The early months of 1861 will forever be known as the beginning of the bloodiest conflict ever waged in American history. Unlike any conflict before or since, the American Civil War forced brother against brother and made loyalty to one’s state come before one’s own country. The concept of national sovereignty was tested, and foreign diplomacy became a premier focus on the part of both the North and the South. The conflict between American idealism and a realist approach towards foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere also played a major role during this challenging time period. The choice of promoting policies based on realistic outcomes rather than ambitious goals with little possibility of coming to fruition has plagued American politics since the birth of the republic. The Civil War era presented the prime opportunity to see whether a realist approach or an idealistic one could repel a threat to the Monroe Doctrine never seen before. The Civil War contributed to a number of serious new challenges for the Union government. This included its inability to effectively uphold the Monroe Doctrine and defend U.S. interests in Latin America from ambitious European empires. The Old World ambitions of certain European powers such as imperial France came to fruition because of the Union’s preoccupation with Confederate secessionists, unleashing a whole new dilemma for President Abraham Lincoln and his divided nation.
As president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis had to overcome his own challenge: finding a way to persuade European powers to support the Southern cause for independence. Davis pursued this goal using a number of mechanisms. He portrayed the Confederacy as absolutely opposed to the core spirit of the Monroe Doctrine and pursued a pragmatic approach focused first and foremost on gaining support from the Old World through the art of persuasion and diplomatic channels in the capitals of Europe. Napoleon III’s unquenchable thirst for a new empire in the Western Hemisphere threatened the resolve of the United States Government and the validity of the Monroe Doctrine in ways never seen before in American history. He knew that a divided America would be unwilling and unable to uphold the Monroe Doctrine and saw an opportunity to devise a plan that would become the most daring threat to U.S. interests in Latin America since its founding. Napoleon III’s actions would make the whole world question whether the Monroe Doctrine was still a vital part of U.S. foreign policy or an outdated doctrine from decades past. The American Civil War is intrinsically linked with the Union’s historic challenge of upholding the Monroe Doctrine and safeguarding America’s interests in Latin America from French colonization. Ever since the Monroe Doctrine was first declared in 1823, several incidents tested whether the U.S. intended on making this doctrine a temporary goal or a longstanding principle in U.S. foreign policy. But no event would challenge the Monroe Doctrine in as direct a manner during the nineteenth century as the French intervention in Mexico. This threat not only opposed the United States’ status as the dominant superpower in the Western Hemisphere but also threatened to reroute the course of American history. For centuries the great imperial powers of Spain, Great Britain, and France all sought to expand their global influence and international recognition. While Spain had controlled large parts of the Western Hemisphere from Florida all the way to southern Chile, Great Britain and France both had much smaller footprints in the Western Hemisphere. This would change during the middle of the American Civil War and become a major challenge for Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward as they both sought to protect America’s interests in the region while simultaneously reuniting the nation in a conflict it had never experienced before in its young history. Both men chose to approach France’s presence in Mexico pragmatically. They made their decisions based on the strategic consequences of a specific policy and how it would affect the geopolitical reality in which they found themselves. Other politicians could have chosen to approach France’s deliberate attack on the Monroe Doctrine idealistically, loudly proclaiming classic American values such as political freedom and self-rule in diplomatic channels instead of cautiously engaging a European presence in Mexico in a way that would not create further tension amidst the already complex reality in North America. Like his uncle Napoleon I before him, Napoleon III had a grand vision of France leading a global empire unmatched by any other world power, including the United States. Seeing a weakened America as a result of the ongoing civil war allowed him to think what before the American Civil War seemed impossible. A European power invading a sovereign nation like Mexico and installing its own regime could only have happened had America been unprepared to defend its interests and ensure that a direct challenge to the decades-old Monroe Doctrine pioneered by President James Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams would not go unheeded.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
Modern-day historians of the American Civil War tend to focus on the historic battles of Gettysburg and Antietam, the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, and the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, or the iconic personalities and legacies of larger-than-life figures of the war such as Lincoln, Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Stonewall Jackson. Princeton University professor James M. McPherson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, focuses almost entirely on the domestic aspect of the American Civil War. While he does mention Confederate attempts to gain recognition from European powers and the overthrow of Mexico’s republican government, the vast majority of his book describes the battles of the Civil War and the personalities of the North and South. There is not one mention of the Monroe Doctrine in the 904 pages of his book. Filmmaker Ken Burns’ popular 1990 television documentary, The Civil War, sparked a renewed interest in the war for millions of Americans, yet it, too, like so many other works on the historic struggle, largely focused on the battles and leaders of the era rather than on the foreign diplomacy that was waged by both the Union and the Confederacy as France blatantly defied the Monroe Doctrine.1
For decades, historians have focused mostly on U.S. relations with Europe while U.S.-Latin American relations have often been overlooked. This paper also seeks to argue that Lincoln and Seward approached diplomatic relations with imperial France and the exiled government of Benito Juárez in a pragmatic fashion rather than in an idealistic one. Both men had outspoken views on the Monroe Doctrine dating back to before they found themselves combating a direct threat from France. Their respective years in the U.S. Congress prove they both had a longstanding commitment to the Monroe Doctrine and believed that it should serve as America’s preeminent foreign policy when discussing the long-term future of the Western Hemisphere.
