed their demands on the government. In the 1820s, foreign policy, like everything else, became locked in the bitter sectional struggle over slavery. By 1824, partisan politics was back with a vengeance as the followers of war hero Andrew Jackson challenged the Republican ascendancy.

Monroe's and Adams's administrations set commercial expansion as a paramount goal and employed numerous distinctly unrepublican measures to achieve it. Abandoning Jefferson's disdain for diplomats, they expanded the number of U.S. missions abroad. Between 1820 and 1830, they almost doubled the number of consuls, many of them assigned to the newly independent governments of Latin America. These men performed numerous and sometimes difficult tasks, looking after the interests of U.S. citizens and especially merchants, negotiating trade treaties, and seeking out commercial opportunities. When fire devastated Havana,
Cuba, in 1826, for example, consul Thomas Rodney alerted Americans to the newly created market for building materials.
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The National Republicans also put aside traditional fears of the navy, maintaining a sizeable fleet after the War of 1812 and employing it to protect and promote U.S. commerce. Squadrons of small, fast warships were posted to the Mediterranean, the West Indies, Africa, and the Pacific, where they defended U.S. shipping from pirates and privateers, policed the illegal slave trade, and looked for new commercial opportunities. While sailing the Pacific station during the 1820s, Thomas ap Catesby Jones, commander of the USS
Peacock
, negotiated trade treaties with Tahiti and the Hawaiian Islands.
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Monroe and Adams also pushed to secure payment of claims from the spoliation of American commerce, not simply for the money but also as a matter of principle. Payment of such claims would at least imply endorsement of the U.S. position on free trade and neutral rights. The United States pressed France for payment of more than $6 million for seizure of ships and cargoes under Napoleonic decrees and sought additional claims against smaller European states acting under French authority. It tried to collect money from Russia and, during Adams's presidency in particular, from the Latin American governments, most of the claims arising from privateering and other alleged violations of neutral rights by governments or rebels or in disputes between governments during the wars of independence. United States diplomats vigorously defended the nation's interests. Before demanding his passports (a diplomatic practice indicating extreme displeasure that often preceded the breaking of relations), the colorful consul to Rio de Janeiro, Condy Raguet, exclaimed that if U.S. ships wanted to break Brazil's blockade of the Rio de la Plata they would not ask permission and would be stopped only "by force of balls."
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Monroe and Adams used reciprocity as a major weapon of commercial expansion. In its last days, the Madison administration launched an all-out attack on the restrictive trading policies of the European powers. Responding to the president's call to secure for the United States a "just
proportion of the navigation of the world," Congress in 1815 enacted reciprocity legislation that legalized the program of discrimination Jefferson and Madison had advocated since 1789. Passed in a mood of exuberant nationalism, the measure made the abolition of discriminatory duties and shipping charges contingent on similar concessions from other countries. Reciprocity was designed to strengthen the hands of U.S. diplomats in negotiations with European powers. As opposed to the most-favored-nation principle, the basis for earlier treaties, it provided, in Clay's words, a "plain and familiar rule" for the two signatories, uncomplicated by deals with other nations, thus reducing the chances for misunderstanding and conflict.
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Reciprocity also made clear U.S. willingness to retaliate. Americans and Europeans increasingly recognized, moreover—the latter sometimes to their chagrin—that reciprocity did not always operate equally on all parties. Such was the superiority of the U.S. merchant marine and mercantile skill that often, as a diplomat pointed out, American shippers could secure a monopoly of trade "whenever anything like fair and equal terms [are] extended to us."
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Through the 1820s, the United States used reciprocity to break down European commercial restrictions and gain access on favorable terms to newly opened markets in Latin America and elsewhere across the world.

For the effort expended, the Monroe-Adams trade offensive produced limited results. The United States settled a small claims dispute with Russia, but not much else. Negotiations with France provoked a nasty diplomatic spat. The United States pushed these claims with great vigor, at one point even discussing naval retaliation. Their treasury exhausted from years of war, the French perceived that if they paid the United States other claimants would get in line. Thus they stalled, reminding U.S. officials that loans made by French citizens during the American Revolution remained unpaid. The issue persisted into the Jackson administration, poisoning relations between onetime allies.
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In all, Monroe and Adams concluded twelve commercial agreements. They managed to secure reciprocity with Britain in direct commerce, giving the United States a huge advantage in the North Atlantic carrying trade. They concluded a most-favored-nation treaty with Russia in 1824 and reciprocity agreements with several smaller European nations. On the other hand, U.S. support for the Greek revolution thwarted negotiations
with Turkey. Once again, discussions with France were especially frustrating. The United States attempted to batter down France's commercial restrictions by imposing discriminatory duties, provoking a brief but bitter trade war. A limited commercial treaty negotiated in 1822 left most major issues unresolved.
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Adams and Clay entertained high hopes for trade with Latin America and invested great energy in negotiations with that region, but they achieved little. For reasons of race and politics, more than economics, southerners continued to block trade with Haiti. Raguet's provocative behavior killed a treaty with Brazil, and no treaties were negotiated with Buenos Aires, Chile, or Peru. Minister Joel Poinsett's blatant meddling in Mexican politics, as well as major differences on issues of reciprocity, limited the treaty negotiated in 1826 to most-favored-nation status. It was not ratified until much later. Clay did conclude a treaty with the Central American Federation, a political grouping of the region's five states, something he viewed as his greatest accomplishment as secretary of state and a model for a new world trading system. The federation collapsed within a short time, however, and Clay's dreams died with it.
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