| Reading Guide for Week 6 | |
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Tuesday In 1818 Henry Clay was a rising star in the U.S. Congress, serving the state of Kentucky. In this era Clay was perhaps most known for his articulation of an “American system” — a commitment to tariffs, financial stability, internal improvements, and public land sales all meant to facilitate economic growth throughout the United States, the undeveloped western “frontier” as much as the more developed east coast. Keen to cultivate new trade partners beyond the United States, Clay became very sympathetic to Latin Americans independence movements against the Spanish empire. His sympathies required him to navigate a fine line between supporting rebellions and advocating war, the latter which he wanted to avoid. Clay was unaware that Andrew Jackson had been secretly directed to invade Florida, toward usurping it from the Spanish empire. Like the British empire, the Spanish empire was increasingly alarmed at American expansionism not only on North America, but also in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. (The “River Plata” to which Clay refers was at the border of the future Argentina and Uruguay.) Thursday John Quincy Adams made this speech to the U.S. Congress while serving as Secretary of States, as a culmination to his distinguished diplomatic career, and before his relatively undistinguished Presidency starting in 1825. Adams was, for instance, instrumental in negotiating the treaty in 1819 that secured “Florida” for the United States from the Spanish empire. In this speech, Adams characterized what he believed the position and role of the United States in the world, while warning against any imperial ambitions. The United States “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” That is the most famous quotation from the speech: a dramatic example of American “virtue talk” in the 19th century, extremely different from American “virtue talk” across the 20th century. In 1823 U.S. President James Monroe articulated what became known as the “Monroe Doctrine” — the assertion that the United States would not tolerate any European imperial powers attempting to re-conquer any independent South or Central American countries. Monroe acknowledged what he considered to be the sovereign legitimacy of European colonies in South or Central America, but not any attempt at reversing independence that had been hard fought by rebel forces in various former Spanish colonies. Monroe espoused a doctrine of international non-interference alongside a capacious notion of U.S. national security. In this light, the United States would not interfere in European wars or even colonial independence movements, but it would “defend” itself if European empires tried to re-colonize any independent country in South or Central America. Monroe equated American national defense/security with the existence of certain kinds of political systems in other countries. That in and of itself comprised an imperial attitude, but in 1823 it was entirely toothless, as the United States did nothing to enforce the “Monroe Doctrine” until later in the nineteenth century. More rhetoric than reality, the speech was intended mainly to satisfy the self-image of a domestic American audience. Simon Bolivar began rebelling against the Spanish empire in 1808, and helped liberate what would become several independent South American countries. In 1824 he was concerned at rumblings of renewed European imperial threats to re-conquer those independent countries, as Spain sought to gather other European allies for such an attempt. Bolivar therefore initiated an international congress meant to organize the collective security of all independent Central and South American countries against the European threat. In the interests of broad hemispheric solidarity and security, Bolivar also invited the United States to the “Panama Congress” which would be held in 1826, as a predecessor to the more permanent Organization of American States established in 1948. |