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Title: The war myth in United States history
Author: C. H. Hamlin
Contributor: Charles F. Dole
Release date: May 13, 2024 [eBook #73623]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Vanguard Press, 1927
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAR MYTH IN UNITED STATES HISTORY ***
The War Myth in
United States History
By C. H. HAMLIN
_Atlantic Christian College_
_With Introduction by_
CHARLES F. DOLE
THE VANGUARD PRESS
NEW YORK
_Copyright, 1927, by_
VANGUARD PRESS, INC.
VANGUARD PRINTINGS
_Fifth Printing_
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_To my brother,_
ASKEW H. HAMLIN
_A life full of promise cut short
in early manhood_
CONTENTS
_Chapter_
Introduction
I. Patriotism and Peace
II. The Revolutionary War
III. The War of 1812
IV. The War With Mexico
V. The Civil War
VI. The War With Spain
VII. The World War
THE WAR MYTH IN UNITED STATES HISTORY
INTRODUCTION
Professor Hamlin's book seems to me not merely interesting but
extremely important. No man who cares for the story of his country
can afford to neglect it.
The plan of the work is suggested by the title;--the time has come to
ask soberly regarding every war in which the United States has been
engaged from the beginning, whether it had to be, and if it had to
be, why? We want to know frankly if our wars have brought us glory.
It is already easy to see that the wars of other nations, and
especially of those who have fought against us, have entailed upon
them shame, cruel measures, oppression of the poor, suppression of
liberties, violation of law, destruction of wealth and immeasurable
futility. But we were told that our wars had been different; our
wars had been sacred; our sovereignty "could do no wrong." Had we
not solemnly thanked God for his help in winning every one of our
wars?
The great World War has brought mankind to a new and surprising
conclusion such as probably never before prevailed at the end of a
war. Leading people in all nations are at one in the conclusion,
that no thoughtful person in any country which entered the war knew
of any adequate reason why his government should spend the blood of
its people. As Mr. Lloyd George has said: "No one intended the war,
but we all 'staggered and stumbled' into it." It came upon the world
like an epidemic of mania. It is evident also that its coming was
directly related to the prevailing fashion of "preparedness" for war
and to the fears and suspiciousness that everywhere attended this
preparedness. It had been the barbarous expectation for ages that
war must come every once in so often, as a plague comes. Was not the
world full of barbarous people, and therefore of barbarous nations?
Professor Hamlin boldly carries over all the wars of our own United
States into the broad generalization which includes the wars of other
nations. They all belong together among the old world evils, like
slavery or witchcraft, which it is our business to clear away from
the earth. We apologize for them no longer. We propose not to
expect them nor prepare at tremendous expense to suffer and die when
they come; we propose rather through simple, humane and rational
measures to provide never to endure them again.
Professor Hamlin accordingly takes up in a rapid survey and analysis
each one of the six major wars through which the larger part of our
total national expenditures have been devoured. He proceeds, like a
skilful surgeon, without passion or partisanship, with a trace of
sympathy for all groups and parties, in so far as all were alike
victims of misunderstanding, ignorance of the facts, and hereditary
prejudices and delusions. Save for the great common human
characteristics which gleam out among all peoples and on both sides
in times of calamity--the patience, the heroism, the self-sacrifice,
the exceptional acts of magnanimity--he finds nothing whatever holy
in a single one of our national wars, but rather the manifestation of
every mean, cruel and cowardly trait which has ever debased human
nature.
He can discover in the case of no one of these wars any evidence that
the body of the people or an intelligently informed majority in it,
or even the government, had taken pains to assure themselves either
of the justice or the necessity of going to war, or that their
leaders were ever able to assign a just and sufficient reason and
purpose compelling them to resort to war. Thus he brings to light,
what every one ought by this time to know, that the Revolutionary
War, far from being undertaken by the will of a free citizenry, was
actually forced upon the American people by a small minority in the
teeth of the earnest opposition of a highly respectable percentage of
thoughtful citizens, while another large part of the colonists was
quite indifferent to the issue. Professor Hamlin also makes clear
that in all our wars, exactly as in those we usually reprobate, our
people were presently found practising the same injustices,
indignities, lying defamations, detestable acts of revenge, outrages
on innocent women and children, upon the fears of which we had
hastily assumed excuse for ourselves in rushing into war.
In all our wars we have boasted of our American ardor for liberty.
Professor Hamlin's book shows how every great war requires the most
terrible form of slavery, namely conscription, in which the
individual is stripped of the normal use of his conscience and
judgment. In order to drive men to submit to this degradation the
government itself, even in the hands of its "best" men, must resort
to the employment of unscrupulous lying, reckless propaganda in abuse
of the enemy, and the suppression of truth, of free speech and
open-mindedness--in short, to a debauch of miseducation, and a
general corruption of the whole population. Once in war, it never
will do to let good be known of the enemy! War counts upon the
plentiful outpouring of passion and hatred.
The churches also are pressed in war-time to undertake the defense of
doing evil that good may come, and to strain their arguments over the
verge of hypocrisy in making the worse appear the better reason. So
altogether, "hell is let loose." The worst of it is that the lower
passions, once let loose, do not willingly return under control, but
remain to haunt the earth.
Once more, Professor Hamlin shows how in each case after a war the
whole horrible storm flattens out into waste, corruption and
futility. The World War is the most colossal demonstration of this
condition. If a people thought they knew what they were fighting
for, they failed to get it; the victor proves often at last to be the
vanquished. It is curious now in looking back to the Civil War to
note that the reason which chiefly persuaded "good" and chivalrous
souls to engage in it was to put an end to slavery. This at best was
dealing in the wrong way with evil, that is, overcoming it with evil,
as was abundantly proved after the war. But Mr. Lincoln would not
admit that we were at war against slavery! We were at war, as the
government held, to put down secession, whereas we had begun the
national union by a war of secession; our government would have liked
at the time of the war of 1812 to get Canada by secession or capture;
we fought with Mexico to secure the results of the secession of
Texas; we refused in 1898 to accept a peaceful method to separate
Cuba from Spain but insisted upon fighting to effect the separation;
and we still keep armed forces in the Philippine Islands against the
protest of the inhabitants. Mr. Roosevelt was quick to postulate the
right of secession in the case of Panama. As to the Great War, our
President Wilson's proclamation in favor of the natural right of
small nations to secede has become one of the slogans of mankind! As
has been often remarked: "This is a queer world." Professor Hamlin's
little book is at least an easy _reductio ad absurdum_ for war.
CHARLES F. DOLE.
Southwest Harbor, Me.,
August, 1926.
CHAPTER I
PATRIOTISM AND PEACE
For the first one hundred and thirty-five years of the history of
this republic the total expenditure of the federal treasury was
approximately $66,000,000,000. Of this total expenditure
approximately $56,000,000,000 was for warfare. From 1775 to 1923 the
United States Army was engaged in no conflicts comprising about 8,600
battles and a casualty list of approximately 1,280,000 men. (See
Ganoe, History of U. S. Army, page 490.) Of course most of these
conflicts were minor. This study will include only the six major
wars in which we have been participants.
A most common fallacy in the study of history is the blind acceptance
of that which has happened as inevitable in the course of events.
This is a form of collective fatalism. It reduces history to a study
of the dead past with no message for today. This view is the very
opposite of democracy. Democracy assumes that the group has control
over its actions and that they are not the result of a blind
fatalism. To look upon past events as inevitable makes man the
victim of forces over which he can have no control. It makes man a
slave. This fatalism is incompatible with democracy. The democrat
must study history not to discover the forces of fate but to discover
more perfect rules of human conduct. Primarily, the study of the
past should be to throw light on the present and future, so that we
might profit by the wisdom and the mistakes of the past. But to do
this we can not accept collective fatalism as our attitude toward
history.
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century the study of history
was a study of the Greeks and the Romans. It was a study of the
ancients only. Early in the nineteenth century, with the rise of
nationalism especially intensified by the French Revolution, all
nations began introducing the study of their national history in
their elementary schools. The object of this was to teach
patriotism. Examine their meaning of patriotism and you find it
meant the support of the king on the throne. All texts and
instruction exalted the nation to show its superiority to others.
Patriotism meant national propaganda. With the rise of democracy
patriotism began to shift to mean the support of the
group,--pro-group rather than pro-king. This was the cause and the
result of the national mind set. Patriotism became international
hatred, measured in terms of military service. This attitude toward
history caused the teaching and writing of history to be largely
national propaganda, by interpreting all the wars of a nation as
defensive with the opponent always the offensive nation.
The greatest difference between the present peace movement and
previous ones is that now among many of those who study the problem
the offensive-defensive relationship in warfare is being not only
questioned but rejected. All nations picture their side as
defensive. Previous peace movements accepted this attitude.
Accordingly, when a conflict arose, these opponents of war usually
yielded to the pressure because they thought their nation was being
attacked by an aggressor. But a careful study of history does not
warrant such an idea. The effective element of the present peace
movement is based chiefly on the fact that there is no nation of
"sole guilt" in any war once the facts are studied carefully. The
following study is an attempt to show that in our wars there has not
been the "sole innocence" of the United States as opposed to the
"sole guilt" of our opponents. _That its wars are defensive against
an offensive enemy, is the war myth of every country_. This national
bias makes it easy for the military party to predominate and to
precipitate war. Yet warfare is not popular if measured in terms of
voluntary support of the citizenship in time of war. It was hard for
the colonies to induce as many as 250,000 men to join the
Revolutionary forces out of a total population of over 3,000,000, and
only a part of the 250,000 were enlisted at any one time. In the
Civil War both sides were forced to use the draft, or the war would
have collapsed. No major war of modern times could have been fought
without the draft. This would be enough to show that warfare is not
popular if judged by actual voluntary support on the field of battle.
One often hears that warfare is a manifestation of human nature and
will be eliminated only through a long evolutionary process. But the
same thing has been said of slavery, duelling, witchcraft, and many
other evils now eliminated. Warfare is not dependent upon human
nature, but upon the human point of view, and this point of view can
be altered by education,--education which is honest, which can sift
the true from the false, which does not close its eyes to the
powerful role played by economic and social forces in the wars of the
nation.
Whether there was another way out in these conflicts, whether the
results aimed at were achieved, whether the ruin and destruction
which went hand in hand with these conflicts could ever be balanced
by material acquisitions,--these are questions the reader must decide
for himself. This book simply lays the facts before him.
CHAPTER II
THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR
In no sense is an attempt being made here to give a complete history
of the causes of the war for the independence of the United States.
This is simply a brief analysis of the ten outstanding causes and the
nature of the conflict, without defending or opposing either side in
the struggle.
The common opinion in the United States regarding the American
Revolution is that it was a war waged against Great Britain in which
the American people as a whole rose up against the mother country in
order to protect themselves against unjustifiable and unbearable
oppression. This is the position taken in the Declaration of
Independence, and we have always looked upon the conflict through the
eyes of the Declaration of Independence. The thirteen colonies
declared themselves free and independent on July 2, 1776, and then on
July 4, 1776 adopted the Declaration of Independence proclaiming to
the world their reasons for declaring themselves free. Thus the
Declaration of Independence was not a declaration of independence,
but a publication to the world of the causes which led the colonies
to the point of such a declaration. It was an effort to put their
side before the world and justify it. It was written by Thomas
Jefferson in the heat of a great emotion. Twenty-seven grievances
were held against Great Britain to justify the course taken by the
colonies. We shall not attempt here to study the real nature of
"freedom" which is much more than a question of national boundaries,
and is even independent of national boundaries,--but we shall accept
the term in its usual narrow legal sense.
The outstanding causes of the Revolutionary War were the following:
the expulsion of the French from Canada in 1763, the attempt on the
part of Great Britain to enforce the navigation acts, the British
western land policy, the British financial legislation regarding the
colonies, the stamp act of 1765, the Townshend act of 1767, the
Boston "tea party" of 1773, the five punitive acts of 1776, the
general economic depression during the 70's, and religious conflicts.
Let us examine briefly these ten causes.
(1) After the French were defeated by Great Britain in 1763 and lost
Canada, the colonies did not feel the same need for protection by the
mother country as formerly. The French on the north were defeated.
