Colossus (58 page)

Read Colossus Online

Authors: Niall Ferguson

Tags: #History

BOOK: Colossus
12.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

28
. Grant,
Memoirs
, p. 41. Lincoln, Grant and others suspected that Polk was motivated by a desire to create more slave states.

29
. Richardson et al.,
Texas
, p. 167f.

30
. Ibid., p. 168.

31
. Hanson,
American Empire
, p. 51.

32
. The Canadian border up until this point had been agreed in stages: in 1818 (along the top of what is now Montana and North Dakota), 1842 (along the borders of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Minnesota) and 1846 (cession of what became the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho).

33
. Van Alstyne,
American Empire
, p. 8f.

34
. Boot,
Savage Wars
, pp. 10–26.

35
. The Supreme Court rejected the suit of the slave Dred Scott that in crossing from a slave state to a federal territory he gained his freedom.

36
. Pratt,
America’s Colonial Experiment
, p.158.

37
. May,
American Imperialism
, p. 205f.

38
. Pratt,
America’s Colonial Experiment
, p. 159f. This argument was confirmed by the judgment in
Downes v. Bidwell
a year and half later.

39
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, p. 236f. See also Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 85.

40
. The idea arguably originated with the British foreign secretary George Canning, who proposed a joint Anglo-American declaration along these lines following British recognition of the independence of the South American states. Monroe preferred to make it a unilateral declaration by the United States, but in practice it could be enforced—or overthrown—only by the Royal Navy.

41
. Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 85ff

42
. Ibid., p. 83f.

43
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, p. 248; Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 91f. Of critical importance were British incursions on Venezuelan sovereignty.

44
. Boot,
Savage Wars
, p. 62.

45
. Roskin, “Generational Paradigms,” p. 579.

46
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplo-macy
, p. 266.

47
. Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 100.

48
. See my
Pity of War
for the argument that Germany, with its relatively insignificant overseas presence, did not come into this category.

49
. Cole,
America’s Foreign Relations
, p. 182; Black,
Good Neighbor
, p. 6.

50
. Black,
Good Neighbor
, p. 12.

51
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, p. 247. See also Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 89f.

52
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, p. 243f.

53
. Merk,
Manifest Destiny
, p. 232.

54
. Conrad,
Nostromo
, p. 76f.

55
. Bacevich,
American Empire
, p. 55; Pratt,
Americas Colonial Experiment
, p. 168. The American commitment to free trade was never unqualified; the Open Door did not apply to the United States itself. In practice, no duties were charged on American imports to American possessions (with the exception of Samoa after 1909), whereas duties were charged on imports to American possessions from other countries. The British rejected such “imperial preference” until the 1930s.

56
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, pp. 265, 257.

57
. “If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can anyone doubt that the result of this competition of races will be the ‘survival of the fittest?’ ”: Merk,
Manifest Destiny
, p. 238ff. See also Horlacher, “Language,” pp. 35–37.

58
. Hofstadter, “Cuba, the Philippines and Manifest Destiny.” Cf. Black,
Good Neighbor
, p. 2ff; May,
American Imperialism
, pp. 192–97, 207–09.

59
. Morris,
Pax Britannica
, p. 28.

60
. See Cain and Hopkins,
British Imperialism
, passim.

61
. Merk,
Manifest Destiny
, p. 243f.; Black,
Good Neighbor
, p. 16f.

62
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, p. 244f; Boot,
Savage Wars
, pp. 64–66. Samoa was divided among Britain, Germany and the United States.

63
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, p. 246. For Mahan’s role in arguing for annexation, see Merk,
Manifest Destiny
, pp. 235–37; Daws,
Shoal of Time
, p. 287.

64
. Which was more advantageous to American refiners than consumers: LaFeber,
New Empire
, p. 35.

65
. Daws,
Shoal of Time
, p. 285.

66
. Merk,
Manifest Destiny
, pp. 232–35.

