Reprinted from the OAH Magazine of History
7 (Fall 1992). ISSN 0882-228X

America and Europe, 1775-1992

Vincent P. DeSantis

The relations between America and Europe have undergone enormous changes since they began, effectively, in 1775 when the British redcoats moved out from Boston to put down what their commanders thought to be a casual, almost unimportant gathering of colonial dissidents in nearby Lexington and Concord. Once the shots were fired, they of course were “heard ‘round the world.” Americans believed their revolution against the British would not be successful without assistance from one of the major European powers. They hoped France would seek to avenge its recent defeat at the hands of the British by giving aid. Congress had set up a secret committee to make contact with friends abroad, and this committee sent Silas Deane, a secret agent, to Paris in the guise of a merchant to seek supplies and credit. Deane learned that the French government was disposed to give assistance.

After the Declaration of Independence, Congress sent Benjamin Franklin to France, where he joined Deane and Arthur Lee, who had come from London, to form an American commission in Paris. Franklin’s main purpose was to secure recognition of the United States as an independent nation. He also brought with him a draft of a proposed treaty of amity and commerce, prepared by Congress, which contained the commercial principles Congress hoped to see adopted by France and the entire trading world. This plan of 1776 served for many years as the goal of American commercial policy.

The French government was friendly to the United States but unwilling to grant formal recognition until it had evidence that the Americans had a chance of winning the war. This came in December 1777, when news arrived that General John Burgoyne’s British army, moving down from Montreal into New York, had been forced to surrender to the American general Horatio Gates at Saratoga in October. On 6 February 1778 treaties of amity and commerce and of alliance were signed in Paris by France and the United States. Soon afterwards, both Spain, France’s ally, and the Netherlands were drawn into the war.

So began a long, uncertain, and changing American relationship with Europe. Until the 1820s, a half century after the French alliance, the United States was an unwilling participant in European affairs. Until the middle of the twentieth century and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of 1949, the treaty of alliance with France in 1778 was the only “entangling alliance” in which the United States participated. It was to cause embarrassment before it was set aside in 1800; still it was essential in the fight for independence for it resulted in a French army being sent to America and French fleets operating off the American coast. The importance of French aid is seen at Yorktown when Cornwallis’s British army was caught between a French fleet and an allied army of which two-thirds of the troops were French.

The United States, one might add, has remained basically isolationist with regard to Europe until the late 1940s, with major interruptions during World Wars I and II. Full participation in European affairs is a very recent phenomenon and has resulted in a reluctant, uncertain, and bothersome relationship.

Meanwhile the connections&emdash;of trade, emigration, and of course the sentimental ties of Americans for their homelands, not to mention the cupidity of European nations for American territory and material wealth&emdash;continued to mark the developing years of American independence. When the French Revolution precipitated another European war that lasted with interruption from 1793 until 1815 and pitted France against a series of European coalitions headed by Britain, American leaders believed that their infant nation should not become directly involved. To become involved in a European war when the United States was barely getting on its feet under a new Constitution could be economically disastrous and politically disruptive.

President Washington proclaimed American neutrality on 22 April 1793 and acted quickly to curtail the activities of Edmond Genêt, the French minister, who was recalled by the French government at the request of the U.S. The experience with Genêt was largely responsible for the enactment of the nation’s first neutrality law by Congress on 5 June 1794. Other countries had not been backward about laying claim to neutral rights, but the United States led the way in assuming responsibility for carrying out its neutral duties.

Termination of Genêt’s missions temporarily eased relations with France, but grievances with Britain remained. Britain was violating what the United States held to be its neutral rights on the high seas, and British garrisons held border posts on American soil in the Northwest. One diplomatic weapon available to the United States was the threat to join the Armed Neutrality of smaller European trading nations. President Washington, however, decided to send Chief Justice John Jay to London in 1794 in a final attempt to reach agreement. Jay’s position was weakened when Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton assured the British government through its minister to the United States that the United States would never join the Armed Neutrality for defense of its rights against Britain. Thus Jay was unable to win any concessions and had to accept whatever terms the British offered.

There was widespread criticism of both Jay and his treaty, but it was approved by the Senate and ratified by the president. Unsatisfactory as it was, Jay’s Treaty kept the peace at a critical time and gave the young American nation more time to strengthen its independence. It also brought about the full execution by Britain of the peace treaty of 1783 and thus acceptance of the United States as a sovereign nation.

Shortly thereafter, in 1796, Thomas Pinckney signed what has been called Pinckney’s Treaty in Madrid, accomplishing for the Southwest more than Jay’s Treaty achieved for the Northwest. By the end of Washington’s second term, Jay’s and Pinckney’s treaties had settled troubles with two of the major European powers. Washington’s policy of neutrality had given the young nation time to strengthen its sovereignty.

