7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

1/16

Introduction to American

Civilization

IX. From Isolation to Manifest Destiny to

Imperialism and Internationalism andCorresponding U.S. View on Immigrants

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

2/16

Isolationism Washingtons Farewell Address beginning of isolationist tradition

(1796);

Key points: not running for a 3rd term; importance of unity, honesty;awareness of mens desire for power; Constitution ideas to bechanged only after wise reflection; checks and balances system;religion and morality as pillars of society; foster institutions fordiffusion of knowledge and creation of a strong public opinion

Foreign policy neutrality; only extend commercial relations

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmonywith all. In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than thatpermanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionateattachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just andamicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulgestowards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree aslave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to

lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation againstanother disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slightcauses of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or triflingoccasions of dispute occur. So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nationfor another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation,facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no realcommon interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays theformer into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequateinducement or justification. at best, temporary alliances for extraordinaryemergencies

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

3/16

Isolationism and Changes towards Internationalism /

Imperialism: Monroe Doctrine (1823) Early U.S. - Latin American relations: the Monroe Doctrine(1823), originally meant

to stop European influence in the Americas, establishing separate spheres ofinfluence for Old and New World (isolationist scope):

the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they haveassumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for futurecolonization by any European powers [at a time when most Latin American countries

had gained independence from Spain, except Bolivia (indep. 1826), Cuba and PuertoRico]

With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have notinterfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared theirindependence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on greatconsideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any

interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other mannertheir destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of anunfriendly disposition toward the United States. [USs neutrality on existingEuropean colonies in the Americas but its opposition to "interpositions" thatwould create new colonies among the newly independent Spanish Americanrepublics]

- Invoked by US gvmt in 1865 in support of Mexican President Benito Jurez vs.

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

4/16

Isolationism and Changes towards Imperialism: Theodore

Roosevelts Corollary to Monroe Doctrine (1904)

Context: in 1904, European creditors of a number of LatinAmerican countries threatened armed intervention to collectdebts. President Theodore Roosevelt promptly proclaimed theright of the United States to exercise an international police

power to curb such chronic wrongdoing. As a result, U. S.

Marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in1911, and Haiti in 1915, ostensibly to keep the Europeansout.

This corollary asserted the right of the United States tointervene in Latin America in cases of flagrant and chronic

wrongdoing by a Latin American Nation, asserting U.S.domination in that area, essentially making them a"hemispheric policeman

Monroe doctrine used by US in 1962 by Kennedy vs. Soviet Unions

starting to build missile-launching sites in Cuba, throwing a navaland air quarantine over the island

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

5/16

Manifest Destiny Meanings and Highlights of U.S.

Foreign Policy (up to WWII) The phrase was popularized by journalist John L. OSullivan in his United

States Magazine and Democratic Review(The Great Nation of Futurity,1845): the expansion of the U.S. across the North American continent wasself-evident, inevitable and sanctioned by Providence, starting from uniquebuilding blocks of America (human equality including duties and rights vs.

privilege, American fights only in defense of humanity); a radical

expression of the sense of mission (human progress) at the foundation of

U.S. national identity in need of extension to its business / economy andliterature / cultureand, finally, to freedom of conscience, freedom ofperson, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom andequality vs. imitation which is absurd and injurious (danger of foreign

precedents in legislation); the key formula of U.S. exceptionalism; U.S. in-continent expansionism under Manifest Destiny: annexation of

Texas (1845) and the Mexican War (1846-8) annex. Of California,Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona; Post-Civil War nationalism, interventionism, and imperialism (beyond

continent): annexation of Hawaii as territory (1898), Spanish-American Warresults in U.S. control of Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico(1898); Roosevelts corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (1904);

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

6/16

Manifest Destiny Meanings and Highlights of

U.S. Foreign Policy (up to WWII) Manifest Destiny revived at the end of 19th c. to suit U.S. imperialist

projects (criticized by Carl Schurz because of its one-sidedness,danger of turning U.S. into a merely self-interested colonialpower, only trying to promote its commercial advantage andnaval development and prone to change democratic mindset bygranting equal status to new states whose inhabitants follow

non-democratic, anarchic and despotic thinking because oftropical climate different work ethics and idea of civildisobedience) he is against such attempts of expansion South ofthe continent to Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Hawaii because ofone-sidedness of America (likely to foster Americas colonial

mindset and end its democracy) Schurzs reconfiguration of Manifest Destiny as possibility of

Northern expansion to annex Canada fol. affinity of citizens in pointof beliefs and values and provided both spaces want it (notenforcement but consent of democratic culture); link with

internationalism: the U.S. is on a mission to spread and defenddemocracy, freedom, prosperity and power.