67
. On the complex question of trade “reciprocity” between Hawaii and the United States, the effect of which was to make the United States practically the sole customer for Hawaiian sugar, see LaFeber,
New Empire
, pp. 115–20, 142.

68
. Hofstadter, “Cuba, the Philippines and Manifest Destiny,” p. 169f.

69
. Daws,
Shoal of Time
, p. 289f.; Merk,
Manifest Destiny
, p. 255.

70
. Daws,
Shoal of Time
, p. 294f.

71
. Ibid., p. 295f.

72
. Ibid., p. 298f.

73
. Ibid., p. 316.

74
. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p. 160ff. The cases in question were
De Lima v. Bidwell
and
Downes v. Bidwell
.

75
. Boot,
Savage Wars
, p. 103f.

76
. Merk,
Manifest Destiny
, p. 254; Rauchway,
Murdering McKinley
, p. 7. With unintended bathos, McKinley added the characteristic peroration “And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly.”

77
. Horlacher, “Language,” pp. 40–43.

78
. On the complex motivations at work, see May,
American Imperialism
, pp. 5–16.

79
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, p. 253f.

80
. See, e.g., Boot,
Savage Wars
, p. 99f., 107–09.

81
. Ibid., pp. 100–02.

82
. Ibid., p. 120.

83
. Ibid., p. 125.

84
. Horlacher, “Language,” p. 44. Cf. Boot,
Savage Wars
, pp. 114–16.

85
. May,
American Imperialism
, pp. 199–205.

86
. Pratt,
America’s Colonial Experiment
, pp. 79–82.

87
. Zwick, “Twain.”

88
. Freeman and Nearing,
Dollar Diplomacy
, pp. 255–57.

89
. Hofstadter, “Cuba, the Philippines and Manifest Destiny,” p. 169.

90
. Boot,
Savage Wars
, p. 122f. A Senate committee was established to begin hearings on the atrocities. Waller was acquitted of murder, after it became clear that Jake Smith had been the first to issue the order of taking no prisoners, and Smith was convicted of “con-duct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline” and forced into retirement.

91
. May,
American Imperialism
, pp. 210–13, 221–23.

92
. Vidal,
Decline and Fall
, p. 18.

93
. May,
American Imperialism
, pp. 214–22.

94
. Pratt,
America’s Colonial Experiment
, pp. 291–310.

95
. Louis,
Imperialism at Bay
, p. 149n.

96
. Pratt,
Colonial Experiment
, p. 125. See Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 102.

97
. Pratt, America’s
Colonial Experiment
, p.140.

98
. Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 106f.

99
. Platt,
Finance, Trade and British Foreign Policy
, p. 326ff.

100
. Horlacher, “Language”, p. 42.

101
. Pratt,
Americas Colonial Experiment
, p. 115f.

102
. Boot,
Savage Wars
, pp. 60–62.

103
. Ibid., p. 133. The new Republic’s first constitution was drafted in a Washington hotel room; its first flag was sewn together in Highland Falls, New York: Black,
Good Neighbor
, p. 17.

104
. Edmund Morris,
Theodore Rex
, p. 290. See also Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 100f.

105
. Black,
Good Neighbor
, p. 19f.

106
. Pratt,
America’s Colonial Experiment
, p. 132. Cf. Maddison,
World Economy
, p. 63.

107
. Cole,
America’s Foreign Relations
, p. 325.

108
. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p. 137.

109
. Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 108.

110
. Pratt,
America’s Colonial Experiment
, p. 119.

111
. Ibid., p. 121.

112
. Cole,
America’s Foreign Relations
, p. 313.

Other books

Callahan's Secret by Spider Robinson
Alice Munro's Best by Alice Munro
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Safeword: Matte by Candace Blevins
Sweet Venom by Tera Lynn Childs
From the Ashes by Gareth K Pengelly
Kiss Your Elbow by Alan Handley
Ship's Boy by Phil Geusz