The Indians gave some trouble but were not a great power to be
dreaded. As a result, the colonies felt themselves to be self
supporting. Georgia was an exception because as the youngest of the
thirteen colonies it was dependent on England for subsidies and
protection from the Indians. Thus, because the people recognized
their dependence on Great Britain for protection, the movement for
independence made slower headway in Georgia.
(2) By far the most important cause of the American Revolution was
the effort on the part of George III to enforce the navigation laws
of Great Britain. It was customary then for every mother-country to
regard its colonies as trading posts. The colonies were considered
necessary as the source of raw materials for the home manufacturers
and also as a market for the surplus manufactured goods of the home
country. This economic principle was a phase of mercantilism which
was the dominant economic doctrine of the time. In harmony with this
theory, Great Britain as early as 1651 began passing navigation acts
requiring her colonies to trade only with British merchants. All the
export trade of the colonies had to be sent to Great Britain, and all
their imported goods had to come from Great Britain. In addition,
the ships transporting these goods had to be owned by British
subjects.
This law, however, was openly violated by the colonial merchants.
They traded with the Dutch or with any other foreigners they could.
British officials in America were bribed and co-operated in this
illegal trade. The leading people of New England at this time were
merchants, and it has been estimated that nine-tenths of these
merchants were smugglers. John Hancock, who was to become president
of the First Continental Congress in 1775, was a smuggler on a great
scale, and at one time was sued for $500,000 as a penalty for
smuggling. John Adams was his counsel. (See Simons, "Social Forces
in United States History," pages 61-62.) It was these merchants of
New England and especially of Boston, who were among the leaders in
the Revolution. After the close of the French and Indian War in
1763, English merchants and English business in general had to be
heavily taxed in order to pay the enormous national debt.
Accordingly, pressure was brought to bear on the British government
to have the navigation laws enforced, which would give the English
the colonial trade, thus enabling them to meet more easily the
financial demands of taxation. Efforts were then made by Great
Britain to enforce these navigation laws which had been openly
violated for more than a century. Their legality had never been
questioned. It was the usual policy of all countries of that age in
dealing with their colonies. These navigation laws were no doubt
unwise interferences with trade but their legality was not
questioned, as all modern tariffs are trade barriers, which does not
make their violation legal. Besides, these laws did not entirely
disregard the interests of the colonies. Great Britain gave them a
monopoly of tobacco raising, prohibiting Ireland from raising it.
Bounties or sums of money were often paid by the British Government
to the colonial producers to encourage industry. These bounties were
paid on indigo, tar, pitch, hemp, and many other industries which
Great Britain was attempting to establish in the colonies in order to
keep the empire from finding it necessary to buy them from a foreign
nation. These navigation laws aroused New England rather than the
South, for it was the commercial section of the country.
(3) Another cause of friction between the colonies and the mother
country was the British land policy proclaimed in 1763. This policy
ordered the colonial governors to grant no more land to settlers
beyond a certain western border extending south from the New England
States along the western part of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. (See Hockett,
"Political and Social History of the United States," Vol. 1, page
115.) This line extended down just east of the mountains and was to
leave to the Indians the territory west of it. This western land was
then to be purchased from the Indians for the king. After that the
Indians would go further west and their original territory was to be
opened to settlers as soon as it was purchased. This arrangement was
made by Great Britain to avoid conflict between the Indians and the
frontier settlers. The frontier settlers, however, objected,
preferring to drive the Indians back by more ruthless methods even if
it caused trouble. The western land speculators also did not like it
because they could not sell their land until Great Britain had first
pushed the Indians back. The royal government immediately began
making treaties with the Indians for the purchase of their territory.
The policy was wise and humane but the settlers were too impatient to
abide by it. (The Washington family was prominent in these western
land speculations.) A land lobby was kept in London by these
speculators in their efforts to get large grants of western land from
the crown and then to sell it off as the country became more and more
settled.
(4) The next principal cause of trouble was the British financial
legislation regarding the colonies. The colonies had issued fiat
money or colonial bills of credit, which were a form of paper money.
These could not be redeemed, and immediately began to depreciate in
value. Yet they were made legal tender by the colonial legislature,
so that they had to be accepted in payment of debt. Often the
colonies would buy goods from the English and pay them with this
colonial money. The southern planters were especially active in
using it to pay their debts to their British creditors. The
merchants of London soon complained of this practice. Finally, in
1764, Great Britain prohibited all the colonies from issuing these
bills of credit or fiat money as such a procedure was considered
unfair to their creditors. This, of course, aroused great opposition
from those profiting by this currency when paying their debts. Yet
no one now would defend such a financial policy on the part of the
colonies.
(5) The popular conception today is that the Stamp Act of 1765 was
the principal if not the sole cause of the American Revolution. This
fact is greatly exaggerated but it is the easiest to understand, and
for that reason has been given the chief place among the many causes
of the conflict. The Stamp Act was an act passed by Great Britain
requiring the placing on all legal documents of stamps to be sold to
the colonies by Great Britain. The usual impression is that this
revenue was to go to the mother country and was to be a continual tax
upon the colonies for the sole benefit of the crown. This impression
is entirely false, however. The revenue from these stamps was to be
used to pay one-third of the expense of a colonial army of about
10,000 men to be kept here for the defense of the colonies. Not one
penny was to go to Great Britain. Examine any elementary text on
United States history. They speak of taxing the colonies, but leave
the impression that the money was to go to Great Britain, whereas
actually it was all to be spent for the protection of the colonies
against possible trouble with the Indians and the French. This
colonial army had been proposed before by the colonies. In 1739
colonial leaders under the leadership of the Governor of Pennsylvania
had themselves proposed such an army supported by such a tax. But at
that time they had felt the danger of the French in Canada. After
the defeat of the French in 1763 this danger was no longer so
threatening. When this Stamp Act was passed in 1765 its operation
was delayed for one year in order to give the colonies an opportunity
to agree among themselves upon some other method of raising the money
if they objected to the Stamp Act. The act was repealed in 1766
because of the bitter opposition of the colonies, who disliked a tax
of any sort. "No Taxation Without Representation" has been greatly
over-emphasized. It is only half true, for it implies that taxation
with representation would have been accepted.
(6) When the colonies objected to the Stamp Act, calling it an
"internal" tax, Great Britain repealed it and in 1767 passed the
Townshend Act, which provided for a tariff on imports to the
colonies. The imported goods, however, were boycotted and Great
Britain was forced to repeal the tariff on imports in 1770. The
amount of imported goods in the New England colonies alone dropped
from 1,363,000 pounds in 1768 to 504,000 pounds in 1769. After the
repeal in 1770 the imports in 1771 were doubled. Thus the boycott
was a powerful weapon in the hands of the colonies. With it the
colonies were in a position to enforce almost any demand they liked
upon Great Britain.
(7) When the Townshend duties were repealed in 1770 a tax was still
left on tea, in order to assert the right to levy such a tax. In
1773, Great Britain allowed a tea company known as the East India
Company to bring over a large quantity of tea. This company had been
given a monopoly of the colonial tea market. When this tea arrived
in Boston, on December 16, 1773, a group of men entered the ship and
threw overboard the cargo valued at about £15,000. But why was this
tea destroyed? Simply because the leaders in this act were tea
merchants in Boston, whose trade would have to compete with the newly
arrived tea had it been permitted to enter the market. The act was
the destruction of private property on the part of the participants.
The more moderate element in Boston wanted the tea paid for and the
action repudiated.
(8) As a punishment for this performance, Great Britain passed the
five punitive or coercive acts of 1774. These five acts were the
following: Close the port of Boston until the tea should be paid for.
Revise the charter of Massachusetts. Send to England for trial
colonial agents accused of violence in the execution of their duties.
Station soldiers in Massachusetts to aid in the execution of law.
Annex to Quebec the land between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes.
These acts were all legal. Great Britain had as much right to demand
that Boston pay for the tea destroyed as we have to demand that a
foreign power compensate our subjects for property lost there through
the mob action of its subjects.
(9) Another cause of the Revolution often overlooked was the general
economic depression both in Great Britain and the colonies following
the close of the French and Indian War in 1763. This was felt in all
industries. Depressions of this sort always create political unrest
and a desire for change in government, even though the authorities in
power are in no way responsible for the condition. This is
especially true in American political history. Presidential
elections have been determined by economic conditions having no
direct bearing upon the issues involved.
(10) The tenth and last cause we shall give of the American
Revolution was the religious cause. There was a movement on foot to
locate an Episcopal bishop in the colonies. At that time all the
clergy of the Episcopal Church were ordained in England as there was
no bishop here. Consequently, all the Episcopal ministers came from
abroad and they were often mediocre, for the more efficient among
them were kept in England. In 1770 there were about two hundred and
fifty Episcopal clergy in the colonies, most of whom were in
Virginia. The rumor of locating a bishop here aroused resentment in
the other denominations who unanimously opposed the plan. But the
most effective religious cause of the Revolution came from still
another source. When Great Britain extended Quebec down between the
Ohio River and the Great Lakes, the Catholic Church was made the
established church of these regions, as it was in Quebec. This
greatly incensed all Protestants and "no pope no king" became one of
the slogans of the Revolution. John Adams considered this religious
animosity "as much as any other a cause" of the war for independence.
Both these attitudes on the part of the colonies were unwise. An
Episcopal bishop was badly needed here to elevate the Episcopal
clergy and remove the unworthy ministers. The prejudice against
Catholics was simply folly. The Catholic priests in the colonies
unanimously supported the Revolution.
If we examine the acts of Great Britain which brought on the
Revolution we find that they were all legal. They were all in
harmony with the spirit of the age. There was simply a general
breakdown of mercantilism. Patrick Henry especially talked about
"rights as British subjects," but there were no such rights of which
the colonies were being deprived. Had they remained in England they
would have enjoyed no privileges of which they were deprived by
coming to America. Talk of this sort made effective oratory, but was
false when examined. "No Taxation without Representation" is not a
legal matter but commonplace political philosophy. We have many
other examples of taxation without representation. The great
majority of people in England were then disfranchised yet taxed.
Women were taxed before they were given the ballot. Many people are
now taxed even in those states where they are deprived of the ballot.
Phrases, as this regarding taxation, were merely effective
generalities without real meaning. The mistake of Great Britain was
not in the passage of any illegal or unusual laws for governing the
colonies, but it was in trying to rule a group of people against
their will. Such a policy invariably invites trouble.
Instead of thirteen units, as we usually regard the thirteen
colonies, there were three units differing in economic and political
ideals. The coastal plains extending from New Hampshire to
Pennsylvania constituted one, which was dominated by commercial
interests. The second was the tidewater section from Maryland to
Georgia, which was primarily agricultural and was dominated by the
planters. The third unit or section was the frontier with extreme
ideas about political democracy. The first unit was commercial and
interested in trade and shipbuilding. Great mercantile families had
grown up there accumulating their wealth largely through smuggling
with the West Indies. To them the navigation laws were especially
offensive. Their chief desire was to restore the commercial
conditions before 1763, yet they bitterly opposed a withdrawal from
the British Empire, for they wanted its protection. They dominated
Boston, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia. They were Whig in
opposing trade restrictions, but Tory in opposing separation. They
had no sympathy with the political radicalism of Jefferson, Henry,
and such leaders. The second region was the tidewater region of the
South. It was dominated by the planters, many of whom were heavily
in debt to British creditors. They secured the passage of lax
bankruptcy laws detrimental to non-resident creditors. These laws,
however, were vetoed by the king as were the laws providing for
colonial bills of credit. These planters felt themselves
aristocrats. Although they opposed British financial policy, they
likewise objected to the democracy of Jefferson. The third section
was the frontier. This section had often been discriminated against
by the older sections in matters of representation in the colonial
assemblies, administration of justice, and taxation. Its inhabitants
were zealous for popular rights and had no economic interests to the
contrary. In domestic politics they were out of harmony with the
commercial and planter sections. Their zeal for imaginary "rights of
man" gave great impetus to the movement for independence. Henry and
Jefferson were the leaders of this section and their point of view
prevailed when the Declaration of Independence was written, the ideas
of which were shocking to the other sections.
