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 THE NATURE OF AMERICAN TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 
 
 By Pitman B. Potter 
 
 Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin 
 
 ( 
 
 America has been commonly portrayed by American statesmen and 
 politicians, even in fervid Independence Day orations, as a nation whose 
 policy is ever for peace, and as a nation harboring no imperialistic aims. 
 A certain group of thinkers—or feelers—have boasted of the extreme 
 pacifism and righteousness of America in this way in order to intensify 
 and reinforce and promote those policies for the future. These good people 
 have hoped to see America lead the way to a repudiation of militaristic 
 methods and the gospel of conquest. Such are the pacifists, the church 
 people, the reformers. A second group of people have firmly believed that, 
 in actual fact, the record compelled and imposed on them such an inter¬ 
 pretation of American policy. They have felt that the causes were only 
 in part the voluntary preferences of the American people, and they have 
 seen the importance to be attached, in interpreting the American policy, 
 to the geographical and economic conditions determining the character 
 of American growth and policies. But to whatever cause it has been due, 
 and largely because it can be traced back to a deeper and firmer founda¬ 
 tion and source than mere popular preferences, these students of American 
 foreign policy have subscribed, and still subscribe, to the belief that the 
 American practice in the matter of territorial expansion has been charac¬ 
 terized by a lack of imperialism, of militarism, and of a lust for conquest 
 such as has been manifested by certain European Powers from time to 
 time in the past. Their opinion is entitled to respect. It is, moreover, 
 useful, even indispensable, to have an accurate idea of the quality of 
 American foreign policy in the coming days in order not, certainly, to 
 expect too much of America, and also, just as certainly, to be able to 
 utilize all the potential energy for good in international politics which 
 America may be able to provide. 
 
 The transports and boastings, and what have amounted to the spiritual 
 excesses of those who have painted America as a pacifist and a saint among 
 nations, have produced in certain quarters a feeling of revolt and a reaction 
 against the traditional view of the matter. In certain cases the result is a 
 mild, amused, somewhat cynical, somewhat wise and sophisticated skepti¬ 
 cism as to the peaceable and righteous character of the American mood. 
 In other cases the result is a fiat denial of the American tradition, a 
 
 189 
 
190 
 
 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 
 
 direct contradiction of its conclusions, and an attempt to place America 
 on all fours with the other members of the family of nations on the score 
 of territorial expansion. 
 
 Of the first sort is the case of Professor J. B. Moore, who, after taking 
 note of the traditional pictures of American policy “as conventionalized 
 in the annual messages of Presidents to Congress/’ and, he might have 
 added, in countless public documents and private addresses, goes on to 
 say, in his treatment of the principles of American foreign policy: “Never¬ 
 theless, in spite of their quiet propensities, it has fallen to their lot, since 
 they forcibly achieved their independence, to have had, prior to that whose 
 existence was declared April 6, 1917, four foreign wars, three general and 
 one limited, and the greatest civil war in history, and to have acquired a 
 territorial domain almost five times as great as the respectable endowment 
 with which they began their national career.” This gently implies, of 
 course, that the conventional picture is inaccurate, at least in its emphasis 
 or intensity. 
 
 Further still to the left we have Mr. J. A. R. Marriott, who, in a 
 recent article in the Edinburgh Review, concludes that “the American 
 record of expansion does not fall behind that of the principal European 
 Powers,” and that, in the words of Professor Ramsey Muir, who is quoted 
 with approval by Mr. Marriott, “the imperialist spirit was working as 
 powerfully in the communities of the New World as in the monarchies 
 of Europe.” 
 
