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The United States Congress and Imperialism, 1861–1897*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Jeannette P. Nichols
Jeannette P. Nichols
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Extract

Any discussion of the United States Congress and imperialism must admit at the outset a basic handicap—neither Congress nor imperialism lends itself to precise definition. As regards Congress, that part of it which between 1861 and 1897 was most influential in foreign affairs—the Senate—has been best defined by two solons who served there several decades apiece—John Sherman of Ohio and John Tyler Morgan of Alabama. They arrived at a bipartisan definition one warm afternoon of 1890, when Morgan was objecting because Sherman, as chairman of a conference committee, declined to divulge conferee secrets. Sherman, indifferent to the needs of future economists and historians, said it would be a “departure” from “gentlemanly propriety” to discuss private conversation indicating “the means by which we got together.” This aggravated Morgan, who tartly reminded Sherman, “Oh, Senators are not in that sense gentlemen in the conference-room. They are Senators.” Sherman insisted, “but they are expected to be gentlemen.”

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1961 , pp. 526 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1961

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References

1 Congressional Record, Fifty-first Congress, First Session (hereafter cited as Cong. Rec., 51C-1S) (July 10, 1890), p. 7089Google Scholar.

2 Langer, William L., The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902 (2 vols.; New York: A. Knopf, 1935), I, 67Google Scholar.

3 LaPalombara, Joseph, “The Comparative Roles of Groups in Political Systems,” Items, XV (June 1961), 19. On dissent from economic interpretation of American imperialism seeGoogle ScholarWinslow, Earle M., The Pattern of Imperialism: A Study in the Theories of Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 1948), pp. 38–64Google Scholar.

4 Gilbert, Felix, To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), pp. 16, 136Google Scholar.

5 Nichols, Roy F., Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958), pp. 396–97;Google ScholarBemis, Samuel F., A Diplomatic History of the United States (New York: Henry Holt, 1936), p. 323Google Scholar.

6 Merton, Robert K., Social Theory and Social Structure (rev. ed.; Glencoe, : The Free Press, 1957). PP. 225–386Google Scholar.

7 Ibid., 300–1.

8 Dahl, Robert A., Congress and Foreign Policy (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1950), pp. 123–264.Google Scholar Important evidences of shifting attitudes after 1880 include 1883 support for the new navy and the 1881 House demand for final abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, on which Blaine asked only a modification; but in 1885 the Senate failed by five votes to ratify a Nicaragua Canal Treaty.

9 Golder, Frank A., “The Russian Fleet and the Civil War” and “The Purchase of Alaska,” American Historical Review, XX (July 1915), 801–12; XXV (April 1920), 411–25;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBailey, Thomas A., “Why the United States Purchased Alaska,” Pacific Historical Review, III (March 1934). 39–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 On Grant's Santo Domingo defeats see Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: the Inner History of the Grant Administration (New York: Dodd Mead & Co., 1936), pp. 309–34.Google Scholar Many propositions of Banks, and his equally covetous colleague, Ben Butler, did not reach the floor; a gauge of the opposition was the House vote of 36–126 (Jan. 13, 1869) defeating a protectorate over Haiti and Santo Domingo.

11 Adams, Henry, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918), p. 261CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Constituents then as now happily assumed that a Congressman's resources for Washington hospitality, personal loans and fare back home for disappointed job seekers were as inexhaustible as die widow's cruse of oil; undoubtedly the records of Washington loan institutions would show significant correlations with imperialistic legislation.

13 Cong. Globe 40C–2S (july 23, 1868), pp. 4392–93.Google Scholar The appropriation finally passed 113–43 after the House had roundly reiterated its authority; see especially the oratory of William Loughridge (Iowa Republican) and Thomas Williams (Penna. Republican) June 30, July 9, ibid., pp. 3620–25, Appendix, 485–93.

14 New York Times, Washington dispatches week of Aug. 28-Sept. 2, 1961.

15 , Bemis, Diplomatic History, p. 406Google Scholar; Holt (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1933), pp. 121–64; Adams (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1908), pp. 30–31.

16 Cong. Globe 40C-1S (Nov. 25, 1867), pp. 792–93Google Scholar(by vote of 93–43); the Alaska treaty had been signed at 4 A.M. Mar. 30, 1867, the Senate ratified (37–2) Apr. 9, 1867; the House passed the appropriation (113–43) July 14, 1868.

17 Report of the Sec. of the Navy 44C-2S (Serial 1748), 5; , Harold and Sprout, Margaret, The Rise of American Naval Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939), chap. 11,Google Scholar “Last Years of the Old Navy (1865–1881).”

18 Nichols, Jeannette P., “Silver Diplomacy,” Political Science Quarterly, XLVIII (Dec. 1933), 583–84Google Scholar.

19 Cong. Globe 40C-2S (July 1, 1868), Appendix, p. 377Google Scholar; Nichols, J. P., “Coin Harvey, Bryan's Benefactor,” Ohio Historical Quarterly (Oct. 1958), 299–325Google Scholar.

20 , Nevins, Fish, 318–19Google Scholar.

21 Seward, Frederick W., Reminiscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat, 1830–1915 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1916), p. 438Google Scholar; Ryden, George H., Foreign Policy in Relation to Samoa (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1933)Google Scholar.

22 Congressional nuances in Canadian annexation are surveyed in Harrington, Fred H., Fighting Politician: Major General N. P. Banks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Lewis, Cleona, America's Stake in International Investments (Washington: The Brookings. Institution, 1936), p. 442Google Scholar, estimates End of 1869 End of 1897 U.S. Investments Abroad $75 m. $685 m. Foreign Investments in U.S. $1,540 m. $3,395 m. Cf. Simon, Matthew, “The United States Balance of Payments, 1861–1900,” Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), pp. 698–707.Google Scholar Before Cuban intervention most businessmen and their Washington spokesmen did not favor imperialistic ventures.

24 The burgeoning of American imperialism is well analyzed in Pratt, Julius W., Annexationists of 1898 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1936). See alsoGoogle Scholar Dahl, Congress and Foreign Policy, chap. I, on “The Congressman and His Beliefs.”

25 Both houses were sufficiently interested in 1889 to appropriate $100,000 for improvement of Pago Pago Harbor and $500,000 for protection of American interests in Samoa. Republican senators demanded of Cleveland a more aggressive Samoan policy.

26 Brown, Philip M., “Frederick T. Frelinghuysen,” American Secretaries of State (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928), VIII, 32–34Google Scholar.

27 Stevens, Sylvester K., American Expansion in Hawaii, 1842–1898 (Harrisburg: Archives Publishing Company of Pennsylvania, 1945),Google Scholar traces economic rivalries of American missionary descended investors in Hawaii and their struggles for congressional response.

28 The Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 5, 1961.