Table Of ContentTHE
AWKWARD
YEARS
American Foreign Relations
Under Garfield and Arthur
DAVID M. PLETCHER
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University of Missouri Press • Columbia
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Winner of a McKnighL Foundation HUJnanitie~ Award l·or 1961
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Acknowledgments
I AM heartily grateful to the McKnight Foundation of St. Paul,
Minnesota, which selected the manuscript of this book as the
winner of a McKnight Foundation Humanities Award for 196r.
I am also much indebted to President Paul H. Giddens of Hamline
University for several summer grants which facilitated my re
search.
A number of persons and institutions have assisted me with ad
vice and information. My good friends, Dr. and Mrs. Walter V.
Scholes, were on hand throughout my work to offer encouraging
or deflating suggestions, as circumstances seemed to warrant. Oth
ers who have read parts of the manuscript and helped me in various
ways include Mrs. Shirley A. Bill, John L. Gignilliat, William T.
Hutchinson, Miss Lillian Kibler, and Benjamin M. Lewis.
I am indebted to the staff of my home library, that of Hamline
University, for obtaining books for me on interlibrary loan and for
many other courtesies. The librarians of the University of 1\tlinne
sota and the Minnesota Historical Society also very kindly extended
me the full facilities of their institutions. Like all scholars who use
the documents of the State Department, I owe sincere gratitude to
Mrs. Julia Carroll and the efficient staff of the Foreign Affairs Sec
tion of the National Archives. Without their help I might still be
fumbling around among instructions and dispatches. I acknowledge
a similar debt to the Ma.nuscripts Division of the Library of Con
gress.
Many other libraries and organizations have generously furnished
material for this project: the Thomas Scott Buckham Memorial
Library (Faribault, Minnesota), the Chicago Historical Society,
the Illinois Historical Society, the Library of Congress (Divisions
of Newspapers and Books), the National Archives (Legislative Sec-
vu
Vlll THE AWKWARD YEARS
tion), the New Hampshire Historical Society, the New York Pub
lic Library, the Public Record Office (London), the Wisconsin
HistOrical Society, and the libraries of George Washington Uni
versity, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the Uni
versity of Pittsburgh, the University of Rochester, the University
of South Carolina (South Caroliniana Library), the University of
Virginia, the University of Washington, and the University of
Wisconsin.
I am grateful indeed to the Ford Foundation for the grant which
made possible the publication of this book.
D.M.P.
Hamline University
February, 1962
'
Contents
Introduction • • • • • • • Xl
BI aine, the Exptmsionist
Chapter 1 1881 : The Stare of the Nation 3
Chapter 2 Blaine and the Isthmian Question 22
Chapter 3 Blaine and the War of the Pacific 40
Chapter 4 The Repudiation of Blaine 59
The Search for a New Policy
Chapter 5 Mopping Up the War of the Pacific 89
Chapter 6 Impasse in Central America 102
Chapter 7 The New Navy 116
Disposing of the Surplus
Chapter 8 The Mongrel Tariff . . . 139
Chapter 9 The Pork Controversy . . 158
Chapter 10 The Growth of Reciprocity 170
Peripheral Questions
Chapter 11 The Far East . . . . . ... 195
Chapter 12 The Near East and Africa .. 219
Chapter 13 The Irish-American Agitators 234
Climax and Collapse
Chapter 14 The Campaign of 1884 . . . . . 257
Chapter 15 The Nicaragua Canal Treaty . . . 270
Chapter 16 The Caribbean Reciprocity System 284
Chapter 17 The Berlin Congo Conference . . 308
Chapter 18 The Repudiation of Arthur and Frelinghuysen 325
Chapter 19 Conclusion 347
Bibliography . . . 359
Index . . . . 373
lX
Introduction
AMERICAN foreign relations of the 188o's have seldom received
from historians the attention which they deserve. The first
Venezuelan crisis of 1895, the Spanish-American War, and the
gaudy diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt tend to blind our eyes to
the less dramatic events of the earlier decade until we run the risk
of assuming that American imperialism of the 189o's "resurged"
suddenly, without apparent warning, out of a coma.
An important source of this misunderstanding is the record of
bickerings, reversals, and failures which made up most of our for
eign relations during the presidential term shared by James A. Gar
field and Chester A. Arthur, from March, x88r, to March, t885.