Jay’s Treaty angered the French government, now known as the Directory. It severed diplomatic relations with the United States and ordered seizure of American ships carrying American goods. There was a “quasi-war” between French and American warships on the high seas from 1798 to 1800. But President Adams, determined to have peace, sent a three-man commission to France, and a new treaty recognized American principles of neutrality and abrogated the alliance of 1778. The United States escaped from its entangling alliance&emdash;so essential during the Revolution and so inconsistent with American interests thereafter.

The Treaty of Ghent in 1814 ended the War of 1812 and persuaded European powers that the United States had achieved independence. It provided for demilitarization of the Great Lakes and ultimately of the entire American-Canadian border, joint occupancy of the Oregon country, and recognition of the rights of Americans in the Labrador and Newfoundland fisheries.

The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 completed America’s withdrawal from Europe. Prompting President Monroe’s pronouncement were apprehensions over Russian activity in the Oregon country and fear that the major European powers might join Spain to reconquer its former Latin American colonies, most of which had gained independence between 1817 and 1822. Monroe’s state of the union message in 1823 dealt with the Russian threat by declaring the noncolonization principle&emdash;that the American continents were no longer open to colonization by European powers. As for Latin America, Monroe stated the noninterference principle, which warned against any interference by European powers with the new independent nation of Latin America or extension of the political systems of Europe to the Americas. As for Europe itself, Monroe asserted that the United States would abstain from involvement in European affairs and would not interfere with existing European colonies in the Western Hemisphere.

Of all American presidents, Monroe alone has his name attached to a sacred dogma&emdash;the Monroe Doctrine. There are no Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, or Wilson doctrines. Furthermore, the so-called presidential doctrines since World War II&emdash;those of Truman, Eisenhower, and Nixon&emdash;when the United States has participated fully in European affairs, have not been able to capture the imagination or affection of the American people. The Monroe Doctrine therefore stands alone. Rarely since the doctrine was enunciated has any American admitted doubt concerning this article of faith. It has been invoked by both isolationists and internationalists. In the celebrated fight over the League of Nations at the end of World War I, opponents denounced such participation as contrary to the Monroe Doctrine, while Woodrow Wilson praised the league as providing a Monroe Doctrine for the world. A century after it was announced, neither side sought to repudiate the doctrine nor question its relevance to policy.

Yet the doctrine had little effect on the immediate situation. In 1824, the Russians agreed to limit their interests to the area north of the 54 degree 40 minute line, leaving the United States and Britain as the only claimants to the Oregon country between that line and the Spanish-Mexican boundary at 42 degrees. Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams saw that the European powers might come to the assistance of Spain to recover its lost Latin American colonies, but historical research of a century later shows that the European powers had no enthusiasm for reconquest of Spanish America. While the doctrine had little effect on contemporary affairs, it did clarify for Americans and for others what was to be the proper relationship between Europe and America.

The Monroe Doctrine enjoyed an enduring importance and popularity in part because it corresponded to American popular opinion. It was the first official pronouncement of a deep-seated American belief that the Atlantic and Pacific divide the world so effectively into hemispheres that nations of the Americas can insulate themselves from the quarrels, interferences, and colonizing ambitions of the European powers. From this belief has come also the neutrality policy of the United States since the 1790s. If the belief meant abstention from European wars, it meant neutrality.

For almost a century following the Monroe Doctrine, until World War I, the United States remained aloof from European affairs, although this did not mean that it ignored Europe. President Jackson’s patriotism almost led to conflict with France when the Chamber of Deputies refused to appropriate $5 million for damage done to American properties during the Napoleonic wars. In a belligerent message to Congress, Jackson asked for reprisals and suspended diplomatic relations. Talk of war ensued. The French Chamber finally appropriated the money, Jackson moderated his position, and the issue abated.

Other problems involved boundaries and the slave trade. Among them was the northeastern boundary dispute between the state of Maine and the British provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec. Seemingly insurmountable obstacles prevented a settlement until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 in which both sides gained and lost on their initial claims. The Young America movement acquired strength during the late 1840s and early 1850s. Once United States territory reached the Pacific, expansionists talked about carrying the democratic spirit to other countries by assisting local revolutionaries against autocratic governments. This was especially so at the time of the European revolutions of 1848. Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune predicted that all Europe would soon be “one great and splendid Republic . . . and we shall all be citizens of the world.” When the Austrians put down an uprising in Hungary, Secretary of State Daniel Webster made vague threats to the Austrian representative in Washington. And when the Hungarian revolutionary hero, Louis Kossuth, came to the United States in search of aid in 1851-52, he was cordially received by President Fillmore and crowds turned out to greet him. But the United States, not wishing to become involved in Europe’s affairs, had no intention of going to war to win independence for Hungarians. A century later in 1956, when the Soviet Union crushed a rebellion in Hungary, the United States was not willing to help the Hungarians, for the same reason.