These three sections reacted differently to the various British Acts.
In Georgia, the frontier people were pro-British because they were
dependent upon Great Britain for subsidies and protection from the
Indians. The frontier people of North Carolina were also Tory
because they had a sharp difference with the eastern part of the
state. Had the frontier of all the colonies had a similar sharp
difference with the coastal plains they would no doubt have been Tory
and defeated the Revolution. The frontier of Virginia got possession
of the state and furnished such leaders as Henry and Jefferson.
The Revolution was the American phase of an English civil war. It
was not so much a conflict between England and the colonies as
between different classes of the English people. It was struggle
between liberals and conservatives. The liberals were in control in
the colonies while the conservatives were in control in England. In
both countries there was a large and influential minority group. The
thirteen colonies were a part of the British Empire and simply
seceded, as the South did in 1860.
The terms "Whig" and "Tory" are often misleading or vague when
applied to this period. Many Whigs of Great Britain, such as Burke,
Fox and Pitt, were opposed to the British policy of regulating the
colonies, but they were equally opposed to granting them
independence. Many of the American moderates were Whig in opposing
the British navigation policy, but wanted to pay for the tea
destroyed in Boston. Many advocated an imperial union to handle such
questions in the future. The radicals were for complete home rule
and got control of the First Continental Congress of 1774. There was
never a general uprising of the whole colonial population. John
Adams estimated that about one-third of the population were opposed
to separation. The greatest problem of the Revolutionists was to
keep the spirit of revolt alive. About 25,000 Americans enlisted in
the British army.
When the radicals declared the colonies independent in 1776 many men
of property were shocked--Henry Laurens wept when he heard the
Declaration of Independence read--but there was rejoicing among the
radicals. A horse-jockey neighbor said to John Adams: "Oh! Mr.
Adams, what great things you and your colleagues have done for us!
There are no courts of justice now in the Province and I hope there
never will be any."
There are many facts regarding our conduct during the Revolution
which are not pleasant to relate. For example, on June 1, 1775,
Congress passed a resolution disclaiming any intention of invading
Canada. The report of this decision was widely circulated in Canada.
About four weeks later Congress secretly made plans for the invasion
of Canada that fall. The invasion took place in September, 1775, but
Canada drove the invaders back. (See Lecky, "The American
Revolution," page 215.) Is there any difference between our invasion
of Canada and the German invasion of Belgium? Many people suspected
of being Tories were terribly badly treated. The New York
legislature passed a resolution that Tories should be "deemed guilty
of treason and should suffer death." They were often hunted by mobs,
tarred and feathered, and killed. American troops set fire to the
houses of the people to plunder and rob. In fact in some sections
the colonists looked upon the British army with as much favor as the
American army. New York alone confiscated $3,600,000 worth of
property belonging to Tories, and all the states did likewise.
During that entire period the Tories were the great sufferers. It is
obvious that a person had as much legal and moral right to be a Tory
as to be a Whig, provided he committed no act of violence against
society, and the great majority of Tories had committed none. It was
simply a question of difference in opinion. To punish a person for a
difference of opinion cannot of course be harmonized with
democracy,--majority rule does not mean coercion of minorities.
Dictatorship of the majority can be the worst kind of despotism.
When Great Britain recognized the independence of the colonies in
1783, one provision of the treaty agreed to by both parties was that
the Tories should be compensated by the states for the property
confiscated during the conflict. The states, however, did nothing
about it, but treated that provision as a "scrap of paper."
Was our separation from Great Britain a wise or an unwise step? It
is impossible to answer a question of this sort with certainty. We
assume that it was wise and beneficial. But to determine that, it
would be necessary to roll history back, to let us remain a part of
Great Britain, and then compare the two conditions. It has been
argued that if we had remained a part of the British Empire the
democratic spirit of the colonies would have been a great help to the
democratic element in Great Britain, that these elements co-operating
would have democratized and federated all the English-speaking
peoples, which, in turn, would have aided in democratizing the world.
Such an idea cannot be upheld with assurance, but neither can one say
dogmatically that the American Revolution resulting in our separation
was for the best. We use the terms "freedom" and "independence" in
too loose a sense when we say that we then gained our freedom or
independence. Would the South have been free and independent if it
had been the winning faction in the Civil War? Secession or the
changing of national boundaries does not give freedom. Canada is
free although a part of the British Commonwealth; Texas is free
although a part of the United States.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Faulkner, Harold Underwood--_American Economic History_, pages
137-139.
Hayes, C. J. H.--_Political and Social History of Modern Europe_.
Vol. I, chapter 10.
Hockett, H. C.--_Political and Social History of United States_.
Vol. I, chapters 5, 6, 7, 8.
Lecky, E. H.--_The American Revolution_.
Muzzey, D. S.--_The United States of America Through the Civil War_.
Vol. I, chapter 2.
Schlesinger, A. M.--_New Viewpoints in American History_. Chapter 7.
Simons, A. M.--_Social Forces in American History_. Chapters 6 and 7.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR OF 1812
There were two different causes of the war with Great Britain in
1812, and it is necessary to examine each separately. These causes
were maritime rights and land hunger.
The general European upheaval from 1789 to 1815, known as the French
Revolution, soon developed into a war between Great Britain and
Napoleon. All Europe was divided into two camps, with Great Britain
and Napoleon as the leaders on their respective sides. Almost a
decade before 1812 Great Britain began issuing decrees known as
Orders in Council. These "Orders in Council," issued in the name of
the king, attempted to prohibit neutral nations from shipping goods
to France. In this manner, a blockade was proclaimed against France,
and ships attempting to get through the lines were subject to capture
and confiscation.
Napoleon issued similar decrees, known as the Berlin and Milan
Decrees, declaring that any ships en route to Great Britain would be
subject to capture, for France had also blockaded Great Britain. But
as neither blockade could be fully enforced, they were both to a
large degree disregarded. Both Great Britain and Napoleon were
attempting to cut off each other's trade and not primarily trying to
disregard the rights of neutrals. All goods attempting to run these
blockades were subject to capture.
The principal losers through these captures were the New England
traders, but they preferred losing occasional ships to joining in a
war which would involve them with their principal customer, Great
Britain. There had been no serious crisis since 1807, five years
before war was declared. Napoleon was then losing fast and it seemed
evident that it would be only a short while before the causes of
friction would be over. The flagrant disregard of the "rights" of
neutral trade had taken place before 1807. In 1812, the solution or
end of the problem was in sight. In 1810, our registered tonnage in
foreign trade was 981,019 tons, which high mark it was not to reach
again till 1847. Our foreign trade was not ruined, and the New
England merchants who sustained the loss wanted nothing done. They
were Federalists and would have preferred a war with France rather
than a war with England, because they regarded Napoleon as the real
cause of all the trouble. The Federalists were pro-British, while
the Democrat-Republicans were pro-French. Early in 1811 our
minister, William Pinkney, left London, and thus the United States
was cut off from a knowledge of the movements in England. England
was attempting to avoid war with America because such a war would
naturally hurt her foreign trade and domestic prosperity. By the
spring of 1812 England was ready to revoke the Orders in Council as
soon as it could be done with dignity, but this fact was unknown to
America. On June 23, 1812, the orders were revoked. But this was
five days after the war of 1812 had been declared. England did not
know war was declared when the orders were revoked, and the United
States did not know till a good while later in the season that the
orders had been revoked. Perhaps modern cable communication would
have prevented this war.
Another source of friction lay in the impressment of seamen and
sailors. During this period Great Britain was hard pressed for men
in her naval campaign against Napoleon. Many sailors deserted
English ships and came to America because of the higher wages paid by
the owners of American ships. Every British warship anchoring in
American waters would lose a good part of its crew, who would secure
positions on American ships. Great Britain demanded the return of
these deserters, who would often become naturalized citizens. Great
Britain, however, at that time regarded citizenship as a contract
between citizens and government which could not be broken without the
consent of both, disqualifying the sailor from citizenship in the
United States, without her consent. This European custom has now
disappeared, of course, and one can change citizenship at will.
When the United States refused to return these men, the British ships
would search American vessels on the high seas to see if any British
sailors were on board. This policy of impressment waned, however,
after 1805, because Napoleon had been defeated on the sea and Great
Britain was not in such great need of sailors. Impressment was not
made a cause of war until after the war had begun and President
Madison had learned that the Orders in Council had been revoked.
President Madison in 1812 estimated the number of impressments at
6,057, but the Massachusetts legislature appointed a committee to
investigate the situation, which reported that the Madison estimate
was "three or four times too large." Great Britain took the position
that the United States was acting as a harbor for her deserters from
the British navy and merchant ships, and that therefore the search
was warranted as a defensive measure.
The British "Orders in Council" prohibiting the trading of neutral
powers with France, and the British impressment of fugitive sailors
from English ships, were the maritime controversies which resulted in
the War of 1812. Both policies on the part of Great Britain were
adopted as necessary measures in her conflict with Napoleon.
The New England Federalists were the people principally concerned in
the United States, but they opposed the war. War was declared by a
vote of 79 to 49 in the House, and 19 to 13 in the Senate. There was
open discouragement of enlistment in New England. The Governors of
Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to honor President Madison's
call for the militia. Henry Adams estimated that the New England
bankers loaned more money to Great Britain than to the United States
for war purposes. Of the $17,000,000 in specie in the country in
1812, about $10,000,000 was in the hands of the New England
Federalists. They subscribed less than $3,000,000 to the United
States war loan. Thus, strangely, enough, the War of 1812 was fought
in spite of the protest of those for whom it was presumably fought.
But in recent years another cause of the war and the chief cause has
been discovered. This was land hunger.
The United States entered the conflict at the insistence of the south
and west, despite the opposition of the northeastern states. The
inland section overruled the opposition of the maritime section. At
that time, there was an ardent expansionist sentiment along the whole
western and southern border looking towards the annexation of Canada
and Florida, with a vaguer idea of seizing all of the Spanish
possessions of North America. Spain then owned Florida. Spain and
Great Britain were allies against Napoleon, and a war with one was
looked upon as a war with both. The belief that the United States
would some day annex Canada had existed continuously since the
Revolution. Benjamin Franklin had advocated the buying of Canada by
the United States, since we failed to take it during the Revolution.
The Continental Congress made an effort to capture Canada, but our
armies were repulsed. Washington had objected to leaving Canada in
British hands. In 1803 Governor Morris of Pennsylvania wrote that at
the time of the Constitutional Convention he knew "that all North
America must at length be annexed to us--happy indeed if the lust of
dominion stop there." This idea, however, was a vague dream till
about 1810.
There had been friction in the northwest between the Americans and
British. The British retained trading posts in the northwest after
they had agreed to give them up by the treaty of 1783 recognizing the
independence of the United States. These were held to compensate the
Tories for their property confiscated during the Revolutionary War,
which had not been done. For this reason, the British held the
northwest posts until 1796, when they were given up by the Jay
Treaty. All the Indian trouble in that section was attributed to
British propaganda, which incited the Indians against the United
States. The Canadian traders made friends with the Indians to get
their trade while the Americans were aggressively pushing them back
from their land. The result was that the Indian was more friendly to
the British in Canada than to the United States.
The idea of annexing Canada was intensified after 1810 because of the
belief that the Indians were being turned against the United States
by the British. The south was almost unanimous in its demand for the
annexation of Florida, while the southwest was taking a lively
interest in Mexico. This land hunger was making its appearance
rapidly, but it was several years later that the phrase "manifest
destiny" was to come into general use.
President Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe were eager to
annex Florida. Thomas Jefferson was interested in the annexation of
Canada, Florida and Cuba. Jefferson considered the acquisition of
Canada only a "question of marching," with Florida and Cuba easy prey
from Spain. These expansionists were in favor of declaring war,
while the rest of the country opposed the idea.
