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Matías Romero and Congressional Opposition to Seward's Policy Toward the French Intervention in Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Marvin Goldwert
Marvin Goldwert*
Affiliation:
Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York
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Extract

During the period of the French intervention in Mexico (1862-1867), the United States Secretary of State, William H. Seward, pursued a policy which historians have aptly termed “ cautious moderation ” and “ masterly inactivity.” Caught between the fear of French recognition of the Confederacy, or even a French-Confederate alliance, and outright war with France, Seward steered a middle course. The French government was informed that the United States disapproved of intervention in Mexico and that a monarchy established by external force held no promise of permanency. But this was done in such a way as to avoid the active antagonism of France toward a Union plagued by civil war. Although at no time was the Monroe doctrine invoked prior to 1865, these mild but consistent protests paved the way for a firmer policy toward France.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , July 1965 , pp. 22 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1965

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References

1 Rippy, J. Fred, The United States and Mexico (New York, 1931), pp. 258–260 Google Scholar; Perkins, Dexter, The Monroe Doctrine, 1826–1867 (Baltimore, 1933), pp. 431–434 Google Scholar; Callahan, James H., American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations (New York, 1932), pp. 292–293.Google Scholar Callahan believes that Seward was “not apprehensive of the rumored intentions of France to seize Texas or to form an alliance with the Confederacy” (p. 293).

2 A full-length biography of Matías Romero is now in preparation by Professor Harry Bernstein of Brooklyn College.

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4 Buchanan, Russell, “James A. McDougall—A Forgotten Senator,” California Historical Society Quarterly, 15, No. 3 (1936), 199–212.Google Scholar James A. McDougall was born in Albany County, New York on November 19, 1817. Admitted to the bar of that state at the age of twenty, McDougall moved to Illinois in 1837. By 1843 he was elected attorney general of Illinois, and he served in that capacity until 1846. In 1850, he arrived in San Francisco, having left Illinois after the Mexican War. Elected attorney general of California in October, 1850, McDougall resigned in 1852 to make a successful race for the United States Congress. As Congressman from California, in 1854 McDougall introduced legislation for a transcontinental railroad. At the end of his “uneventful term” he was defeated for the Senate in 1854 and 1855. A very skillful lawyer, McDougall was a Unionist though not a proponent of anti-slavery. In 1860, McDougall was elected Senator from California by a coalition of loyal Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature. Bancroft, Hubert H., History of California, 1860–1890 (San Francisco, 1890), pp. 273–274,Google Scholar describes McDougall’s “reputation for wit, sarcasm, brilliance and classical interests.”

5 For an excellent article on this subject, see Frazer, Robert W., “Trade between California and the Belligerent Powers during the French Intervention in Mexico,” Pacific Historical Review, 15 (1946), 390–399,CrossRefGoogle Scholar which describes how Union trade policies worked to the benefit of the French. This article also analyzes Romero’s efforts to alter these policies.

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38 Congressional Globe, 38 Cong., 1 Sess., Part III, pp. 2426, 2476.

39 McPherson, , Political History of the United States, p. 413,Google Scholar for text of the Radical Republican program.

40 Ibid., pp. 406–407, for text of Union Party platform.

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