KC Johnson

October 13: Imperialism II, Latin America

• map–US intervention in Caribbean Basin, 1895-1916

Olney Manifesto, 1895, regarding U.S. concerns about British attitudes in the British-Venezuelan boundary dispute

There is, then, a doctrine of American public law [the Monroe Doctrine], well founded in principle and abundantly sanctioned by precedent, which entitles and requires the United States to treat as an injury to itself the forcible assumption by a European power of political control over an American state. The application of the doctrine to the boundary dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela remains to be made and presents no real difficulty. Though the dispute relates to a boundary line, yet, as it is between states, it necessarily imports political control to be lost by one party and gained by the other. The political control at stake, too, is of no mean importance, but concerns a domain of great extent – the British claim, it will be remembered, apparently expanded in two years some 33,000 square miles – and, if it also directly involves the command of the mouth of the Orinoco, is of immense consequence in connection with the whole river navigation of the interior of South America.

It has been intimated, indeed, that in respect of these South American possessions, Great Britain is herself an American state like any other, so that a controversy between her and Venezuela is to be settled between themselves as if it were between Venezuela and Brazil or between Venezuela and Colombia, and does not call for or justify United States intervention. If this view be tenable at all, the logical sequence is plain.

Great Britain as a South American state is to be entirely differentiated from Great Britain generally, and if the boundary question cannot be settled otherwise than by force, British Guiana, with her own independent resources and not those of the British Empire, should be left to settle the matter with Venezuela – an arrangement which very possibly Venezuela might not object to. But the proposition that a European power with an American dependency is for the purposes of the Monroe Doctrine to be classed not as an European but as an American state will not admit of serious discussion. If it were to be adopted, the Monroe Doctrine would be too valueless to be worth asserting. Not only would every European power now having a South American colony be enabled to extend its possessions on this continent indefinitely but any other European power might also do the same by first taking pains to procure a fraction of South American soil by voluntary cession.

The declaration of the Monroe message – that existing colonies or dependencies of a European power would not be interfered with by the United States – means colonies or dependencies then existing, with their limits as then existing. . . .

Thus . . . the British demand that her right to a portion of the disputed territory shall be acknowledged before she will consent to an arbitration as to the rest seems to stand upon nothing but her own ipse dixit [pronouncement]. She says to Venezuela, in substance: “You can get none of the debatable land by force, because you are not strong enough; you can get none by treaty, because I will not agree; and you can take your chance of getting a portion by arbitration only if you first agree to abandon to me such other portion as I may designate.” It is not perceived how such an attitude can be defended nor how it is reconcilable with that love of justice and fair play so eminently characteristic of the English race.

It in effect deprives Venezuela of her free agency and puts her under virtual duress. Territory acquired by reason of it will be as much wrested from her by the strong hand as if occupied by British troops or covered by British fleets. It seems therefore quite impossible that this position of Great Britain should be assented to by the United States; or that, if such position be adhered to with the result of enlarging the bounds of British Guiana, it should not be regarded as amounting, in substance, to an invasion and conquest of Venezuelan territory.

In these circumstances, the duty of the President appears to him unmistakable and imperative. Great Britain’s assertion of title to the disputed territory combined with her refusal to have that title investigated being a substantial appropriation of the territory to her own use, not to protest and give warning that the transaction will be regarded as injurious to the interests of the people of the United States as well as oppressive in itself would be to ignore an established policy with which the honor and welfare of this country are closely identified. While the measures necessary or proper for the vindication of that policy are to be determined by another branch of the government, it is clearly for the executive to leave nothing undone which may tend to render such determination unnecessary.

You are instructed, therefore, to present the foregoing views to Lord Salisbury by reading to him this communication (leaving with him a copy should he so desire), and to reinforce them by such pertinent considerations as will doubtless occur to you. They call for a definite decision upon the point whether Great Britain will consent or will decline to submit the Venezuelan boundary question in its entirety to impartial arbitration.

It is the earnest hope of the President that the conclusion will be on the side of arbitration, and that Great Britain will add one more to the conspicuous precedents she has already furnished in favor of that wise and just mode of adjusting international disputes. If he is to be disappointed in that hope, however – a result not to be anticipated and in his judgment calculated to greatly embarrass the future relations between this country and Great Britain – it is his wish to be made acquainted with the fact at such early date as will enable him to lay the whole subject before Congress in his next annual message.

Platt amendment, 1903, U.S.-dictated addition to the Cuban Constitution

Article I. The Government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes, or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of said island.

Article II. The Government of Cuba shall not assume or contract any public debt to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking-fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the Island of Cuba, after defraying the current expenses of the Government, shall be inadequate.

Article III. The Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba. . . .

Article V. The Government of Cuba will execute, and, as far as necessary, extend the plans already devised, or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the Southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein….

Article VII. To enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the Government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.