 The method of approach and the objectives of Mr. Marriott’s treatment 
 must be borne in mind. He begins by deploring that “illusions about 
 America die hard,” and that “as a rule it takes longer to kill them” in 
 Europe than at home. He then sets out to do the killing. After following 
 the argument for some distance in a more or less systematic way, the 
 author begins to reorient his treatment. He is no longer interested in 
 killing an illusion, but in portraying what appears to him now, after his 
 review of the Monroe Doctrine, as a “new departure in American diplo¬ 
 macy.” He concludes that America came out of her isolation in 1895 or 
 1898 and began to take part in world politics. What is now felt by Mr. 
 Marriott to be a new policy of participation in Welt-politik is portrayed 
 as a reversal of the preceding policy. “The Zeit-Geist had proved itself 
 too strong even for the Americans. . . . During the last generation the world 
 has become one in a sense of which no one dreamed forty years ago . . . 
 the world has shrunk; and in the process of contraction, the American, 
 Australian, and African continents have been inevitably drawn into the 
 maelstrom of European politics.” 
 
 Thus, in addition to the initial motive of killing an illusion in the 
 interests of truth, Mr. Marriott is in the end simply playing a new varia¬ 
 tion upon the now familiar theme of the growing contact and inter-relation 
 of the nations. Indeed, the latter idea bids fair to become as stereotyped 
 
THE NATURE OF AMERICAN TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 
 
 191 
 
 in a few years as the tradition of American isolation and pacifism ever 
 ' was. Moreover, his second thesis involves somewhat of a denial of his 
 first. If America is on all fours with the European Powers only after 
 abandoning a policy of isolation which she is reputed to have pursued down 
 to 1895-98, then during the preceding period she must have lived a secluded 
 and, presumably, virtuous life. If she became worldly in 1895-98, she 
 must have been unworldly before that time. 
 
 However, the important question about all this is, of course, is it true? 
 The first thesis of Mr. Marriott might look suspiciously like the sinner’s 
 retort, ‘ ‘ Oh, you are just like the rest of us. ’ ’ It might look like the 
 attempt to drag the pictures of America down to the level of that of 
 imperialist and militarist Europe. There is probably to be detected here, 
 however, a certain measure of influence from the second of Mr. Marriott’s 
 propositions. We are all in the same game, he says, at least since 1895; 
 after all, haven’t we always been pretty much alike, you were always pretty 
 much like us, you know. In either case the question remains: were we? 
 Is it true? 
 
 It must be remembered that the point is that of international imperial¬ 
 ism. The United States is not accused of being rebellious or turbulent, 
 in the sense in which that accusation is levelled at Latin-American repub¬ 
 lics. The territorial expansion of the United States and their share in 
 imperial world politics is what is in question. Accordingly, Professor 
 Moore’s mention of “the greatest civil war in history,” and of the fact 
 that the United States “forcibly achieved their independence,” is simply 
 beside the point and has nothing to do with the case. 
 
 For the rest, the charge may be put thus: the United States has been 
 engaged in numerous wars and has expanded enormously in territorial 
 possessions; on these critical points of international relations and foreign 
 policy America is not exceptionally righteous by intention, nor has she 
 an exceptionally good record. 
 
 On the first point, no perplexity whatever need be felt. The history 
 of American military organization and the record of her wars need only 
 be reviewed to show that Professor Moore’s insinuations are wholly without 
 consequence. To begin with, the United States has always been content 
 with, and has positively rejoiced in, a standing army small even for a 
 much smaller Power, and in the use of the volunteer and militia systems 
 of military organization. That is notorious. It does not create a picture 
 of a nation with military propensities and predilections. In the military 
 life Americans are amateurs—sometimes ridiculous, sometimes glorious, 
 but always amateurs. 
 
 When we come to examine the numerous wars in which the United 
 States has been engaged, “three general and one limited,” a new sort of 
 error is revealed. The United States has been involved in the wars against 
 the Barbary pirate states in 1795-1815, in the wars of England and France 
 
192 
 
 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 
 
 in 1798 and 1812, in a war upon Mexico in 1846, a war upon Spain in 
 1898, and in the general European war in 1917. To make such a state¬ 
 ment, however, is to open a discussion, not to close it; is to speak merely 
 in quantitative terms. It remains to be noted, first, that the wars against 
 the Barbary States were waged in behalf of a sea free for all nations from 
 these subsidized marauders of the Mediterranean; second, that the de facto 
 war with France was entirely maritime in character, was extremely brief— 
 a matter of six months—and, like the following war of 1812 (also brief and 
 fragmentarjO? followed not from relations arising directly or primarily 
 between the United States and another peaceful nation, but from relations 
 between the United States as a neutral and one of two parties to a bitter 
 European struggle during which the neutral was put to it to defend his 
 rights and to resist encroachments from one side or the other. Like the 
 War of 1812, also, it originated in part from a determination to defend 
 maritime liberties upon which the next few years were to place the seal 
 of approval. These two wars contrast strongly with the Mexican War, 
 which was offensive and not defensive, which was predatory in its aim, 
 and was not undertaken primarily for the defense or vindication of legal 
 rights. 
 
