XXXV
THE FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE WAR
1846–1848
At the time our difficulties with Mexico approached their climax, the popularity and prestige of the United States abroad were not the highest possible. England, our gentle mother, showed a particular want of regard for us.[1] Herself recently weaned from slavery, she viewed with a convert’s intolerance our adhering to that institution. Having just cured her most outrageous electoral abuses, she enjoyed hearing the London Times describe our government as “a polity corrupted in all its channels with the foulest venality.” Ever scrupulous and self-denying when a question of gaining territory was concerned, she felt shocked by American “rapacity”; and the Times, while infinitely proud that England’s banner waved in every quarter of the globe, ridiculed American “imperial pretensions” as echoed and re-echoed “in a nasal jargon, compounded at once of bad grammar and worse principle.”[3]
THE UNITED STATES CRITICIZED ABROAD
The disposition of certain states to repudiate bonds held in Great Britain, and their tardiness in paying interest, excited all the righteous indignation of the creditor. The descriptions of this country put forth by honored guests like Dickens and Mrs. Trollope, who made themselves merry and popular at our expense, furnished excuses for countless jibes; and in September, 1845, the Times discovered “great danger” that the nightmare of an old English writer would come true in the United States: “No arts, no letters, no society, and, what is worst of all, continual feare and danger of violent death, and the life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.”[3]
If one aspect of our civilization appeared more laughable than all the rest, it was the military side. The title of General, observed the Times, was “legitimately common to the greater part of the respectable male population,” and Britannia outdid this excellent jest by telling of “majors who serve out beer, and colonels who rub down the heels of one’s horse.” Literary men were angered by our failure to amend the copyright law as they desired; and our pronounced republicanism, trumpeted by Polk in his annual Message of 1845, irritated almost everybody. The plain intimation of the same Message that European monarchies were not expected to interfere in America seemed even worse; and the President was represented as meaning that we intended to get Mexico into a dark alley alone, and rob her. The annexation of Texas, which England had exerted all her diplomatic strength to prevent, could not be forgiven, and the Oregon difficulty threatened war.[3]
Even Englishmen who believed in the rights of the people, said the Times, turned from us with “indignant scorn;” and in another of its many outbursts, which would have been terrible had they not been ludicrous, that paper warned us that, as we followed the example, we invited the punishment of self-willed Corcyra. “The most impudent, bullying, boasting nation of mankind,” was Britannia’s genial description of us; and she loved to parade “our national scorn of America and her statesmanship.” In short, McLane, the American minister at London, reported privately—with some exaggeration, one desires to believe—that a deep-seated dislike, “amounting almost to hate, of our people, of our country and of our Institutions,” prevailed universally in England.[3]
On the continent these opinions were more or less distinctly reflected. In France the heart of the people beat warmly for us and against their neighbors across the Channel; but the court and the government, regarding a close alliance with Great Britain as of cardinal importance, and the newspapers which, like the Journal des Débats, represented them with more or less fidelity, exerted a strong influence the other way. At the end of 1845 Polk deepened this, for his Message referred in cutting terms to the interference of that country on the side of Great Britain[2] in our business of absorbing Texas.[3]
The French government occupied a weak position in reference to that affair, for Guizot, the chief minister, believing that Henry Clay would be elected President and shelve it, had thought he could safely gratify England. Thiers, ardent and eloquent, now attacked his course in Parliament, insisting that an ally had been sacrificed to an enemy. Guizot, pale, scholarly and calculating, said in reply, Thiers has appealed to your instincts, I will appeal to your judgment; and pressed his theory of an American balance of power. But good-will for the United States and hatred for England were too strong for him. “What empty vocalization!” exclaimed Le National; “What unhappy exertions! What reverberating accents, like echoes in the desert! It was poor. It was cold. It was null.” Yet no doubt the sting of Polk’s rebuke lingered, though Guizot intimated in bitterly sweet language that it should not be resented, since he knew no better; and many Frenchmen who condemned their government’s policy, condemned the United States for publicly recalling it.[3]
Mexico, however, stood in a much worse position abroad than we. For many years, it is true, she had been representing herself as Andromeda, shivering at the American crocodile or what-not that was approaching to devour her; and at the end of July, 1845, in announcing to foreign governments that hostilities were shortly to begin, she repeated that while she had done everything honorable to preserve peace, the United States had exhibited “no rule of conduct toward Mexico except a disloyal and perfidious policy, and no purpose except to seize successively every part of her territory that it could obtain.”[4]
By such reiterated protestations considerable sympathy was aroused at London and Paris. Englishmen holding Mexican bonds naturally had tender feelings on the subject. British capitalists involved in Mexican silver mines and other investments, and British merchants and manufacturers, who enjoyed the lion’s pre-eminence in Mexican commerce, felt deeply interested. British finances required silver bullion, and British statesmen dreaded a further extension of our boundary toward the southwest. But the politics of Mexico excited such contempt, her financial conduct such disgust, her restrictions upon foreign trade such irritation, and her treatment of foreign powers such resentment that she could not be viewed with cordiality, confidence or even respect.[4]