When Congress met in 1811, Henry Clay was elected Speaker of the
House. He was leader of the war group known as "war hawks." Clay
was the first Speaker of the House of Representatives to recognize
the great power he could exercise over legislation through his
appointment of committees. He was the first "Czar" of the House. On
the Foreign Relations Committee, Clay appointed Peter B. Porter,
Chairman, Calhoun of South Carolina, Grundy of Tennessee, Harper of
New Hampshire, and Desha of Kentucky. All these were ardent
expansionists and reliable war men. They represented the frontier
section of 1812, and Clay had been chosen Speaker by the
representatives from that section. In December, 1812, while on the
Foreign Relations Committee, Porter said in discussing trouble with
Great Britain, "We could deprive her of her extensive provinces lying
along our border to the north." Grundy and Rhea, ardent
expansionists from Tennessee, agreed.
R. M. Johnson of Kentucky during the same session made the statement,
"I shall never die contented until I see her (Great Britain's)
expulsion from North America, and her territories incorporated with
the United States," and Harper of New Hampshire said in Congress: "To
me, sir, it appears that the Author of Nature has marked our limits
in the South by the Gulf of Mexico, and in the North by the regions
of eternal frost."
These statements were representative of the sentiments of the members
in Congress from the western section. The Federalist Party consisted
chiefly of the mercantile and financial interests of the coast towns.
They were solidly against expansion, which would give the economic
advantage to the western section of the country.
The winter of 1811-1812 saw a great expansionist wave sweep over the
west, clamoring for the annexation of Canada. Contemporary
newspapers were filled with editorials demanding annexation. The cry
came up from the whole frontier, New Hampshire to Kentucky, to expel
the British from Canada. At a Washington's birthday dinner given at
Lexington, Ky., on February 22, 1812, the toast proposed was "Canada
and our arms." Although the frontier claimed that the British were
inciting the Indians against the United States, L. M. Hacker in
"Western Land Hunger and the War of 1812" proves that the Indian
menace was greatly exaggerated, but that land hunger was the real
motive.
Randolph, of Virginia, who was opposed to the war, said in 1812 on
the floor of Congress: "Ever since the report of the Committee on
Foreign Relations came into the House, we have heard but one
word--like the whippoorwill with but one eternal monotonous
tune--Canada! Canada! Canada!"
The south and southwest were interested in the annexation of Florida
and possibly Texas. To them, a war with Great Britain meant a war
with Spain also, since the British and Spain were then in alliance.
President Madison and Secretary of State Monroe, in their eagerness
to acquire Florida, had helped a General George Mathews to instigate
a revolution in Florida. In 1812 General Mathews took American
troops to Florida, with the co-operation of the War Department and
also the support of Governor Mitchell of Georgia. This territory was
held for a year, although Congress twice refused to authorize the
President to hold it. Finally Madison was forced to repudiate the
act because of the opposition of the Federalists and the northern
members of his own party. Senator Crawford, of Georgia, was active
in his support of southern expansion; Jefferson wished to annex Cuba
as a state, and Madison and Monroe were eager to annex Florida
although they were not concerned with the appropriation of Canada.
The interest of the southwest in Mexico was a spirited one. McCaleb,
in his book on "The Aaron Burr Conspiracy" points out that Burr
simply attempted to do in 1806 what the whole southwest was dreaming
of. He was conspiring against Spain in Mexico and not against the
United States as is usually supposed. "Lands, water-ways, and
Indians" was the cry of men desiring to drive out Spain.
In the Nashville _Clarion_ of April 28, 1812, there appeared a long
article advocating the annexation of all America, closing with the
statement: "Where is it written in the book of fate that the American
republic shall not stretch her limits from the capes of the
Chesapeake to Nootka Sound, from the Isthmus of Panama to Hudson
Bay?" The paper then editorially commended the article to its
readers and followed it up with a series of historical and
descriptive articles about Mexico.
The War of 1812 continued for two years. Troops were raised to
invade Canada but interest in the venture was slight. Many of the
militia refused to march out of American territory, as it was
understood then that the militia could not be ordered to foreign
soil. The expansionists could have united to declare war, but plans
of expansion collapsed. The northern states opposed the annexation
of Florida without Canada. The troops could never take Canada.
Madison and Monroe were interested in Florida, not Canada. The
British repulsed the troops from Canada. The south had no desire to
acquire northern territory.
The War of 1812, in fact, was a complete failure from every angle.
Our troops were defeated. General Winfield Scott declared that the
army officers were "generally sunk in either sloth, ignorance, or
habits of intemperate drinking," "swaggerers, dependents, decayed
gentlemen utterly unfit for any military purpose whatever."
Muzzey in "The United States of America through the Civil War," Vol.
I, page 253, says: "The War of 1812 was a blunder. It was
unnecessary, impolitic, untimely, and rash." It was primarily the
work of Henry Clay. If the United States had been in any condition
to fight, we should have been of great aid to Napoleon who at that
time was being defeated by Great Britain.
In the peace treaty of 1814, which brought the war to a close, the
causes of the war were not mentioned. The War of 1812 was a war of
paradoxes. It was waged ostensibly in defense of maritime commercial
interests, but the merchant states themselves threatened to secede so
as to stop it. The English Orders in Council, the alleged cause of
the war, were repealed five days after war was declared and before
news of its declaration reached England. The most important battle
of the war, the Battle of New Orleans, was fought after the treaty of
peace had been signed. The United States did not get any of the
desired territory; was defeated in nearly every campaign; and the
capitol was burned by the English. The land was not gained and the
rights on the sea were not granted. England never yielded the right
of impressment, which remained a diplomatic controversy as late as
1842.
In order to save its reputation, the Administration published an
"Exposition of the Causes and Character of the War," prepared by A.
J. Dallas, in which it was denied that the administration had ever
tried to acquire Canada. Madison was a great scholar but not a
strong executive, and it was the war hawks led by Clay who forced the
war upon him and the nation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, Henry--_John Randolph_.
Hocker, L. M.--"Western Land Hunger and the War of 1812; A
Conjecture". _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_, Vol. X, pages
363-395.
Johnson, Allen--_Union and Democracy_. Chapter 11.
Lewis, H. J.--"A Re-analysis of the Causes of the War of 1812."
_American Historical Magazine_. Vol. VI, pages 306-316, 577-584.
Muzzey, D. S.--_The United States of America Through the Civil War_.
Vol. I, chapter 5.
Pratt, J. W.--_The Expansionists of 1812_.
Simons, A. M.--_Social Forces in American History_. Chapter 13.
CHAPTER IV
THE WAR WITH MEXICO
Early in the nineteenth century the people of the United States, and
especially those of the south-west, became interested in that part of
Mexico known as Texas. The Louisiana purchase was made in 1803.
Settlers went immediately into that region along the Mississippi
River. The expansionist movement then grew rapidly as we have seen,
and was the major cause of the War of 1812. American settlers pushed
into Mexico and soon got control of that section now known as Texas,
where there were few Mexicans. These citizens of the United States
went there on the assumption that Texas would some day become a part
of the United States. Much of Texas was suited for the raising of
cotton,--hence slavery was profitable.
In 1827 Mexico passed a law providing for the gradual abolition of
slavery. The people of Texas interested in slavery, resented this,
as did the pro-slavery factions in the United States. Sentiment in
Texas for secession crystalized rapidly, and in 1836 Texas seceded
from Mexico, later asking to be annexed to the United States. Some
of the anti-slavery groups opposed this annexation which would
increase the slave territory. In her constitution of 1837 Texas
legalized slavery. It was not until 1845 that Texas was admitted as
a state.
Polk of Tennessee, an ardent expansionist, was elected President by
the Democrats in 1844. "Manifest Destiny" had then become the slogan
of the Democratic party. Accordingly, President Tyler secured the
annexation of Texas as a state just before his term of office closed
in 1845, a few days before he was succeeded by Polk.
Texas in revolt from Mexico claimed more territory than she had
possessed while a Mexican state. Her southern boundary had then been
the Nueces River, but after revolting, she laid claim down to the Rio
Grande River. This area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande
was sparsely settled, but its inhabitants were Mexicans and included
the Mexican settlements at the mouth of the Rio Grande. Polk did not
desire war but he was eager to acquire this disputed territory. He
sent John Slidell, of Louisiana, as minister to Mexico to induce
Mexico to accept the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas
rather than the Nueces River, which had been the southern boundary of
Texas while a Mexican province. Slidell was also instructed to buy
from Mexico the territory now comprising the states of New Mexico,
California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and part of Colorado, all of which
was then a part of Mexico. Mexico, however, refused to receive
Slidell or consider disposing of that territory, on the ground that
the United States had annexed Texas although Mexico had not
acknowledged its independence.
When Polk could not acquire this desired territory by negotiation, he
ordered General Taylor to enter the Rio Grande territory. This was
done on January 13, 1846. On May 9, 1846, Polk notified the cabinet
of his intention to recommend a war with Mexico within a few days, by
which means he hoped to take the territory he could not buy. On the
night of May 9, 1846, news came to President Polk that on April 24,
1846, the American army had had a skirmish with Mexican forces. On
May 11, 1846, President Polk sent a message to Congress stating
Mexico had "shed American blood upon American soil. War exists, and
notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of
Mexico herself." And two days later, May 13, 1846, President Polk
informed his cabinet that the United States must acquire New Mexico,
California, and the surrounding southwest territory as a result of
the war. Some of the cabinet members wanted to take all of Mexico.
Secretary of State Buchanan in a public letter said: "Destiny beckons
us to hold and civilize Mexico."
Americans had often tried to incite rebellions in Mexico. Many were
arrested there and shot for treason. The United States, however, had
never discouraged her citizens from trying to dismember Mexico.
The circumstances surrounding the outbreak of hostilities between
General Taylor and the Mexicans were these: President Polk had
ordered General Taylor to enter the Rio Grande River region with
American troops. He was arbitrarily accepting the Rio Grande and not
the Nueces River as the southern boundary of Texas. The American
troops marched down to the Rio Grande opposite Matamoras, a Mexican
village south of the Rio Grande. They then blockaded the town and
cut off its outlet down the Rio Grande. Mexicans crossed over the
Rio Grande to drive the Americans away and to make them cease their
interference with this Mexican village. Some Americans were killed
in the skirmish. Rhodes on page 87, Vol. I, "History of the United
States," says "Mexico was actually goaded on to the war."
Mexico had notified the United States that the annexation of Texas
would be treated as a cause of war. The Mexican press made threats.
Yet there were so many internal quarrels in Mexico that open
hostilities could have been avoided if the United States had not
taken the position of supporting Texas in her claim to the Rio Grande
as her southern boundary, disregarding the Nueces River as the
southern boundary of Texas while a Mexican Province. Webster, Clay,
Calhoun, Benton, and Tyler regarded the war as the result of poor
management on the part of President Polk. The Whig party generally
criticised it while the Democrats usually favored it, although, as
the war continued, both groups were won over to its support. The
Massachusetts legislature resolved in April, 1847, during
hostilities, that the war had been "unconstitutionally commenced by
the order of the President for the dismemberment of Mexico." Lincoln
also criticised the war while it was in progress. He voted for a
resolution offered by Mr. Ashburn in the House declaring that the war
had been "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally" begun. On December
22, 1847, Mr. Lincoln offered the famous "Spot Resolution," calling
upon the President to furnish Congress with information regarding the
"spot" where hostilities had begun. A pamphlet was sent to Mr.
Lincoln in which the author claimed that "in view of all the facts"
the government of the United States had committed no aggression in
Mexico. To this Mr. Lincoln replied: "It is a fact that the United
States army in marching to the Rio Grande marched into a peaceful
settlement, and frightened the inhabitants away from their houses and
their growing crops. It is a fact that Fort Brown, opposite
Matamoras, was built by that army within a Mexican cotton field, on
which at the time the army reached it a young cotton crop was
growing, which crop was wholly destroyed, and the field itself
greatly and permanently injured by ditches, embankments, and the
like." Although Lincoln voted for army supplies he always criticised
the war. For this Lincoln's "patriotism" was questioned by Douglas
in 1858 during the Lincoln-Douglas debates. General Grant in his
Memoirs, Vol. I, page 53, said he considered the Mexican War "one of
the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation."
The direct cost of the conflict was $100,000,000, with a death list
of 1,200 men.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Macy, Jesse--_Political Parties in the United States, 1846-1861_.
Chapters 7-22.
Rhodes, James Ford--_History of the United States_. Vol. I, pages
87-92.
Stephenson, N. W.--_Texas and the Mexican War_.