 It is precisely this Mexican War which, as the glaring exception, proves 
 the general rule regarding the character of American wars. Mr. Marriott 
 does not dwell upon the disgraceful character of that war as fully as he 
 might be pardoned for doing if he chose. He does, however, make a remark 
 in regard to it which is interesting and instructive. The Civil War, it 
 appears, “might never have occurred had the United States been strictly 
 limited to its original territory.” Evidently, in Mr. Marriott’s eyes, the 
 Mexican War contributed to push the South into the Civil War. On the 
 other hand, as Mr. Marriott does not mention, it was the South that pushed 
 the nation into the Mexican War to secure more potentially slave territory 
 in Texas and the Southwest. That war, it is safe to say, probably would 
 not have occurred but for the operation of wliat must be regarded as an 
 abnormal and unnatural factor in American politics. It is not character¬ 
 istic of American foreign policy. 
 
 One does not need to go up into the wars of 1898 and 1917 to discover 
 the same traits. Let history judge whether the United States entered 
 either of her most recent wars from a lust of conquest, military ardor or 
 imperialistic desires. Rather it can be affirmed that the United States, when 
 her policy has been determined by the natural and normal preferences of 
 her people, has never entered a war except in defense of legal or ethical 
 rights to which history has, as a matter of actual recorded fact, paid definite 
 and profound respect. So with her defense of the freedom of the seas 
 against France and Britain in 1798 and 1812, her defense of Cuban liberty 
 and decency and her own safety in 1898, and of her freedom upon the seas 
 again in 1917. Let Mr. Marriott compare the war aims of America in the 
 
THE NATURE OE AMERICAN TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 
 
 193 
 
 recent war with those of any of the other belligerents and then answer 
 whether American participation in that war proved her to be imperialistic, 
 as nations go in this year of grace, or otherwise. 
 
 The discussion of war aims, however, leads us over to our principal prob¬ 
 lem, namely, the character of the territorial expansion of the United 
 States. Referring again to the Cuban case, did America undertake the 
 War of 1898 for conquest? Or, more generally, what qualities are manifest 
 in the territorial expansion of the United States from a petty coastal state 
 in 1776 to a vast world Power in 1920? 
 
 Of the facts in the case there can be no doubt. Beginning with the 
 possession of the Atlantic coast from Florida to Maine, the Americans have 
 expanded westward to the Mississippi, to the Rockies, to the Pacific, and 
 acquired vast possessions in Alaska, the East and West Indies and the 
 islands of the Pacific. By a constant process of expansion and acquisition 
 extending from 1783 to 1916 ‘‘the American empire” has grown in area 
 and in distribution over the surface of the globe until w 7 e stand among 
 those spacious and far-flung Powers upon whose possessions the sun never 
 sets. 
 
 Here also, however, the impression which Professor Moore and, to a 
 greater extent in this case, Mr. Marriott try to create is due wholly to the 
 fact that they dwell upon the quantitative aspects of the case alone. Thus, 
 Mr. Marriott says that ‘ ‘ No country in the world exhibited, during the nine¬ 
 teenth century, a more marked tendency to territorial expansion than the 
 United States.” He notes further that in 1845 America annexed “a terri¬ 
 tory more than four times as large as England and Wales,” and that in 
 less than a century after 1783 the United States had “more than quad¬ 
 rupled in size.” 
 
