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American Diplomats and Irish Coercion, 1880–18831
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
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In former years there existed a widespread assumption that, throughout the nineteenth century, the United States was an isolationist power. Its policy, according to this thesis, had been articulated in Washington's Farewell Address, was accorded bipartisan acquiescence in Jefferson's First Inaugural, and was reaffirmed in the Monroe Doctrine. Until the Spanish–American war of 1898 isolationism prevailed, confident and more or less unchallenged; and then it suddenly collapsed, virtually without a struggle, leaving the Americans free to enter without inhibition on their new status of world power.
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References
page 213 note 1 In an earlier version this paper was delivered at Kansas City, in the course of what proved to be the last conference of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, in April 1965, when it voted to alter its name to the ‘ Organization of American Historians’.
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page 215 note 1 Williams, William Appleman, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York, 1962)Google Scholar, ch. I. My statements on Parnell's tour and appeal are largely based on an examination of numerous newspaper and MS. sources which for reasons of space cannot be cited here, but see his article on ‘The Irish land question’, North American Review (04 1880)Google Scholar. Davitt, Michael, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland (New York, 1904), pp. 193–206Google Scholar, has a better chronology and fairer texts of speeches of the tour than the best biography of Parnell, O'Brien, R. Barry, The Life of Charles Stewart Parnell (London, 1910), pp. 157–68Google Scholar. See also Hammond, J. L., Gladstone and the Irish Nation (London, 1938)Google Scholar, O'Brien, Conor Cruise, Parnell and his Party 1880–90 (Oxford, 1957)Google Scholar, Brown, Thomas N., Irish-American Nationalism (Philadelphia, 1966)Google Scholar, and Edwards, [R.] Dudley, ‘Parnell and the American challenge to Irish nationalism’, University Review (Dublin), 2, no 2 (n.d.), 47–64Google Scholar.
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page 217 note 2 ‘They are there to make trouble’, said Justin McCarthy, Parnell's lieutenant, to Lowell in speaking of the imprisoned Irish-Americans (Lowell to Oliver Wendell Holmes, 28 Dec. 1884, in Norton, Charles Eliot (ed.), Letters of James Russell Lowell vol. 11, (New York, 1894), p. 294)Google Scholar. Pletcher, , Awkward Years, pp. 241–2, 244Google Scholar. Sir John Rose to W. E. Forster, 2 Apr. 1882 (copy in ‘The Correspondence of Hamilton Fish’, cxxxv, Fish MSS., Library of Congress). Thomas, Hamilton Cook, The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884 (New York, 1919), pp. 69–70Google Scholar.
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page 221 note 1 Frelinghuysen to Lowell, 25 Apr. 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, pp. 317–19. This interpretation of the message is somewhat at variance with that put foward in Pletcher, , Awkward Years, p. 244Google Scholar, inasmuch as in that work stress is laid on what was conceded, whereas the present writer believes that the concessions were merely a diplomatic prelude to enunciation of the hard-core American position.
page 222 note 1 Frelinghuysen to Hoffman, 15 Apr. 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, p. 451. Adler, Cyrus and Margalith, Aaron M., With Firmness in the Right—American Diplomatic Action affecting Jews 1846–1945 (New York, 1945), pp. 210–12Google Scholar. It scarcely needs to be added that this retreat from the European aspects of the Monroe Doctrine was balanced by its growth in the western-hemispheric aspects, the latter point having been ably stressed by Messrs LaFeber, Leopold and Pletcher.
page 223 note 1 Frelinghuysen to Lowell, 22 09 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, pp. 293–5Google Scholar. Hammond, , Gladstone and the Irish Nation, pp. 283–315Google Scholar.
page 223 note 2 For the draft fragment of the message, see F. T. Frelinghuysen MSS., 1 Oct. to 31 Dec. 1882; Drafts, vol. III, Library of Congress. These papers are torn in part, obliterated in part, and seem to have sustained the force of a deluge from some liquid of which the draft of Frelinghuysen to Lowell, 3 Oct. 1882 (final version in Foreign Relations, 1882, pp. 296–8), received the main impact. In those portions still decipherable, the hand of the official copyist is easily distinguishable from that of Frelinghuysen, whose writing has been checked against his personal correspondence with Bancroft Davis, Bancroft Davis MSS., Library of Congress.
page 225 note 1 Strout, Cushing, The American Image of the Old World (New York, 1963), p. 138Google Scholar, offers a good example of the common presentation of Lowell as Anglophile, going so far as to bracket him in this connexion with Henry Cabot Lodge! The incisive and provocative Solomon, Barbara M., Ancestors and Immigrants (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), pp. 56, 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, also misinterprets Lowell's mentality in the 1880s. A very good indication of the injustice done to Lowell in bracketing him alongside the stock portrayal of an Anglophile ambassador may be seen in the annoyance of a really typical Anglophile American such as the New York Tribune's London correspondent, George W. Smalley, in reaction to Lowell's forthrightness of speech in conversation with the English (Smalley, , Anglo-American Memories, vol. 1 (New York, 1911), pp. 206–7)Google Scholar. See also London Spectator, 15 Aug. 1891, quoted in Scudder, Horace Elisha, James Russell Lowell—a Biography, vol. 11 (Boston, 1901), pp. 291–2Google Scholar. James, Henry, Essays in London and Elsewhere (London, 1893), pp. 60–2Google Scholar. Hale, Edward Everett, James Russell Lowell and his Friends (Boston, 1890), p. 275Google Scholar.
