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Article Excerpt
In December 1860, the McLane-Ocampo Treaty with Mexico quietly expired when the United States Senate failed to reconsider its previous rejection of the treaty. By most accounts, the treaty--with its establishment of free trade and the granting of transit rights across the isthmus of Tehuantepec for a scant $4 million--favored the United States. Moreover, it represented President James Buchanan's final effort to propel American expansion into Mexican territory. Given the instability of the Mexican government and the language of the treaty, it was likely the United States could convert a temporary presence into an eventual conquest. Nonetheless, the Senate rejected the treaty on May 31, 1860, by a vote of twenty-seven to eighteen. A motion to reconsider the vote placed it on the December agenda, but by then the fragmenting Union ill-afforded the Senate the luxury of unfinished business.
The reasons behind the rejection of the McLane-Ocampo Treaty remain obscure. Most historians have interpreted its defeat as the result of Northern opposition to slavery. In his biography of Buchanan, for instance, Philip Klein argues that the treaty was favored in the South and condemned in the North for promoting the power of slavery. Similarly, Robert May asserts that although the treaty was not a Southern measure, Southerners viewed the treaty's failure as "proof of Republican hostility." Donathon Olliff believes the treaty "was defeated by sectional and party politics." These three authors place the defeat of the McLane-Ocampo Treaty within a sectional framework. Frederick Merk, however, attributes the rejection of Buchanan's Mexico policy, which variously included requests to deploy a military force and establish a protectorate, as well as the treaty, to its limited vision. Merk argues that after the Mexican War, American expansion was characterized by a "petty materialism" and plans like Buchanan's lacked "the sweep, the grandeur, the sublimity, of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny," which had fathered the All Mexico policy. Moreover, Merk attributes a disinterest in Mexico to a fear of extending citizenship to so many non-Anglo-Saxons, prompting expansionists to turn to the Caribbean instead. (1) While Merk is correct in describing the president's Mexico policy as rhetorically lacking, he errs in slighting Buchanan's covetousness for northern Mexico.
During the 1856 presidential campaign, James Buchanan had urged voters to consider him the representative of the Democratic platform, which had pledged to establish "free seas, progressive free trade, the building and control of Central American trade routes" and, specifically, to achieve "ascendancy in the Gulf of Mexico." Given his unconvincing electoral victory, Buchanan lacked a clear mandate for governing as the opposition Republican and American parties had garnered more popular votes. Furthermore, the 1858 battle over the Lecompton Constitution lacerated the administration with both a defeat and a fracturing of the Democratic party. (2) This adverse political situation limited Buchanan's ability to formulate foreign policy.
Although in his inaugural address Buchanan had asserted that "a strict construction of the powers of the government is the only true, as well as safe theory of the Constitution," his third annual address was markedly different. In a speech sent to Congress in December 1859, Buchanan wrote about the divisions of power outlined in the Constitution. While he acknowledged that only Congress could declare war and provide the force necessary to wage war, Buchanan emphasized that he alone would have the discretion to employ any such force. What, however, was to be done in the case of hostilities? Did the Constitution truly imply that the United States must wait until hostilities had commenced before it could defend itself? Perhaps that was not the framers' intent, for, as Buchanan asserted, "in the progress of a great nation many exigencies must arise imperatively requiring that Congress should authorize the President to act promptly on certain conditions which may or may not afterwards arise." (3) Since Congress was unwilling to grant Buchanan the war powers he sought, he looked for other methods to achieve his goals.
