A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 7, part 1: Ulysses S. Grant

by Unknown

The foreign policy of these early days was not a narrow one. During this period we secured the evacuation by Great Britain of the country wrongfully occupied by her on the Lakes; we acquired Louisiana; we measured forces on the sea with France, and on the land and sea with England; we set the example of resisting and chastising the piracies of the Barbary States; we initiated in negotiations with Prussia the long line of treaties for the liberalization of war and the promotion of international intercourse; and we steadily demanded, and at length obtained, indemnification from various governments for the losses we had suffered by foreign spoliations in the wars of Europe.

To this point in our foreign policy we had arrived when the revolutionary movements in Spanish and Portuguese America compelled a modification of our relations with Europe, in consequence of the rise of new and independent states in America.

The revolution which commenced in 1810, and extended through all the Spanish American continental colonies, after vain efforts of repression on the part of Spain, protracted through twenty years, terminated in the establishment of the independent States of Mexico, Guatemala, San Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Bolivia, the Argentine Republic, Uruguay, and Paraguay, to which the Empire of Brazil came in time to be added. These events necessarily enlarged the sphere of action of the United States, and essentially modified our relations with Europe and our attitude to the rest of this continent.

The new States were, like ourselves, revolted colonies. They continued the precedent we had set, of separating from Europe. Their assumption of independence was stimulated by our example. They professedly imitated us, and copied our National Constitution, sometimes even to their inconvenience.

The Spanish American colonies had not the same preparation for independence that we had. Each of the British colonies possessed complete local autonomy. Its formal transition from dependence to independence consisted chiefly in expelling the British governor of the colony and electing a governor of the State, from which to the organized Union was but a step. All these conditions of success were wanting in Spanish America, and hence many of the difficulties in their career as independent states; and, further, while the revolution in British America was the exclusive result of the march of opinion in the British colonies, the simultaneous action of the separate Spanish colonies, though showing a desire for independence, was principally produced by the accident of the invasion of Spain by France.

The formation of these new sovereignties in America was important to us, not only because of the cessation of colonial monopolies to that extent, but because of the geographical relations to us held by so many new nations, all, like ourselves, created from European stock and interested in excluding European politics, dynastic questions, and balances of power from further influence in the New World.

Thus the United States were forced into new lines of action, which, though apparently in some respects conflicting, were really in harmony with the line marked out by Washington. The avoidance of entangling political alliances and the maintenance of our own independent neutrality became doubly important from the fact that they became applicable to the new Republics as well as to the mother country. The duty of noninterference had been admitted by every President. The question came up in the time of the first Adams, on the occasion of the enlistment projects of Miranda. It appeared again under Jefferson (anterior to the revolt of the Spanish colonies) in the schemes of Aaron Burr. It was an ever-present question in the Administrations of Madison, Monroe, and the younger Adams, in reference to the questions of foreign enlistment or equipment in the United States, and when these new Republics entered the family of nations, many of them very feeble, and all too much subject to internal revolution and civil war, a strict adherence to our previous policy and a strict enforcement of our laws became essential to the preservation of friendly relations with them; for since that time it has been one of the principal cares of those intrusted with the administration of the Government to prevent piratical expeditions against these sister Republics from leaving our ports. And thus the changed condition of the New World made no change in the traditional and peaceful policy of the United States in this respect.

In one respect, however, the advent of these new States in America did compel an apparent change of foreign policy on our part. It devolved upon us the determination of the great international question at what time and under what circumstances to recognize a new power as entitled to a place among the family of nations. There was but little of precedent to guide us, except our own case. Something, indeed, could be inferred from the historical origin of the Netherlands and Switzerland. But our own case, carefully and conscientiously considered, was sufficient to guide us to right conclusions. We maintained our position of international friendship and of treaty obligations toward Spain, but we did not consider that we were bound to wait for its recognition of the new Republics before admitting them into treaty relations with us as sovereign states. We held that it was for us to judge whether or not they had attained to the condition of actual independence, and the consequent right of recognition by us. We considered this question of fact deliberately and coolly. We sent commissioners to Spanish America to ascertain and report for our information concerning their actual circumstances, and in the fullness of time we acknowledged their independence; we exchanged diplomatic ministers, and made treaties of amity with them, the earliest of which, negotiated by Mr. John Quincy Adams, served as the model for the subsequent treaties with the Spanish American Republics. We also, simultaneously therewith, exerted our good offices with Spain to induce her to submit to the inevitable result and herself to accept and acknowledge the independence of her late colonies. We endeavored to induce Russia to join us in these representations. In all this our action was positive, in the direction of promoting the complete political separation of America from Europe.

A vast field was thus opened to the statesmen of the United States for the peaceful introduction, the spread, and the permanent establishment of the American ideas of republican government, of modification of the laws of war, of liberalization of commerce, of religious freedom and toleration, and of the emancipation of the New World from the dynastic and balance of power controversies of Europe.

Mr. John Quincy Adams, beyond any other statesman of the time in this country, had the knowledge and experience, both European and American, the comprehension of thought and purpose, and the moral convictions which peculiarly fitted him to introduce our country into this new field and to lay the foundation of an American policy. The declaration known as the Monroe doctrine, and the objects and purposes of the congress of Panama, both supposed to have been largely inspired by Mr. Adams, have influenced public events from that day to this as a principle of government for this continent and its adjacent islands.