Roy Vu

HIST 6393- Empire, War and Revolution

Dr. Buzzanco

February 1, 2000

A Review of Norman Graebner’s Empire on the Pacific

Historians have analyzed and provided a wide variety of reasons to explain the dynamics of American continental expansionism in the mid-nineteenth century. Norman A. Graebner asserts that this American expansion was not a westward movement but rather a northward and southward by the United States to obtain and secure vital ports on the Pacific coast as points of departure to increase trade and commerce with the Far East. In Empire on the Pacific, Graebner focuses on the vital commercial interests by U.S. business leaders and politicians during the 1840s that spurred the American acquisitions of Oregon and California to build a mercantile empire on the Pacific. Graebner assesses the Polk administration and the division among political parties that brought the U.S. successful negotiations with England and Mexico on its dispute with Oregon and California. However, Graebner made two critically flawed assessments: 1) that westward expansion by pioneers, removal of Indians, and racism towards Mexicans appeared less relevant that the American want of seaports on the Pacific, and 2) presentation of James K. Polk as an innocent, peaceful president who did not want war with Mexico and did not attribute to the causes of manifest destiny.

In the Preface, Graebner claims that mercantile interests in the Pacific determined the course of empire for the United States. He goes one step further by stating, “For Jefferson, as for those who followed him, the great objective in continental expansion was the acquisition of a passage through Oregon to the potential wealth of the Orient” (Graebner, 27). In other words, this great movement to the West, the removal of Indians, the expansion of slave territory and even the ideology of the Manifest Destiny played second-hand roles of the greater objective: sufficient seaports along the Pacific for an increasing viable trade with the Far East.

Graebner’s argument seems very reasonable and applicable with his supporting evidence provided in the book. However, to heighten his argument, he downplays other factors of continental expansion that are although not neglected, but remained in the background throughout this entire work. For example, Graebner explains the significance of Oregon and California as competitive territories between European powers, France and England, versus the United States as they vied for control over these lands. He states how U.S. political and business leaders had genuine fears over European containment of American growth and democracy. On the California issue, Graebner argues that “American expansionists were convinced that England was the chief barrier to the American acquisition of the Mexican province” (82). In return, he continues that “By 1845, both Britain and France had turned jaundiced eyes toward the United States, for American expansionism threatened to encompass the bay and destroy the balance of Pacific commerce” (66). Graebner tries to prove that a real, urgent power struggle existed between the U.S. and European powers as they attempt to own the vital seacoast of the Pacific Northwest. With France out of the picture, the U.S. succeeded a compromise with England, dividing up the Oregon territory at the forty-ninth parallel and won the trading port of Strait de Juan de Fuca, one of the three vital ports the U.S. expansionists sought. The other two consists of San Francisco Bay and San Diego Bay both within Mexico’s California, Graebner concludes that “Fear of England more than any other factor carried manifest destiny to the Pacific in 1845” (87). Thus, European intervention seemed to threaten the normal growth of the nation and endanger the entire concept of the Monroe Doctrine (88).

Reginald Horsman would disagree. In Race and Manifest Destiny, he concurs that race played a more significant issue than obtaining three ports on the Pacific to explain the American continental expansion. Horsman focuses more on race issues- New England politicians seeking ways to send free Northern blacks as well as Southern black slaves to Central and South America by obtaining territories in the Southwest, the removal of Indian tribes and the eradication of their cultures, and the uncivilized savages of Mexico as culturally inferior to the Christian Anglo-Saxon race- to explain how Americans justify their expansionists actions to obtain more lands and river ways. Thomas Hietala, author of Manifest Design, would disagree with Graebner’s thesis as well. Hietala argues that U.S. political and business leaders had an obsessive designed plan to achieve a continental empire from coast-to-coast. Beyond racial, religious, ideological and economic factors, such as commercial interests on the Pacific, U.S. expansionists desired a continental empire that not only places social domestic issues in the background but to spread its democratic ideals of capitalism and free trade beyond North America. Graebner does not thoroughly address these issues that Horsman and Hietala pushed as the main factors of their arguments.

On the relationship between U.S. and Mexico, Graebner provides an in-depth look at the negotiations between the Polk administration and the Mexican government during the Mexican-American War. He does include the racial factor here and describes that “By destroying the respect which many citizens of the United States still held for Mexico’s territorial integrity, it actually pointed the way toward new acquisitions in the Southwest (83). However, Graebner portrays Polk rather as an U.S. President who tried to stave off American territorial ambitions to take over Mexico’s lands, and whose expansionist policies focus on legal acquisitions not warfare. He explains that “Polk’s policies reflected a fundamental willingness to translate the expansionism of American people into concrete acquisitions” (122). On the issue of the annexation of Texas, he describes Polk as taking defensive measures against hostilities by the Mexican army in the disputed border of the Rio Grande. Graebner portrays Polk as diplomatic and negotiable toward the Mexican government throughout the Mexican-American War. Polk sought peace through war and “provided the region [New Mexico and California] could come into the possessions into the U.S. fair and honorable means, by purchase or negotiation- not by conquest” (167). In other words, Polk pursued a peace that would meet with his expansionist objectives and obtaining the vital commercial ports of San Francisco and San Diego. Credit should be given to Graebner as he points out the humiliating negotiating process with Mexico despite the overwhelming American military successes against the Mexican forces. The U.S. persisted and begged for an “honorable peace” with favorable territorial terms with the Mexican government that refused to negotiate and wanted to prolong the war. However, this assessment leads to the question, why did the Mexican government not prolong the war and push the American public to pressure Polk of ending the war rather than conceding their northern territories to the U.S.?

Graebner also acknowledges the issue of slavery and how it challenged national expansion in the late 1840s. He describes how the Whigs feared disunion and hoped to save the Union by destroying the issue by which it was threatened- territorial expansion (187). One interesting point the author points out is that by 1847, a large number of Americans for the first time had turned against the acquisition of California (190). If this statement holds true then did the majority of the American population not held the ideals of manifest destiny and expansionism close to their vests? Graebner does not embellish on this matter further, and he fails to address this point more thoroughly.

Graebner concludes that American expansion to the Pacific was always a precise and calculated movement. He argues that not only American expansion became a deliberate movement but that under President Polk, the U.S. objectives remained clear and precise and limited to two ocean ports. The author states that “Victories along the road to Mexico City were important only in that they eventually brought to the President the opportunity to security what he had once hoped to achieve by diplomacy alone” (228). This analogy remains too simple and neglectful of other factors and consequences of American expansion. Graebner also reflects Polk as being non-aggressive and peaceful in his expansionist policies. His reflection on Polk is comparable to Graham Cosmas’s An Army for Empire or Gerald Linderman’s The Mirror of War as both authors depicted President William McKinley as far removed from the U.S. involvement in the Spanish-American War. However, Graebner does succeed in explaining and supporting his thesis of the American mercantile interests on the Pacific.