History 282 US Diplomatic History

“That Lincoln was serious about understanding the exact nature of the international law of war is the organizing thesis of another recent prize-winning historical study. John Fabian Witt’s Lincoln’s Code (2012) argues that one of the Civil War’s most enduring global legacies was in establishing modern legal precedents for wartime codes of conduct. Witt describes how almost simultaneous with the development of its emancipation policy, the Lincoln administration was also commissioning a Columbia University political scientist named Francis Lieber to compile a series of orders for the Union army directing their conduct toward belligerents and civilians under the highest standards of contemporary laws of war. Lieber was a German immigrant who had taught for years in South Carolina and who had sons in both armies. Widely respected as a scholar, Lieber produced General Orders No. 100 in April 1863 which became known as the Lieber Code, and which later provided critical precedents for The Hague and Geneva conventions of war.” –Matthew Pinsker, Law of War, Lincoln and War Powers, House Divided Project [WEB]

Discussion Questions

• Why did international law even matter for regulating conduct in an American civil war?
• How would you recommend introducing the subject of nineteenth-century international law to students in middle or high school?

Francis Lieber (Library of Congress)

Francis Lieber might be considered both the first American political scientist and one of the founders of the modern international laws on war. Lieber was born in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century, soon became a leading scholar, but also fought against Napoleon’s armies during the Waterloo campaign of 1815. He emigrated to America in 1827 and helped to edit the new Encyclopedia Americana.   For over two decades, he taught at South Carolina College and published several leading treatises on subjects related to politics and ethics. An opponent of slavery, Lieber relocated to New York in 1856, accepting the first American professorship designated in the field of “political science” with Columbia University.  During the Civil War, Lieber drafted a code of conduct for the Union Army known as the Lieber Code that President Lincoln issued as General Orders. No. 100 and which later became an important precedent for twentieth century international conventions on war established at The Hague and Geneva.

•  Gen. Orders No. 100 (The Lieber Code)

Additional Material

• Francis Lieber (b. March 18, 1798 (est.) in Berlin; d. October 2, 1872 in New York City)
• Three of Lieber’s sons fought in the Civil War –two for the Union and one for the Confederacy.  One son lost an arm and the son who fought for the South died.
• Lieber once wrote that memory is “the most useful and indispensable of all instruments in all pursuits.” (Miscellaneous Writings, 1881, p. 29)
• Excerpt from biographical profile by M.R. Thayer (published in Miscellaneous Writings):  “His method of teaching was such as to make the subject attractive in the highest degree to his students, and they thoroughly understood everything they learned. He never read lectures, but expounded his subject, in terse, familiar language, and impressed them by copious and happy illustrations. At the end of every recitation he gave out what for the next time they ought to read collaterally, and what peculiar subjects or persons they ought to study, besides the lesson. He caused them to read poetry and fiction, in connection with history, to see how great writers had conceived great characters. He relied much upon the blackboard. To one he would give chronology, to another geography, to another names, to another battles. Four large blackboards were in constant use at the same time, and often a considerable part of the floor besides.” (p. 34)
• One of Lieber’s favorite expressions was that books, like men, were useless without a stiff back.

Further Reading

• Frank Friedel, Francis Lieber: Nineteenth Century Liberal (1947)
• Burrus Carnahan, Act of Justice: Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Law of War (2007)
• John Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (2012)

“Scorned by many at the time, the purchase [of Alaska] became Seward’s greatest triumph.  Eager for something to offset the administration’s domestic failures, he jumped at the chance to purchase Alaska.  The price of $7.2 million was $2 million more than he wanted to pay and $2 million more than the Russians originally sought, but the secretary was in a hurry to consummate the deal; he and Russian minister Eduard Stoeckl worked until 4:00 AM to draw up a treaty.  Critics dismissed Alaska as a ‘sucked orange,’ ‘Seward’s Folly,’ or Johnson’s ‘polar bear garden.’ Editor Horace Greeley called it ‘Walrussia.’ Foes of the purchase accused Johnson and Seward of trying to deflect attention from failures at home.  Seward lobbied furiously and effectively, however, emphasizing the land’s commercial and strategic potential and the importance of obliging good friends like the Russians.  Congress was in full revolt against Johnson by this time, and the House of Representatives out of pique threatened not to appropriate funds.  While complaining about the ‘wholly exceptional’ difficulties of conducting diplomacy in the American democratic system, Stoeckl, who stood to profit handsomely from the deal, bribed key congressmen.  At the time of the purchase, the main product of ‘Seward’s ice box’ was indeed ice, sold in large quantities to the bustling communities along the West Coast. More quickly than anyone might have imagined, the secretary’s vision was vindicated, his prize acquisition, like California earlier, bringing the added bonus of gold.” –Herring, From Colony to Superpower, p. 258