We argued with Britain over the rights of Irish-American agita
tors and with France and Germany over the trichinae in American
pork. We undertook to help Chile, Peru, and Bolivia put an end to
the War of the Pacifi~ and only succeeded in making all three na
tions resent our interference. We invited Latin America to a peace
congress but withdrew the invitations a few weeks later. In appar
ent violation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty we agreed to dig an
isthmian canal across Nicaragua and then changed our minds. We
signed reciprocity treaties with Mexico, Spain, and the Dominican
Republic but decided not to carry them out. Finally we joined the
European Powers in a conference to determine the future status of
the Congo Valley in central Africa, a place as remote as the moon
from the ordinary concerns of all Americans but missionaries, ge
ographers, and Henry M. Stanley.
This is a superficial view of the foreign relations of the Garfield
and Arthur administrations. The real importance of the 188o's, in
diplomacy as in the history of American business, labor, and agri
culture, is that the decade formed a bridge between the problems
of the Civil War and ReconstrUction and those of the tempestuous
Xl
xu THE AWKWARD YEARS
fin de siecle. In the field of foreign affairs the "manifest destiny"
spirit of the 185o's, which Seward and Grant had kept alive after
the war, was now combined with new forces, reshaping public
opinion and subjecting officials to irresistible pressures. After the
quiet administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes-the "dead
center" in the history of foreign relations between '86 5 and 1898-
the State Department and Congress became more and more active
in adapting American foreign policy to changing conditions (by
trial and error) and thereby prepared the country in some measure
for the imperialism and internationalism of Theodore Roosevelt.
One of the forces which helped to alter policy was an increased
concern for American prestige. Americans had never been known
for their bashfulness, and, encouraged by the outcome of the Civil
vVar and the great economic growth which followed it, many now
demanded vociferously that their country play a role in interna
tional affairs commensurate with its real power. National prestige
meant different things to different Americans: the right to be con
sulted on international questions, increased markets, or the spread
of republican forms and popular rule. Many were willing to limit
direct American influence to the Western Hemisphere, but all
wished American power and glory to be respected in the capitals
of Europe.
Although prestige included some economic considerations, dur
ing the early 188o's the productive capacity of the United States
became almost an independent factor in American foreign policy.
Artificially stimulated by the Civil War and only temporarily
checked by the depression of the 187o's, American output of manu
factures and farm products had leaped upward, decade by decade,
until it seemed that the Great Republic might die of a surfeit,
smothered in its own yield. Could Malthus be wrong? Surely the
means of production must outstrip even the fertile American popu
lation. Where could the surplus go but abroad? More and more
people demanded that the United States government help its too
active producers to find new customers overseas.
The desire to play a larger role in international affairs and to dis
pose of the mounting surplus was reinforced by alarm, as Europe
entered upon the most intense rivalry for trade and colonies in over
a century. Experienced European salesmen elbowed Americans out
INTRODUCTION Xlll
of one market after another, and between 188o and 1885 Egypt,
l'uois, Indo-China, New Guinea, and large portions of tropical
t\ f rica lost most of what independence they had possessed. As this
amperialism got under way, it seemed to threaten the New World
well, for European manufacturers sold their wares all over Latin
;ts
America. Also, in 1879 and 188o Ferdinand de Lesseps, full of pres
tige from the success of his Suez Canal, called for capital and
formed a company to dig its counterpart across the Isthmus of Pan
ama. At the same time Britain seemed to be meddling in the vVar
of the Pacific, a boundary feud between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia.
Without distinguishing very carefully between trade competi
tion and political domination, American nationalists warned their
countrymen that the Monroe Doctrine was in deadly peril, and the
press of the 188o's indulged in much ill-defined talk about national
security. Today we recognize (as many did then) that during
the 188o's the Western Hemisphere did not face the least danger
of European military intervention and only slight danger of
political colonialism. vVhen publicists talked or wrote of obtain
ing security, what they really meant was leveling obstacles to
the free growth of American economic or ideological influence
abroad-above all in Latin America. Although security was some
times regarded then as a distinct goal of foreign policy, it might be
more accurate to treat it as the defensive aspect of the campaign
for increased prestige and markets.
,;vc shall use the term expansionism to designate the pursuit of
these overlapping goals-prestige, markets, and security-beyond
the nation's borders. The vigor of the pursuit varied from place
to place, being relatively great in the Caribbean and Central
America and much less so in the Old World (although American
interest in Korea and central Africa might be cited as exceptions).
