586 Chapter 22 From Isolation to Empire
Isolation or Imperialism?
If Americans had little concern for what was
going on far beyond the seas, their economic
interest in Latin America was great and
growing, and in East Asia only somewhat
less so. Shifts in foreign commerce resulting
from industrialization strengthened this
interest with every passing year. Whether one
sees isolation or expansion as the hallmark of
American foreign policy after 1865 depends
on what part of the world one looks at.
The disdain of the people of the
United States for Europe rested on several
historical foundations. Faith in the unique
character of American civilization—and
the converse of that belief, suspicion of
Europe’s supposedly aristocratic and deca-
dent society—formed the chief basis of this
isolationism. Bitter memories of indigni-
ties suffered during the Revolution and the
Napoleonic Wars and anger at the hostile
attitude of the great powers toward the United States
during the Civil War strengthened it. Also important
was the undeniable truth that the United States, in an
era before airplanes, was virtually invulnerable to
European attack and at the same time incapable of
mounting an offensive against any European power.
In turning their backs on Europe, Americans were
taking no risk and passing up few opportunities—
hence their indifference.
When occasional conflicts with one or another of
the great powers erupted, the United States pressed
its claims hard. It insisted, for example, that Great
Britain pay for the loss of some 100,000 tons of
American shipping sunk by Confederate cruisers that
had been built in British yards during the rebellion.
Some politicians even demanded that the British pay
for the entire cost of the war after the Battle of
Gettysburg—some $2 billion—on the grounds that
without British backing the Confederacy would have
collapsed at about that point. However, the contro-
versy never became critical, and in 1871 the two
nations signed the Treaty of Washington, agreeing to
arbitrate the so-calledAlabamaclaims. The next year
the judges awarded the United States $15.5 million
for the ships and cargoes that had been destroyed.
Such incidents never amounted to much.
Origins of the Large Policy: Coveting Colonies
The nation’s interests elsewhere in the world gradu-
ally increased. During the Civil War, France had estab-
lished a protectorate over Mexico, installing the
Archduke Maximilian of Austria as emperor. In 1866
Secretary of State William H. Seward demanded that
the French withdraw, and the United States moved
50,000 soldiers to the Rio Grande. While fear of
American intervention was only one of many reasons
for their action, the French pulled their troops out of
Mexico during the winter of 1866–1867. Mexican
nationalists promptly seized and executed Maximilian.
In 1867, at the instigation of Seward, the United States
purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, thereby
ridding the continent of another foreign power.
In 1867 the aggressive Seward acquired the
Midway Islands in the western Pacific, which had
been discovered in 1859 by an American naval offi-
cer, N. C. Brooks. Seward also made overtures
toward annexing the Hawaiian Islands, and he looked
longingly at Cuba. In 1870 President Grant submit-
ted to the Senate a treaty annexing the Dominican
Republic. He applied tremendous pressure in an
effort to obtain ratification, thus forcing a “great
debate” on extracontinental expansion. Expansionists
stressed the wealth and resources of the country, the
markets it would provide, and even its “salubrious cli-
mate.” But the arguments of the opposition proved
more persuasive. The distance of the Dominican
Republic from the continent and its crowded, dark-
skinned population of what one congressman called
“semi-civilized, semi-barbarous men who cannot
speak our language” made annexation unattractive.
The treaty was rejected. Seward had to admit that
there was no significant support in the country for his
expansionist plans.
The internal growth that preoccupied Americans
eventually led them to look outward. By the lateMidway Island, an inhospitable atoll acquired in 1867, was valuable as a military base
located midway between Pearl Harbor, another naval station, and East Asia. The
acquisition of a Pacific empire during these years was a reason why Pearl Harbor and
Midway became pivotal during the war in the Pacific in World War II.