Posted on 05/10/2003 6:23:08 AM PDT by atavist
Who might you be referring to? The only interventions I can think of before FDR are as follows: Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, Phillipines - 1898, McKinley; China - 1900, McKinley; Panama - 1903?, Roosevelt; Vera Cruz - 1914, Wilson; Haiti - 1915, Wilson.
Other than that, there've been deployments of Marines to protect American embassies in various trouble spots throughout the world, but that hardly qualifies as interventionism.
If there were isolated, obscure instances beside that in which our government happened to intervene in the affairs of other countries, I wouldn't call that a major indicator of the political opinion of the era in which they happened. No country lives strictly according to its ideology.
However, why I am saying is that for decades before, and decades after, McKinley, the conservatives who dominated the Republican party were expansionist and believed in projecting force.
I didn't read it that way. I read it to mean that you were saying there was a strong interventionist component to conservative thought outside of the McKinley era as well as inside. My response was that pre-FDR interventionism was largely limited to the examples I provided.
However, why I am saying is that for decades before, and decades after, McKinley, the conservatives who dominated the Republican party were expansionist and believed in projecting force.
I don't know how "expansionist" they could have been. Our first acquisition outside the mainland was Alaska (purchased from Russia in 1869). Our first outside the continent was Hawaii (annexed in response to its own request in 1893). Before that, probably the most aggressive action on our part was the Mexican War, which was hugely controversial at the time.
As for projection of force, that's not the same as interventionism. One can believe in projection of force (as in: if you attack us, we'll take it to your front door) and non-intervention at the same time.
It was followed half a century later by these events - well over a generation. The political ethic in this country up to that time was to promote peaceful relations with other countries, and not start problems with them. The fact that there was an instance in the middle of the 19th century in which we didn't live up to that ethic, didn't indicate that the ethic was dead, especially given the fact that there was loud opposition to the war.
And the fact that in both wars, with Mexico and with Spain, provocations were needed to get us to go to war (Mexicans supposedly firing at our troops over the border in 1846; the destruction of the Maine in 1898) shows the extent to which the people weren't ready for war purely for the sake of conquest.
Isolationism among Republican leaders was the exception, not the norm, for decades stretching from the Civil War through Taft.
And as I mentioned before, projecting force does not necessarily presuppose interventionism or expansionism.
His secretary of state, James G. Blaine, a holdover from the Garfield administration, pushed for more direct U.S. involvement in Latin America. Blaine advocated the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, an initiative which would continue over many administrations. Harrison continued the naval buildup, expanded American protectorates to the Samoan Islands, and took us to the brink of war with Chile. He also attempted the annexation of Hawaii, unsuccessfully. That would have to wait for McKinley. Harrison also had standoffs with Italy, Britain, and Canada. He is regarded as having one of the most active foreign agendas of any President prior to the modern era.
And how much support did these initiatives have among the public? Why, for example, did Harrison's attempt to annex Hawaii fail? Because the Senate wasn't altogether enthusiastic about it, and because his successor, Mr. Cleveland, withdrew the treaty from their consideration. This lack of public support is why the pro-interventionist politicians of the era had to take half-measures that consistently stopped short of war or invasion. By all indications, this was a top-down movement, not a bottom-up one.
In a strict sense, sure, it's "been around" for a lot longer than that in the minds of some adventurous sorts. I understood "been around" to mean that it was part and parcel of American conservatism for all that time and before. I maintain that it was not. The only way it could be is by regarding 19th-century Republican administrations as the bellwether of American conservatism. But at the time, they were no more conservative than Democrats. Conservatism and liberalism is a dichotomy that really didn't start to take shape in this country until the 20th century. Prior to that, pretty much the whole American public apart from a few socialist radicals was conservative - at least going by the six tenets you posted on that other thread.
That's basically what I said in my post. To wit: "Prior to [the 20th century], pretty much the whole American public [that is, of both political parties] apart from a few socialist radicals was conservative - at least going by the six tenets you posted on that other thread." (You may have misunderstood me when I said the Republicans were no more conservative than Democrats. I wasn't referring to modern Democrats, but to Democrats of that time period.) My point was not that 19th-century Republican administrations weren't conservative; my point was that they weren't the sole indicators of what American conservatism was.
As conservatism was the guiding philosophy of American political life at the time, and as the limited and largely unsuccessful attempts by certain Republican administrations to expand our influence overseas apparently didn't meet with much broad-based support at home, I feel comfortable in concluding that such inclinations on their part did not represent, to any sizable degree, what conservatism was understood to mean.
apparently didn't meet with much broad-based support at homeNot quite sure how you come up to this conclusion. From 1881 through 1913, the Republicans were popular enough to hold the Presidency all but two terms-- and the Democrat in that time (Grover Cleveland) agreed with the Republicans on the projection of force.
But did he agree with them on the need for overseas expansion? For that matter, was there any indication that the people supported such a program? Even President Harrison didn't seem to expect public support for an activist foreign policy. In his inaugural address, it's true he did call for making sure we had adequate support overseas for our tradesmen and naval vessels, and urged that we attempt to secure agreements with foreign nations to that end. But he made sure it was understood: "These and other trading privileges we will feel free to obtain only by means that do not in any degree partake of coercion, however feeble the government from which we ask such concessions."
Also from the same address, we have this: "We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference with European affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their contentions in diplomacy and in war, ready to use our friendly offices to promote peace, but never obtruding our advice and never attempting unfairly to coin the distresses of other powers into commercial advantage to ourselves. We have a just right to expect that our European policy will be the American policy of European courts."
However "neoconservative" he may have been while outside of the public spotlight, he didn't dare be one while standing in it.
And the fact that every single President in that nearly 50 year plan was elected hints more than slightly that the public supported the international expansion.
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