The United States and Latin America

by John Holladay Latané

The American government was now relieved from the burden of civil war, and for several months the correspondence of Mr. Seward had been assuming a more decided tone. On September 6, 1865, he reminded the French government that the attention of the country was now no longer occupied by the civil war, and that henceforth both the Congress and the people of the United States might be expected to give a very large share of their attention to questions of foreign policy, chief among which was likely to be that of their relations with France in regard to Mexico. About this time Major General Schofield was sent to Paris on a mission, the precise object of which was long a matter of mystery. It appears from John Bigelow's memoirs that Grant, Schofield, and a number of other army officers were bringing great pressure to bear upon the government to intervene by force and drive Maximilian from Mexico. Seward, with his usual political sagacity, concluded that the best method of holding Grant and his followers in check was to send Schofield to Paris on an informal mission. According to the latter, Seward said to him: "I want you to get your legs under Napoleon's mahogany and tell him he must get out of Mexico." Seward knew perfectly well that Schofield would not be as belligerent in the presence of the Emperor as he was in Washington, and above all he had confidence in Bigelow's tact and ability to handle Schofield when he arrived in Paris. The plan worked beautifully. Neither Bigelow nor Schofield reported just what took place at the interview with the Emperor, but we may be sure that Schofield did not say in Paris what he had intended to say when he left Washington. After Bigelow returned from Paris in 1867, he had a conversation with Seward in which the latter said:

I sent General Schofield to Paris to parry a letter brought to us from Grant insisting that the French be driven head over heels and at once out of Mexico. It answered my purpose. It gave Schofield something to do, and converted him to the policy of the Department by convincing him that the French were going as fast as they could. That pacified Grant and made everything easy.[232]

On November 6 Seward wrote:

The presence and operations of a French army in Mexico, and its maintenance of an authority there, resting upon force and not the free will of the people of Mexico, is a cause of serious concern to the people of the United States.... They still regard the effort to establish permanently a foreign and imperial government in Mexico as disallowable and impracticable. For these reasons they could not now agree to compromise the position they have hitherto assumed. They are not prepared to recognize any political institutions in Mexico which are in opposition to the republican government with which we have so long and so constantly maintained relations of amity and friendship.

Finally, on December 16, 1865, Seward addressed what was practically an ultimatum to France. He pointed out the likelihood that Congress, then in session, would direct by law the action of the executive on this important subject, and stated that:

It has been the President's purpose that France should be respectfully informed upon two points, namely: First, that the United States earnestly desire to continue and to cultivate sincere friendship with France. Second, that this policy would be brought into imminent jeopardy, unless France could deem it consistent with her interest and honor to desist from the prosecution of armed intervention in Mexico, to overthrow the domestic republican government existing there, and to establish upon its ruins the foreign monarchy which has been attempted to be inaugurated in the capital of that country.

In conclusion he added:

It remains now only to make known to M. Drouyn de Lhuys my profound regret that he has thought it his duty to leave the subject, in his conversation with you, in a condition that does not authorize an expectation on our part that a satisfactory adjustment of the case can be effected on any basis that thus far has been discussed.

As late as November 29, 1865, the French government, through the Marquis de Montholon, still insisted on recognition of Maximilian by the United States as the only basis for an arrangement for the recall of the French troops.[233]

The formal reply to Mr. Seward's note of December 16 was received through the Marquis de Montholon, January 29, 1866. M. Drouyn de Lhuys still insisted that the French expedition had in it nothing hostile to the institutions of the new world, and assuredly still less to those of the United States. He called attention to the fact that the United States had acknowledged the right of France to make war on Mexico, and continued: "On the other part, we admit, as they do, the principle of non-intervention; this double postulate includes, as it seems to me, the elements of an agreement." He also contended that the right to make war implied the right to secure the results of war; that they had to demand guarantees, and these guarantees they could not look for from a government whose bad faith they had proven on so many occasions; that they found themselves engaged in the establishment of a regular government, which showed itself disposed to keep its engagements; that the Mexican people had spoken, and that the Emperor Maximilian had been called to the throne by the will of the people of the country.[234]