Download Vol. XXVII - University of the Cumberlands

Journal of the Upsilon-Upsilon Chapter
of Phi Alpha Theta
THE UPSILONIAN
Student Editor
Amanda Kelly
Board of Advisors
D. Bruce Hicks., Chairman of the Board of Advisors, and Associate
Professor of Political Science; Andrea Shuck, student member of
Upsilon-Upsilon; M.C. Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History
Christopher Leskiw, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science; Oline
Carmical, Jr., Ph.D., Professor of History
COPYRIGHT ©2016 by University of the Cumberlands Department of History and Political
Science. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
iv
Comments from the President
Tristan New
v
Comments from the Student Editor
Amanda Kelley
vi
Notes from the Faculty Advisor
Nathan Coleman
vii
The Authors
Articles
1 Michael Ferraro, Preserving the Ancien Regime: The Knights of
Malta and the French Revolution
22 Tristan New, Navigating “The Embryo of a Tornado”: James
Madison and the Louisiana Purchase
33 Matthew Kelley, American Moral Diplomacy: Missionaries, the
Wilsonian Paradigm, and the Congo Reform Movement
44 Cortni Cox, Was America’s Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan
the Right Choice or Not?
iii
Comments from the President
This year has been an active and eventful one for Upsilon-Upsilon. We hosted four
lectures, held two successful bake sale fundraisers, presented two papers at the Kentucky
Regional Conference at Thomas More College, and had a barbeque picnic. Our ranks swelled
this year, as we inducted five new members. All this would have been impossible without the
guidance of our fearless leader, Dr. Nathan Coleman. These undertakings would have been
unthinkable without the invaluable assistance of Mrs. Fay Partin, whom we heartily congratulate
on a well-deserved retirement, and thank for her tireless service to both Upsilon-Upsilon and the
Department of History and Political Science. We would also like to express a special thank you
to Dr. Bruce Hicks, Chairman of the Board of Advisors for this year’s edition, and Dr. Chuck
Smith, who graciously provided supplies for our bake sale and hosted our spring picnic. We
thank Matthew Kelley, our President for the fall semester.
As a contributor to this year’s edition of the Upsilonian, I would like to express my
gratitude for being chosen. It is truly an honor to be selected for inclusion in this excellent
publication. I would also like to express commendation to the other contributors, Michael
Ferraro, Matthew Kelley, and Cortni Cox, whose papers disclose fascinating insights into
their topics. The study of history is a highly demanding, yet richly rewarding, pursuit.
Through unyielding examination of the past, we can discern profound truths about human
nature and the world around us. It is my hope that you, the reader, will find this volume
enlightening and intellectually stimulating.
Tristan New
President, Upsilon Upsilon 2016
iv
Comments from the Student Editor
First and foremost, this has been a year of many changes for University of the Cumberlands and
its History and Political Science Department as a whole. Dr. Larry Cockrum became university
president, Dr. Eric L. Wake, a beloved and respected History professor and long-time advisor of
the Upsilon-Upsilon chapter of Phi Alpha Theta retired as well. Despite the sadness change often
brings us, the change brought contentment for all residing in the Bennett Building basement. Dr.
Christopher Leskiw named Department chair, and Dr. Nathan Coleman became the newest
Department professor and Phi Alpha Theta advisor. This year also brings forth Mrs. Fay Partin’s
retirement after thirty years of service dedicated to the Department, its faculty, and its students.
Lastly, The Upsilonian experienced some changes, usual and unusual. The publication moved to
online publishing rather than print. The changes we’ve experienced have not been easy to take,
but they are required for the amelioration of ourselves. As President John F. Kennedy once said,
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the
future.”
These young historians submitted their work for publication in this edition of The Upsilonian,
and their work was published for their excellence in undergraduate academia. We thank them for
their hard work and contribution to this publication. We thank Dr. Nathan Coleman for his
dedication to shaping the future of Upsilon-Upsilon. He opened its doors to others in hopes of
connecting with other budding historians at Cumberlands.
We thank our President of this chapter, Tristan New, for taking over the large task of organizing
meetings, events, and being a positive representative of the group and school. We thank Ms. Fay
Partin for all of her work she does for Upsilon-Upsilon. We honestly don’t know what we’re
going to do without her expertise next year. She says we will make do.
Personally, I’m eager for this year’s edition of The Upsilonian. I hope it upholds to the standards
of academic excellency in the field of history this Department and chapter expect and deserve.
Amanda Kelly
Editor, The Upsilonian 2015-16
v
Notes from the Faculty Advisor
Historians study change over time. This year has been a testament to that idea as our department
and Upsilon Upsilon has undergone great change. With the retirements of Drs. Al Pilant and Eric
Wake, our department lost two tremendous and devoted educators. Dedicating decades of service
to UC, and to bettering the lives of all they encountered, their retirements are well-earned. We
miss them terribly. Dr. Wake’s retirement also brought about a change for Upsilon Upsilon.