Discussion Questions

• Herring’s summary of the value underlying the Alaskan purchase requires a good deal of background or context knowledge about US-Russian relations and American domestic politics in the Reconstruction era.  What are some of the key contextual factors that made “Seward’s Folly” possible in 1867?
• Herring calls the Alaskan purchase as William Henry Seward’s “greatest triumph” as US secretary of state. Earlier in the chapter, he also suggested that “Seward now ranks among the nation’s best secretaries of state” (228).  What do consider to be Seward’s most impressive accomplishments and traits as a diplomat, or do you find yourself unpersuaded by Herring’s high praise?

Cartoon by Thomas Nast from Harper’s Weekly, April 20, 1867 (HarpWeek)

“This changed suddenly in November 1861 when an incident at sea brought the United States and Britain to the verge of war.  The Trent affair was the handiwork of the brilliant and eccentric Capt. Charles Wilkes.  An accomplished scientist as well as naval officer, Wilkes headed the Great United States Exploring Expedition on its worldwide journey in the 1840s.  Arrogant, overbearing, as paranoid as the legendary Capt. William Bligh, he was also impulsive and ambitious –once he promoted himself to captain while at sea and ostentatiously donned the uniform he had packed away for the occasion.  His actions in 1861 made clear the way an impetuous individual could provoke a major crisis.” –Herring, From Colony to Superpower, p. 232

Discussion Questions

• How exactly did this “impetuous and ambitious” individual (Charles Wilkes) provoke “a major crisis”?
• Which individuals deserve most credit for deescalating this crisis between the US and Great Britain?

Student-created map by Emilia McManus (Fall 2014)

“Ever since George Washington’s Administration, Americans have debated the following questions:  Should the national government cooperate with business to build the economy through trade and tariffs?  Should the extension of democracy, the defense of human rights, and the construction of a world order based on international law stand at the center of U.S. foreign policy?  Is the hope a peaceful world a beguiling illusion, and should the United States therefore build up a strong defense system to protect itself?   Should Americans seek to minimize foreign entanglements and shun foreign quarrels to focus on strengthening democracy at home?  To ignore the history of these debates is shortsighted, for a thorough understanding of how these issues have shaped U.S. foreign policy in the past can help shape the present –both for policymakers and for the American public.”

–Walter Russell Mead, “The American Foreign Policy Legacy,” Foreign Affairs 81 (Jan.-Feb. 2002): 164-65

Discussion Questions

• Which of these organizing questions are most intriguing to you?
• What other questions might Mead have posed that could help address recurring or important themes in U.S. foreign policy?

DISCUSSION TRANSCRIPT

The illustration above appeared in Walter Russell Mead’s article on “The American Foreign Policy Legacy.” Can you identify the five figures caricatured here?

Here is a revealing chart from Mead’s 2002 book, “Special Providence,” but it does contain one small error.  Can you identify the mistake?

2013 Interview with Walter Russell Mead

In this interview, Mead, a noted diplomatic history professor at Bard College, mentions Noam Chomsky and Henry Kissinger as two figure who have two radically different views of US diplomatic history.  To find out more about Chomsky and the radical critique of US diplomatic history, see Michael Henderson, “Professionals or Pariahs?  Noam Chomsky, William Appleman Williams and the American Historical Profession,” Australasian Journal of American Studies 1 (July 1997): 45-70 [JSTOR].  To capture a glimpse of the Kissinger world-view on balance-of-power politics, offered at about the same time that Mead wrote his article, “American Foreign Policy Legacy” (and his book, Special Providence), see an excerpt from Kissinger’s 2001 book, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?  available from the New York Times.

