Editor’s note: this article is a selection from Chapter 16 of Cronyism: Liberty versus Power in Early America: “Resurrecting the American System: The Growth of Imperialism.”
Western Ports on the Pacific Coast
In the 1840s, Democrats abandoned their peace and noninterventionism, siding with northern merchants to build an international empire. Equipped with the Monroe Doctrine, they intervened in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and China. Furthermore, Jacksonians strategized how to aggressively take Oregon from Great Britain and California from Mexico. While expansionists settled for less than the whole loaf in the Pacific Northwest, Polk used Texas annexation to singlehandedly provoke a war of plunder by moving troops into Mexican territory. In doing so, he transformed the presidency into an emperorship.
In 1845, the newspaper editor John O’Sullivan used the term “manifest destiny” to describe the seemingly inexorable control of North America by the United States. Initially, the Van Burenite envisioned this being accomplished through the peaceful settlement of homesteading pioneers would form autonomous governments that would then petition for annexation. In addition, O’Sullivan supported general incorporation laws for private transportation networks across the country. O’Sullivan’s libertarian program for expansion bore clear similarities with Thomas Jefferson’s Empire of Liberty and should have formed the basis for the Democrats’ expansionism. But, once again, it was just too much land. The power of such a vast territory quickly tempted O’Sullivan, and only a year later he jettisoned peaceful gradualism and swung to rapid aggression. O’Sullivan was merely keeping up with the main currents driving US expansion: top-down aggression by political and business elites to secure lucrative ports on the Pacific coast, or what Norman Graebner calls “ocean frontage” for an “Asiatic mercantile empire.”
Commerce with China, particularly in textile goods, grew tremendously in the 1830s. This caused merchants and manufacturers, especially the Boston Associates, to lobby for three privileges. First, they wanted a stronger navy that could protect American commerce abroad. Second, they advocated “assertive” diplomacy (i.e., negotiations backed by the intimidating US Navy) in Asia to forcibly open markets and establish US dominance. Third, they wanted ports on the West Coast, particularly in the Oregon Country (near modern-day Seattle) and California’s San Francisco and San Diego Bays. These goals would increase the political and economic strength of the American Empire and allow it to exert a domineering imperialism over the world.
Northern businessmen were not the only factions looking to benefit from a strong navy. With the new pro-slavery South, many southerners supported a strong navy in the Caribbean to sooth exaggerated fears of creeping British abolitionism. This stood in sharp contrast to years past, when Macon and Randolph vigorously fought naval appropriations. As a sign of how the times had changed, the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin now believed that the “meddling spirit of Great Britain” over slavery violated the Monroe Doctrine. The South particularly fretted that the potential abolition of Cuban slavery could lead to US abolition. An additional motivation was that many prominent southerners, such as Calhoun and Whig congressional naval advocate Thomas Butler King of Georgia, had close relatives involved in Cuba businesses. As a result of the South’s prodding, the US fortified slavery on the island by informally allying with Spain and dispatching US warships to Havana.
The navy sympathetically listened to businessmen’s demands. In the 1830s, a new crop of officers—Matthew C. Perry, Matthew F. Maury, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, and Robert Stockton—wanted the government to mimic Great Britain and play what John Schroeder describes as “an active and integral role in the extension of the nation’s overseas commercial empire.” Indicative statements of the new dispensation come from Mackenzie. In 1837, he trumpeted that the navy should “follow the adventurous trader, in his path of peril, to every sea with cruisers ready to spread over him the protecting flag of the republic!”Translation: strong arm other nations in to trade agreements and offload the mercantile business’ market risk onto the US taxpayer. But unfortunately for Mackenzie, the US only possessed the eighth-ranked navy, and increasing naval expenditures did not interest Van Buren.
Matters changed with Tyler and Secretary of the Navy Abel Upshur. “A commerce such as ours,” Upshur opined, “demands the protection of an adequate naval force.” Upshur recruited a crucial ally in one of Tyler’s associates, Massachusetts Whig Congressman Caleb Cushing. He was the son of John N. Cushing, a wealthy merchant in the Pacific Northwest and China trade. Furthermore, Caleb’s cousin was John Perkins Cushing, a China merchant and textile manufacturer whose uncle was Thomas H. Perkins, a major behind-the-scenes Boston Associate in the Era of Corruption’s foreign policy. Clearly, the Cushing family supported a strong navy.