After congressional indifference to his pleas, Buchanan finally successfully negotiated directly with Mexico. At that time, Mexican politics were in a state of upheaval. Although an 1857 Constitution had installed Ignacio Comonfort as president, General Felix Zuloaga had ousted him after one month in office. By 1860, after years of civil war, political confusion proliferated as former chief justice of Mexico Benito Juarez, constitutionally Comonfort's successor, and General Miguel Miramon, who had ousted Zuloaga, vied for power. Despite dislike of Miramon's coalition with the clergy, like most European nations the United States recognized Miramon because he controlled the capital, Mexico City. However, after the Mexican government tried to force Americans living in Mexico to pay a war tax, relations cooled. (4)
Mexican politics obscured the question of with whom the United States ought to negotiate, but Buchanan's policy was complicated by his decision to retain John Forsyth, his predecessor's minister to Mexico. Forsyth had negotiated a series of agreements collectively known as the Montes-Forsyth Treaties in early 1857, which Buchanan rejected after his inauguration. Forsyth held strong opinions on the proper course to pursue and was remarkably lax in following Secretary of State Lewis Cass's new instructions. Forsyth's position that negotiations were "hopeless from the beginning" led Cass to reprimand his distrust of the instructions and unwillingness to press them on Mexican officials. Forsyth returned to Washington in December 1858, having broken off relations with the government he had recognized, and soon after he resigned. With Forsyth conveniently removed, Buchanan sent William M. Churchwell, special agent to Mexico, to more objectively evaluate the competing factions in Mexico. Churchwell reported that the liberal party was "steadily gaining ground," but noted that "no government seemed to exercise extended control." (5)
Soon after receiving Churchwell's reports, Buchanan appointed Robert McLane envoy extraordinaire and minister plenipotentiary, a position equivalent to United States Minister to Mexico, in March 1859. Cass instructed McLane to use his judgment in recognizing a government and to enter negotiations without delay. Cass authorized McLane to offer Mexico $10 million in exchange for Lower California and for transits across Mexico, earmarking $2 million to satisfy American claims against Mexico. The Mexican minister of finance, Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, however, refused to part with any Mexican territory for less than $30 million. In July, Cass acknowledged the difficulties and, despite the president's unwillingness to settle for just transit rights, reported that Mexico's condition made Buchanan willing to "adopt any means in his power to restore something like order and security within its boundaries" once McLane's "best efforts have been exhausted." Armed with new instructions, McLane negotiated a treaty with Melchor Ocampo, Mexican secretary of relations, which obtained the desired transits, improved terms of trade, and provided for United States intervention but did not include a cession of territory. (6)
The McLane-Ocampo Treaty stipulated that the United States would pay the Juarez Government $4 million for rights-of-way through Mexican territory and for tariff concessions with $2 million retained to settle American claims. The transits would cross the isthmus of Tehuantepec from the lower Rio Grande through Monterey to Mazatlan and from Rancho de Nogales to Guaymas. The treaty established ports of deposit at the end of each route and provided for free and unrestricted passage of merchandise and mail in closed bags across Tehuantepec. Perhaps more important, the treaty gave the United States the right to transport troops, military stores, and munitions of war over the isthmus. While the treaty obligated both the United States and Mexico to protect the transits and guarantee their neutrality, with the request and consent of the Mexican government, the Mexican minister in Washington, or the competent and legally appointed local authorities, the United States could use force to ensure their protection if Mexico failed to act. Moreover, in cases where American citizens or their property were endangered, the United States could act alone without obtaining prior Mexican consent. The treaty also exempted Americans living in Mexico from forced loans, guaranteed them freedom of worship, and provided reciprocity of trade for a diverse collections of goods ranging from poultry to naval manufactures to palm-leaf hats. (7)
Given such favorable stipulations, Buchanan was understandably confident that the Senate would ratify the treaty. Although Mexico had not ceded territory, the treaty allowed the United States to trespass Mexican sovereignty at will. The integrity of American property was being abrogated in a Mexico wracked by civil war, and American citizens already were subject to extortion and physical violence, especially along the Texas border. Moreover, distracted by its war against the conservatives, the Juarez regime likely would fail to protect the transits and their neutrality. Indeed, McLane admitted as much to Cass: "I cannot," he wrote, "foresee when or how the struggle between them [the two warring factions] will terminate, and until such a termination is reached, citizens of the United States in Mexico will be exposed to danger, and treaty stipulations will be violated." To allow for such an eventuality, McLane attached a convention addressing enforcement to the treaty that allowed the United States to intervene in Mexico. Originally reluctant, Mexican officials agreed to the convention after McLane "represented that sooner or later the government of the United States would act without reference to it or any other government or authority, in defense of its treaty rights and to protect its citizens." (8)
Although the treaties were signed before Buchanan sent his message to Congress, with McLane and Lerdo both in Washington in late fall, the president likely knew the broad outline of the forthcoming treaty. (9) Submitted to Congress on January 4, 1860, the treaty threw the president's third annual address into stark relief. In retrospect, it attempted to circumvent potential criticism of the treaty, a tactic that acknowledged the treaty's uniqueness. Where Congress had stalled the establishment of the president's planned protectorate, Buchanan could obtain Mexican land through his treaty-making prerogatives. The treaty seemed to assure American annexation of Mexico's northern provinces without bloodshed and without spurring potentially divisive congressional debate over the nature of said territory, slave or free, as had erupted over the Kansas issue. Despite these apparent advantages, several concerns hindered ratification.