Roosevelt Corollary, 1905, TR addition to Monroe Doctrine

. . . It is not true that the United States feels any land hunger or entertains any projects as regards the other nations of the Western Hemisphere save such as are for their welfare. All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States. Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power. If every country washed by the Caribbean Sea would show the progress in stable and just civilization which with the aid of the Platt Amendment Cuba has shown since our troops left the island, and which so many of the republics in both Americas are constantly and brilliantly showing, all question of interference by this Nation with their affairs would be at an end. Our interests and those of our southern neighbors are in reality identical. They have great natural riches, and if within their borders the reign of law and justice obtains, prosperity is sure to come to them. While they thus obey the primary laws of civilized society they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a spirit of cordial and helpful sympathy. We would interfere with them only in the last resort, and then only if it became evident that their inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations. It is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in America or anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that the right of such independence can not be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it.

In asserting the Monroe Doctrine, in taking such steps as we have taken in regard to Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama, and in endeavoring to circumscribe the theater of war in the Far East, and to secure the open door in China, we have acted in our own interest as well as in the interest of humanity at large. There are, however, cases in which, while our own interests are not greatly involved, strong appeal is made to our sympathies. Ordinarily it is very much wiser and more useful for us to concern ourselves with striving for our own moral and material betterment here at home than to concern ourselves with trying to better the condition of things in other nations. We have plenty of sins of our own to war against, and under ordinary circumstances we can do more for the general uplifting of humanity by striving with heart and soul to put a stop to civic corruption, to brutal lawlessness and violent race prejudices here at home than by passing resolutions and wrongdoing elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional crimes committed on so vast a scale and of such peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it is not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show our disapproval of the deed and our sympathy with those who have suffered by it. The cases must be extreme in which such a course is justifiable. There must be no effort made to remove the mote from our brother’s eye if we refuse to remove the beam from our own. But in extreme cases action may be justifiable and proper. What form the action shall take must depend upon the circumstances of the case; that is, upon the degree of the atrocity and upon our power to remedy it. The cases in which we could interfere by force of arms as we interfered to put a stop to intolerable conditions in Cuba are necessarily very few. Yet it is not to be expected that a people like ours, which in spite of certain very obvious shortcomings, nevertheless as a whole shows by its consistent practice its belief in the principles of civil and religious liberty and of orderly freedom, a people among whom even the worst crime, like the crime of lynching, is never more than sporadic, so that individuals and not classes are molested in their fundamental rights–it is inevitable that such a nation should desire eagerly to give expression to its horror on an occasion like that of the massacre of the Jews in Kishenef, or when it witnesses such systematic and long-extended cruelty and oppression as the cruelty and oppression of which the Armenians have been the victims, and which have won for them the indignant pity of the civilized world.

Senate debate over the effects of the Corollary:

Isidor Raynor, who opposed the Corollary:

I would like it to be known that I subscribe to every sentiment of the Monroe Doctrine: that is, the genuine doctrine, the old text, and not the revised edition; the original document and not the counterfeit presentment . . .

Was it ever contemplated that we should, under any circumstances, assume a protectorate, political or financial, over any of the Caribbean islands or over any of the Latin American Republics? . . .

I respectfully deny that foreign nations are within their rights when they actively intervene in favor of the contractual claims of their subjects [citizens]. With great deference to the President [TR], this proposition is at war with the elementary principles of international law . . .

The Monroe Doctrine does not come into operation until there is an actual attempt upon the part of foreign governments to subvert republican institutions upon this hemisphere . . .

I have looked carefully over the various provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and I find no clause that empowers this government to act as a receiver for any other government. [sarcastically] It might be supposed that through some error on the part of the printer it was omitted from the original proof sheet of the Constitution, but in examining the debates of the convention and the notes of Mr. Madison I am unable to discover that there was any discussion of this receivership matter in that body . . .

We know that these concessionaries [foreign investors] must submit to the judgment of the [local] courts that have jurisdiction over them. We cannot bombard Venezuela because these [local] tribunals have rendered an improper decision. Let us reverse positions for a moment. Here are hundreds of decisions flooding us every day in this country, from county, circuit, and municipal courts, and from district, appellate, and supreme tribunals. Suppose that every jury that rendered an improper verdict and every judge who pronounced an unsatisfactory decision were to be bombarded. Why, the land would reverberate with the roar of cannon and the firmament would be draped in fire . . .

I believe that, however well intentioned [TR’s] present purpose may be, a financial protectorate over any of these republics will gradually yield to a political protectorate over them, and then by insidious process to annexation . . .

I do not believe that, looking upon this subject calmly and practically, there is the slightest danger of any foreign government seizing the custom-houses of these [Latin American] states. The President’s fears upon this subject will prove to be unfounded. He is generally apprehensive that we are continually in danger of war, and possessed of this belief he properly concludes that we ought to be continually making preparations for war in time of peace . . .

Let is be understood that I would place no obstacle in our way as a world power, . . . but if we mean by becoming a world power that we are to take part in all the conflicts between other nations, that whenever a country is to be stolen we shall have equal opportunity to participate in the plunder, that whenever the territory of a defenseless people is to be partitioned that we are to have a share of the booty . . . if this is what we mean by a world power—and it looks to me this is what we do mean—then I denounce this whole crusade against human rights as a policy that is at war with the providence of God . . .