With Cushing’s backing, in 1841, Upshur advocated that Congress increase naval expenditures by 50 percent, establish a naval base in the independent Hawaii, create a naval academy, and reorganize the Department of the Navy. The Whig Congress agreed with most of Upshur’s demands, increasing naval expenditures by 40 percent from 1841 to 1842, along with centralizing control in the secretary. The $8.4 million for the Navy Department in 1842 was its largest peacetime appropriation up to that time, consuming 33 percent of the federal budget. When it came to achieving their goals, the New England merchants were right on schedule. They moved to their second goal: strong-armed Asian diplomacy. In particular, merchants no longer wanted to assume the market risks of the China trade they had conducted since the 1780s. Influential northeastern businessmen, particularly Thomas H. Perkins, Gideon Nye, and Asa Whitney, had already initiated lobbying efforts in the late 1830s.
In December 1842, Tyler urged Congress to appoint a China diplomat to secure trade advantages. He and Cushing also stressed the importance of the rest stop, Hawaii, extending the Monroe Doctrine to the independent country. In early 1843, Adams steered a $40,000 appropriation for a Chinese mission through the House. Adams, an old friend of Thomas H. Perkins, was so bellicose toward China that he supported Britain’s war against the decaying Asian empire because it opened up trade opportunities. In the Senate, Benton fought the measure even though his state benefited from the China trade, recognizing that the appropriation was excessive and the treaty superfluous. “Forty thousand dollars,” Benton grumbled, “to enable one of our citizens to get to Peking, and to bump his head nineteen times on the ground, to get the privilege of standing up in the presence of his majesty of the celestial empire.” But the Senate passed the appropriation. Webster appointed Cushing as the emissary (Cushing had loaned Webster considerable amounts of money over the years) and his oldest son, Fletcher Webster, as his assistant.
Cushing and Congress worried about the influence of Britain over China. Their fears should have been allayed when they found out that the British in 1843 had negotiated a Chinese treaty that granted favored nation status to all foreign merchants. Cushing, however, had travelled a long way (he arrived in February 1844) and wanted his glory. When Chinese officials declined Cushing, he sent the navy to deliver his “courtesy call.” The Chinese understood the subtle but forceful threat and signed the Treaty of Wanghia, ratified by the Senate in early 1845. The treaty formalized trade relations with China but also implicitly established the US as the dominant negotiator, providing the opening wedge to future interventions on behalf of American business. When debating the treaty, Benton considered Cushing a belligerent whose “revolting” conduct “attracted the general reprobation of the country.”
The third and most challenging goal for the mercantile and manufacturing community was securing western ports, either in the Pacific Northwest or more preferably San Francisco. Matters grew complicated when national attention shifted to Texas and Polk secured the presidency. First, the Boston Associates maintained few business connections in Texas and believed the acquisition would make it harder to obtain San Francisco from Mexico. In fact, Webster believed that San Francisco was “twenty times as valuable” as Texas and resigned his position in 1843 over the growing controversy (he was soon succeeded by the pro-Texas Upshur). Second, though expansionist Democrats wanted Pacific commerce, their bellicosity worried Whig businessmen, who wanted to first try peaceful purchase before resorting to “other” options. As John Cushing stated in 1846, the US must obtain San Francisco “by purchase or some other way” (the only alternative to peaceful resolution is violent conflict). Consequently, Whigs played the role of the Federalist opposition party and fought everything Polk did. Despite these difficulties, the northeastern business community still managed to exert considerable influence over the administration’s policies.
Oregon, jointly occupied by the British and Americans since the 1820s, was the first target. Americans had only settled up to the Columbia River, significantly below the lucrative Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Puget Sound. To make matters worse, many reasoned that Oregon would form its own independent government and compete with the United States in the Pacific trade. Consequently, the mercantile community wanted Congress to secure the Strait and solidify their control. Since the late 1830s, John Cushing continually advocated to his son the need for a government settlement on the Columbia River, which Caleb relayed to Congress. In early 1845, Boston Associate William Sturgis emphasized the commercial importance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and only a couple of months later Polk received documents written by Asa Whitney, who warned how an independent Oregon could turn into “our most dangerous and successful rivals in the commerce of the world.”
Although Polk privately recognized Oregon’s “fine harbors,” in his inaugural address the president sided with the grandiose expansionism of western Democrats, who ridiculously demanded Oregon all the way up to Russian Alaska, land the British clearly controlled. Furthermore, in his December 1845 address to Congress, Polk championed the Monroe Doctrine. This earned him the support of the Whig Congressman Adams as well as Democratic Congressman Stephen Douglas and Michigan’s Senator Lewis Cass. However, Polk’s position worried northeastern merchants because they only wanted the Strait, not war with Great Britain. Pro-slavery southerners satisfied with Texas, such as Senator Calhoun, also feared confrontation with abolitionist Great Britain. Senator Benton, one notable Democrat who broke sectional ranks, wrote to Van Buren stressing peace while criticizing the western Democrats’ demands. Debate continued until mid-1846, even after the United States declared war on Mexico. Polk, realizing the dangers of a two-front war, agreed to a British compromise that ceded land up to the Strait. Thus, the United States risked hostile confrontation to build a northwestern port even with no American settlements above the Columbia River. Walter Nugent appropriately comments on the entire affair: “The Americans no doubt did get more than they deserved, if ‘deserved’ is a function not only of discovery but of settlement.”