The consistency and the future prospects of expansionism suffered
from the determined attacks of its opponents: isolationists who
wanted to keep American trade, capital, and troops at home;
nationaljsts who opposed any sort of tariff concessions to foreigners;
and economizers who feared that foreign commitments meant
higher taxes. Repeatedly the criticism of these groups in Congress
and in the press broke up expansionists' plans and forced them on
the defensive, but so powerful were the outward-pushing forces
XlV THE AWKWARD YEARS
that before long the expansionists would cry again.
The period covered by this study is clearly defined at both ends.
It begins with two abrupt changes in the national climate: the
restoration of prosperity in 1879 and the substitution of the ag
gressive James G. Blaine for easy-going William M. Evarts as
secretary of state in 1881. The end comes four years later with
the overthrow of Republican rule in the election of 1884 and the
inauguration of Grover Oeveland. During the intervening time
the Republican party, shopworn and schismatic, made ineffectual
efforts to clean house and find new excuses for continuing in power.
It would not be accurate to say that foreign relations contributed
heavily to the Republican defeat in 884, but the plight of the
I
party undoubtedly affected the foreign policy of the Garfield
and Anhur administrations, so that their diplomacy and their
domestic politics cannot be separated from each other.
On two occasions between z88o and 1885 American political
catastrophies interrupted the slow unfolding of expansionist meas
ures and forced the administration in power to overplay its hand
in a vain effort to hurry the process. During the summer of 18 81
the exaggerated partisanship of the Garfield administration, for
which Blaine bore considerable responsibility, led to the assassina
tion of Garfield. Unwilling to continue in office under Arthur,
Blaine then tried to carry out his long-range plans for the State
Department in the short space of three weeks by a series of abrupt
dispatches and policy decisions during November and December,
I 88 1, only to see the most important of thes.e repudiated by his
successor, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen.
During the next twO years Arthur and Frclinghuysen, more
cautious than Blaine and hampered by lack of experience and by
intraparry splits, gradually drew up an expansionist program as
persuasive as that of Blaine, if somewhat less melodramatic. The
first accomplishment of this new program was a reciprocity treaty
with Mexico whereby its creators hoped to foster trade and in
vestment in that country as a model for American influence in the
rest of Latin America. Had Arthur won a second term, he would
probably have continued along this line at a deliberate pace, but
after he failed to secure renomination at the Republican convention
of 1884, he and Frelinghuysen realized that time was running out.
INTRODUCTION XV
Like Blaine in 188I, they tried to force through every possible
measure while they still had the power: other reciprocity treaties,
n canal treaty with Nicaragua, and finally, American participation
m the Berlin Congo Conference. Like Blaine they attempted too
nuch and ended in repudiation, for the "lame duck" Congress of
1
a8 84-188 5 preferred to await the judgment of the new president,
and Cleveland rejected the hastily proffered measures.
While the administrations of Garfield and Arthur followed
roughly the same pattern of slow beginning and precipitate ending,
Lheir policies were not absolutely identical. The goal of Garfield
nnd Blaine was primarily that of prestige. By intervening in the
international affairs of Latin America and even of Hawaii, they
sought to make the United States the arbiter of hemispheric clif
f erenccs and to restrict the role of Britain and France. Expanded
American influence would mean larger markets for American pro
ducers, but markets were not always the principal or the immediate
goal of the Garfield administration. On the other hand, after r882
the Arthur administration never lost sight of the problem of the
surplus, and Arthur's principal undertakings in the field of foreign
policy-the Nicaragua canal, the Caribbean reciprocity treaties,
and the Berlin Congo Congress-were directly based on hopes for
trade. Blaine's emphasis on prestige may have been due in part
to his own personal magnetism and ambitions, while Arthur's in
creasing interest in trade and exports possibly reflected his ·own
earlier connection with the New York customs and, even more
likely, the fading of national prosperity from 1882 to 1884.
Despite this shift of emphasis, however, the fully unfolded poli
cies of the two administrations contained more similarities than
differences. Neither Blaine nor Frelinghuysen favored territorial
annexations or war. Both believed in furthering American interests
by active but peaceful means, although Blaine was not above re
sorting to warlike bluff. As a result of this bravado and his pen
chant for blunt language, most of the praise or blame for this ex
pansionism has stuck to his reputation, and Frelinghuysen's efforts
have been almost forgotten.
The principal purpose of this book is to trace the unfolding of
expansionism under Garfield and Arthur, to relate it with political
and economic developments inside the United States, and, as far