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

7/16

Uncle Sam teaching self-government (http://hti.osu.edu/opper)

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

8/16

Struggles between Manifest Destiny

Discourse and Isolationism U.S. and World War I; the Lusitaniaincident (1915, British

liner torpedoed by Germans, some 1,100 passengers of 1,900died); the Zimmerman telegram (January 1917 Germany tooffer military alliance to Mexico if it made war vs. U.S., to gainTexas, New Mexico, and Arizona); Declaration of war onGermany (April 1917); the war as a crusade for democracy,human rights and world peace made of self-determined andmoral countries;

U.S. internationalism: Wilsons Fourteen Points Speech(January 8, 1918); The League of Nations (meant toguarantee political independence and territorial integrity,which the U.S. did not then join, finally proving Wilsons failure

against American isolationism (Senator Henry Cabot Lodgesspeech 1919); Denunciation of Th. Roosevelts corollary to the Monroe

Doctrine by Pres. Calvin Coolidge (1928) and renouncementof interventionism by F.D. Roosevelts Good Neighbor Policy(1934);

Neutrality Act (1935); Dec. 7, 1941: the Pearl Harbor attackburies U.S. isolationism.

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

9/16

(http://hti.osu.edu/opper)

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

10/16

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

11/16

(http://hti.osu.edu/opper)

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

12/16

American Manifest Destiny and Mainstream Views of

Immigrants [New Theories of American Identity] Birth of nativism against European immigrants given great waves of

non-Anglo-Saxon European immigrants in the 1820s-40s (Irish), 1840s-50s (Germans), 1880s-1920s (Eastern Europeans), pointed out byHorace Kallens Democracy vs. the Melting-Pot (1915) - a new look onwhites (no longer seen as homogeneous and self-conscious group butas hierarchical: WASP as the best whites, then Alpines, Mediterranean,

and Eastern Europeans) Kallens decrying the reconfiguration of Americanism for promoting

WASP conformity and inferiority of immigrants of non-Anglo-Saxonstock; see Dillingham commission 1911 report, establishing old,superior Northern and Western European immigrants vs. new,

inferior Southern and Eastern European immigrants, leading to theEmergency Quota Law of 1921 (limiting no of immigrants to at most3% of immigrants of each nationality living in the U.S. in 1910) and theJohnson-Reed Act of 1924 (limiting no of immigrants to at most 2% ofimmigrants of each nationality living in the U.S. acc. to 1890 Census, inforce till 1965) - decreasing numbers of EEur immigrants from 10

million in 1910-1920 to 1.5 millions between 1930 and 1950)

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

13/16

Declaration of Independence

Meaning in 1776Declaration of Independence

Meaning in 1915

Context Defend AmericanismColonists fear of English

power [that] had laid

claim to the

acknowledgment of their

traditional superiority to the

colonists inAmerica (68)

Defend Americanism

Fear on the part of Americans of British descent

of the danger to lose certain possessions

Danger source from a force across thewater considered superior:

English rulers (68)from a force across the water considered

inferior: immigrants (68)

Reversedpower

relationships +

message

Equality invocationTo conserve the inalienable

rights of colonists in 1776, it

was necessary to declare all

men equal. Men were as

good as their betters.(68)

Inequality invocation

To conserve the rights of their descendants in

1914, it becomes necessary to declare all men

unequal. Men are worse than their betters.(68)

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

14/16

Basis of Transnational View of

Immigrants: Redefinition of Freedom If freedom means the right to do pretty much as one

pleases, so long as one does not interfere with others,the immigrant has found freedom (Bourne 1735).

[immigrant to be tolerated and geared by the native-born

who run politics, society, culture]

If freedom means a democratic cooperation in

determining the ideals and purposes and industrial andsocial institutions of a country, then the immigrant has

not been free, and the Anglo-Saxon element is guilty ofjust what every dominant race is guilty of in everyEuropean country: the imposition of its own culture uponthe minority peoples. (Bourne 1735) [immigrant to be

respected and contribute to American social, political,cultural life]

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

15/16

Kallens and Bournes Proposition: Cultural Pluralism and

Transnationalism (Prolonging Manifest Destiny) Americanization has not repressed nationality. Americanization has

liberated nationality. (Kallen 88, my emphases)

Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of

Europe, made them more and more intensely real, since colonists

themselves were pioneer only in conquest of material resources, otherwisebearers of their cultural roots, leading the strong cultural movements offoreign press, school, and colonies (Bourne 1732)

fol. this view, Anglo-Saxons = simply the first immigrants to America.

Americanization = more inclusive, not WASP-conformity, but Euro-centricuse of English and American standards in politics and diverse national /ethnic standards in private, co-existence of both division and identification

Outcome: U.S. = first international country, allowing the intellectual

battleground of nations via discourse battles, cosmopolitan viewpoint aimedto understand difference not indict it / dual, mobile citizen model makingreturning immigrants missionaries of cosmopolitan America to an inferiorciv., the country of their birth, by preaching American pioneer spirit andsense of new social vistas

7/31/2019 Am.Civ.IX

16/16

John Gasts American Progress 1872 (http://faculty.umf.maine.edu)