In the grand study of U.S. diplomatic history, the French intervention in Mexico and its direct threat to the Monroe Doctrine has not been a major focus. While there has been substantial scholarship on this imperialistic adventure that marked a turning point in U.S. relations with Europe regarding Latin America, it is not in America’s collective memory. One reason for this is that American historians have tended to look to relations between the U.S. government and its European counterparts. For decades America was, and in some ways still is, focused exclusively on the affairs of Europe. Other parts of the world such as Latin America were treated as secondary to U.S. foreign policy. Some historians have argued that upholding the Monroe Doctrine was intended primarily to serve America’s goal of becoming the dominant power in the region, while others argue it was an idealistic approach to safeguarding democratic rule for those living in all parts of the Western Hemisphere. Historian Jay Sexton argues in his book, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America, that “the key to understanding the nineteenth-century Monroe Doctrine is the simultaneity and interdependence of anticolonialism and imperialism.”2 While this is the case during particular times in the nineteenth century, U.S. relations with Mexico during the Civil War prove otherwise.
President Monroe and Secretary of State Adams made clear through the Monroe Doctrine that the U.S. believed the people of Latin America should have the right to choose their own destinies and be free from fear of European colonization. On the other hand, future U.S. Presidents after Monroe, especially James K. Polk during the Mexican-American War, promoted the idea that the entire Western Hemisphere belongs to the United States and should be subordinate to its own interests. Sexton, like many historians, pointed out the hypocrisy between the idealistic notion of self-determination for the people of Latin America conveyed by the U.S. government and America’s realist approach to foreign policy towards the people of Central and South America. In the late nineteenth and throughout the twentieth century, American diplomats also professed wavering views on the Monroe Doctrine. Some saw it as vital to U.S. national security and economic interests, while others viewed it as a relic of American imperialism from the time of Monroe and Adams.
If the American republic formed after eight years of revolution and sacrifice was to guarantee its future security and role as the dominant power of the Western Hemisphere, it had to be willing to forcefully declare the end to future intervention in the region by any European nation. This declaration was first made publicly to the American people and to the powers of Europe in President Monroe’s seventh state of the union message to Congress in December 1823. In his message Monroe stated what future presidents over a century and a half later would use to justify their own administration’s controversial involvement in Latin American affairs. He wrote, “The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”3 Although Monroe advocated for this policy, it was his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, who actually wrote the doctrine. Adams had the vision to develop a policy focused first and foremost on ensuring America’s national and economic well-being. Both Adams and Monroe knew that in order for America to secure its economic and strategic interests in the region, it had to make clear to ambitious world powers such as Spain, Great Britain, and France that it was willing to protect its dominance in the region and use force if necessary to block any further European colonization of nations yearning for self-determination. The whole premise of the Monroe Doctrine was that no future colonization of Latin American nations by European powers would be permitted by any U.S. administration.
MEXICO BEFORE MAXIMILLIAN: A BATTLE OVER A NATION’S CHARACTER
While the Union and the Confederacy fought for reunification or separation, across the southern border, another nation was rife with dissent and growing instability. One of the main reasons why European powers saw Mexico as an easy target for colonization was its unstable history since independence from Spain in 1821. Centuries of colonization by the Spanish had forever changed the identity of present-day Mexico and its inhabitants. The cry for freedom began to grow even louder in the hearts of many Mexicans in the early nineteenth century, and it would take over a decade for a successful revolution to bear the fruit of freedom and self-determination. The Plan of Iguala promulgated in February 1821 made clear to the world that the Mexican people would no longer bow down to their Spanish rulers. The 1840s and 1850s proved to be times of tremendous political instability and bitter division between the two powerful factions of Mexican society: the conservatives and the liberals.4 The emergence of liberal Benito Juárez pushed Mexico onto a transformative path marked by a focus on individual rights such as freedom of speech, press, and assembly, and the abolition of slavery. A civil war between the conservatives and the liberals would cost the Mexican people and the nation’s financial strength dearly. This would make Mexico a prime target for European powers seeking to once again make a mark in world history.
Besides having to create a self-governing society independent of the Spanish system, Mexico soon found itself in a war for most of its precious territory with its aggressive neighbor to the north, the United States. The Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 pioneered by President James K. Polk concluded with the U.S. taking over what is today California and New Mexico.5 Polk used the Monroe Doctrine as a means to “promote American domination of the continent.”6 No longer was the Monroe Doctrine used only to limit European expansion in Latin America. Rather, future presidents after Monroe would now view the Monroe Doctrine as guaranteeing an ever-expansive U.S. role and presence across the hemisphere.
One future president who disagreed with this enlarged view of the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine was Abraham Lincoln. As a U.S. Representative from Illinois during the Mexican War, he voted for a resolution supported by a majority of Whigs in Congress declaring, “The war with Mexico was unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced by the President.”7 Lincoln argued that Polk’s actions relating to the Mexican War went further than what President Monroe had envisioned when he declared the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. Lincoln did not believe in expanding America’s power and borders by waging war in Mexico. In Lincoln’s eyes, the U.S. under Polk transformed into an imperialistic democracy, wielding its power just like European empires had for centuries. William Seward’s views on the Mexican War were more complicated, according to biographer John M. Taylor in his book, William Henry Seward: Lincoln’s Right Hand. According to Taylor, Seward’s “support for expansionism was predicated on its being peaceful and on the acquisition of territory, not new slave states.”8 At the same time, however, Taylor notes that Seward wrote, “Every military movement has been successful and some have been brilliant; and yet the war is odious, and the Government [is] sinking under the divisions and discontents it has produced.”9 Seward supported American expansionism but not without certain limitations. He believed that the growth of America’s power and influence around the world required peaceful methods of execution and a focus on incorporating territory where freedom would reign rather than slavery. Like Lincoln, Seward believed that the Monroe Doctrine called for a strong U.S. presence in Latin America, not for a colonial one that used force rather than negotiation.
