It will be seen, hereafter, from what he recorded in his private papers at the time of the resignation of General Cass from the State Department, in the latter part of the year 1860, that Mr. Buchanan had to be virtually his own Secretary of State, until Judge Black succeeded to that office. This was less irksome to him than it might have been to other Presidents, because of his great familiarity with the diplomatic history of the country, and his experience in the diplomatic service. His strong personal regard for General Cass, whose high character, as well as his political standing in the party of which they were both members, and the demand of the Western States, had been the reasons for offering to him the Department of State, made Mr. Buchanan patient and kind towards one who did not render him much aid in the business of that office. Mr. Buchanan, too, was a man who never shrank from labor. His industry was incessant and untiring; it did not flag with his advancing years; and it was an industry applied, in foreign affairs, to matters of which he had a fuller and more intimate knowledge than any American statesman of his time who was living when he became President of the United States. His private papers bear ample testimony to the minute and constant attention which he gave to the foreign relations of the country, and to the extent of his employment of his own pen. He wrote with great facility, precision and clearness, from a mind stored with historical information and the principles of public law. There was no topic and no question in the foreign relations of the United States on which his knowledge did not come readily and promptly to his hand. In this respect, with the exception of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. John Quincy Adams, we have as yet had no President who was his superior, or his equal. Like them, he had passed through the office of Secretary of State, as well as through very important foreign missions; an advantage which always tells in the office of President, when it is combined with the qualifications that are peculiar to American statesmanship.
First in importance, if not in dignity, the relations of the United States with England, at any period of our history, and the mode in which they were handled, are topics of permanent interest. How often these two kindred nations have been on the verge of war, and how that peril has been encountered and averted cannot cease to be instructive. Nor is it of less consequence to note the course of a President, who, during an administration fraught with the most serious hazards to the internal relations of the United States with each other, kept steadily in view the preservation of peace and good will between the United States and Great Britain, while he abated nothing from our just claims or our national dignity. Mr. Buchanan left to his successor no unsettled question between these two nations, that was of any immediate importance, and he left the feeling between them and their respective governments in a far better condition than he found it on his accession to the Presidency, and in a totally different state from that which ensued after the beginning of our civil war.
But when he became President, two irritating and dangerous questions were pending, inherited from former administrations. The first of these related, as we have seen, to the British claim of a protectorate over the Mosquito coast, and to the establishment of colonial government over the Bay Islands; territories that belonged respectively to the feeble republics of Nicaragua and Honduras. It has been seen in a former chapter how the ambiguity of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty had led the British government to adopt a construction of it which would support these claims, and which would justify the pretension that by that treaty the United States had receded from what was called the “Monroe Doctrine.” This treaty, concluded in 1850 by the administration of General Taylor, was supposed in this country to have settled these questions in favor of the United States, and that Great Britain would withdraw from the territories of Nicaragua and Honduras. But she did not withdraw. Her ministers continued to claim that the treaty only restrained her from making future acquisitions in Central America, and that the true inference from this was that she could hold her existing possessions. It was, as has been seen, in the hope of settling this question, that Mr. Buchanan accepted the mission to England in 1853. Why it was not settled at that time, has been already stated in detail. It remained to be amicably and honorably settled, under his advice and approbation, after he became President, by treaties between Great Britain and the two Central American States, in accordance with the American construction of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.
The long standing question in regard to the right of search came into the hands of President Buchanan at a moment and under circumstances that required the most vigorous action. The belligerent right of search, exercised by Great Britain in the maritime wars of 1812, had been a cause of constant irritation to the people of this country. In progress of time, England undertook to assert a right to detain and search merchantmen on the high seas, in time of peace, suspected of being engaged in the slave trade. There was no analogy, even, in this to the belligerent right of visitation and search, whatever the latter might comprehend. An accommodation, rather than a settlement, of this claim was made in the treaty of 1842, negotiated between Lord Ashburton and Mr. Webster, by which each nation agreed to keep a squadron of its own on the coast of Africa, for the suppression of the slave trade when carried on under their respective flags, or under any claim or use of their flags, or by their subjects or citizens respectively. Although this stipulation was accompanied by a very forcible declaration made by Mr. Webster, under the direction of President Tyler, that the American Government admitted of no right of visitation and search of merchant vessels in time of peace, England did not wholly abandon or renounce her claim of a right to detain and search all vessels on the high seas which the commanders of her cruisers might suspect to be slave traders. In the spring of 1858, a number of small cruisers which had been employed in the Crimean war was despatched by the British government to the coast of Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico, with orders to search all merchantmen suspected to be engaged in the slave trade. The presence of these cruisers, acting under such orders, in waters traversed in all directions by American vessels engaged in the foreign and coastwise trade, became most alarming. Nor was the alarm lessened by the manner in which the orders were carried out. Many American vessels were stopped and searched rudely and offensively. A loud call was made upon the President to interfere. A general indignation broke forth in all quarters of the Union. President Buchanan, always vigilant in protecting the commerce of the country, but mindful of the importance of preventing any necessity for war, remonstrated to the English government against this violation of the freedom of the seas.
