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American Diplomats and Irish Coercion, 1880–18831

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Owen Dudley Edwards
Owen Dudley Edwards
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen
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Extract

In former years there existed a widespread assumption that, throughout the nineteenth century, the United States was an isolationist power. Its policy, according to this thesis, had been articulated in Washington's Farewell Address, was accorded bipartisan acquiescence in Jefferson's First Inaugural, and was reaffirmed in the Monroe Doctrine. Until the Spanish–American war of 1898 isolationism prevailed, confident and more or less unchallenged; and then it suddenly collapsed, virtually without a struggle, leaving the Americans free to enter without inhibition on their new status of world power.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 1967 , pp. 213 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

page 213 note 1 In an earlier version this paper was delivered at Kansas City, in the course of what proved to be the last conference of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, in April 1965, when it voted to alter its name to the ‘ Organization of American Historians’.

page 213 note 2 Pletcher, David, The Awkward Years–American Foreign Relations Under Garfield and Arthur (Columbia, Mo., 1962)Google Scholar; LaFeber, Walter, The New Empire (Ithaca, N.Y., 1963)Google Scholar; Thistlethwaite, Frank, The Anglo-American Connection in the Early Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. New views on the place of the 1890s in the context of American foreign policy in general may be conveniently obtained in Leopold, Richard W., The Growth of American Foreign Policy (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.

page 215 note 1 Williams, William Appleman, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York, 1962)Google Scholar, ch. I. My statements on Parnell's tour and appeal are largely based on an examination of numerous newspaper and MS. sources which for reasons of space cannot be cited here, but see his article on ‘The Irish land question’, North American Review (04 1880)Google Scholar. Davitt, Michael, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland (New York, 1904), pp. 193–206Google Scholar, has a better chronology and fairer texts of speeches of the tour than the best biography of Parnell, O'Brien, R. Barry, The Life of Charles Stewart Parnell (London, 1910), pp. 157–68Google Scholar. See also Hammond, J. L., Gladstone and the Irish Nation (London, 1938)Google Scholar, O'Brien, Conor Cruise, Parnell and his Party 1880–90 (Oxford, 1957)Google Scholar, Brown, Thomas N., Irish-American Nationalism (Philadelphia, 1966)Google Scholar, and Edwards, [R.] Dudley, ‘Parnell and the American challenge to Irish nationalism’, University Review (Dublin), 2, no 2 (n.d.), 47–64Google Scholar.

page 217 note 1 Hammond, , Gladstone and the Irish Nation, pp. 240–63Google Scholar; O'Brien, Cruise, Parnell and his Party, pp. 65–72Google Scholar; Pletcher, , The Awkward Years, pp. 234–40Google Scholar.

page 217 note 2 ‘They are there to make trouble’, said Justin McCarthy, Parnell's lieutenant, to Lowell in speaking of the imprisoned Irish-Americans (Lowell to Oliver Wendell Holmes, 28 Dec. 1884, in Norton, Charles Eliot (ed.), Letters of James Russell Lowell vol. 11, (New York, 1894), p. 294)Google Scholar. Pletcher, , Awkward Years, pp. 241–2, 244Google Scholar. Sir John Rose to W. E. Forster, 2 Apr. 1882 (copy in ‘The Correspondence of Hamilton Fish’, cxxxv, Fish MSS., Library of Congress). Thomas, Hamilton Cook, The Return of the Democratic Party to Power in 1884 (New York, 1919), pp. 69–70Google Scholar.

page 218 note 1 Pletcher, , Awkward Years, p. 243Google Scholar, and sources therein cited.

page 218 note 2 Lowell to Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, 10 July 1882, in U.S. Department of State, …Foreign Relations…1882 (Washington, D.C., 1883), pp. 284–5Google Scholar. Ibid. 17, 26 Aug. 1882 (telegrams), ibid. pp. 289, 290. William J. Hoppin to Frelinghuysen, 30 Sept. 1882 (telegram), U.S., Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain, CXLV (U.S. National Archives). Ramm, Agatha (ed.), The Correspondence of Mr Gladstone and Lord Granville 1876–1886, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1962), pp. 351–65Google Scholar, for example, contains no reference to the Fish-Rose memorandum in the daily exchange of notes between Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary at a time when Ireland was an hourly concern. O'Brien, Cruise, Parnell and His Party, pp. 72–80Google Scholar. Fish to J. C. Bancroft Davis, 3 May 1882, Bancroft Davis MSS., xxxii, Library of Congress.

page 218 note 3 Fish to Bancroft Davis, 24 Jan. 1881, Bancroft Davis MSS., xxviii, Library of Congress.

page 219 note 1 Pletcher, , Awkward Years, pp. 242–3Google Scholar. Hurlbert, William H., Meddling and Muddling—Mr Blaine's Foreign Policy (New York, 1884), p. 39Google Scholar, in which the statement on Fish and Forster appeared in block capitals. Hurlbert to Fish, 8, 11 Sept. 1884, George F. Edmunds to Fish, 2 Oct. 1884, Fish Corresp., CXLV. Fish to Edmunds, n.d., Fish letterbooks, xxiv, pp. 112–13, Library of Congress.