In contrast with Lincoln and Seward, Jefferson Davis saw the Mexican-American War as a justifiable opportunity to expand the United States’ southern border. As a U.S. Representative and later U.S. Senator for the people of Mississippi during the 1840s and 1850s, Davis “was one of the most forceful advocates of expansion in Congress.”10 According to historian William J. Cooper Jr., “From the beginning, Congressman Jefferson Davis fell into step with the Mexican War.”11 Even as a sitting member of Congress, Davis was given command of the First Mississippi Regiment and named to the rank of colonel. He saw his support and participation in the Mexican War as a prime opportunity to strengthen his national reputation and obtain the kind of praise and admiration that only war heroes were given in his era. Davis led his “Mississippi Rifles” regiment against the army of Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847. Davis sustained an injury during the fighting and would from then on forever be seen in a new light as an ardent promoter of American expansionism who was willing to sacrifice his life for his ideals. Cooper notes that “Davis returned from Mexico in the late spring of 1847 as an authentic war hero, with all the status a war hero commanded in his culture.”12
Once the Mexican-American War was over with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe, Mexico soon found itself once again in a complex situation full of political instability. Don Doyle states in his book, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War, that ever since the Mexican people had rid themselves of their Spanish rulers, they “had undergone fifty changes in government, and the breach between conservative and liberal factions had never closed.”13 In the late 1850s a major shift in Mexico’s social order occurred with the passage of La Reforma (The Reform). When the liberals took power following the ouster of conservative president Antonio López de Santa Anna, their government “introduced sweeping laws that vastly expanded the rights of citizens, limited the powerful grip of the Catholic Church on land and education, and culminated in the ratification in 1857 of a new constitution.”14 Mexican conservatives denounced La Reforma and the agenda of the liberal government, especially when it came to the diminished authority of the Church. The liberal reforms allowed the national government to confiscate Church property and secularize education. Conservatives had a powerful ally in Pope Pius IX, who loudly criticized this secular threat to the Church and the political system it had long supported. Once again, a civil war erupted between the conservatives and the liberals in what would come to be known as La Guerra de Reforma (The War of Reform). The president during the war, liberal Benito Juárez, would soon face another threat to the survival of his government in the form of direct foreign invasion.
SECESSIONISM: THE SOUTHERN CAUSE
As a group of secessionist states within North America, the Confederacy knew it was imperative that European powers understand the Southern states’ secessionist cause from their points of view. Confederate leaders thought this was absolutely critical to gaining favor with European powers and persuading them to intervene on the South’s behalf. Once the southern states declared their secession from the Union in early 1861, it was only a matter of time before Jefferson Davis and his administration made their case for secession known to the entire world. In his post-Civil War book published in 1881, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Davis states that “the Provisional Government took early measures for sending to Europe Commissioners charged with the duty of visiting the capitals of the different powers and making arrangements for the opening of more formal diplomatic intercourse.”15 Davis wanted European powers to see the Civil War not as a battle about preserving slavery, but rather as one about guaranteeing the South’s freedom from a tyrannical Republican President and the North’s control over Southern society and states’ rights. Davis also stated, “Our efforts for the recognition of the Confederate States by the European powers, in 1861, served to make us better known abroad, to awaken a kindly feeling in our favor, and cause a respectful regard for the effort we were making to maintain the independence of the States which Great Britain had recognized, and her people knew to be our birthright.”16
Historian Dean B. Mahin states in his book, One War at a Time: The International Dimensions of the American Civil War, that the Confederacy’s approach to foreign policy was focused on three key assumptions. The first “was that the Confederates could ignore the slavery issue and portray themselves as fighters for liberty and freedom and the Northern leaders as tyrants seeking to impose their will on the freedom-loving South.”17 The second “was that European recognition of Confederate independence would convince the North to abandon the effort to restore the Union.”18 Mahin states that Davis “continued to believe during and after the war that European recognition would have insured Confederate independence.”19 In an 1863 address to the Confederate Congress, Davis said, “Had these powers promptly admitted our right to be treated as all other independent nations, the moral effect of such action would have been to dispel the pretension under which the United States persisted in their efforts to accomplish our subjugation.”20 The third “was that Britain and France would conclude that diplomatic recognition and support of the Confederacy were imperative from an economic standpoint because of their dependence on Southern cotton.”21 Confederate leaders knew that if they successfully portrayed the South as a necessary trading partner, it would cause Britain and France to pay closer attention to the Southern cause and be open to recognizing its struggle for independence. Davis and his government knew they had to make European powers believe they had a stake in the outcome of the war. Sexton states:
Confederate diplomats employed a variety of arguments to procure British and European assistance: they argued that secession was an act of self-determination, a principle that had much traction in liberal quarters of Europe; they dangled the possibility of a free-trade agreement with any government that would extend recognition; they dramatized and exaggerated Northern aggression; they downplayed slavery and instead drew attention to the racial superiority of white peoples the world over. Most of all, Confederates appealed to the economic self-interest of the British and French, whose large textile industries relied upon their cotton.22
Confederate leaders came to the conclusion that in order to secure assistance from France, Great Britain, and other European powers, they had to present their struggle for independence as an opportunity to drastically weaken the United States’ dominance over the Western Hemisphere and result in significant economic and strategic benefits for the Old World.