“[President] Taft and [Secretary of State] Knox adopted the Dominican model to develop a policy called ‘dollar diplomacy,’ which they applied mainly in Central America.  They sought to eliminate European political and economic influence and through U.S. advisers promote political stability, fiscal responsibility, and economic development in a strategically important area, the ‘substitution of dollars for bullets,’ in Wilson’s words.  United States bankers would float loans to be used to pay off European creditors.  The loans in turn would provide the leverage for U.S. experts to modernize the backward economies left over from Spanish rule by imposing the gold standard based on the dollar, updating the tax structure and improving tax collection, efficiently and fairly managing the customs houses, and reforming budgets and tariffs.  Taft and Knox first sought to implement dollar diplomacy by treaty.  When the Senate balked and some Central American countries said no, they turned to what has been called ‘colonialism by contract,’ agreements worked out between private U.S. interests and foreign governments under the watchful eye of the State Department.  Knox called the policy ‘benevolent supervision.’  One U.S. official insisted that the region must be made safe for investment and trade so that economic development could be ‘carried out without annoyance or molestation from the natives.’ These ambitious efforts to implement dollar diplomacy in Central America produced few agreements, little stability, and numerous military interventions.”  –George Herring, From Colony to Superpower (2008), p. 373

“Determined to complete the transaction before real Panamanians could get to Washington, [Philippe Bunau-Varilla] negotiated a treaty drafted by Hay with his assistance and far more favorable to the United States than the one Colombia had rejected.  The United States got complete sovereignty in perpetuity over a zone ten miles wide.  Panama gained the same payment promised Colombia.  More important for the short run, it got a U.S. promise of protection for its newly won independence.  Bunau-Varilla signed the treaty a mere four hours before the Panamanians stepped from the train in Washington.  Nervous about its future and dependent on the United States, Panama approved the treaty without seeing it.  Colombia, obviously, was the big loser.  Panama got nominal independence and a modest stipend, but at the cost of a sizeable chunk of its territory, it’s most precious natural asset, and the mixed blessing of a U.S. protectorate.  Panamanian gratitude soon turned to resentment against a deal Hay conceded was ‘vastly advantageous’ for the United States, ‘not so advantageous’ for Panama.  TR vigorously defended his actions, and some scholars have exonerated him. Even by the low standards of his day, his insensitive and impulsive behavior toward Colombia is hard to defend.  Root summed it up best.  Following an impassioned Rooseveltian defense before the cabinet, the secretary of war retorted in the sexual allusions he seemed to favor:  ‘You have shown that you have been accused of seduction and you have conclusively proven that you were guilty of rape.’  Although journalists criticized the president and Congress investigated, Americans generally agreed the noble ends justified the dubious means.  Even before the completion of the project in 1914, the canal became a symbol of national pride.  The United States succeeded where Europe had failed.”  –George Herring, From Colony to Superpower (2008), pp. 368-9

“The Open Door Notes have produced as much mythology as anything in the history of U.S. foreign relations.  Although he knew better, Hay encouraged and happily accepted popular praise for America’s bold and altruistic defense of China from the rapacious powers.  These contemporary accolades evolved into the enduring myth that the United States in a singular act of beneficence at a critical point in China’s history saved it from further plunder by the European powers and Japan.  More recently, historians have found in the Open Door Notes a driving force behind much of twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy.  Scholar-diplomat George F. Kennan dismissed them as typical of the idealism and legalism that he insisted had characterized the American approach to diplomacy, a meaningless statement in defense of a dubious cause –the independence of China– which had the baneful effect of inflating in the eyes of American s the importance of their interests in China and their ability to dictate events there.  Historian William Appleman Williams and the so-called Wisconsin School have portrayed the notes as an aggressive first move to capture the China market that laid the foundation for U.S. policy in much of the world in the twentieth century.” (George Herring, From Colony to Superpower, pp. 333-4)

Discussion Questions

• Herring uses the Open Door episode as way to further delineate major schools of thought about American diplomatic traditions.  Earlier in the semester, Walter Russell Mead tried something similar.  Can you summarize the different interpretive approaches on your own by this point?
• Among American diplomats and secretaries of state, John Hay usually ranks quite high.  How you would characterize his accomplishments?  Do recent shifts in American attitudes about imperialism and race diminish the standing of statesmen like Hay (or figures like Theodore Roosevelt) in your eyes?

Student-produced map of the Boxer Rebellion (Julianne Greco)