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Historical Background

An Emergent Nationalism, 1815-1828 (continued)

POWER DIPLOMACY—CONTINENTAL DEFINITION AND HEMISPHERIC SECURITY

During the years 1815-28 the United States showed more self-confidence in foreign affairs. Diplomats and soldiers added Spanish Florida to the national domain. Treaties settled a portion of the United States-Canadian boundary dispute and partially cleared the way for a U.S. foothold in the Pacific Northwest. In support of the Latin American independence movement, President Monroe warned European nations to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. To consolidate the "good feelings" that greeted his election, he selected a Cabinet representative of the Nation's major geographical sections. A New England member of the Cabinet was Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, the son of President John Adams. The younger Adams proved most able.

The first diplomatic success of the Monroe administration was the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817. Monroe as Secretary of State and Adams as Minister to Great Britain, both under Madison, had laid the groundwork for the agreement. It reduced armaments on the Great Lakes to a minimum. Although complete border disarmament did not come about until the Treaty of Washington (1871), the Rush-Bagot Agreement was an important precedent.

The Oregon question was more difficult. The United States, Great Britain, Spain, and Russia all claimed that ill-defined region. By negotiation, Adams succeeded in persuading Russia and Spain to renounce their claims. But both Great Britain and the United States claimed discovery of the region and fur traders from both countries were operating there. The decision, in 1818, was to postpone solution. The two nations agreed to occupy the Oregon country jointly for a decade, and in 1827 joint occupancy was extended for an additional decade.

In the South, Adams capitalized on Spain's colonial difficulties and Andrew Jackson's aggressive military activities to add Spanish Florida to the United States. After the Napoleonic Wars the Spanish colonial empire was tottering. Uprisings in Spain's vast South American domain required all the military effort she could muster. She had little capability to defend a minor and strategically exposed colony such as Florida. The Spanish knew that the United States wanted to acquire Florida. They probably expected to lose it, but they wanted something in return.

To Don Luis de Onis, Spanish Minister to the United States, fell the task of negotiating the Florida issue. In 1815 he demanded U.S. repudiation of the Louisiana Purchase and acceptance of the Mississippi as the western boundary in exchange for Florida. As Spain's situation worsened, in 1817 Onis abandoned his demands for repudiation of the Louisiana Purchase and moved the proposed southwestern boundary west to a north-south line in central Louisiana between the Mermentau and Calcasieu Rivers. He would not concede any territory beyond this line. Adams held out for the Colorado River of Texas as the southwestern boundary of the United States. The negotiations were deadlocked.

John Quincy Adams. An experienced diplomat, he became Secretary of State and then President. From a lithograph by D. W. Kellogg and Company. Courtesy, Library of Congress.

In 1818 Andrew Jackson broke the stalemate by action. Under orders from Washington, he led a military force from Fort Scott, Ga., into Spanish Florida to punish the Seminole Indians and runaway slaves for their continuing assaults on Georgia settlers. After making only minor contact with the Seminoles, Jackson determined to exceed his orders. He led his army across northern Florida, during which time he executed several Seminoles and two British subjects. The high points of the expedition were the seizures of the Spanish forts at St. Marks and Pensacola.

When the news of the exploit reached Washington, Jackson was again the hero of the hour. Although his violation of Spanish sovereignty was embarrassing to the United States, at the same time it strengthened Adams' hand in his negotiations with Onis, for Jackson had demonstrated the weakness of Spain's grip on Florida. The Adams-Onis, or Transcontinental, Treaty of 1819 followed shortly thereafter. Spain ceded Florida to the United States, and the Sabine River—a portion of the present Texas-Louisiana border—became the Southwestern boundary of the United States. The Western boundary continued then generally northwest along the Red River to the 100th meridian, north along the 100th meridian to the Arkansas River, west on the Arkansas to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, north to the 42d parallel, and thence west to the Pacific. At last the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were defined, and most significantly Spain had surrendered her claims to the Oregon country. In return, the United States agreed to pay $5 million in claims of U.S. citizens in the acquired territory against Spain. It was a good treaty for the United States.

One after another, between 1811 and 1825 Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South and Central America declared political independence, as Simon Bolivar and Jose San Martin flashed across the pages of history. Spain's only hope of recovering her colonies, and it was a slim one, depended upon aid from other European nations. In 1815 the rulers of France, Russia, and Prussia joined Ferdinand VII of Spain in the Holy Alliance. Its purpose was preservation of the old regimes of Europe against a growing wave of antimonarchist sentiment. The alliance was too busy with European problems to intervene actively in Latin America, but it did show disapproval of the newly independent nations by refusing them diplomatic recognition.

In the United States sentiment was strong for recognition of and assistance to the struggling peoples. Were not the Latin Americans rebelling against colonialism and injustice just as the United States had in 1776? Despite the promptings of Henry Clay and other leaders for recognition, Monroe and Adams hesitated to do so until the Florida negotiations with Spain were completed. So it was only after the Adams-Onis Treaty that the United States moved toward support of the new nations, and in 1822 she officially recognized them. Belated though the recognition was, it was the first to be made by non-Latin American countries.

St. John's Episcopal Church, in 1816, shortly after its construction. The White House, in the background, is in the process of being renovated following its burning by the British, in 1814. From a drawing by Benjamin H. Latrobe, architect of the church.

Prompted by the revolutionary struggle, a British proposal for an Anglo-American alliance to prevent European intervention in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere brought about the Monroe Doctrine. In the beginning, it was not a "doctrine" but a declaration incorporated in President Monroe's Sixth Annual Message to Congress, in 1823. Monroe, with the concurrence of the elder statesmen Madison and Jefferson, had inclined toward acceptance of the British proposal for a joint Anglo-American policy of opposition to European encroachment. But John Quincy Adams was determined to avoid entangling alliances—especially one that might embarrass future U.S. efforts to annex Cuba and Texas. Adams was adamant, and Monroe concurred in his reasoning. The Monroe Doctrine was the result. It promised that the United States would not interfere in purely European affairs, nor in the affairs of "existing colonies or dependencies" in the Western Hemisphere. It warned that the United States would consider as unfriendly action any European intervention in the affairs of independent hemispheric nations that were recognized by the United States. Lastly, it declared that Europe should consider the Western Hemisphere "out of bounds" for further colonization.

Great Britain reacted with irritation to the declaration. After all, if any nation in 1823 had the power to enforce Monroe's declaration, it was Great Britain. The U.S. public applauded Monroe's words, then soon forgot them. But future American statesmen would remember them. In 1845 President Polk would reaffirm the declaration in connection with the Oregon boundary dispute with Great Britain. From the time of the Civil War, it would become an active and vital diplomatic policy. In 1823, however, it was not an expression of national power. Rather it was an exposition of basic principles of U.S. foreign policy as they had evolved since 1776.