LINCOLN AND SEWARD: PROPONENTS OF PRAGMATIC DIPLOMACY
When it came to foreign affairs, Lincoln lacked the necessary knowledge and years of proven experience that previous presidents such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and John Quincy Adams all possessed upon entering the White House. But Lincoln’s saving grace was having by his side throughout his entire presidency a strategic and pragmatic secretary of state, William Henry Seward. As a U.S. Senator for New York from 1849 to 1861, Seward “enjoyed years of experience on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he had traveled extensively in Europe.”23 Seward always kept himself informed on world affairs, could converse in French, and was an “ardent nationalist.”24 According to Doyle, Seward “foresaw America’s future as a major world power” and “was keenly aware that European monarchists harbored deep jealousy and resentment toward the United States, its democracy, and its success.”25
Lincoln had a deep respect for Seward and his political abilities. Seward in turn “appreciated Lincoln’s original mind and his keen wit,” according to author and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book, Team of Rivals.26 Seward’s son, Frederick William Seward, who served as assistant secretary of state from 1861 to 1869, was well aware of the close relationship between his father and Lincoln. He once stated, “Thrown into daily companionship, they found, not only cordial accord in most of their political opinions but a trait in common not shared by all their contemporaries. That was their disposition to take a genial, philosophical view of human nature, and of national destiny.”27 Doyle argues that “though not always in harmony, they came to embody complementary foreign and domestic policies, and the Union’s eventual success at home and abroad owed much to the close understanding that developed between these two men.”28 Seward would play “an indispensable role as consigliere to the neophyte president, the knowing guide to the inner mysteries of Washington politics and to the peculiar world of diplomacy.”29
The realist approach Seward held all his life towards foreign policy would become especially visible during the American Civil War as he led the State Department and served as Lincoln’s closest advisor on international relations. Seward understood that the Union could not act in any manner that would cause the French to formally recognize the Confederacy and supply them with military and economic aid. This could have drastically altered the outcome of the war, and this is why throughout Maximillian’s rule in Mexico, Lincoln and Seward confronted this direct threat to America’s interests in a pragmatic manner. Seward tried to make emphatically clear to the powers of Europe that they could not support the Confederacy in any way, small or large. According to the late American historian Glyndon G. van Deusen, Seward wanted France and other ambitious nations from the Old World to view the American Civil War as “not a struggle between two states, but rather a disturbance within the nation which it was the duty of the government at Washington to put down.”30 Portraying the Civil War as an internal disturbance was one way Seward tried to dissuade European powers from supporting the Confederacy without specifically mentioning the much-despised Monroe Doctrine. The Confederacy’s struggle for successful secession made European leaders consider whether it was in the best interests of their nation to stay neutral or stand with one side of the conflict.
Union leaders such as Seward knew that they had to do everything possible to prevent European interference in the Civil War. When communicating with France’s ambassador to the United States, Henri Mercier, in the autumn of 1861, “Seward warned Mercier that interference in the American conflict meant war.”31 Van Deusen adds that Seward “told Mercier in no uncertain terms that the United States would go to war with any nation that threatened its interests.”32 In a letter to America’s ambassador to France, William L. Dayton, dated April 22, 1861, Seward described what the Union was willing to do to combat foreign intervention in the domestic affairs of the nations of the Western Hemisphere. He stated:
Foreign intervention would oblige us to treat those who should yield it as allies of the insurrectionary party, and to carry on the war against them as enemies. The case would not be relieved, but, on the contrary, would only be aggravated, if several European states should combine in that intervention. The President and the people of the United States deem the Union, which would then be at stake, worth all the cost and all the sacrifices of a contest with the world in arms, if such a contest should prove inevitable.33
Seward was a cautious yet firm voice in diplomatic messages with French officials. He understood that he should not do anything to motivate French recognition of the Confederacy as an independent nation seeking freedom from an oppressive Union government, but he also believed it was vital that France know exactly where the Union stood. Any threat to U.S. interests in Latin America, including support for the Southern cause, would not be taken lightly.
Although Union leaders knew they could not divert military forces to a new offensive with France, they believed it was imperative that the United States government engage Napoleon III in a manner that signified resolve and an unwillingness to capitulate to imperialistic endeavors in Latin America. Van Deusen states that Seward “never mentioned the Monroe Doctrine in developing his policy toward the French in Mexico.”34 Seward was well aware of the Monroe Doctrine’s unpopularity and direct conflict with the goals of Europe’s great empires. In order to keep the peace between the Union and European powers, historians gather that Seward never specifically mentioned the doctrine in his correspondence in order not to escalate anti-U.S. sentiments even more and cause any European nation to recognize the Confederacy and support its own battle for independence. As a student of history and master strategist, Seward knew how to communicate with the governments of Europe and keep relations between the Old World and the New World stable and without risk of impending war.
INTERNATIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR: THE FRENCH IN MEXICO
When it became clear that Mexico’s fleeting economic strength as a result of several civil wars since independence was posing a major threat to the nation’s survival, President Benito Juárez made a choice that would help lead to his overthrow and Mexico’s political transformation as well as involve Mexico in the most direct challenge to the Monroe Doctrine since its inception. Juárez decided that his government would suspend for two years its interest payments to foreign nations, which included the great imperial powers of Spain, Great Britain, and France. Doyle makes the point that Juárez “was careful not to repudiate the debt itself, but this was all that was needed for the Great Powers of Europe to launch plans for intervention.”35 Doyle adds, “With the United States descending into what appeared to be a prolonged internecine war, the door to Mexico was opened.”36 In order to successfully disguise his imperial ambitions for Mexico, Napoleon III persuaded the governments of Spain and Great Britain to join him in what seemed like a legitimate international dispute over financial obligations. Napoleon III made Spain and Great Britain believe that they would invade Mexico only to force Juárez to resume interest payments and protect French, Spanish, and British citizens and assets held in Mexico. With the United States in the middle of a civil war, it became clear that Lincoln could not divert troops to protecting Mexico’s sovereignty while still keeping the South on the defensive and safeguarding Union states. Seeing the U.S. in a vulnerable state permitted Napoleon III to organize a joint military operation with Spain and Great Britain that would allow him to install his own political regime headed by an inexperienced thirty-year-old archduke from Austria.37
Seeing Mexico in a state of total chaos and vulnerability, Napoleon III decided in December 1861 that it was the right time for France to gain a strong foothold in Latin America, thus creating a new empire that would promote French interests in the region. By ignoring the Monroe Doctrine and viewing the American Civil War as a sign of the Union’s inability to prevent any European intervention in Mexico, Napoleon III took a chance that would directly threaten the stability of the Western Hemisphere and the validity of the Monroe Doctrine. Van Deusen states that by taking a chance in Mexico, Napoleon III “would re-establish the monarchical principle in the New World, check the advance of republicanism and democracy, and oppose a barrier to the commercial and territorial expansion of the United States in the Western Hemisphere.”38
Having Mexico in a state of political and economic instability and America in the midst of a civil war made Napoleon III believe he could launch a successful invasion of Mexico without fear of American reprisal or countermeasures. In a letter to America’s minister to Spain, Carl Schurz, dated October 14, 1861, Seward made clear that he was closely monitoring the imperialistic intentions on the part of Spain, Great Britain, and France with regards to Mexico. He stated:
The attitudes which Spain, France, and Great Britain are assuming towards Mexico have excited a very deep interest on the part of the United States. The United States desire to be distinctly understood as deeming the freedom, integrity, and independence of Mexico important to the welfare of the Mexican people. The United States, by reason of their position as a neighbor of Mexico, and the republican form of their constitution, similar to that of Mexico, deem it important to their own safety and welfare that no European or other foreign power shall subjugate that country and hold it as a conquest, establishing there a government of whatever form, independent of the voluntary choice of its people.39
In his message to Schurz, Seward adopts both an idealistic and a pragmatic tone towards the possibility of European threats against Mexico’s sovereignty. He mentions that the United States views a free and independent Mexican state as interconnected with the well-being of the Mexican people. Seward also acknowledges that European subjugation of the Mexican people would be a serious threat to the U.S. because of Mexico’s close proximity. As a master strategist, he understands that he must argue that U.S. interests in Mexico are focused on ensuring that Mexicans live under a free and democratic government. At the same time, he makes clear that the U.S. views any European interference in Mexico’s domestic affairs as a serious threat to America’s national security.
At the beginning of the invasion, Napoleon III did not make the Spanish or the British aware of his grand vision for a French empire in the Americas. In early December 1861, Spanish troops landed at the Mexican state of Veracruz, and by December 17 they had taken control of the state’s capital city. As Napoleon III’s true intentions became clearer during the early months of 1862, Spain and Great Britain decided to withdraw from the alliance on April 9. Without the support of the Spanish or the British, Napoleon III had to reorganize his forces to ensure the overthrow of Juárez’s government and the fulfillment of his dream. On May 5, 1862, the French suffered an early defeat at the Battle of Puebla. Mexican general Ignacio Zaragoza’s triumph over French forces was a major morale boost for the Mexican people. Yet the victorious emotions of the Mexican people would soon disappear as French forces recovered and marched on to the country’s capital, Mexico City. On June 7, 1863, French troops entered Mexico City, and a few days later Juárez and his government fed to exile in northern Mexico, settling in Chihuahua City. A month later Mexico’s Council of Notables declared the Empire of Mexico. Archduke Maximillian of Austria was offered the crown of the empire at the urging of Napoleon III. At the time Mexico’s Council of Notables was overwhelmingly conservative, and they viewed a new regime led by Maximillian and supported by France as the key to their power struggle with Juárez and his liberal government. The creation of a new regime in Mexico would prove to become a defining moment in the development of the Monroe Doctrine, and leaders from the North and the South would react in distinctly different ways.40
UNION AND CONFEDERATE REACTIONS TO THE FRENCH INVASION OF MEXICO
As one would suspect, the Union and the Confederacy had two irreconcilable reactions to the French invasion of Mexico and Maximillian’s installation as Emperor. When French forces invaded Mexico in 1861, both Lincoln and Seward viewed it as a direct threat to the Monroe Doctrine and U.S. interests in the region. As a result, the U.S. government never officially recognized Maximillian as the sovereign ruler of Mexico. Instead, Seward kept diplomatic relations with Juárez’s government in exile throughout Maximillian’s reign primarily by corresponding with his ambassador to the United States, Matías Romero. Romero tried unsuccessfully throughout the course of the war to persuade Lincoln and Seward to send Union troops into Mexico to help overthrow Maximillian’s regime. He tried to use his exiled government’s support for the Monroe Doctrine as a sign that Juárez was pro-Union and anti-France. In a letter to Seward on March 19, 1863, Romero made clear that he supported the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine even though he did not specifically mention it by name. He wrote:
The fate of the nations of America is bound together in such a manner that if the encroachments of the despots of Europe should succeed in one of them, it would scarcely be possible to prevent their being extended to all of them. Upon this subject the opinion of the government of Mexico is in full accord with the traditional policy of the United States.41
Davis knew he had to make Napoleon III believe it was in his best interests to align his new regime in Mexico with the Confederacy. According to Mahin, Napoleon III “thought an independent Confederacy would provide a buffer between royalist Mexico and the republican United States. He was also very anxious to obtain Confederate cotton, but he feared that French recognition of Confederate independence would lead to war with the United States and have a disastrous impact on his operations in Mexico.”42 Just as Lincoln and Seward were careful not to provoke a war with France, Napoleon III likewise was not keen on acting in any manner that would jeopardize Maximillian’s rule in Mexico.