For one, Miramon objected to the administration's decision to recognize and negotiate with Juarez. In late December, his government sent the United States a formal letter of protest citing Juarez's lack of authority to treat on behalf of the Mexican people. The letter expressed the hope that the treaty would be defeated, but if it were ratified, then Mexico would accept the position in which providence placed her vis-a-vis the United States: "The latter will have for their support treachery and force; the former, honor and justice." (10) Nonetheless, a Miramon lobby in Washington worked to defeat the treaty in Congress while Miramon continued to pressure the Buchanan administration, denouncing the Juarez government for "trying to sell the integrity, the honor, and the safety of their country by an infamous treaty which leaves on the brows of those who signed it an indelible mark of treason." (11) While his protests failed to sway the Buchanan administration, they impressed some senators who were uncertain who--the Catholic Miramon or the Indian Juarez--was the rightful president of Mexico. Furthermore, Juarez's insecure position made the financial settlement suspect. Mexico's reluctance to negotiate abated only after Juarez's Minister of Finance failed to raise money in the United States, a change of heart that raised questions about Juarez's motivation. Mexico's sudden willingness to negotiate, as well as its acceptance of only $4 million instead of the desired $10 million to $12 million for transit rights, indicated a desperate need for currency. The treaty included the payment of only $4 million for the rights-of-way and tariff concessions, $2 million of which was allotted to American claimants against Mexico. The United States would deposit the funds within days of the ratification. In the interim, Mexico tried to negotiate an immediate loan of $500,000 on the basis of incoming treaty funds. (12) Both factions were in dire need of money, and by ratifying the treaty the Senate would tacitly favor one faction in the civil war, placing the Liberals in a better position to attain loans and thus possibly affecting the war's outcome. The prevailing political chaos supported Buchanan's contention that Mexico needed aid, but concurrently undermined his argument that the Juarez government was both legitimate and stable.
At first glance, it is tempting to understand the Senate's rejection of the treaty with Mexico as a repudiation of the expansionist impulse that had propelled United States foreign policy in the 1840s. Here, after all, was a treaty in which Mexico, by giving the United States the authority to defend four transit routes through Mexican territory, willingly ceded its sovereignty to its northern neighbor and, yet, the Senate declined the offer. Although recent scholarship has demonstrated the persistence of expansionism in the South in the 1850s, work on the McLane-Ocampo Treaty attributes its rejection to each region's indifference to further expansion of the United States border. (13) On closer inspection, however, the treaty's rejection involved more than a litmus test on expansionism. Despite several seemingly attractive features, the treaty did not withstand close scrutiny. Indeed, the treaty was doomed to failure and its rejection by the Senate had little to do with a debate over expansionism.
Despite Buchanan's assumption that the treaty would enjoy a favorable reception in the Senate, politics within that body ensured that securing ratification of any Buchanan treaty would be a challenge. Ratification required the approval of two-thirds of the sixty-five-member Senate. The dissent of twenty-two senators, therefore, could torpedo the treaty and, in 1860, twenty-five senators were Republicans. (14) That ratio meant that all the Democrats had to toe the party line and that Buchanan would have to persuade at least three Republicans to abstain from the vote or join the Democrats in approving the treaty.
The difficulties of persuading three Republicans to abandon their party aside, Buchanan's task was even more formidable given the political divisions within his own party. The 1860 presidential election year witnessed a typical intensification of political debate as various factions struggled for supremacy within their own party. Buchanan's own weaknesses made his reelection unlikely, rendering his own goals largely irrelevant and his hold over his party extremely tenuous as his fellow Democrats defined party doctrine without regard for his views. In the Senate, the Democrats were split into at least three groups and at least...
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