America has always had the luxury of not having to worry overmuch about defending its borders. The oceans provide a virtually impenetrable barrier against hostile landings, and the vast expanse of ocean makes even a concentration of sea power against U. S. shores highly difficult. Consequently, America has been able to neglect its armed forces and yet pursue a blustery foreign policy without much fear of war. After the War of 1812, no foreign power placed a hostile soldier on American soil, with the exception of a few raids across the Mexican-American border. For most of the 19th century, Americans thought little about foreign policy except as it affected trade and commerce.
Fortunately for the United States, Europe was preoccupied with internal matters from 1815 through 1860 and paid little attention to events in the New World. Great Britain tacitly supported the Monroe Doctrine, and no significant threats to America arose from European quarters until the 1830s. Relations between the United States and Great Britain were, however, strained by animosity left over from the Revolution and the War of 1812. As the old pro-British Federalist Party was gone, Jacksonian Democrats, who tended to be anti-British, created an atmosphere in which tension between the two nations gradually rose.
Northern Americans had always hoped for Canadian independence, partly out sympathy for a smoldering desire for independence among some Canadians, but mostly out of land greed. Occasional small rebellions in Canada were crushed by British forces, and the long, unguarded boundary made it easy for Americans to intervene in Canadian affairs. Another issue which irritated the British was the lack of copyright laws in America, which deprived British authors their rights. American publishers sent buyers to Great Britain to bring back copies of popular works, which they then published in the United States without paying royalties to the authors. British writers petitioned Congress in 1836 without result, and some writers, including Charles Dickens, came to America to publish their works in order to protect their rights. The situation was not rectified until 1891.
As a noted and popular author, Charles Dickens was feted in America, but then had the temerity to return home and write unkindly about what he had found on this side of the Atlantic. Other visitors found almost every aspect of American life despicable, including slave auctions, lynchings, and a general lack of law and order. English visitors saw the United States as "dirty, uncomfortable and crude," with pigs running loose in the streets of New York City; they found fault with American habits of tobacco chewing, gambling, dueling, brawling, holding religious revivals, and other social misbehavior. 54
American states and territories had substantial debts in England that had arisen from heavy borrowing to finance internal improvements. When Americans defaulted on those debts during the 1837 depression, the British press, already angry over copyright matters, called Americans a nation of swindlers. The British Punch declared the American eagle "an unclean bird of the vulture tribe." Troublemakers in America stirred the pot, showing sympathy for Canadian rebels and running weapons over the border. They called the British "bloated bondsmen." When comments of that sort were published in British and American newspapers, they made their way across the Atlantic, and it was soon said that the United States and Great Britain were "two countries separated by a common language"; each side could readily read the other's insults.55
World History