Still, the occasion required, in the opinion of the President, that remonstrance should be backed by force. Great Britain had thought proper, without warning, to send a force into waters filled with American commerce, with orders to do what she had not the smallest right to do. It was a very aggressive proceeding to be taken against the commerce of a nation that had always denied the alleged right of search as a right to be exercised in time of peace for any purpose whatever. A very large naval force was at once despatched to the neighborhood of Cuba, by order of the President, with instructions “to protect all vessels of the United States on the high seas from search or detention by the vessels of war of any other nation.” Any one of the cruisers sent on this mission could have resisted a ship of the largest class. The effect was most salutary. The British government receded, recalled their orders, abandoned the claim of the right of search, and recognized the principle of international law in favor of the freedom of the seas. This was the end of a long controversy between the two governments.[[39]]
During the whole of Mr. Buchanan’s administration our relations with Mexico were in a complicated and critical position, in consequence of the internal condition of that country and of the danger of interference by European powers. Mr. Buchanan has himself concisely and accurately described the state of things in Mexico at the time of his accession to the Presidency, and down to the end of the year 1859, and I therefore quote his description, rather than make one of my own:
That republic has been in a state of constant revolution ever since it achieved its independence from Spain. The various constitutions adopted from time to time had been set at naught almost as soon as proclaimed; and one military leader after another, in rapid succession, had usurped the government. This fine country, blessed with a benign climate, a fertile soil, and vast mineral resources, was reduced by civil war and brigandage to a condition of almost hopeless anarchy. Meanwhile, our treaties with the republic were incessantly violated. Our citizens were imprisoned, expelled from the country, and in some instances murdered. Their vessels, merchandise, and other property were seized and confiscated. While the central government at the capital were acting in this manner, such was the general lawlessness prevailing, that different parties claiming and exercising local authority in several districts were committing similar outrages on our citizens. Our treaties had become a dead letter, and our commerce with the republic was almost entirely destroyed. The claims of American citizens filed in the State Department, for which they asked the interposition of their own Government with that of Mexico to obtain redress and indemnity, exceeded $10,000,000. Although this amount may have been exaggerated by the claimants, still their actual losses must have been very large.[[40]]
In all these cases as they occurred our successive ministers demanded redress, but their demands were only followed by new injuries. Their testimony was uniform and emphatic in reference to the only remedy which in their judgments would prove effectual. “Nothing but a manifestation of the power of the Government of the United States,” wrote Mr. John Forsyth, our minister in 1856, “and of its purpose to punish these wrongs will avail. I assure you that the universal belief here is, that there is nothing to be apprehended from the Government of the United States, and that local Mexican officials can commit these outrages upon American citizens with absolute impunity.”
In the year 1857 a favorable change occurred in the affairs of the republic, inspiring better hopes for the future. A constituent congress, elected by the people of the different States for this purpose, had framed and adopted a republican constitution. It adjourned on the 17th February, 1857, having provided for a popular election to be held in July for a president and members of congress. At this election General Comonfort was chosen president almost without opposition. His term of office was to commence on the 1st of December, 1857, and to continue for four years. In case his office should become vacant, the constitution had provided that the chief justice of Mexico, then General Juarez, should become president, until the end of the term. On the 1st December, 1857, General Comonfort appeared before the congress then in session, took the oath to support the constitution, and was duly inaugurated.
But the hopes thus inspired for the establishment of a regular constitutional government soon proved delusive. President Comonfort, within one brief month, was driven from the capital and the republic by a military rebellion headed by General Zuloaga; and General Juarez consequently became the constitutional president of Mexico until the 1st day of December, 1861. General Zuloaga instantly assumed the name of president with indefinite powers; and the entire diplomatic corps, including the minister from the United States, made haste to recognize the authority of the usurper without awaiting instructions from their respective governments. But Zuloaga was speedily expelled from power. Having encountered the resistance of the people in many parts of the republic, and a large portion of the capital having “pronounced” against him, he was in turn compelled to relinquish the presidency. The field was now cleared for the elevation of General Miramon. He had from the beginning been the favorite of the so-called “Church party,” and was ready to become their willing instrument in maintaining the vast estates and prerogatives of the Church, and in suppressing the Liberal constitution. An assembly of his partisans, called together without even the semblance of authority, elected him president, but he warily refused to accept the office at their hands. He then resorted to another but scarcely more plausible expedient to place himself in power. This was to identify himself with General Zuloaga, who had just been deposed, and to bring him again upon the stage as president. Zuloaga accordingly reappeared in this character, but his only act was to appoint Miramon “president substitute,” when he again retired. It is under this title that Miramon has since exercised military authority in the city of Mexico, expecting by this stratagem to appropriate to himself the recognition of the foreign ministers which had been granted to Zuloaga. He succeeded. The ministers continued their relations with him as “president substitute” in the same manner as if Zuloaga had still remained in power. It was by this farce, for it deserves no better name, that Miramon succeeded in grasping the presidency. The idea that the chief of a nation at his own discretion may transfer to whomsoever he please the trust of governing, delegated to him for the benefit of the people, is too absurd to receive a moment’s countenance. But when we reflect that Zuloaga, from whom Miramon derived his title, was himself a military usurper, having expelled the constitutional president (Comonfort) from office, it would have been a lasting disgrace to the Mexican people had they tamely submitted to the yoke. To such an imputation a large majority proved themselves not to be justly exposed. Although, on former occasions, a seizure of the capital and the usurpation of power by a military chieftain had been generally followed, at least for a brief season, by an acquiescence of the Mexican people, yet they now rose boldly and independently to defend their rights.