 Now all of these quantitative statements are true. But they do not mean 
 much. Imperialism is not a matter of area, any more than militarism is a 
 matter of the number of wars in which a nation has been engaged or, for 
 that matter, of the number of troops maintained in the armed forces of 
 the nation. China is larger than continental United States, Greenland 
 larger than all of western Europe. What does that prove regarding the 
 Danes or the Chinese? Nothing, just nothing. Imperialism and militarism 
 are moral—or immoral—characteristics to be measured with more dis¬ 
 criminating instruments than a yardstick or a counting machine. The 
 area of Brazil and the military preparedness of Switzerland do not con¬ 
 vict either of these nations in the public mind of those two vices, and 
 properly so. 
 
 There have been, in the United States, certain manifestations of what 
 might be called an imperialistic temper. These were in evidence specially 
 from 1840 to 1850, the decade of the “roaring forties,” as these years have 
 been aptly called. The cry of “Fifty-four Forty or Fight,” which was 
 raised to express the demand, put forward in the Presidential campaign of 
 
194 
 
 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 
 
 1844, for possession of the Oregon territory up to 54° 40' North latitude, 
 and the talk about the “manifest destiny” of America to rule this continent 
 from the Northern ice to the tropic seas, and so on, were symptomatic of a 
 certain mood. The spectacle of westward expansion and settlement fired 
 men’s minds and loosed their tongues. Our Latin American neighbors, or 
 certain more or less excitable politicians in and among them, dwell lovingly 
 upon the war of this period as proof of an imperialistic plan to conquer the 
 western world, combining this evidence with the more recent expansion of 
 American finance and commerce in these continents and the policy of the 
 Monroe Doctrine, with which all of this is connected in popular talk. In the 
 end of the century came an outburst of enthusiasm for a place among the 
 world Powers and a share in the colonial game. 
 
 There have been other episodes which might be called on to prove 
 American imperialism. In 1778 we treated with France regarding a joint 
 conquest of all British possessions in America. The Articles of Confedera¬ 
 tion showed clearly a hope for the inclusion of Canada in the new nation. 
 This subject was revived in 1870 in discussions of British relations. Cuba 
 was coveted by Adams and by Jefferson in 1823; in 1848 we tried to buy 
 it; in 1868 we meditated military occupation. We tried to secure the 
 annexation of San Domingo in 1879. Various other cases could be cited. 
 
 The fact is, however, that a decision must be reached not by reference 
 to what did not happen, but by what did happen, not by vague and un¬ 
 supported aspirations or desires, but upon decision converted or attempted 
 to be converted into action or stopped only by outside forces. Further, 
 the character of American policy must be judged by the long run of events, 
 not by the sporadic outbursts of 1846 and 1898. That the moods of 1846 and 
 1898, engendered largely by the events themselves, are so easily recognized, 
 indeed, is due to the fact that they are set against a background of pre¬ 
 vailingly different hue. 
 
 When we come to examine the concrete acquisitions of territory actually 
 made by the United States, there are certain very definite considerations 
 which sustain these general impressions. These are to be found in the 
 manner in which these acquisitions were made, the character of the terri¬ 
 tories at the time when they were acquired, and the method of treatment 
 accorded to them after acquisition. 
 
 Most of the territorial acquisitions of the United States have resulted, 
 not from the use of armed force, but by free cession. That is the one great 
 and irrefutable disproof of American imperialism. The lands between the 
 Appalachians and the Mississippi were held in at least a legal title in 1783 
 and possession was taken by the natural and peaceful process of settlement. 
 Louisiana, Florida, Alaska, and the Virgin Islands were purchased; Texas 
 and the Hawaiian Islands annexed upon their own request; the Oregon 
 territory acquired by discovery and settlement and free diplomatic ar¬ 
 rangement with Britain. Even in the case of Florida, where preliminary 
 
THE NATURE OF AMERICAN TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 
 
 195 
 
 events gave every opportunity for a quick and outright conquest, the 
 territory was only taken after a fair conventional agreement with Spain. 
 It is particularly ridiculous to hear Mr. Marriott declare that “the pur¬ 
 chase of the Alaskan territory in 1867 from Russia was a more obvious 
 demonstration of an imperialistic temper.” Besides being a rather happy 
 and, in the public mind at the time, unforeseen and dubious accident, it was 
 sold by Russia at such a price as to indicate that the United States was 
 picking up something without very serious effort on her part. The Con¬ 
 gress very nearly refused outright to appropriate the money for the pur¬ 
 chase at all. There was no general national imperialism whatever in evi¬ 
 dence. Finally, various islands have been acquired by discovery and occupa¬ 
 tion. In none of these cases are there any substantial qualifications to be 
 made. This is the normal mode of acquisition for the United States. 
 