page 219 note 2 New York Nation, 14 Aug. 1884, p. 128. Blaine to Lowell, 26 May 1881, Foreign Relations, 1881, pp. 530–1Google Scholar. Sir Edward Thornton to Granville, 19 Apr. 1881, in Knaplund, Paul and Clewes, Carolyn M. (eds.), ‘Private letters from the British Embassy [sic] in Washington to the Foreign Secretary Lord Granville 1880–1885’, Annual Report of the American Historical Association 1941, i (Washington, D.C., 1942), 129–30Google Scholar. Tansill, Charles Callan, America and the Fight for Irish Freedom, 1866–1922 (New York, 1957), pp. 79–84Google Scholar. Blaine to Lowell, 2 June 1881, Lowell to Blaine, 4 June 1881, 15 July 1881, Lowell to Granville, 8 June 1881, Granville to Lowell, 28 June 1881, Foreign Relations 1881, pp. 532–3, 540–4. Thomas, , Return of the Democratic Party, pp. 154–5Google Scholar. Pletcher, , Awkward Years, pp. 240–1Google Scholar. Lowell to Granville, 1 Sept. 1881, Granville to Lowell, 11 Nov. 1881, Foreign Relations, 1881, pp. 553–4. Blaine to an ‘influential’ Maine-Irishman, 27 Oct. 1880, Ramsdell, H. J., James G. Blaine (New York, 1884), pp. 222–3Google Scholar.

page 220 note 1 Pletcher, , Awkward Years, pp. 60–1 et passimGoogle Scholar; LaFeber, , The New Empire, pp. 47–53Google Scholar; Leopold, , The Growth of American Foreign Policy, p. 53Google Scholar.

page 220 note 2 Frelinghuysen to Lowell (telegram), 4, 16 Mar. 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, pp. 200, 227; Hurlbert, , Meddling and Muddling, p. 35Google Scholar; Senator George F. Hoar to Lowell (telegr.), 28, 29 Mar. 1882, Frelinghuysen to Lowell (3 telegr.), 1 Apr. 1882, Bancroft Davis to Hoppin (telegr. containing Fish to Rose), 1 Apr. 1882, U.S., Diplomatic Instructions, Great Britain, xxvi, pp. 360–61, 364–67 (National Archives). Lowell to Frelinghuysen, 2, 3 Apr. (telegr.) 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, p. 229. Granville to Sir Lionel Sackville Sackville-West, 6 Apr. 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, pp. 317–19.

page 221 note 1 Frelinghuysen to Lowell, 25 Apr. 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, pp. 317–19. This interpretation of the message is somewhat at variance with that put foward in Pletcher, , Awkward Years, p. 244Google Scholar, inasmuch as in that work stress is laid on what was conceded, whereas the present writer believes that the concessions were merely a diplomatic prelude to enunciation of the hard-core American position.

page 222 note 1 Frelinghuysen to Hoffman, 15 Apr. 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, p. 451. Adler, Cyrus and Margalith, Aaron M., With Firmness in the Right—American Diplomatic Action affecting Jews 1846–1945 (New York, 1945), pp. 210–12Google Scholar. It scarcely needs to be added that this retreat from the European aspects of the Monroe Doctrine was balanced by its growth in the western-hemispheric aspects, the latter point having been ably stressed by Messrs LaFeber, Leopold and Pletcher.

page 223 note 1 Frelinghuysen to Lowell, 22 09 1882, Foreign Relations, 1882, pp. 293–5Google Scholar. Hammond, , Gladstone and the Irish Nation, pp. 283–315Google Scholar.

page 223 note 2 For the draft fragment of the message, see F. T. Frelinghuysen MSS., 1 Oct. to 31 Dec. 1882; Drafts, vol. III, Library of Congress. These papers are torn in part, obliterated in part, and seem to have sustained the force of a deluge from some liquid of which the draft of Frelinghuysen to Lowell, 3 Oct. 1882 (final version in Foreign Relations, 1882, pp. 296–8), received the main impact. In those portions still decipherable, the hand of the official copyist is easily distinguishable from that of Frelinghuysen, whose writing has been checked against his personal correspondence with Bancroft Davis, Bancroft Davis MSS., Library of Congress.

page 225 note 1 Strout, Cushing, The American Image of the Old World (New York, 1963), p. 138Google Scholar, offers a good example of the common presentation of Lowell as Anglophile, going so far as to bracket him in this connexion with Henry Cabot Lodge! The incisive and provocative Solomon, Barbara M., Ancestors and Immigrants (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), pp. 56, 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, also misinterprets Lowell's mentality in the 1880s. A very good indication of the injustice done to Lowell in bracketing him alongside the stock portrayal of an Anglophile ambassador may be seen in the annoyance of a really typical Anglophile American such as the New York Tribune's London correspondent, George W. Smalley, in reaction to Lowell's forthrightness of speech in conversation with the English (Smalley, , Anglo-American Memories, vol. 1 (New York, 1911), pp. 206–7)Google Scholar. See also London Spectator, 15 Aug. 1891, quoted in Scudder, Horace Elisha, James Russell Lowell—a Biography, vol. 11 (Boston, 1901), pp. 291–2Google Scholar. James, Henry, Essays in London and Elsewhere (London, 1893), pp. 60–2Google Scholar. Hale, Edward Everett, James Russell Lowell and his Friends (Boston, 1890), p. 275Google Scholar.