After nearly four decades of being the faculty advisor, Dr. Wake left an unparalleled record of
success. Following Dr. Wake is nothing short of intimidating and daunting. It is my hope and
prayer that I can continue Dr. Wake’s tradition of excellence.
I would be remiss if I did not also mention the other major retirement occurring in our
department, that of Mrs. Fay Partin. No one is more dedicated to student success than Mrs. Fay.
Her constant and unflagging happiness coupled with her indefatigable hard work, makes her
leaving deeply emotional and hard to accept. Having known her when I was an undergraduate,
and now as a faculty member, her leaving is even more emotional. I know I speak for every
member of Upsilon Upsilon when I say “thank you, Mrs. Fay for all you’ve done.” You have no
idea how much you will be missed.
Even with great change, some things endure. As this volume of The Upsilonian attests, the
traditions of excellence continues. The essays in this volume cover a wide range of historic
topics, from the French Revolution to the dropping of the atomic bomb. Each represents the
education and training our students receive. They demonstrate the quality of our History and
Political Science majors. Please enjoy this latest edition of The Upsilsonian.
Nathan Coleman, PhD
Upsilon Upsilon faculty advisor
vi
MIKE FERRARO graduated from University of the Cumberlands in May
2016 with a major in history and a minor in English. The original draft
of his paper was written for the Issues in History course.
TRISTAN NEW is a senior history major. He will graduate in December
2016. He is the current president of Upsilon Upsilon. His paper is
derived from his Presidential Studies essay on James Madison as
Secretary of State.
MATTHEW KELLEY graduated in December of 2015 with a Bachelors
in History and Political Science. He was president of Upsilon Upsilon
in 2014 and 2015. His paper was written for the course, American
Foreign Policy.
CORNTI COX graduated in May 2015 with a Bachelor in History.
Her paper was written originally for the American Military History
Course.
vii
Preserving the Ancien Regime: The Knights of Malta and the French Revolution
Michael Ferraro
The Knights of Malta are a little-known or discussed institution in the present day,
perhaps because their long and eventful history – begun in the 11th Century, reaching well into
the 18th, and even continuing into the present day – has been disregarded as irrelevant. They are,
to some, “quaint relics of the Age of Crusades,” 1 a band of warrior monks who, courage and
valor notwithstanding, failed to maintain even a toehold in the Holy Land under the onslaught of
their Mohammedan foe, and whose most glorious exploits have been largely forgotten amidst the
cowardly capitulation of 1798 to General Napoleon Bonaparte at Malta. When Acre – the last of
the Crusader States in the Levant – fell to the Moslems in 1291 A.D., the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem (the Knights Hospitaller) went vagabonding, taking to the sea and heaving themselves
upon whatever island shore they could procure and defend. Resorting to piracy as their primary
means of subsistence, they fought the infidel from Cyprus and Rhodes, and from the latter base
2
“thrust [themselves] like a wedge into the side of the Turkish empire.” Dislodged from Rhodes
by the Ottomans in 1523, they found themselves on the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Comino as a
last refuge. 3 At Malta, the vagabond Order of St. John experienced a mythic albeit brief moment
of glory, and thereafter became synonymous, in name, with their base of operations. The “Great
Siege” of Malta of 1565, in which 540 Knights and four-thousand native Maltese successfully
withstood the onslaught of forty-thousand Ottoman Turks, made the Order the toast of the
1
J. Christopher Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 45.
2
Claire Elaine Engel, Knights of Malta: A Gallery of Portraits (New York: Roy Publishers, Inc., 1963), 13.
3
Desmond Seward, The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books,
1972), 253, 254, 257.
1
2
crowned heads of Europe, as their landmark victory helped to dramatically stem the tide of
Ottoman invasion in the European continent. 4
The honor and renown of the Knights of Malta was then at its pinnacle, but did not long
outlast the seeming anomaly of the Order’s own existence as an institution of monastic warriors
in the ensuing Age of Enlightenment, an age wherein the greatest foes of Christendom were
ostensibly being neutralized by reason even as the very idea of Christendom itself was coming
under attack. In the late 18th Century, the Knights found themselves faced with a new and more
cunning foe, one that they ultimately could not outlast: France and the French Revolution. The
story of the demise of the Knights of Malta, and the institution’s utter capitulation under the
massive onslaught of the French Revolution – in all its various forms and corresponding
implications – is the story of the Old Order’s internal demise and external capitulation to the
forces of modernity.