 The events of 1846 and 1898 are exceptions or partial exceptions here as 
 above. New Mexico and California were taken primarily by conquest. The 
 abnormal cause for that action is notorious, and has already been mentioned. 
 It remains to be noted that steps were already on foot in 1846 to purchase 
 these territories from Mexico, according to the usual practice of the United 
 States. From the standpoint of the true American policy, one can but 
 regret that the South did not give time for the normal methods to be 
 followed. An American does, however, regret it, and not boast of it. 
 
 As for Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, the case is slightly differ¬ 
 ent again. Cuba, of course, was not annexed by the United States, but 
 simply freed from Spain. The Philippines w T ere taken by a combined proc¬ 
 ess of conquest and purchase. Porto Rico and Guam were taken by con¬ 
 quest, apparently. So much for the initial steps. In regard to all of these, 
 however, the most significant facts are those connected with the method of 
 treatment accorded to the annexed territories. To that we shall return in 
 a moment. 
 
 The next thing to be noted is that the great bulk of the territorial 
 acquisitions of the United States have been made from contiguous territory. 
 The frontier of settlement has grown outward by a natural process. In 
 some cases, defense of the existing frontier was a motive; in some cases 
 boundary disputes—real, and not artificially stimulated—led to territorial 
 acquisitions. Florida, the trans-Appalachian regions, Louisiana, Oregon, 
 California, and even the Southwest were reached in this manner, not by 
 overseas adventures or incursions into the settled or occupied territories of 
 other nations. 
 
 In other words, the American people moved slowly and peaceably into 
 what were nearly empty territories. The lands settled were not already 
 occupied by a population with a developed culture and life of their own. 
 No great numbers of an alien people were subjected to a conqueror’s govern¬ 
 ment. The Indians cannot be so described. They were not entitled, by any 
 sort of social ethic which can be seriously considered, to be respected in their 
 
196 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 
 
 occupation of the land as if they had been a civilized people. They could 
 not be cited here in such a manner. By and large, the Americans have 
 simply flowed into empty territory; they have not conquered and annexed 
 existing states or portions thereof. 
 
 The same exceptions are to be noted here as in the discussion of the 
 manner of acquisition. The Philippines and Porto Rico and the Pacific 
 islands, and even Alaska, lie away from the mainland of the United States. 
 And while Alaska and the Pacific islands were largely empty or inhabited 
 only by uncivilized natives, Porto Rico and the Philippines were settled 
 countries and so was the Hawaiian group. In this case the Southwest stands 
 better than they, for it was both contiguous and sparsely occupied, and 
 held in the vague Mexican Empire rather lightly and artificially. 
 
 But the decisive fact, after the method of acquisition itself, is the method 
 by which the acquired territories have been treated. In this the Philippines 
 and Porto Rico and the Hawaiian group fare well. The characteristic 
 American practice has been to incorporate acquired territories in the Union 
 on a basis of equality with the original member States, and not to hold them 
 in subjection as colonial possessions. This process was applied to all the 
 acquisitions down to 1898. Even Alaska, remote and unsettled, is on the 
 recognized historic route to statehood. 
 
 In the cases of the acquisitions of 1898 that practice has also been 
 followed. Hawaii and Porto Rico have been given “territorial’’ govern¬ 
 ments, which have always been the prelude to statehood, and they may 
 conceivably achieve statehood in the not distant future. The Philippines 
 have been given “territorial'’ government and might conceivably follow the 
 same path. What is more likely to happen, however, and the distinction 
 has its own significance, is that the Philippines will go one way—to in¬ 
 dependence, while Porto Rico and Hawaii, perhaps, go the other—to state¬ 
 hood. We have promised the Philippines their independence, acting 
 apparently on the assumption that they could not become part of the Union. 
 They may be retained in a protectorate; they may come to stand with Cuba, 
 as another relinquished conquest. In either case, the protectorate would 
 gain its significance not so much in distinction from a theoretical or 
 potential stage of complete independence as from the immediately preceding 
 stage of conquest and dominion. 
 