page 225 note 2 Lowell to Thomas Hughes, 18 07 1870, Letters, vol. 11, p. 60Google Scholar. In many instances dispatches from Lowell were later published in the Foreign Relations series with matter critical of English policy in Ireland having been deleted.
page 226 note 1 Lowell to William M. Evarts, 7 Jan. 1881, (reprinted Foreign Relations, 1881, pp. 492–4, relevant passages there deleted), Lowell to Blaine, 4 June 1881, Lowell to Frelinghuysen, 17 Feb., 13 May, 14 July 1882, Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain, CXLI, CXLII, CXLIII, CXLIV, CXLV, Archives.
page 226 note 2 Lowell to Blaine, 4 June 1881, to Frelinghuysen, 17 Feb. 1882, loc. cit.
page 227 note 1 Lowell to Frelinghuysen, ibid.
page 228 note 1 Lowell to Blaine, 4 June 1881, loc. cit., on the British protest. Hale, Lowell, pp. 237–9, ably summarizes Lowell's views on the imprisoned American-Irish. See also Howells, William Dean, Literary Friends and Acquaintance (New York, 1900), p. 250Google Scholar. Pletcher, , Awkward Years, pp. 240–1Google Scholar. Lowell to Frelinghuysen (telegrs.) 30, 31 Mar., i Apr., (letter) 7 Apr. 1882, Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain, CXLIV. Lowell seems to have had some awareness of the growing tension between Gladstone and Forster which accompanied the Prime Minister's turn toward conciliation (Lowell to Smalley, 17 Apr. 1882, in Howe, Mark deWolfe (ed.), New Letters of James Russell Lowell, (New York, 1932), p. 266)Google Scholar. Frelinghuysen's revised opinion is evident from July 1882 onward, and may be observed from his comments on the dispatches in private endorsements and public commendations. Bancroft Davis to Fish, 9 Apr. 1882, Fish Corresp., cxxxv, Fish to his son Nicholas, 22 Aug. 1882, Fish Letterbooks, xxii, pp. 479–80, Library of Congress.
page 229 note 1 Lowell to Granville, 29 May 1882, quoted in Knaplund and Clewes, ‘Private Letters’, p. 170, n. 28. Lowell to Frelinghuysen, 20 May, 14 July 1882, Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain, CXLIV, CXLV. This disposes of MissSolomon, 's belief that ‘Hurt by the recriminations of a few [sic] extremists, Lowell never regained his balanced perspective toward the Irish’ (Ancestors and Immigrants, p. 56)Google Scholar.
page 229 note 2 Barker, Charles Albro, Henry George (New York, 1955), pp. 371–2Google Scholar. Henry George to Francis G. Shaw, 12 Sept. 1882, George, Henry Jr, The Life of Henry George (New York, 1900), pp. 395–6Google Scholar. Lowell, , ‘Democracy’ (an address delivered in Birmingham, England, 6 10 1884), Works vi, p. 35Google Scholar.
page 230 note 1 Hale, , Lowell, pp. 245–7Google Scholar. Lowell to Frelinghuysen, 7, 18 Dec. 1882, Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain CXLVI. Lowell to Holmes, 28 Dec. 1884, Letters, II, p. 294.
page 230 note 2 Merritt to the State Department, 21 Mar. 1883, enclosing Piatt to Merritt, 10 Mar. 1883, as well as comments of little value from the Consuls in Dublin, Londonderry, Belfast, Consular Despatches, London, L, Archives. Dowler, Clare, ‘John James Piatt’, Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly, 45 (01 1936), 16–17Google Scholar. Piatt, John J., At the Holy Well (Dublin, 1887)Google Scholar. Portions of Merritt's report are in Foreign Relations, 1883, pp. 427–8.
page 231 note 1 Lowell to Mrs Edward Burnett, 3 Mar., 7 June, 19 June, 7 July, to Norton, Charles Eliot, 25 07 1886, Letters, vol. 11, pp. 310, 313, 314, 315, 316Google Scholar. Lowell to Lady Lyttleton, 4 Jan. 1888, New Letters, pp. 319–20. Lowell to Hughes, 1 Oct. 1890, Letters, vol. II, p. 418. Lowell, , ‘The place of the independent in politics’, Works, vol. viGoogle Scholar. Lowell to the Misses Lawrence, 18 Dec. 1890, to Godkin, Edwin Lawrence, 5 01 1891, Letters, vol. 11. p. 430Google Scholar.
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