page 225 note 2 Lowell to Thomas Hughes, 18 07 1870, Letters, vol. 11, p. 60Google Scholar. In many instances dispatches from Lowell were later published in the Foreign Relations series with matter critical of English policy in Ireland having been deleted.

page 226 note 1 Lowell to William M. Evarts, 7 Jan. 1881, (reprinted Foreign Relations, 1881, pp. 492–4, relevant passages there deleted), Lowell to Blaine, 4 June 1881, Lowell to Frelinghuysen, 17 Feb., 13 May, 14 July 1882, Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain, CXLI, CXLII, CXLIII, CXLIV, CXLV, Archives.

page 226 note 2 Lowell to Blaine, 4 June 1881, to Frelinghuysen, 17 Feb. 1882, loc. cit.

page 227 note 1 Lowell to Frelinghuysen, ibid.

page 228 note 1 Lowell to Blaine, 4 June 1881, loc. cit., on the British protest. Hale, Lowell, pp. 237–9, ably summarizes Lowell's views on the imprisoned American-Irish. See also Howells, William Dean, Literary Friends and Acquaintance (New York, 1900), p. 250Google Scholar. Pletcher, , Awkward Years, pp. 240–1Google Scholar. Lowell to Frelinghuysen (telegrs.) 30, 31 Mar., i Apr., (letter) 7 Apr. 1882, Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain, CXLIV. Lowell seems to have had some awareness of the growing tension between Gladstone and Forster which accompanied the Prime Minister's turn toward conciliation (Lowell to Smalley, 17 Apr. 1882, in Howe, Mark deWolfe (ed.), New Letters of James Russell Lowell, (New York, 1932), p. 266)Google Scholar. Frelinghuysen's revised opinion is evident from July 1882 onward, and may be observed from his comments on the dispatches in private endorsements and public commendations. Bancroft Davis to Fish, 9 Apr. 1882, Fish Corresp., cxxxv, Fish to his son Nicholas, 22 Aug. 1882, Fish Letterbooks, xxii, pp. 479–80, Library of Congress.

page 229 note 1 Lowell to Granville, 29 May 1882, quoted in Knaplund and Clewes, ‘Private Letters’, p. 170, n. 28. Lowell to Frelinghuysen, 20 May, 14 July 1882, Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain, CXLIV, CXLV. This disposes of MissSolomon, 's belief that ‘Hurt by the recriminations of a few [sic] extremists, Lowell never regained his balanced perspective toward the Irish’ (Ancestors and Immigrants, p. 56)Google Scholar.

page 229 note 2 Barker, Charles Albro, Henry George (New York, 1955), pp. 371–2Google Scholar. Henry George to Francis G. Shaw, 12 Sept. 1882, George, Henry Jr, The Life of Henry George (New York, 1900), pp. 395–6Google Scholar. Lowell, , ‘Democracy’ (an address delivered in Birmingham, England, 6 10 1884), Works vi, p. 35Google Scholar.

page 230 note 1 Hale, , Lowell, pp. 245–7Google Scholar. Lowell to Frelinghuysen, 7, 18 Dec. 1882, Diplomatic Despatches, Great Britain CXLVI. Lowell to Holmes, 28 Dec. 1884, Letters, II, p. 294.

page 230 note 2 Merritt to the State Department, 21 Mar. 1883, enclosing Piatt to Merritt, 10 Mar. 1883, as well as comments of little value from the Consuls in Dublin, Londonderry, Belfast, Consular Despatches, London, L, Archives. Dowler, Clare, ‘John James Piatt’, Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly, 45 (01 1936), 16–17Google Scholar. Piatt, John J., At the Holy Well (Dublin, 1887)Google Scholar. Portions of Merritt's report are in Foreign Relations, 1883, pp. 427–8.

page 231 note 1 Lowell to Mrs Edward Burnett, 3 Mar., 7 June, 19 June, 7 July, to Norton, Charles Eliot, 25 07 1886, Letters, vol. 11, pp. 310, 313, 314, 315, 316Google Scholar. Lowell to Lady Lyttleton, 4 Jan. 1888, New Letters, pp. 319–20. Lowell to Hughes, 1 Oct. 1890, Letters, vol. II, p. 418. Lowell, , ‘The place of the independent in politics’, Works, vol. viGoogle Scholar. Lowell to the Misses Lawrence, 18 Dec. 1890, to Godkin, Edwin Lawrence, 5 01 1891, Letters, vol. 11. p. 430Google Scholar.