Knowing that Maximillian was the presumed leader of the new regime, the United States Congress passed a resolution on April 4, 1864, titled “Relative to the substitution of monarchical for republican government in Mexico, under European auspices.”43 The resolution stated that the U.S. Congress would refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the Empire of Mexico and of Maximilian as emperor. The resolution read:
Resolved, &c., That the Congress of the United States are unwilling, by silence, to leave the nations of the world under the impression that they are indifferent spectators of the deplorable events now transpiring in the Republic of Mexico; and they therefore think fit to declare that it does not accord with the policy of the United States to acknowledge a monarchial government, erected on the ruins of any republican government in America, under the auspices of any European power.44
In a letter to L. de Geofroy, a French diplomat stationed in Washington, D.C., dated April 6, 1864, Seward reiterated the Union’s support for Juárez’s exiled government. He stated, “It remains my duty to say that this government has long recognized, and still does continue to recognize, the constitutional government of the United States of Mexico as the sovereign authority in that country, and the President, Benito Juárez, as its chief.”45 The congressional resolution and Seward’s letter did not stop Maximillian from accepting the crown on April 10, 1864. On May 21 he and his wife, Charlotte of Belgium, later known as Empress Consort Carlotta of Mexico, arrived in Veracruz. They were welcomed “by a lavish official reception, but the streets were empty and the few Mexicans they encountered maintained a stony silence as they passed.”46 Doyle even states that supporters of exiled president Juárez had spread leaflets around the city with the words “Long live the Republic, long live Independence, death to the Emperor.” The feelings of Mexico’s lower classes toward their new ruler would foreshadow Maximillian’s complicated reign and place in Mexican history. When Maximillian was chosen to lead the new Mexican empire, he was considered by some as inexperienced in the affairs of state and completely unprepared for the duties that came with leading a nation divided between two factions intent on limiting the power of the other. This is mainly because Maximillian “viewed himself as an enlightened aristocrat, an advocate of progress who disdained reactionary absolutists.” In Doyle’s words, “He came to Mexico naively believing he was the people’s choice.”47 Maximillian falsely believed he had the support of the Mexican people to lead their divided nation.
Doyle states that “Juárez and Mexican liberals looked to the United States as their protector against European—and Confederate aggression.”48 Juárez viewed the U.S. as Mexico’s only hope against European domination and possible Confederate expansion into Mexico’s borders. He understood that the main premise of the Monroe Doctrine was to protect U.S. interests in the region and the national sovereignty of all Latin American nations, including Mexico, from European infiltration. Once it became clear that the Union could not support Juárez and his government, there were several years of diplomatic channeling between Seward and Romero while Juárez was in exile. Upon hearing of France’s invasion of Mexico, Seward knew this callous behavior was a direct threat to the Monroe Doctrine, but at the same time understood that he should do nothing to force the French to support the Confederacy. Van Deusen states that “Seward made it clear that he adhered to the traditional American policy of non-intervention in foreign conflicts.”49 At the same time, however, van Deusen adds that Seward “also emphasized that, while neutral, the United States was much interested in the maintenance of republican institutions in Mexico.”50 Seward knew that a friendly Mexican government was essential to preserving the Union. He stated in an October 1863 letter to U.S. minister to Austria John Lothrop Motley, “Nor can the United States deny that their own safety and the destiny to which they aspire are intimately dependent on the continuance of free republican institutions throughout America.”51 Seward keenly understood that republican institutions were likely not to pose as much of a direct threat to U.S. interests in the region as European powers did. Seward may have used some idealistic language to conceal his true realist approach to foreign policy in Latin America. He knew there had to be a balance between pragmatic action and idealistic rhetoric. For decades, American policymakers had spoken in idealistic terms but in reality promoted policies that were always based primarily on America’s well-being and strategic posture on the world stage.