Schlesinger, A. M.--_Political and Social History of the United
States_. Chapter 7.
Smith, Justin H.--_The War With Mexico_. Vols. I & II.
Tarbell, Ida--_Life of Lincoln_. Vol. II, chapter 1.
Wilson, Woodrow--_Division and Reunion_, chapter 6.
CHAPTER V
THE CIVIL WAR
The Civil War was the result of a series of political crimes and
blunders of which both sections of the country were equally guilty.
It was not inevitable or necessary to fight in order to abolish
slavery. In every other country of the world slavery had been
abolished without war. The question of slavery had never been a
party issue until after the Mexican War, but from then until the
election of 1860 slavery was the leading political issue. During the
war with Mexico, Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, offered what is known as
the Wilmot Proviso, which provided that the territory acquired from
Mexico should be closed to slavery. Although this bill was defeated
in Congress it brought up the question of the further extension of
slavery.
At the time of the Mexican War there were two national parties--the
Whigs and the Democrats. These two parties embraced almost all of
the people, and as both were strong in both sections of the United
States, they tended to cement the union, for parties on a national
basis tend to unify a nation while sectional parties lead to
disunion. The anti-slavery people and the moderates gravitated
towards the Whig party while the pro-slavery people gravitated
towards the Democratic party.
The Whigs elected General Zachary Taylor President in 1848. Although
he was a large slave holder of Louisiana, he was a moderate, and was
satisfactory to all groups and sections. He had the support of
Lincoln as well as of the southern Whigs. Soon after Taylor became
President, Henry Clay proposed the famous Compromise of 1850, the
important features of which were: admit California as a free state,
organize the remainder of the territory taken from Mexico without
regard to slavery, abolish the slave trade in the District of
Columbia, and pass a fugitive slave law to be enforced by the federal
government. This compromise, although a Whig measure, was
instrumental in killing the Whig party. No party or section was
satisfied with it. President Taylor opposed it but his death before
its passage brought to the presidency the Vice-President, Fillmore,
who allowed it to become a law without his signature. The provision
that broke up the Whig party was the strict fugitive slave law, and
anti-slavery Whigs repudiated their party. The idea of returning
fugitive slaves was shocking to the best moral judgment of the time.
The leaders of moral sentiment--ministers, poets, and reformers of
every type--advised disobedience. It was a dead letter because the
moral sentiment of the age was against it. On the other hand, the
pro-slavery people did not like it because it was not enforced. Thus
the law was treated with contempt by both parties.
The Whig party which was moderate, national, opposed to expansion,
and the extension of slavery was disrupted. The Democrats carried
all except four states in 1852, and remained in power until 1860,
dominated by powerful pro-slavery sentiment throughout this period.
After the fall of the Whig party the Republican party was organized
in 1856. It took the name "Republican" from the followers of Thomas
Jefferson and claimed it was a revival of the party of Jefferson. It
was the liberal party, opposed to slavery. It was organized and
until after the Civil War dominated by the liberal element in the
United States. The Democratic party also claimed themselves to be
followers of Jefferson, which they were not, at that time, except in
a very narrow legal sense. Jefferson was opposed to slavery and
special privilege in every form. In 1800 he advocated state rights
or a decentralized government because he believed the states were and
would always be more popularly controlled than the federal
government. But by 1860 that situation was reversed. The
states--especially the southern states--had begun to be dominated by
the privileged group, who talked in terms of state rights to
perpetuate this privilege, while Jefferson talked in terms of state
rights because he feared the domination of the federal government by
the reactionary element. Both Lincoln and Jefferson held the same
views socially. The Democratic party of the pre-Civil War period had
repudiated Jefferson. But the Republican party did not become
reactionary until after the Civil War.
When the Republican party was organized in 1856, it was regarded as
"red," chiefly in the eyes of the south, for it was organized
principally with the idea of keeping slavery out of the west. Its
campaign literature in 1856 was composed largely of the anti-slavery
utterances of Jefferson. To the south "Republican," "anarchy,"
"abolitionist," "Lincoln," "John Brown," and "Garrison" were soon to
become synonymous terms. Because of this the Republican party had no
following in the south even among a great many people who wished to
abolish slavery. It became a sectional party, which was its fatal
weakness in dealing with slavery, as compared with the former Whig
party, which had had a national following. The Republican party was
sectional before 1860.
Lincoln had been a Whig, and had accepted the Compromise of 1850.
Although he was one of the great men of all times, he was a victim of
many of the common errors of his age. Reflecting the belief of his
time, he considered slavery a stable institution. His great
democratic spirit lay in the fact that he expressed the ideas of the
common man, and had complete faith in him. He tried to recognize and
give expression to the purposes and aspirations of the masses, which
made him one of the world's greatest democrats, with democracy's
strengths and weaknesses. Lincoln was not a creative thinker and had
few pretensions in that direction. He had no intention of abolishing
slavery in the states--he simply wished to prevent it from spreading.
He also held the common attitude of his age that the Negro belonged
to an inferior race.
In the election of 1860 Lincoln polled only 26,430 votes in the
entire south and those were from the upper section. Douglas, the
moderate Democrat, received 163,525 votes in the south; Bell, of the
Unionist party, received 515,973 votes in the same section, while
Breckenridge, the extreme pro-slavery candidate, received 570,871
votes in the entire south. Breckenridge carried the lower south by a
plurality while Lincoln carried the west and north by a plurality,
and was elected president. The Douglas and Bell voters of the south
were opposed to secession, but all the secession vote went to
Breckenridge although not all the Breckenridge vote was for
secession. A majority in the south opposed secession but the
southern states fell into the hands of the secessionists by a
plurality.
Why did the south secede? Lincoln was elected on a platform defying
the Dred Scott decision of 1857. According to this decision the
Constitution recognized slavery and therefore Congress could not
prohibit it in the western territories. This could be done only by
the states through their constitutions or by the federal government
through a constitutional amendment. This was a great legal victory
for slavery, but Lincoln defied the decision, and expected the next
move on the part of pro-slavery advocates to be an attempt to
legalize slavery in the northern states through a Supreme Court
decision. Lincoln, when asked what he meant by saying the union
could not exist half free and half slave, said that slavery would
eventually have to go but it would probably last one hundred years.
He did not realize that slavery was dying. This election of Lincoln
on a platform defying a decision of the Supreme Court caused the
lower south to secede, as a gesture to uphold the courts and the
Constitution. Lincoln coerced them in order to uphold the
Constitution, for he had been legally elected president and his
office required his execution of federal laws. Thus, both the north
and the south fought to defend the Constitution. Both felt
themselves defensive--neither section understood the other--and
emotionalism in the matter was so kindled that reason could not
function on either side. The Civil War was a war about an
abstraction--the status of slavery in the western territory--which
was the real cause of the war. There were other differences between
the north and the south but none of them would have resulted in war
had not the slave question entered into the conflict.
By 1860 slavery in the greater part of the civilized world was a dead
or a dying institution. Great Britain in 1833 abolished slavery in
all her possessions. Mexico provided for the gradual abolition of
slavery as early as 1827. Brazil followed in 1888 and Spain
abolished slavery in Cuba in 1878. In all these cases it was done
without conflict. All the northern states of the union had become
free and the western states and territories were repudiating slavery
as well. When California drew up her constitution and asked for
admission in 1850, the clause prohibiting slavery was adopted by a
unanimous vote of her constitutional convention. In the referendum
held in Kansas in 1858, 11,300 out of a total vote of 13,088 were
opposed to slavery. Only a few slaves had been carried there and
they could never have been permanently held as slaves. New Mexico
was organized as a territory in 1850 without regard to slavery and at
one time as many as twenty-two slaves had been carried there.
Nevada, Colorado, and Dakota were organized as territories before
1860 but had no slaves. In Missouri slavery was on the decrease, if
judged by its percentage of the entire population--in 1830, 17.8% of
the Missouri population were slaves; in 1840, 15.5%; in 1850, 12.8%;
and in 1860, only 9.8%. Slavery would have existed in Missouri only
for a few more years, for the anti-slavery population was increasing
rapidly by settlers from the free states and great numbers of people
from Germany who settled in the neighborhood of St. Louis, and were
especially opposed to slavery.
Before 1860, slavery was non-existent in all sections of the union
except the tobacco, cotton and sugar cane belts. In upholding the
institution of slavery, the south was opposed to the spirit of the
age. Slavery was doomed by moral and economic pressure. It was a
useless procedure for the south to demand the right to carry slavery
into the western territory because it was unprofitable economically
and was not wanted. For the same reason it was futile for the
opponents of slavery to try to prohibit by law its extension
westward--the westerners had no desire or use for it. It was this
contention over slavery in western territory which was the
abstraction over which the Civil War was fought.
Many people before 1860, saw the folly of this controversy. Governor
Robert J. Walker of Mississippi recognized that the west would never
be open to slavery, as did Stanton of Tennessee and Senator Toombs of
Georgia. The status of slavery in the west had been automatically
settled by the laws of nature. The two sections, however, cherished
perverted ideas of each other. It was reported, and actually
believed, in the north, that Senator Robert Toombs, of Georgia, had
boastfully declared that he would call the roll of his slaves in
Massachusetts.
The following incidents given in Macy's "Political Parties in The
United States," pages 209 to 211, are illustrative of the state of
public excitement preceding the Civil War. In an effort to dictate
the slave policy of the west, Charlie B. Lines, a deacon of a New
Haven congregation, had enlisted a company of seventy-nine emigrants
for the war. A meeting was held in the church shortly before their
departure, for the purpose of raising funds, at which many clergymen
and members of the Yale College faculty were present. The leaders of
the party announced that Sharpe's rifles were lacking and that they
were needed for self-defense. After an earnest address from Henry
Ward Beecher, the subscription began. Professor Silliman started the
subscription with one Sharpe's rifle; the pastor of the church gave
the second. Fifty was the number wanted. Then Beecher announced
that if twenty-five were pledged on the spot, Plymouth Church would
furnish the rest. Churches in both sections had by that time become
agencies for propagating hatred. Another incident is a southern one.
Colonel Bufort of Alabama sold a number of his slaves valued at
$20,000, and invested the money to equip a troop of three hundred
soldiers to fight for southern rights in Kansas. "The day that
Bufort's battalion started from Montgomery they marched to the
Baptist Church. The Methodist minister solemnly invoked the divine
blessing on the enterprise; the Baptist pastor gave Bufort a finely
bound Bible, and said that a subscription had been raised to present
each emigrant with a copy of the Holy Scripture." This battalion
left for the west armed with Bibles and Sharpe's rifles. The
existence of such a condition of excitement made it an easy matter to
precipitate war.
In political contests the natural tendency is for persons of extreme
views to gain leadership--decided and partisan convictions are easily
described and understood, whereas people of moderate and discreet
judgment often lack conviction themselves and so cannot very well
impress their views upon the masses. Garrison's extreme abuse of the
south was met there with similar other extremes. The abolitionists
had great sympathy for the oppressed but great hatred for the
oppressor, and regarded the slave owner as personally responsible for
slavery rather than as an agent of circumstances. Perhaps if the
abolitionists had directed their appeal to the moral conscience of
the south, avoiding sectional and personal abuse, secession would
never have taken place. The south met this abuse by demanding that
all anti-slavery publications be excluded from the mails. Books,
papers, and all publications suspected of containing anti-slavery
propaganda were taken from the mails and publicly burned at
Charleston, S. C. There were many manifestations of disregard for
the sanctity of the mails. The north judged the south by these
extreme actions, and the efforts of the south to suppress
anti-slavery agitation resulted only in greater propaganda for the
abolitionists.
The public is quick to demand war, but is not so willing to accept
its hardships. During the conflict it was necessary for both the
north and the south to suspend civil liberties, including freedom of
the press and speech. Expressions that might weaken war morale were
punished--both sections suspended the writ of habeas corpus and
arbitrarily imprisoned their citizens. About 38,000 people were
imprisoned in the north while the number in the south is unknown.
