Through its territorial acquisitions in 1898 at the close of the Spanish-American War, the United States achieved world-power status. Historians have stressed that expansion before 1900 resulted either from Manifest Destiny, an American variant of a worldwide ultranationalistic urge for foreign conquest and colonies (imperialism), or from American industrialism and its need for markets for its products. Undoubtedly, the move by the United States onto the world stage had both internal and external causes as it experienced unprecedented economic growth in an age of increasing nationalistic rivalries. Changing global patterns required presidents to be increasingly engaged in the conduct of international relations. This growth of presidential direction and power is the most significant development in American foreign policy in the late 19th century. The period began with the Senate humiliating Ulysses S. Grant by rejecting the Santo Domingo annexation treaty in February 1870, and it ended in 1900 with William McKinley sending an expeditionary force of 5,000 troops to help put down the Boxer Rebellion in China without consulting Congress. The transformation of America’s role in the world helped transform the American presidency.
In 1870 Americans concentrated on the Western Hemisphere and were concerned by the presence of European powers: France had only recently withdrawn an army from Mexico, where it had supported a government headed by an Austrian-born emperor. The Dominion of Canada, although it had local autonomy, was a part of the British Empire. In the Caribbean, all the islands except Haiti were under the suzerainty of a European state. More importantly, Britain—not the United States—dominated the foreign trade of Latin America. Any assertion of U. S. interests had to take into consideration the commanding position of Europe in the Caribbean and in Latin America.
The United States, however, had enormous potential power. By 1885 it was the world’s most productive manufacturer. Steel production exceeded that of Britain the following year, while energy consumption surpassed all other nations by 1890. Agricultural production did not lag behind: In the years from 1865 to 1890, wheat and corn production grew by 256 and 222 percent, respectively. The arrival of
11.5 million European immigrants in the last three decades of the century provided labor in fields and factories. Over the period from 1873 to 1913, the U. S. economy grew at an average annual rate of 5 percent compared with Britain’s 1.6 percent over the same period.
American policymakers, however, were aware that American power was latent. America’s small army was deployed against Native Americans on the frontier while its deteriorating navy (prior to its strengthening in the 1880s) was supposed to protect the coasts and in no way could enforce foreign policy. The State Department in 1869 employed only 31 clerks, and its staff by 1881 had grown to only 50. While prominent politicians and intellectuals might find representing the nation abroad rewarding, few Americans aspired to a diplomatic career, which still had the taint of Europe’s aristocracy. Exams for consular service originated in the early 1890s in the wake of civil service reform, but few Americans were experienced in conducting international affairs.
In a world dominated by European political and military power, American diplomats had few opportunities to assert themselves. European powers subjugated Africa and Asia. Where formal colonies did not exist, the European powers exercised control through protectorates and spheres of influence. However, this redounded to the benefit of American businessmen and missionaries, who enjoyed the entitlements of white men. Most-favored-nation clauses in treaties with the states of East Asia enabled Americans to obtain the same advantages as British subjects.
Until the late 1890s U. S. foreign affairs were overshadowed by domestic matters. Despite minor territorial disputes with Britain, America’s borders were secure, and its attention was focused on Reconstruction, financial panics and ensuing depressions, violent strikes, and differences over the printing of greenbacks and the minting of silver. Foreign crises occurred only intermittently, but in the final decade of the century, with increasing rapidity, problems arose involving Chile, Hawaii, Venezuela, Cuba, and China.
This quickening diplomatic pace reflected the accelerating pace of life in the late 19th century. The revolution in industrial production was accompanied by a revolution in the communication and retrieval of information. Telegraph lines and submarine cables provided instant communication around the globe, and information could be stored in a legible, accessible form thanks to the introduction of the typewriter, tabs, index cards, and file folders in modern offices. The U. S. State Department, however, with its archaic filing and indexing practices, remained haphazard in its record keeping (relying heavily on the memories of old hands) until the 20th century.
International rivalry increased for markets in both farm produce and industrial goods. By the 1870s American farmers found themselves competing in a global marketplace. More significantly, American businessmen and farmers became convinced that growth depended on finding foreign markets. This belief became commonplace even before the disastrous economic depression that began in 1893. Commentators of the time took satisfaction in the rising proportion of manufactured goods among exports, which reached one-third of the total exports by the end of the century.
Rivalry among the great powers also played a part in the rising American concern with foreign policy. The newly industrialized powers of Germany, Russia, and Japan joined the competition for colonies in Africa and Asia, and American traders and investors had to contend with Germans as well as the British in Latin America and the Japanese in Hawaii. Americans had confidence that their products compared favorably with foreign rivals unless handicapped by barriers to trade, and to ensure favorable terms of trade the United States negotiated reciprocal tariff reductions with Hawaii and Latin America. Congress, representing particular interests that were frequently threatened by imports, viewed with unease the presidential power contained in the reciprocal treaties and frequently undermined these agreements.
The foreign crises of the 1890s increased the power of presidents. Civil service reform and the incipient regulation of business favored the executive over the legislative branch, but these were minor contributions to the modern presidency when compared with the demands of an effective foreign policy. America’s status in world affairs was enhanced by the naval buildup begun in the 1880s and the investiture of larger and better-paid staffs of embassies abroad, including the appointment of military and naval attaches that began in 1889. The reach of the presidents of the 1890s was therefore longer than their predecessors.
In 1870 Grant’s hope of annexing Santo Domingo was frustrated by the Senate, but the wartime emergency in 1898 conferred almost unrestricted power on McKinley as commander in chief. Traditional restraints on expansion and other foreign policy goals weakened at this time of heightened nationalism. McKinley was a masterful political manager, but he could not have enhanced the powers of the president without the opportunity to intervene in Cuba against Spain. The triumph of the expansionists with the declaration of war against Spain was not total, since Congress asserted that Cuban independence was the goal of intervention. But when American military forces occupied Spanish possessions, the economic and strategic arguments of expansionists prevailed, and the United States opted to control Cuba as a protectorate and Puerto Rico and the Philippines as colonies. McKinley, who made the key decision, embraced imperialism to thwart other imperialist powers. American presidents were no longer merely interested in upholding the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere, where the United States was paramount; rather, as the century came to a close, they were prepared to assume new responsibilities across the wide Pacific Ocean.
Further reading: Charles S. Campbell The Transformation of American Foreign Relations, 1865-1900 (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860-1898 (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1963); Ernest R.
May, Imperial Democracy: The Emergency of America as a Great Power (New York: Harper & Row, 1961); Fareed Zakaria, From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America's World Role (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1998).
—Bruce Abrams
World History