 From all of these facts, the conclusion is unescapable. They are not 
 vague and indefinite ideas; they are historic facts. They are irrefragible 
 obstacles to any attempt to portray American territorial expansion as a 
 process of imperialism. 
 
 From one point of view the task of refuting such an attempt may 
 appear to be too easy to have deserved to take up so much time and energy. 
 And in a sense that is true. No person who is familiar with American 
 political life can take such a contention seriously. The people of the United 
 States have not the imperialistic temper. Except when on a sort of spirit- 
 
THE NATURE OF AMERICAN TERRITORIAL EXPANSION 
 
 197 
 
 ual spree as in 1846 and 1898, they are frankly embarrassed at such a 
 grandiose role in international politics. Have they not always played, or 
 pretended to play, a minor role in that tragi-comedy, even a silent role? 
 They have thrilled at the idea of “conquering” and “subduing” a con¬ 
 tinent—in the sense of exploring, settling and cultivating the earth; in that 
 sort of imperialism against nature they have gloried. The extension of the 
 empire of man over brute nature—that is American imperialism. As for 
 the hard and greedy international imperialism of military conquest, for 
 that they have neither the requisite stage presence in international relations, 
 nor the necessary viciousness. 
 
3 0112 
 
 072392274 
 
 ENEMY GOODS AND HOUSE OF TRADE 
 By Thomas Baty, LL.D., D.C.L. 
 
 I. General 
 
 It is proposed to examine shortly, in the following pages, the preci: 
 extent to which a neutral’s commerce with a belligerent country is liabl 1 
 to interruption by the cruisers of the opposite belligerent, apart from thj 
 traditional doctrines of blockade and contraband, and from the practic 
 of reprisals. We shall also eliminate the operation of the dogma of con 
 tinuous voyage. Needless to say, that dogma is one wdiich introduces uttej 
 uncertainty into the realm of prize law, and makes it easy for belligerent 
 to behave towards neutral commerce in a quite arbitrary fashion. Whej 
 combined with a swollen list of contraband, its application amounts to I 
 complete control of commerce by belligerents; and might best be met b; 
 a friendly war being commenced between neutrals, who might thus, perhaps 
 regain the freedom of which they otherwise stand deprived. But taking 
 the dogma as it stands, we cannot but realize that its true design anj 
 justification is to restore to belligerents their old liberty of seizing enemj 
 property withdrawn from them in 1856 by the Declaration of Paris. Tha^ 
 and not the pernicious influence of railways, is its true raison d’etre. Whe; 
 Chief Justice Chase, by his easting vote in the United States Suprerd 
 Court, laureled the doctrine during the American Civil War, it was wit;| 
 no idea of countering the influence of railways in his mind. Railway! 
 were not important in that connection. No railway, at that time, traversejj 
 the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Nassau was on an island. Any influencl 
 that railways may have exercised, in making a belligerent territory mod 
 accessible from neutral ports, is more than offset by the enormous powd 
 of controlling commerce exercised by the modern fast cruiser—a powd 
 incomparably greater than that of the old frigate over the old merchant 
 man. 1 
 
 Accordingly, if the continuous voyage dogma be duly anathematize 
 in the interest of a modicum of decent security for neutrals, it will scarcelj 
 be possible to avoid the substitution, in some form or another, of liberti 
 to intercept the enemy’s goods laden on neutral ships. The neutral in tha 
 case will preserve his ship, will even get his freight, and no harm wi] 
 be done to anybody except the enemy,—a much more satisfactory stal 
 of affairs than the present, when by a forced and unnatural series c 
 
 i See, for succinct statistics, the writer's Prize Laic and Continuous Voyage (Lo 
 don), 1916.