Both sections, as in all major wars, resorted to the draft to recruit
soldiers. Yet, with all these weapons at their disposal, the
northern army succeeded in enlisting only about 1,325,000 of its
native white population out of a total of 23,000,000. Besides
approximately 1,325,000 native whites, the northern army consisted of
300,000 whites from the south, 186,000 negroes, and 500,000
foreigners. Left to the voluntary support of its citizens neither
section could have carried on the war, as no major war of modern
times could have been fought with that voluntary support alone. The
draft acts of both sections allowed for the employment of
substitutes, which, of course, was hard on the poorer classes who
could not employ substitutes, but the richer classes often avoided
army service by this method. It is impossible to obtain an exact
figure for the number of substitutes employed, but the Secretary of
War under Davis considered 50,000 a low estimate for the Confederate
army in 1864. Desertion was frequent on both sides. Rhodes
estimates the number of deserters in the south at 100,000 in 1864.
Much has been heard of the heroism and sacrifice displayed during the
conflict, but little of the crimes committed by both sections. Only
the pleasant phases of the war have survived. When Joseph Holt and
Robert Dale Owen were appointed by Secretary of War Stanton to adjust
claims for materials supplied to the War Department, they found fraud
at every turn, and before making their final report in July, 1862,
secured deductions of nearly $17,000,000 from claims amounting to
$50,000,000. One claim alone was reduced $1,000,000 and another was
reduced $580,000. One senator had received $10,000 for securing an
order from the War Department for a client. Colonel Henry S. Olcott,
who was appointed special commissioner to investigate frauds, after a
thorough examination of the facts announced that from 20% to 25% of
the expenditures of the Federal treasury during the Civil War was
tainted with fraud, and, according to his estimate, approximately
$700,000,000 was paid through fraud. (See Rhodes, Vol. V, page 220.)
In commenting upon moral conditions during the conflict, the
_Springfield Republican_ said editorially: "It is a sad, a shocking
picture of life in Washington, which our correspondents are giving
us;--a Bureau of the Treasury Department made a home of seduction and
prostitution; the necessities of poor and pretty women made the means
of their debauchery by high government officials; members of Congress
putting their mistresses into clerkships in the departments; whiskey
drinking ad libitum." (See Rhodes, Vol. V, page 212.) These are
some of the typical incidents of conditions in both sections, but
text books in treating of this war, as of all others, present only
those phases which glorify the conflict.
The cost of the Civil War, including the expenditures of both
sections, pensions, destruction of property, and other indirect
expenses, was $12,000,000,000. Its damage to the moral and spiritual
development of the United States cannot be estimated.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dodd, W. E.--_The Cotton Kingdom_.
Lonn--_Desertion During the Civil War_.
Macy, Jesse--_The Anti-Slavery Crusade_.
Macy, Jesse--_Political Parties in the United States_. Chapters 7-22.
Rhodes, James Ford--_History of the United States_. Vols. I-V.
Stephenson, N. W.--_The Day of the Confederacy_.
Stephenson, N. W.--_Abraham Lincoln and the Union_.
Wood, William--_Captain of the Civil War_.
CHAPTER VI
THE WAR WITH SPAIN
For almost a century, the Spanish possession of Cuba had been
regarded with disfavor by certain elements in the United States.
Reasons for this attitude varied from those of acquisition on grounds
of "manifest destiny," to those of the highest altruism. When the
Spanish American republics won their independence during the early
years of the nineteenth century, Porto Rico and Cuba remained in the
possession of Spain.
Thomas Jefferson advocated the acquiring of Cuba and its annexation
as a state, chiefly for fear that it would be acquired by England.
Later, pro-slavery leaders wanted to take the island in order to
extend slave territory, as had been done in the case of Florida and
Texas. Cuba's annexation was a part of the "manifest destiny"
program which was rampant in the years preceding the Civil War. Many
filibustering expeditions were sent there with annexation in view.
The Cubans themselves often came to the United States, became
naturalized citizens of this country, and would return to Cuba with
an unfriendly attitude toward Spanish authority, counting for
protection on their American citizenship, in case of trouble.
There had often been spasmodic rebellions or outbreaks in Cuba before
1895. In 1868, there broke out what is known as the "Ten Years' War"
which lasted until 1878, but the causes of these conflicts were never
clearly understood by the participants on either side. Sugar cane
was the principal source of Cuban wealth. According to the customary
policy of trade barriers, Spain imposed duties on goods coming from
the United States and the United States imposed high duties on Cuban
sugar. These duties severely hurt Cuban economic life, and as
economic depressions as well as prosperities are always attributed to
the party in power regardless of the real causes, the Cubans, no
exceptions to this rule, blamed the political power then in authority.
During this "Ten Years' War" many filibustering expeditions were
secretly fitted out in the United States by and for the Cubans. In
1873, a ship, the _Virginius_, sailing under American colors,
carrying men and supplies to the Cuban insurgents Was captured by a
Spanish gunboat. The crew and passengers were given a trial which
resulted in the execution of fifty-three, of whom eight claimed to be
American citizens. Immediately, the war cry Went up in the United
States. But, due to the wise policy of President Grant, it never
gained headway.
Finally, in 1878, Spain agreed to forget the past, abolish slavery in
Cuba, and admit delegates from Cuba to the Spanish Cortes or
Parliament. The Cubans agreed, and hostilities ceased. All men in
Cuba were given the ballot if they paid taxes to the amount of $25.00
annually, which still excluded the poorer classes. Of the
representatives sent by the island to the Spanish Cortes or
Parliament in Madrid, about one-fifth were Cuban born. This
arrangement lasted as long as the economic life of Cuba was normal.
But in February, 1895, a new war for independence broke out, which
was caused by a severe depression of the sugar industry resulting
from the repeal in 1894 of the McKinley Tariff which had permitted
the free entry of Cuban sugar into the United States, giving the
Cuban sugar industry access to the United States market. The closing
of the United States to Cuban sugar was a great blow to Cuba's sugar
industry. Spanish authority in Cuba was held responsible, and
warfare was soon established between the insurgents and Spanish
authorities. A humane governor-general tried to suppress the
insurrection peaceably, but without satisfactory results.
Accordingly, General Weyler became Governor-General of Cuba, on
February 16, 1896, and inaugurated the concentration policy, by which
the inhabitants of Cuba were assembled or crowded within certain
military camps, for it was impossible to distinguish the loyalists
from the insurgents. As a result of this, there was great suffering
and destruction.
Gomez was leader of the insurgents. He destroyed all the property he
possibly could, in an endeavor to compel the United States to
intervene. By attempting to destroy Spanish authority, Gomez hoped
to secure the help of the United States. The insurgents were often
led by Cubans who had come to America, obtained United States
citizenship, and returned to the island claiming the privilege of
their acquired citizenship. Between February 24, 1895, and January
22, 1897, seventy-four persons claiming to be citizens of the United
States were arrested by Spanish authority, because of their
activities as insurgents. But fully three-fourths of those arrested
were Cubans or sons of Cubans who had been naturalized in the United
States. Often, the insurgents developed their plans on American soil
and secured military aid here. The federal government took
precautions to prevent this, but many expeditions were made in spite
of action taken to prevent them.
Our Department of State protested to Spain against the concentration
policy in Cuba carried out under Governor-General Weyler, but Spain
contended that her methods in suppressing rebellion in Cuba were no
more severe than the methods employed by our federal government
during the Civil War. Attention was called by Spain to the Sherman
march through the south and to Sheridan's activities in Virginia.
Spain also called attention to the Cuban Junta in New York, and
claimed that the principal insurgent assistance came from American
soil.
Congress appropriated $50,000 for the relief of Americans in Cuba,
but up to the fall of 1897, only $6,000 of the $50,000 had been used,
so little need was there for it.
In this war in Cuba between insurgents or rebels and Spanish
authority, both sides destroyed all the property possible, although
the insurgents destroyed more than the Spanish authorities. It was
not nearly so destructive as our Civil War, yet what should we have
thought had Spain protested against the conditions of our Civil War?
Such a protest would have been treated with contempt. We had no more
legal ground for questioning Spanish authority in Cuba, than Japan
today would have in questioning or protesting against our policy in
the Philippines. In fact, two years later, in our guerrilla warfare
with the natives of the Philippines, we adopted the same
concentration policy, as we shall see, against which we then
protested in Cuba.
William Randolph Hearst, who was then the leader of American yellow
journalism, had at this time developed his chain of newspapers from
California to Boston. Early in 1897, he began advocating
intervention. Appeals were made daily. Stories, crimes, and
conditions were pictured in his papers and greatly exaggerated. Mr.
McKinley, opposed to intervention, became President on March 4, 1897.
Mark Hanna who had elected Mr. McKinley President, now wished to be
compensated by an appointment to the United States Senate from Ohio.
To create a vacancy in the Senate, Mr. McKinley appointed as his
Secretary of State Mr. John Sherman who was then Senator from Ohio,
and Mr. Hanna was appointed by the Governor of Ohio to the United
States Senate. Mr. McKinley's appointment of John Sherman as
Secretary of State was a great blunder. Mr. Sherman was then very
old and rapidly declining. His work was left in the hands of his
assistants in the Department of State.
United States citizens owned wealth in Cuba, to the amount of
$50,000,000 and our commerce with Cuba amounted to $100,000,000
annually. These interests, of course, demanded intervention. Our
Department of State in its correspondence with Spain estimated that
$16,000,000 worth of American property had been destroyed in Cuba at
the close of 1897, for which property Spain was held responsible.
This was a greatly exaggerated figure, for at the close of the war a
claims commission was created by Congress to investigate those
claims, and this commission recognized as valid claims amounting to
only about $362,252.
In October, 1897, Spain recalled Governor-General Weyler, and
appointed in his place Blanco. The concentration order was revoked.
Spain offered the natives a larger share of self-government, with
their own constitution and legislature. Autonomy was granted. If it
had been offered three years before, this would, no doubt, have
solved the problem. But now it was difficult to reconcile the two
factions in Cuba. The native Spaniards in Cuba opposed home rule, as
it would give the Cubans too much power. The Cubans wanted
independence, and were unwilling to co-operate with the Spaniards in
home rule. A Cuban parliament was called on May 4, 1898.
The Hearst newspapers were then demanding intervention on the part of
the United States and moulding public opinion in that direction.
Although the election of 1896 was over, and it had settled the issue
of free silver, yet other social elements had entered American
politics through the election and campaign of 1896, and it was in the
interests of some people to make use of a "vigorous foreign policy"
to keep public attention away from the new issues. This is an old
device for obliterating home issues or differences. Lincoln had been
advised to precipitate the United States into a foreign war as a
means of preventing the Civil War.
On February 9, 1898, the _New York Journal_, a strong advocate of
intervention, violated the sanctity of the United States mails by
securing through criminal methods a private letter written by Lome,
the Spanish minister at Washington, to a friend. In this letter Lome
severely criticised McKinley, and spoke of him with contempt. This
letter was published by the _New York Journal_. It excited public
opinion, and was, of course, made use of by the jingo press.
However, it had nothing to do with the case, for a foreign minister
naturally has a perfect legal and moral right to have any opinion of
the President or any other public official he likes, and to express
it privately to a friend. The actual crime was in stealing the
letter from the United States mails, but that action was never
investigated or punished by the United States, which should have been
done. Lome's criticism of McKinley may have been unjust, but he had
a personal right to it.
In the midst of the great excitement created by the Lome letter,
another incident took place of advantage to the war party. On
January 24, 1898, the _Maine_ was ordered to Cuba on a "friendly
visit." This trip was accepted officially as a complimentary visit,
but privately both Spain and the United States regarding it in the
opposite light. After being in Havana harbor for three weeks, the
_Maine_ was blown up on February 15, 1898. "Remember the Maine" now
became the slogan of the war party. Spain denied any connection with
its destruction, and no one now believes it was blown up by Spain.
The actual cause of the explosion is not known, but it is now
believed to have been done by the rebels in Cuba for the purpose of
securing the intervention of the United States. It may have been an
accident with which Spain could in no way be connected, yet, at the
time, in the eyes of the public, Spain was held responsible.
