The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America by Sexton Jay

Author:Sexton, Jay [Sexton, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2011-03-14T22:00:00+00:00

The Political Scramble

The more the United States acted like the imperial powers of the Old World, the more Americans spoke of anticolonialism and opposition to monarchy. The French intervention in Mexico largely accounts for this paradox, as it allowed Americans to understand their own increasingly active and interventionist policies as a continuation of anticolonial traditions. Indeed, it was the Monroe Doctrine’s association with an imagined and mythic past of unalloyed anticolonialism that helps to explain its persistent appeal. Back in 1823, the Monroe cabinet feared that a European puppet monarchy in Spanish America would deepen political divisions at home. In the 1860s, however, this scenario triggered a scramble in which politicians from both parties raced to prove their fidelity to a popular and nationalistic Monroe Doctrine.

Just as Stephen Douglas had tried to use the Doctrine to paper over the sectional divide in the 1850s, so, too, did politicians from both sections invoke its principles as an instrument of reunion during the Civil War. Seward was the first to do so when he urged Lincoln in a confidential memo in April 1861 to “convene Congress and declare war” on Spain and France for their activities in the New World. Seward was convinced that such a move would “change the question before the public from one upon slavery … for a question upon union or disunion.” Lincoln disagreed and tactfully rejected the advice.45 Though Seward would pursue a more conciliatory diplomatic strategy in the future, other statesmen revived this use of the Monroe Doctrine during the Civil War. In the Confederate Congress, the Virginian D. C. DeJarnett hoped that Northerners could be coaxed into recognizing the independence of the South in exchange for Confederate support in kicking the French out of Mexico. The Monroe Doctrine also entered into the attempts to negotiate a peace between North and South. Most notable was the 1864-65 plan of Francis Preston Blair, an old Jacksonian Democrat whose son served in Lincoln’s cabinet. Blair’s scheme for reunification involved installing Jefferson Davis as the dictator of Mexico, a move that he hoped would pave the way for the annexation of Mexico to a newly restored union. Lincoln rejected the bizarre plan. Attempts to use the Monroe Doctrine as an instrument of reunification met with no more success during the Civil War than they had in the 1850s.

The Doctrine proved to be a more useful tool in the partisan politics of the Northern home front. Opposition to the Lincoln administration’s conduct of the Civil War left critics open to charges of disloyalty, a dilemma that plagued Democrats throughout the war.46 Patriotically challenging the administration’s foreign policy, however, sidestepped this problem. With Seward and Lincoln careful to not use the phrase “Monroe Doctrine,” they left themselves exposed to charges of weakness on national security. Indeed, during the 1860s, the words “Seward” and “Monroe Doctrine” were antonyms: to uphold the principles of 1823 meant to oppose the Secretary of State.

Both Democrats and radical Republicans used the Monroe Doctrine to attack the Lincoln administration.

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