In correspondence with the French ambassador to the United States, Charles François Frédéric de Montholon-Sémonville, Seward tried to cautiously explain the Union’s objection to the French presence in Mexico. He wrote on December 6, 1865, “It seems to us equally objectionable that European states should forcibly intervene in states situated in this continent to overthrow republican institutions and replace them with monarchies and empires.”52 Even when corresponding with American officials in France, Seward did not use dramatic language. For example, in another letter to Ambassador Dayton, dated April 30, 1864, Seward stated with force—yet without fare—“I remain now firm, as heretofore, in my opinion that the destinies of the American continent are not to be permanently controlled by any political arraignments that can be made in the capitals of Europe.”53 Seward strongly believed in securing the Western Hemisphere’s political independence from Europe and its ability to chart its own destiny.
As a pragmatic politician and diplomat, Seward understood that the Monroe Doctrine was something greatly despised by European powers. Van Deusen states that to use the Monroe Doctrine “as justification for the American attitude would irritate rather than impress the European Powers. Also, [Seward] wished to preserve the greatest possible freedom of action to the last possible moment.”54 Van Deusen also points out that Seward was facing increased pressure from the American press to intervene in Mexico. He states that the press “made intermittently strident demands for invoking the Monroe Doctrine in Mexican affairs.”55 Seward and Lincoln both knew they had to approach the French government as cautiously as possible, lest France recognize the Confederacy and pose a direct threat to the Union. They understood that while the Monroe Doctrine had been a major part of U.S. foreign policy towards the Western Hemisphere for the last three decades, they could not risk France or any other European power supplying economic or military aid to the South. Doing so could have drastically altered the outcome of the American Civil War.
The Confederacy on the other hand saw Maximillian as a possible ally in its fight against the Union and guaranteeing its national survival. In March 1862, Davis appointed a new secretary of state for the Confederate government, Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana, in hopes of implementing an effective diplomatic strategy that would persuade France to recognize the sovereignty of the South.56 As the Confederacy’s third secretary of state, Benjamin “made it his mission to have the Confederacy recognized among the nations of the world at whatever cost necessary.”57 Benjamin strongly believed that if the Confederacy’s struggle for secession and complete independence from the Union was recognized by a European power, it would be enough to “convince the North to abandon the effort to restore the Union.”58 In an April 1862 letter to Confederate diplomat James Murray Mason, the grandson of Founding Father George Mason of Virginia, Benjamin made clear he believed this was the right course of action to take. He stated, “There is every reason to believe that our recognition would be the signal for the immediate organization of a large and influential party in the Northern States favorable to putting an end to the war. A few words emanating from Her Britannic Majesty would in effect put an end to a struggle which so desolates our country.”59
Doyle makes the point that after witnessing France’s efforts in Latin America, “the South now portrayed itself as the main bulwark in the New World against the aggressive Anglo-Saxon ‘Puritan fanatics’ and anti-Catholic Know-Nothings of the North.”60 He adds, “Confederate agents also made it known that their government repudiated the Monroe Doctrine, smiled upon French ambitions in Mexico, and welcomed a stable monarchy on their southern border.”61 The Confederacy knew it had to distinguish itself from the Union in every possible way to find some form of sympathy from the French people and make Napoleon III view the Confederacy as both a necessary supporter of French domination in Latin America and vehemently opposed to the Monroe Doctrine. The Confederacy’s repudiation of the Monroe Doctrine also supported the long-term goal held by southern slaveholders of expanding slavery to parts of Latin America.
THE SURRENDER OF THE CONFEDERACY AND MAXIMILLIAN’S FALL FROM POWER
As Maximillian’s grip over the Mexican people began to soften, the American Civil War was coming to an end. On April 2, 1865, Jefferson Davis and his government fed the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Seven days later, on April 9, General Robert E. Lee knew he could no longer lead the South to victory. He surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, and a few more battles continued until June 1865. Before Lincoln could lead America through Reconstruction, he was shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., on Good Friday, April 14. Lincoln succumbed to his wound the next morning. The nation was shocked at the loss of their leader, and foreign governments across the world began to express their deepest condolences. On April 15, Juárez wrote a letter to his ambassador in Washington, D.C., saying, “Mr. Lincoln, who worked with so much earnestness and abnegation for the cause of nationality and freedom, was worthy of a better fate than the poniard of a coward assassin. I beg of you to pay a private visit to Mr. Seward in my name, expressing to him my grief for the misfortunes befallen upon him.”62 Seward was also attacked the same night and severely wounded.
Seward later recovered from his wounds and continued to serve as secretary of state under President Andrew Johnson until March 1869. Seward pledged to carry on America’s mission of liberating the Mexican people from French domination. But before Seward and the federal government could focus exclusively on Maximillian in Mexico, they had to secure Union control in the former Confederate state of Texas. In historian Gregory P. Downs’ book, After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War, he notes that “as White Southerners resisted federal power, it became clear that coercion depended upon control. The army’s ability to regulate the South turned not just upon its legal authority but upon the force it possessed to make white Southerners obey.”63 Downs also states that “if seen from a satellite, soldiers in the South would appear to be moving rapidly in several directions in the spring, summer, and fall of 1865—hundreds of thousands north toward home, fifty thousand southwest to the Mexican border, and tens of thousands west to the plains.”64 With General Phillip Sheridan and fifty thousand Union troops occupying the Lone Star State from June 1865 to 1866, Seward and the federal government were able to send a strong message to the imperial regime in Mexico City and concentrate exclusively on usurping power from Maximillian and making sure the Monroe Doctrine prevailed.65
The United States did not have to wait long, as Napoleon III began to become more aware of the deteriorating situation in Mexico. Historian Jack Autrey Dabbs notes that in late 1865, Juárez’s exiled government was “receiving arms from San Francisco, delivered at Acapulco, and two Juarist ships, the Merrimac and the Mississippi, were on their way to that port following its evacuation by the French.”66 Dabbs adds that “another American steamer, the Ajax, was known to be bringing arms to the Pacific coast, and the United States ship Elizabeth Owens had left San Francisco also with arms for San Pedro, San Diego, and Acapulco.”67 The tide was slowly turning against Maximillian, as Juárez’s forces began receiving more supplies to wage a successful insurrection against the imperial government and the dwindling French troops. Seward’s increasing support for Juárez’s exiled government and the fact that the liberals were gaining support amongst the Mexican people made Napoleon III believe Maximillian’s regime was no longer worth protecting. The growing displeasure among the Mexican people towards Maximillian’s policies and the regime’s financial burden on France’s treasury forced Napoleon III to make a major decision that would seal Maximillian’s fate. He decided he could not continue spending a significant amount of resources on providing a strong French presence in Mexico, and on January 22, 1866, he announced that all French troops would be withdrawing from Mexico.