I am with the save in every darkened corner of the globe where he is struggling to be free, and I hope the day will come when every government that is built on the bowed bodies of its subjects may disintegrate, and that upon its ruins republican institutions may arise. As deeply as I love my country, I would rather see that flag lowered and trampled upon than used as a pirate’s ensign and raised, not as an emblem of honor, but as an instrument of terror and oppression to the helpless and enfeebled races of mankind.

Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Massachusetts), who wanted to expand the Corollary to Mexico:

[The Lodge Resolution]: Resolved, that when any harbor or other place in the American continents is so situated that the occupation thereof for naval or military purposes might threaten the communications or the safety of the United States, the government of the United States could not see without grave concern the possession of such harbor or other place by any corporation or association which has such a relation to another government, not American, as to give that government practical power of control for national purposes. . . .

This resolution rests on a generally accepted principle of the law of nations, older than the Monroe Doctrine. It rests on the principle that every nation has a right to protect its own safety, and that if it feels that the possession by a foreign power, for military or naval purposes, of any given harbor or place is prejudicial to its safety, it is its duty as well as its right to interfere.

I will instance as an example of what I mean the protest that was made successfully against the occupation of the port of Agadir, in Morocco, by Germany. England objected on the ground that it threatened her communication through the Mediterranean. That view was shared largely by the European powers, and the occupation of that port was prevented in that way. That is the principle upon which the resolution rests.

It has been made necessary by a change of modern conditions, under which, while a government takes no action itself, the possession of an important place of the character I have described may be taken by a corporation or association which would be under the control of the foreign government.

The Monroe Doctrine was, of course, an extension in our own interests of this underlying principle – the right of every nation to provide for its own safety. The Monroe Doctrine, as we all know, was applied, so far as the taking possession of territory was concerned, to its being open to further colonization and naturally did not touch upon the precise point involved here. But without any Monroe Doctrine, the possession of a harbor such as that of Magdalena Bay, which has led to this resolution would render it necessary, I think, to make some declaration covering a case where corporation or association was involved.

In this particular case it became apparent from the inquiries made by the committee and by the administration that no government was concerned in taking possession of Magdalena Bay; but it also became apparent that those persons who held control of the Mexican concession, which included the land about Magdalena Bay, were engaged in negotiations, which have not yet been completed certainly but which have only been tentative, looking to the sale of that bay and the land about it to a corporation either created or authorized by a foreign government or in which the stock was largely held or controlled by foreigners.

The passage of this resolution has seemed to the committee, without division, I think, to be in the interest of peace. It is always desirable to make the position of a country in regard to a question of this kind known beforehand and not to allow a situation to arise in which it might be necessary to urge a friendly power to withdraw when that withdrawal could not be made, perhaps, without some humiliation.

The resolution is merely a statement of policy, allied to the Monroe Doctrine, of course, but not necessarily dependent upon it or growing out of it. When the message came in, I made a statement as to the conditions at Magdalena Bay which had led to the resolution of inquiry and which has now led to the subsequent action of the committee. It seemed to the committee that it was very wise to make this statement of policy at this time, when it can give offense to no one and makes the position of the United States clear.

Of course I need not say to the Senate that the opening of the Panama Canal gives to the question of Magdalena Bay and to that of the Galapagos Islands, which have been once or twice before considered, an importance such as they have never possessed, and I think it eminently desirable in every interest that this resolution should receive the assent of the Senate.

October 15: Review

Essay questions. Both of these will appear on the midterm; you will need to answer one.

1.) What is your view of the Civil War and Reconstruction period (1860-1876) in the United States? Some historians see it as a “second American revolution,” continuing the progress of the Revolutionary and Constitutional era (1774-1791). Other historians see the period as similar to the European “wars of unification” in countries like Germany and Italy. And still other historians are that we should view the Civil War and Reconstruction as a unique era, involving different themes and issues from either the Revolution or contemporaneous events in Europe. What’s your opinion? Be sure to use examples from BOTH reading and class in your response.

2.) How well does realist theory–the idea that in foreign policy, nations base their activities solely on what is perceived as advancing the nation’s strategic self-interest–explain European affairs from 1800 through 1914? Discuss, making reference to at least three of the following events: the Napoleonic Wars; the Wars of German unification; the status of the Ottoman Empire; events in the Balkans (1878-1914); British imperialism in south and east Asia; imperialism in Africa.

Ten of these ID’s will appear on the midterm; you will have to answer six of them.

Fashoda                                         Treaty of Tordesillas                   14th amendment

Otto von Bismarck                    asiento                                               Big Bulgaria

elastic clause                              Robespierre                                      Vattel

Metternich                                 Russo-Japanese War                    Crimean War

Code Napoleon                         Friedrich Engels                             Pennyslvania Constitution (1776)

Adam Smith                              Emancipation Proclamation     Congress of Berlin

Andrew Johnson                     White Man’s Burden Roosevelt Corollary

Olney Manifesto                     Bill of Rights                                         Emancipation Proclamation

Holy Alliance                          Touissant L’Ouverture                    Corn Laws

Balkan League                         1st amendment                                  virtual representation

Jeopardy–core midterm

October 20: Midterm