McKinley, during this period, opposed intervention, but the war
party, supported by the Hearst papers, was growing rapidly. Our able
minister in Spain, General Woodford, was also opposed to our
intervention. Congress, however, held the opposite attitude. A
senator said to Assistant Secretary of State Day: "Day, doesn't your
President know where the war-declaring power is lodged? Tell him
that if he doesn't do something, Congress will exercise the power."
Congressman Boutelle, who was opposed to the war, says that forty or
fifty Republican members of Congress held a caucus and sent a
committee to the President stating that unless he asked for a
declaration of war, they would propose a resolution for war and carry
it through. Secretary of War Alger, who was a notorious spoilsman,
said to a senator: "I want you to advise the President to declare
war. He is making a great mistake. He is in danger of ruining
himself and the Republican party by standing in the way of the
people's wishes. Congress will declare war in spite of him. He'll
get run over and the party with him." Rhodes, in "McKinley and
Roosevelt Administrations," on page 64, says: "McKinley feared a
rupture in his own party, and on account of that fear, had not the
nerve and power to resist the pressure for war. We may rest assured
that if Mark Hanna had been President, there would have been no war
with Spain."
McKinley was opposed to the war up to the last of March, 1898. Only
two members of his cabinet were in favor of war. Also, the
Vice-President was against it, as was Mark Hanna, the Speaker of the
House, and nearly all the leading Republicans of the Senate.
On March 29, 1898, McKinley sent his ultimatum to Spain demanding the
complete abandonment of the concentration policy, the granting of an
armistice to Cuba, and the opening of peace negotiations through
himself with the insurgents. Spain replied granting the complete
abandonment of the concentration policy and did not refuse to grant
the armistice, but told our minister, General Woodford, that she
would gladly grant it, if the Cubans, who were the resistors, asked
for it, for Spain could not first offer it. Our minister at Madrid
then cabled McKinley that the Spanish government and people wished to
settle the difficulty without war, and that in a few months' time, he
would "get peace in Cuba, with justice to Cuba and protection to our
great American interests."
Let us say, for example, that Japan had sent an ultimatum to McKinley
during the Philippine insurrection, demanding that he change his
policy of coercion and grant an armistice to the Philippines. Such a
demand would have been treated with contempt, yet that is what we
demanded of Spain.
On April 6, 1898, the representatives of Great Britain, Germany,
France, Austria, Russia, and Italy made an appeal to McKinley to
continue peaceful negotiations. The Pope also intervened for peace.
He asked the Queen of Spain to comply fully with our ultimatum.
Accordingly, on April 10, McKinley was notified by the Foreign Office
at Madrid, that Spain would grant the armistice. But on the
following day, Monday, April 11, 1898, McKinley appeared before
Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Spain, without
informing them of the latest concessions made by Spain. It is
impossible to explain McKinley's action. Through the efforts of
Minister Woodford, at Madrid, and others, a diplomatic victory had
been won only to be thrown away by McKinley and Congress. The
Spanish minister at Washington was notified that the President in his
message to Congress on April 11, would explain the concession made by
Spain, but this was not done--a reference only was made to it in his
war message.
War was declared on April 18 by a vote of 324 to 19 in the House, and
67 to 21 in the Senate. On March 31, 1898, Woodford had cabled to
McKinley: "I believe the ministry are ready to go as far and as fast
as they can and still save the dynasty here in Spain. They know that
Cuba is lost. Public opinion in Spain has moved steadily towards
peace." Then on April 3, 1898, Woodford sent this message to
President McKinley: "The Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs assures
me that Spain will go as far and as fast as she can. I know that the
Queen and her present ministry sincerely desire peace, and that the
Spanish people desire peace, and if you can still give me time and
reasonable liberty of action, I am sure that before next October 1st,
I will get peace in Cuba." Again on April 10, the day before our
declaration of war, Woodford notified our Department of State that
before August 1, he could secure autonomy for Cuba, or a recognition
of its independence by Spain or a cession of the island to the United
States. He then added: "I hope that nothing will be done to
humiliate Spain, as I am satisfied the present government is going,
and is loyally ready to go, as fast and as far as it can." It was an
open secret that Spain would give up or sell Cuba as soon as she
could.
One cannot read the Woodford dispatches and fail to see that the
Spanish-American War was thrust upon Spain by our jingo press.
President McKinley over-estimated its strength and lost his nerve,
fearing the disruption of his party. Spain was not surprised but
"stunned" when the United States declared war, a war which cannot be
defended on any grounds. Cuba was Spanish territory and we had no
more legal right to intervene than Spain, for example, had a right to
demand that the United States change her methods of government in
Alaska. Morally, the war was indefensible, for Spain was conceding
and was ready to go to any extent to avoid war, even to the point of
granting independence to Cuba. This conflict with Spain cost
$300,000,000, not including the indirect expenses.
The most important result of the war was our acquisition of the
Philippine Islands. In February, 1898, about two months before war
was declared, Admiral Dewey of the American fleet was ordered to
Hongkong, China, and instructed to be prepared to begin operations
against the Philippines in case of a declaration of war. Until after
the battle of Manila, the American people had practically never heard
of the Philippine Islands. These islands were taken, however, and at
the peace conference, Mr. McKinley instructed our commissioners not
to be satisfied with anything less than the entire group of islands
because of the "commercial opportunity,"--they were secured as a
trading base in the Orient. At that time, it seemed that China would
be dismembered by the European powers and that unless we secured the
Philippines, the United States would have no share in the Orient.
This was our first step in a policy of imperialism, clothed in mild
terms.
For three years after our capture of these islands, the natives put
up a guerrilla warfare to resist the United States forces. During
this period, the American army resorted to every description of
barbaric torture. Among other measures, the policy of concentrating
the inhabitants in camps was resorted to, which was the same policy
we objected to the use of by Spain in Cuba. Prisoners of war were
executed in retaliation for crimes of which they knew nothing. One
of our notorious army officers known as "Hell-Roaring" Jake Smith
commanded that every building in a certain area be burned and every
native over ten years of age be slain.
These three years of guerrilla warfare cost the United States
$170,000,000. All of this cost and cruelty, aside from being unjust,
was unnecessary, for the natives of the Philippines were willing to
co-operate with the United States to develop their civilization by
peaceful methods. The resistance was caused by the presence of
United States soldiers in the islands.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beard, Charles A.--_Contemporary American History_. Chapter 8.
Chadwick, F. E.--_Relations of United States and Spain_.
Latane, J. H.--_America as a World Power_. Chapters 1-5.
Powers, H. H.--_America Among the Nations_.
Rhodes, James Ford--_The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations_.
Chapters 3, 4, 5.
Schlesinger, A. M.--_Political and Social History of the United
States_. Chapters 14 and 15.
Storey, M.--_The Conquest of the Philippines_.
CHAPTER VII
THE WORLD WAR
We shall not undertake a long discussion of the causes of the World
War but simply examine the reasons for the participation in it of the
United States on the side of the Allies. For the first time in
history the generation living through a great war has been able to
ascertain the facts regarding its origin. These facts, however, have
not yet become the common property of the great masses, although they
are gradually becoming evident to everybody. A great many people are
still influenced by the passions and hatreds aroused by the conflict.
Briefly stated, the causes of the conflict were trade rivalry between
Great Britain and Germany, the scramble for territory especially in
Africa, the conflict between Russia and Germany for the domination of
the Balkan Peninsula, and the old inherited animosity between France
and Germany. The accusation of "sole" guilt against Germany is held
no longer by persons who have studied the facts, although there still
are and will no doubt always be differences of opinion about minor
points. The immediate occasion for the opening of hostilities in
1914 was the murder of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of
Austria-Hungary. This murder took place while he was in Bosnia. The
crime was committed by representatives of a Pan-Slavic organization
working hand in hand with the Serbian government with a view to
annexing Bosnia to Serbia.
Up to the nineteenth century, the Balkan Peninsula was owned by
Turkey, but the last century has witnessed the gradual break-up of
European Turkey on the Balkan Peninsula. In connection with this
disintegration, Russia tried to gain territory at the expense of
Turkey. Austria-Hungary also tried to penetrate the same area. A
conflict was the inevitable consequence. This Balkan problem had
been a source of trouble in Europe for a century. The people of
Serbia were Slavs and looked to Russia for support,--in fact, Serbia
was practically governed by Russian diplomacy. Austria-Hungary
looked to Germany for support. In 1908, Bosnia, which was then a
Turkish province but had been administered by Austria-Hungary since
1878, was annexed by Austria-Hungary. This act offended Serbia, who
wished to annex it as part of the Pan-Slavic dream for the domination
by Russia of Bosnia, Serbia, and the remainder of the Balkans. This
annexation by Austria-Hungary defeated the Pan-Slavic dream and was a
victory for Pan-Germany. Feeling became more and more acute when in
1914 the Archduke Ferdinand was killed. The incident was applauded
by Serbia, and conflict followed. The details of events in 1914 are
too complicated to go into for our brief space, but popular accounts
reaching the United States were from Allied sources and were
correspondingly biased.
In 1914 all Europe was divided into two great military camps--the
Allied and the Central Powers. The following is the size of the
principal armies of Europe in 1914: Germany, 806,000; Austria,
370,000; Italy, 305,000; France, 818,000; Russia, 1,284,000; Belgium,
280,000. All Europe was equipped as a military machine, and the
murder in 1914 simply put the machinery in motion. It was an absurd
fallacy to think that Germany was the only armed nation at the time,
and to believe that Great Britain entered the conflict to defend
Belgium is equally absurd. As early as 1911, Great Britain had made
plans with France for marching an army through Belgium to Germany in
the event of war with Germany. Belgium was regarded as part of the
Allied powers. Great Britain has officially acknowledged to be false
her ostensible reason for entering the war--the protection of
Belgium. Her reason was the struggle between rival imperialisms,
which secret treaties later exposed show clearly.
However, we are concerned here only with why the United States
entered the war. The three outstanding causes were interference with
neutral trade, economic ties with the Allies, and Allied propaganda
in the United States. These causes overlap in such a way as to make
it impossible to discuss them separately.
Soon after war was declared in 1914, Great Britain placed mines in
the North Sea and with the aid of her navy blockaded Germany and the
adjacent neutral portions of North Europe. As a result, all goods
going in that direction were captured. The United States protested,
but Great Britain refused to yield the point, claiming it to be a
military necessity albeit illegal from the point of view of
international law. Great Britain blockaded Germany by mines, and cut
off all foreign trade with Germany and neutral ports near Germany to
prevent the entrance of goods into Germany. Germany retaliated in
February, 1915, by employing the submarine to blockade Great Britain.
One policy was as legal as the other. Mr. Wilson protested, but
neither side yielded. In no case in history has a nation at war
observed the established rules if the rules conflict with military
expediency. The United States has been no exception to this
procedure. Since the object of warfare is the physical destruction
of an opponent, once you justify the war you must justify any means
employed to gain the victory. In protesting to Germany, we argued
that the submarines could not warn ships to take off passengers
before they were sunk, but neither could the mines planted by Great
Britain. American ships kept out of the mine zones but disregarded
the submarine zones for reasons we shall later explain. The
_Lusitania_, a British ship, was sunk by a submarine on May 7, 1915.
One hundred and fourteen Americans lost their lives. We immediately
protested. But the facts have shown that the _Lusitania_ carried a
large quantity of munitions of war. At the time the boat was sunk a
United States senator asked the Treasury Department for the bill of
lading. He was told it had been turned over to the State Department.
When the senator asked the State Department for a copy of the bill of
lading in order to see what was on board, the State Department
refused to disclose the contents, on the grounds that it was to be
kept for diplomatic correspondence. It was not known till after the
war was over what had actually been on board the ship. Since then it
has been officially stated by the collector of customs then at New
York that the _Lusitania_ carried munitions of war. Besides, Germany
had warned the passengers before getting on board that in all
probability the ship would be sunk. This notice was officially
published in the New York papers before the ship sailed. There is no
question but that the passengers had been given due warning. Whether
the sinking was legal or not depends upon the point of view.
According to Germany, she did more than the law required by her
warning before the ship left harbor, which is rather better than
being warned a few minutes before being sunk in mid-ocean.
The British seized and searched the mails. United States officials
below the rank of minister were searched by the British while
traveling to and from the continent. Before the close of 1914,
thirty-one cargoes of copper valued at $5,500,000 had been captured
by Great Britain, but the United States owners were compensated.