Oregon controversies aside, the main course for commercial interests was always California, particularly San Francisco. San Diego constituted an important but secondary attraction for merchants. Mexico nominally possessed the huge swath of land encompassed by California and New Mexico (the modern Southwest), where few Mexican or American settlers existed. The proper procedure, then, was O’Sullivan’s process of Americans migrating into the region, homesteading the land, and then forming their own governments that seceded from Mexico and petitioned for annexation. This is what Texas did, save for its egregious land grabbing down to the Rio Grande. But the United States discarded this reasonable option in favor of immediate control through coerced purchase or a covert war.
Democrats originally tried to acquire California when they annexed Texas, planning to provoke a war between Texas and Mexico and then annex after the war. Duff Green, an executive agent of Tyler, formulated this plan. In late 1844, Green proposed to Texas officials that they charter the Del Norte Company to conquer California and New Mexico with an army of sixty thousand Indians, led by Green himself. Green naturally wanted some attractive land grants as compensation. But the Texas government shot down Green’s absurd proposal. Although Green received no official backing for his plan, it clearly fit in with the Polk administration’s desires, which later appointed him during the Mexican War.
The Polk administration renewed efforts after Texas annexation. In April 1845, Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft of Massachusetts dispatched Commodore Robert F. Stockton to southern Texas. Stockton, a wealthy businessman from New Jersey, espoused extremely nationalist views. The Polk administration secretly instructed Stockton to finance an army and incite a war on the border. Clearly, the strong Jacksonian executive had corrupted Polk into implicitly sanctioning an outrageously unconstitutional proposal. However, the president’s plan fell through, and Texas annexation brought no immediate war.
Polk was undeterred: he wanted California for its proximity to China, and he would get it one way or another. He was particularly fearful that the British were scheming to acquire the region (they did not). Consequently, in the fall of 1845, Polk invoked the Monroe Doctrine. He appointed Thomas Larkin, a wealthy New England merchant who traded along the California coast, a secret executive agent to keep an eye on developments, emphasizing “the interests of our commerce and our whale fisheries on the Pacific ocean.” He also sent John Slidell to Mexico City to purchase California for up to $25 million. Implicit force backed Slidell’s efforts, because Polk concurrently ordered General Zachary Taylor to southern Texas. When Mexico rebuffed Slidell, Polk tightened the noose. He ordered Taylor into the “disputed territory” near the Rio Grande, which was really Mexican land. In other words, Polk invaded Mexico and waited for the enemy to fire the first shot. In March 1846, the president informed Congress that he had stationed two-thirds of the army along the southwestern frontier.
Polk’s plan worked: Mexico attacked Taylor in April. The president met with Benton, still a fellow Jacksonian, the next month. The senator told the president he would vote for defense appropriations but not “aggressive war on Mexico” and that Texas had never owned the land Polk sent Taylor’s men into. Unfortunately, the president did not care, requesting Congress declare war (for a conflict he had already started) and provide fifty thousand volunteers and $10 million. The emperor declared that he wanted the legislature to “place at the discretion of the Executive the means of prosecuting the war with vigor.” To bulldoze over the opposition, Polk’s loyal followers limited congressional debate and attached the war declaration to troop appropriations. This ensured that anyone who opposed the war unpatriotically opposed the soldiers on the frontier, hamstringing Benton and other anti-war congressmen. The House limited debate to just two hours and overwhelmingly passed the bill. The Senate quickly followed and only two Whigs dissented. When Polk signed the law, he officially commenced the Mexican War.
It is clear that presidential power caused the war. Polk sent sitting ducks into Mexican territory to draw enemy fire. The Constitution admittedly gave the president control of the army, but Polk could only justify what he did with an extremely broad interpretation of presidential authority that relied on zero sanction from Congress. The Jacksonian executive, strengthened by vetoes and other actions that dismantled the American System, corrupted its wielders into a war of naked aggression. The president had become an emperor.
With any war comes an increase in government intervention, which opens the door for special-interest wheeling and dealing. Bankers, merchants, promoters of transcontinental internal improvements, and land speculators now plotted their next moves.