Seward strongly believed that in order for U.S. interests to remain secured in Latin America, the Mexican people had to remain under a republican form of government after the French left the country. In a letter to American diplomat John Bigelow stationed in Paris dated September 6, 1865, Seward stated:
We do not insist or claim that Mexico and the other states on the American continent shall adopt the same political institutions to which we are so earnestly attached, but we do hold that the people of those countries are entitled to exercise the freedom of choosing and establishing institutions like our own if they are preferred. In no case can we in any way associate ourselves with the efforts of any party or nation to deprive the people of Mexico of that privilege.68
Seward also stated in his letter to Bigelow that “the United States have at no time left it doubtful that they prefer to see a domestic and republican system of government prevail in Mexico, rather than any other system.”69 On February 12, 1866, Seward wrote to the French ambassador seeking a date for French withdrawal from Mexico. In his letter he once again made the point that French intervention in the Western Hemisphere was unwelcomed and would not be tolerated any longer. He wrote:
The presence of European armies in Mexico, maintaining a European prince with imperial attributes, without her consent and against her will, is deemed a source of apprehension and danger, not alone to the United States, but also to all the independent and sovereign republican states founded on the American continent and its adjacent islands.70
According to Doyle, “The last of the French forces marched out of Mexico City in early February 1867.”71
Even with French troops no longer able to protect his regime, Maximillian decided to remain in Mexico and accept his fate. Knowing that Mexico City was no longer safe for him, Maximillian “left the capital and prepared to make a last stand near Querétaro, where in May 1867 the republican army took him prisoner, tried him on charges of treason, and sentenced him to death.”72 On June 19, 1867, Maximillian “was brought before a firing squad outside Querétaro” and made a brief speech to the soldiers present. He said, “Mexicans! Men of my class and race are created by God to be the happiness of nations or their martyrs. Long live Mexico!”73 With Maximillian’s execution at the age of 34, Napoleon III’s dream of a French empire in Latin America was destroyed.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FRANCE’S THREAT TO THE MONROE DOCTRINE
The French intervention in Mexico left an indelible mark on the development of the Monroe Doctrine and the battle between imperialism and democracy in the Western Hemisphere. Even though Mexico did not remain a democracy for long, France’s withdrawal made clear to all European powers that Latin America was off limits to colonization and imperialistic exploits.74 In what could be used as a modern-day case study of pragmatic American diplomacy, Abraham Lincoln’s and William Henry Seward’s cautious approach towards Maximillian’s installation in Mexico resulted in a lost opportunity for the Confederacy and an absolute Union victory. The complexity of international diplomacy was exhibited by this challenging time in world history. Today’s diplomats can learn a great deal from Lincoln and Seward’s example and unrelenting resolve to reunite a divided America. Like Lincoln’s administration before them, the administrations of recent American presidents have all in one way or another contributed to U.S.-Latin American policy and left their own unique mark on the implementation of the Monroe Doctrine. Conflicts such as the Spanish-American War, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, and the rise of socialist governments in Central and South America in the 1970s and 1980s all forced U.S. Presidents and diplomats to seek new ways of approaching these complex challenges. America could not escape the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine and its vital significance for the future of the Hemisphere.
The constant competition between America and Europe since the thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain has evolved in many significant ways. The importance of protecting one’s borders was a preeminent concern during the early years of the young republic, and thereafter a focus on multilateral trade became paramount for all future administrations. Different presidents have tried to carry out the goals of Monroe and Adams, some successfully and others not. Some historians argue that Lincoln could have done more to prevent the French from first arriving in Mexico and overthrowing Juárez. Yet when one looks at the unnatural circumstances surrounding this pivotal time in world history, one can see that Lincoln was in no position to effectively prevent European powers from intervening in Latin American affairs. No American president before or since Lincoln has had to deal with the great trials and tribulations he faced during his time in office. It was up to him whether the United States would live or die, whether a nation born out of a yearning for freedom could survive half-slave and half-free. Besides the Confederacy’s efforts to secede, Lincoln and the Union’s government had to find a way to overcome France’s audacious actions in Mexico, as well as Napoleon III’s goal of invalidating the core principle of the Monroe Doctrine and overcoming America’s place as the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. Modern-day diplomats can and should look to this unprecedented time in world history to gain a better understanding of how pragmatic decision-making is essential to the art of international diplomacy.