After 1865, Americans continued to be isolationist toward Europe and to see themselves as a nation set apart. While their interest in Latin America and the Far East was growing, they had little concern over what was going on in Europe. They remained suspicious and believed they were invulnerable to any attack because of the security provided by the Atlantic Ocean. Americans also had much faith in the unique character of their government and society, and disdain for Europe’s classes and decadence. In remaining aloof, Americans did not believe they were losing out on anything. To the contrary, they thought they were better off.

Only a few problems disturbed&emdash;they did little more than that&emdash;American relations with Europe in the late nineteenth century. Partly because of military pressure, France removed troops from Mexico, sent there during the American Civil War. A dispute with Britain over compensation for American ships sunk by British-built Confederate cruisers, the so-called Alabama claims, was settled by arbitration through the Treaty of Washington of 1871. Another dispute over the ban on American pork by some European countries in the 1880s ended peacefully. And the United States and Britain avoided war in 1895 over a boundary dispute that Britain had with Venezuela.

Then came World War I, or the Great War as it was called, which would bring full American intervention before it had run its course. But once the Great War was over, the next generation of Americans sought to return to traditional isolationism. They grew disillusioned by the outcome of a war that had not been, as President Wilson had prophesied, a war to end war and to make the world safe for democracy. Swayed by the revisionist explanations for America’s going to war, which differed from reasons given by Wilson, they believed they had made a terrible mistake and resolved that it would never happen again. The resurgence of isolationism and the new determination to keep out of European affairs are evident in the neutrality laws of 1935-39, wherein Congress made an effort to legislate neutrality in yet another European war that appeared to be on its way.

Every president from Harding through Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the disillusionment and widespread belief that American intervention had been a dreadful mistake which stemmed from involvement in the Great War. Reflecting this political atmosphere, the Senate rejected the League of Nations while Wilson, its advocate, was in office. The Senate also refused to accept membership in the World Court even though it was proposed by presidents from Harding through Roosevelt. The Great War convinced Americans that the only way to be certain it would not happen again was to steer clear of “entanglements.”

The Pearl Harbor attack ended all this. With World War II there was another departure from isolationism. In contrast with the United States’s rejection of the League of Nations, the American nation became a charter member of the new United Nations and the largest contributor to the support of its operations. Indeed, the United Nations took up permanent headquarters in New York City. World War II changed congressional attitudes; the Senate approved the UN Charter by a vote of eighty-nine to two. Likewise, the Senate accepted compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice by approving the “optional clause” in the court’s statute. So the United States, which had rejected international cooperation with the League, entered the United Nations in a spirit of international cooperation.

Postwar cooperation was difficult from the beginning because of contentions between the United States and the Soviet Union, which developed as the infamous cold war. The Grand Alliance fell victim to the antagonism between the two sides. The United States in 1947 adopted a policy known as containment based on the thesis that the Soviet Union had a persistent tendency to expand but would not continue if faced with the risk of a major war. Containment was considered the best means of dealing with Soviet pressure, and despite criticism and threats to dismantle it every president from Truman, who launched it, through Bush, until about 1990, adhered to it in relations with the Soviet Union.

Containment, nonetheless, meant participation in European affairs, as seen in the Marshall Plan or European Recovery Program (1948-51), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1949), which was a departure from the traditional principle of no permanent alliances, the Berlin airlift (1948-49), and in a number of other ways now familiar to us all.

Thus the United States has experienced a full range of diplomatic activities from its eighteenth-century desire to remain aloof from European affairs to its present insistence on full participation.

It has been a long, and in many ways strange, odyssey from the exceeding awkwardness of the eighteenth century to the present moment, two hundred years later, when the world&emdash;unlike the era of Washington, Jefferson, and Monroe&emdash;moves so quickly in its relations, country to country. But even in the eighteenth century, so we now realize, it was impossible to stay away from Europe and all its troublesome problems. Now, to be sure, nothing can keep Americans from being citizens (they must hope) of not merely Europe but the world.

Vincent P. DeSantis has taught for many years at the University of Notre Dame. He is an authority on American history and foreign policy and the author or coauthor of several well-known textbooks in his fields.