Their seizure, however, was illegal. Early in 1916, Germany agreed
to give up the use of the submarine, but on condition that the United
States make Great Britain obey international law. We could not force
Great Britain to abide by international law, and consequently Germany
resumed her submarine warfare in 1917, which was our official reason
for entering the war. But this was only our legal excuse. The
effective causes were our economic ties with the Allies, and Allied
propaganda in the United States. We will examine these causes more
carefully.
Modern warfare is a conflict of economic resources as well as armies.
The British navy cut off all economic intercourse between Germany and
the United States. In this way, the economic resources of the United
States were in the hands of the Allies. American agriculture,
credit, and industry soon became indispensable to the Allied cause.
In 1915 an Anglo-French mission came to New York and secured a loan
of $500,000,000. This money was left with various banks in New York
for the purpose of buying supplies from America. The Allied
governments continued to borrow in Wall Street, and these banks
loaned England and France money with which to buy materials. Soon
the House of Morgan became the purchasing agent of the Allies. The
Morgan firm selected Edward R. Stetinius, President of the Diamond
Match Company, as the purchasing agent. Mr. Stetinius selected one
hundred and seventy-five men to assist him in the task. They were
soon purchasing supplies for the Allies at the rate of $10,000,000 a
day. By September, 1917, the Morgan firm had purchased
$3,000,000,000 in merchandise and munitions for the Allies in
addition to the selling of Allied bonds. The day the United States
declared war against Germany the British government's bank account
with Morgan was heavily overdrawn.
When Kitchener became Minister of War in Great Britain in 1915 one of
his first acts was to cable Charles M. Schwab of the Bethlehem Steel
Company to come to England immediately. Schwab went and agreed to
sell all the output of the Bethlehem Steel Company to the British
government. In less than two years, he shipped about $300,000,000
worth of war material to England. Twenty submarines were built and
sent in parts to Canada where they were assembled and sent across to
England. This was done a year before the German submarine
_Deutschland_ came to the United States and was advertised as the
first to cross the Atlantic. (See John Moody, "Masters of Capital,"
pages 162-172.)
American industry had become one with the Allies. Our greatest
banking and industrial institutions had become dependent upon an
Allied victory and an Allied victory was dependent upon them.
American industry became pro-Ally because the British blockade cut
off our trade with Germany. German and Austrian agents such as
Dumba, Karl Boy-Ed and Franz von Papen were expelled from the country
because of their un-neutral activities on behalf of the Central
Powers.
"Patriotic" societies such as "The Navy League," "The American
Defense Society," and the "National Security League" were all tied up
financially with munition plants. These societies were propaganda
bureaus for "preparedness" and later for our entrance into the
conflict. The nineteen men who founded the Navy League had among
their number representatives of the three manufacturers of armor
plate in America,--the Midvale, Bethlehem, and Carnegie Companies.
The Navy League was in practice the propaganda bureau of the three
companies working together to sell armor plate.
Modern warfare has become even more than a conflict of armies and of
economic resources. Propaganda to secure popular support, has become
more and more necessary. Both sides in the European conflict made
great efforts to present their propaganda before America, but the
Central Powers failed primarily because of the British blockade. The
Allies, on their side, had the co-operation of American business, and
easily accomplished their purpose. Professor Hayes in his "Brief
History of the Great War" says: "The British resorted to every known
device of propaganda from employing secret service agents in New York
to maintaining at Washington the great journalist, Lord Northcliffe,
with a host of assistants, as a publicity director." These
propagandists had the co-operation of the bankers who had made loans
to the Allies or had acted as purchasing agents. All this happened
in 1916, but the American people never knew the source of their "war
news" until the conflict was over. Mr. Rathom, of the Providence
_Journal_, of Providence, R.I., was notorious for his accounts of
German "crimes." The Boston _Herald_ of December 30, 1923, in an
editorial comment, says: "It is, of course, true, as most well
informed people now understand, that the Rathom disclosures which
made the Providence _Journal_ famous during the war were fiction--but
Rathom did this for the praiseworthy purpose of arousing his
countrymen to a war fury. He took one of the practical ways of doing
so." Captain Ferdinand Tuohy of the British Secret Service in "The
Secret Corps" says: "All the trickery and subterfuge and war-wisdom
of the ages brought up-to-date, intensified and harnessed to every
modern invention and device, ... a Machiavelli, a Talleyrand or some
other master schemer of the ages come back to earth, would have
thrilled at the amazing cunning and corruption of it all." The
Belgium authorities themselves have denied the truth of the crimes
given out in the Bryce Report. Mr. Lloyd George has stated in print
that careful investigations disclosed no case of Belgian children
with hands cut off. Yet these are some of the crimes with which the
American public were fed during 1916, 1917 and 1918. The peoples of
the Central Powers were, of course, furnished similar crimes
attributed to the Allies. There were many crimes committed as in all
wars, but every nation, including the United States, was guilty of
them.
It is not easy to explain the attitudes of many prominent officials
of the United States during the years preceding our entrance into the
war. Ambassador Walter H. Page, our representative in London, was
guilty of direct disloyalty to the American Government and people.
When President Wilson protested to the British Government against her
disregard of neutral rights Mr. Page did not give the messages to Sir
Edward Grey of the British Foreign Office. He would read them to him
and would then ask Grey to co-operate with him in making a reply to
the United States. Sir Edward Grey says in his memoirs: "Page came
to see me at the foreign office one day and produced a long dispatch
from Washington contesting our claims to act as we were doing in
stopping contraband in going to neutral ports. 'I am instructed' he
said 'to read this dispatch to you.' He read and I listened. He
then said 'I have now read the dispatch but I do not agree with it.
Let us consider how it should be answered.'" In all diplomacy there
is no other example of such a procedure. Page was determined upon
our entrance from the very beginning of the war. Many of our
representatives at the principal courts of Europe were connected with
the Allies personally through business or banking interests in this
country.
Mr. Wilson himself was pro-British in scholarship. He was a great
admirer of the cabinet-parliamentary form of government used in
England. All his heroes in political science were English
authorities. Mr. Wilson's former attorney-general, Thomas W.
Gregory, says in a letter to the New York _Times_ of February 9,
1925, that Wilson was "by inheritance, tradition, and reasoning at
all times the friend of the Allies." Mr. Tumulty also now says Mr.
Wilson was never neutral.
President Wilson had become converted to the idea of intervention by
the spring of 1916. Sir Edward Grey says in his memoirs that Colonel
House assured him in February, 1916, that Wilson would do his best to
bring the United States to the aid of the Allies. In April, 1916,
the President consulted Champ Clark, Speaker of the House; Claude
Kitchen, Democratic Leader; H. D. Flood, Chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee; and other Democratic leaders regarding their
willingness to bring the United States into the war on the Allied
side. This is known as the famous "Sunrise Conference." They
refused, and Mr. Wilson allowed his party to use as the 1916 slogan,
"He kept us out of war." At the time he was afraid to advocate
intervention for fear of splitting his party. There were demands on
the part of certain political leaders and the press for immediate
intervention but these demands were not representative of public
opinion at the time. Ambassador Page brought his influence to bear
on preventing the Allies from considering German proposals for peace
offered in 1916 and 1917.
Allied propaganda represented Germany as lustful for world dominion.
Careful examination now shows that there was no such policy except
that which is common to all powers. This was part of the false
propaganda spread in the United States to inflame public opinion and
make our entrance "defensive." Both sides resorted to trickery of
every description. Much stir was created by the Zimmermann note
published in March, 1917. It was a proposal by Germany to Mexico to
enter on the side of Germany should the United States join the
Allies, with a view to recovering New Mexico and the surrounding
territory taken by the United States from Mexico in 1848. But this
was exactly what the Allies had done, when they persuaded Japan to
enter in order to capture the German sphere of influence in Shantung,
China. It is obvious that every nation at war will try to weaken its
opponent. We encouraged the Latin American republics to declare war
on Germany, which was no more than Germany did in encouraging Mexico
to declare war on the United States, should we declare war on
Germany. This note was distorted and reported in 1917 in a manner to
give the impression that Germany was actively trying to create
trouble for the United States even in peace. The fact remains that
the Zimmermann proposal was not to apply unless we entered the war
against Germany, when it would be a legitimate defensive measure for
Germany to secure the aid of Mexico.
Brigadier General J. C. Charteris, Chief of Intelligence of the
British Army during the war, stated boastfully, in New York, in an
address in the fall of 1925, before the National Arts Club, that he
had invented the report that Germany was boiling down the bodies of
her dead soldiers to be used as fertilizer. He made the statement
under the impression that no reporters were present. The Richmond
_Times-Dispatch_, on December 6, 1925, said editorially:
"Not the least of the horrors of modern warfare is the propaganda
bureau which is an important item in the military establishment of
every nation. Neither is it the least of the many encouraging signs
which each year add to the probability of eventual peace on earth.
"The famous cadaver story which aroused hatred against the German to
the boiling point in this and other allied nations during the war has
been denounced as a lie in the British House of Commons. Months ago,
the world learned the details of how this lie was planned and
broadcasted by the efficient officer in the British intelligence
service. Now we are told that 'imbued with the spirit of the Locarno
pact,' Sir Austen Chamberlain rose in the House, said that the German
Chancellor had denied the truth of the story and that the denial had
been accepted by the British government.
"A few years ago, the story of how the Kaiser was reducing human
corpses to fat, aroused the citizens of this and other enlightened
nations to a fury of hatred. Normally sane men doubled their fists
and rushed off to the nearest recruiting sergeant. Now they are
being told, in effect, that they were dupes and fools; that their own
officers deliberately goaded them to the desired boiling point, using
an infamous lie to arouse them, just as a grown bully whispers to one
little boy that another little boy said he could lick him.
"The encouraging sign found in this revolting admission of how modern
war is waged is the natural inference that the modern man is not
overeager to throw himself at his brother's throat at the simple word
of command. His passions must be played upon, so the propaganda
bureau has taken its place as one of the chief weapons.
"In the next war, the propaganda must be more subtle and clever than
the best the World War produced. These frank admissions of wholesale
lying on the part of trusted governments in the last war will not
soon be forgotten."
After the United States entered the war in April, 1917, we
immediately created a government propaganda bureau, which was known
as "The Committee on Public Information," with George Creel as
chairman. Since the war, Mr. Creel has given us an account of the
propaganda activities in his book--"How We Advertised America." No
effort was made to present the truth. Allied propaganda was accepted
and to it we added ours. This "Committee on Public Information"
issued 75,099,023 pamphlets and books to encourage the public
"morale." They hired the services of 75,000 speakers who operated in
5,200 communities. Altogether, about 755,190 speeches were made by
these people known as the "Four Minute Men." Exhibits were given at
fairs, and war films were prepared for the cinema, from which the
Committee on Public Information received a royalty. A total of 1,438
drawings were employed to arouse popular hatred. An official daily
newspaper was issued which had a circulation of 100,000 copies. A
propaganda bureau was established by the United States, in the
capitals of every nation in the world except those of the Central
Powers. The total expenditure by the United States for propaganda
was $6,738,223. (See George Creel, "How We Advertised America,"
Chapter I.) This was the greatest fraud ever sold to the public in
the name of patriotism and religion.
The Espionage Act was passed making it illegal to spread "false"
reports that would hinder recruiting. Every report was false which
did not harmonize with the propaganda released by this Committee on
Public Information. The best we can now say for Mr. Wilson and the
American public is that they were the victims of Allied propaganda,
and contributed to the wrecking of civilization.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Beard, Charles A.--_Cross Currents in Europe Today_.
Barnes, Harry E.--_The Genesis of the World War_.
Creel, George--_How We Advertised America_.
Chafee, Zechariah--_Freedom of Speech_.
Fay, A. S.--_Origin of the World War_.
Flick, A. C.--_Modern World History_. Chapter 34.
Grattan, C. H.--_Why We Fought_.
Lasswell, H. D.--_Propaganda Technique in the World War_.
Moody, John--_Masters of Capital_. Chapter 9.
Nock, A. J.--_The Myth of a Guilty Nation_.
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