T1 International

Question 1

The Monroe Doctrine (1823)

Answer 1

• US policy was to avoid becoming involved in European wars unless American interests were involved.
• The ‘American continents’ were not to be colonised by any European powers.
• Any such attempts at colonisation would be regarded as ‘unfriendly’ acts.

Question 2

US Isolationism

Answer 2

• In the nineteenth century, the USA seemed detached from foreign entanglements.
• This policy is generally referred to as isolationism. This isolationism was due to several reasons.
• Europe, the continent that was home to other major powers such as Britain, France and Germany,
  was thousands of miles away.
• Some historians have argued that the USA felt superior to those countries that took part in
  expansion and empire building.
• The USA became populated by people often seeking to escape persecution and discrimination in
  their own lands.
• Therefore, the USA did not want to get involved in old regimes, which may have practised the
  very policies that it had rejected.
• The USA was different from other countries and would be guided by different, more morally
  based principles than the older European states.
• Such inward-looking attitudes were appropriate for a rural, agricultural nation.
• When industrialisation began, America had sufficient raw materials available not to need imports.
• The Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans were also immense natural barriers and no state on America’s
  borders (Canada, Mexico, Central and South America) was a major threat to their interests.

Question 3

The Second Franco-Mexican War (1861 - 1867)

Answer 3

• In 1861, the Second French Empire (1852–1870) led by Napoleon III, invaded Mexico to establish
  a government favourable to French interests.
• The French invasion took Mexico City and created the Second Mexican Empire led by the French
  installed Maximilian von Habsburg of Austria as Emperor of Mexico.
• In 1861 the US sent 50,000 soldiers to the US Mexican border and threatened to invade forcing
  the French to backdown and abandon Maximilian.
• Subsequently, the Mexicans executed Emperor Maximilian I, on 19 June 1867, and restored the
  Mexican Republic.

Question 4

US Interests in The Far East (1865 - 1877)

Answer 4

*In 1867, the USA acquired the uninhabited Midway Island in the West Pacific.
*In 1868, the Burlingame Treaty was signed to promote trade with China. This endorsed the free movement of people and free trade between the USA and China, in part to stimulate Chinese immigration to work on railroad building in the USA.

Question 5

The Dominican Republic (1865 - 1877)

Answer 5

• In 1869, the Dominican Republic actually offered itself for colonization, but Congress refused.
• In the following year an attempt by the federal government to annex the Republic stimulated a
  debate on imperial expansion in Congress.
• Those in favour argued that the USA would be able to exploit the wealth and resources of the
  Dominican Republic and sell its goods to a ready market there.
• However, those opposed to it argued that the USA would not deal with ‘savages’.
• There was a fear that people regarded as inferior might one day have to be admitted into the
  Union or that former colonies might become states and reduce the influence of traditional, mainly
  white, American states. The Senate rejected the annexation of the Republic.

Question 6

The Alaska Purchase (1867)

Answer 6

• There was no debate over Alaska, which was purchased from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million.
• Many people could not understand the motives of Seward in buying the area which was referred
  to as ‘Seward’s icebox’ and ‘Seward’s folly’.
• Russia was keen to sell it because it had few settlers or resources.
• Seward felt that the development of Alaskan harbours might provide a gateway to northern Asia
  where US merchant ships could fuel and make provision for the long journey across the Pacific
  Ocean.
• It would expand the Pacific coastline of the USA, spread US rule, and keep the British out.
• Moreover, it made sense to maintain good relations with such a powerful nation as Russia.

Question 7

Britain and Canada (1865 - 1877)

Answer 7

• There were strained relations with Britain and Canada in the years after the Civil War.
• This was because of the apparent support given by the British and Canadians to the Confederacy
  during the Civil War.
• One aspect that the United States did object to was the building of Confederate ships in British
  dockyards.
• Thus manned, equipped, and led, these ships wreaked havoc with Northern Union shipping,
  forcing an increase in insurance for merchant ships.
• At the end of the Civil War the USA demanded compensation from Britain.
• Senator Charles Sumner, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, originally
  wanted to ask for $2 billion or alternatively the ceding of all of Canada to the USA.
• However, Canada became a self-governing dominion in 1867 while Britain continued to control
  its foreign and defence policies.
• The USA retaliated by allowing Fenian raids by Irish-American Civil War veterans across the border
  into Canada from 1866 to 1871.
• Eventually the Anglo–American dispute was settled in 1872, when Britain agreed to pay $15.5
  million to the USA for the damage caused by Confederate commerce raiders built in Britain to the
  US merchant fleet during the Civil War.