The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, founded in A.D. 1099 as a crusading order entrusted
with the care of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, 5 represented the archaic religious and
aristocratic institutions of a benighted past to an 18th Century Europe then on the cusp of
Enlightenment. For this reason, the Knights of Malta came in the sights of the Revolution as an
identifiable target, slated for destruction. The process of dismantling the Ancien Regime can be
surmised through two distinct facets of the devolution: the consolidation of the French nationstate and the subsequent imperial conquests of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Order fell victim to
both facets of the Revolution, the one that took place in France and the one that perpetuated itself
outward to conquer and reconstitute Europe.
4
5
H.J.A. Sire, The Knights of Malta (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1994), 68, 69, 71.
Eva Mabel Tennison, Chivalry and the Wounded: The Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem (London: L. Upcott
Gill & Son, Ltd., 1914), 14.
3
The Order of St. John, being an international body of European nobleman, was originally
divided into eight continental langues (“tongues”) on the basis of the national and/or regional
identities of its member Knights. At the time of the Revolution, the langues – each represented in
one or several Grand Priories, all owing allegiance to the Order at Malta – were: Provence,
Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, Germany, and Castile/Portugal. 6 England, Scotland, and
Ireland constituted the original eighth langue, but the Order was suppressed in the British Isles
during the 16th Century Henrician Reformation, whereby Henry VIII commandeered the English
Priories, their wealth and their property. 7 An Anglo-Bavarian langue was created shortly before
the Revolution, a fact that was of tremendous import to the Order in its final days at Malta. 9 The
Priories and the lesser administrations of the Commanderies were directly answerable to the
Grand Master at Malta’s capitol city of Valletta, and so constituted the regionalized facets of the
Order in Europe. 10
The Grand Master was essentially a sovereign prince, the functioning monarch of the
Order’s affairs at Malta and in the langues, though his power naturally depended upon good
relations with the Papacy and the royal houses of Europe. 11 His title was not inherited but rather
conferred upon him by an oddly republican electoral system, the appointment being for life. 12
6
Frederick W. Ryan, The House of the Temple: A Study of Malta and Its Knights in the French Revolution (London:
Burnes, Oates & Washbourne, Ltd., 1930), 10.
7
Ibid., 10; Whitworth Porter, A History of the Knights of Malta, Vol. 2: Malta (2 vols.; London: Longman, Brown,
Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1858), 52, 53.
9
Thomas Freller and Daniel Cilia, Malta: The Order of St. John (Valletta: Midsea Books, Ltd., 2010), 200.
10
Ryan, House of the Temple, 10, 11.
11
Roderick Cavaliero, The Last of the Crusaders: The Knights of St. John and Malta in the Eighteenth Century
(London: Taurus Parke Paperbacks, 2009), 32, 33, 43.
12
Ryan, House of the Temple, 9.
4
The Revolution coincided with the rule of two Grand Masters: Emmanuel de Rohan (1775 –
1797) and Ferdinand von Hompesch (1797 – 1798). 13 The primary diplomatic challenge for both
Grand Masters concerned the Order’s relationship with France, as the three French langues of
the Order accounted for most of its revenues and the larger part of its manpower in Knights. 14
Each sought to preserve the Order’s essential independence from Revolutionary France while
necessarily allying the Knights to the royalist camp within France, making common cause with
the supporters of the Ancien Regime.
The French Revolution was inherently a nationalistic enterprise, and so feudal religious
Orders such as the Knights of St. John were targeted as a matter of principle. The Order’s status
in France was a matter for dispute as early as 1786, when the Council of Notables was convened
to determine the essential composition of a proposed Estates General. The Knights presented
numerous difficulties to the structure of the estates: they were, themselves, a sovereign body
residing in France but owing allegiance to Malta and their Order, and containing both clergy and
landowning nobles. The controversy over the Order’s identity within the French social hierarchy
centered on the question of whether the Knights belonged to the First Estate as a religious order,
the Second as landed nobility, or if indeed they belonged to any class of men entitled to a stake
15
in French national government at all. Grand Master Rohan, while discouraging the French
Knights’ involvement in France’s internal affairs, rejected the idea of the Order being classified
as an essentially religious institution, and decidedly identified with the traditional nobility of
France. 16 The Order’s conception of itself within France was a reflection of the Ancien Regime
13
Freller, Malta: The Order of St. John, 240.
14
Ibid., 203.
15
Cavaliero, Last of the Crusaders, 181.
16
Ibid.
5
understanding of French societal structure: its loyalty to and concrete identity within France was
based upon a feudal obligation of fealty owed to France’s sovereign, a relationship solidified by
Louis XV’s formal extension of French citizenship to the Knights in 1765. 17
The Order’s position in French society was made all the more precarious by the advent of
revolution. The abolition of the feudal system that safeguarded the rights of the nobility,
accomplished during the famed rush of legislation passed by the National Assembly on 4 and 5
August, 1789, invalidated land ownership and noble title as claims to preeminent position within
French society and government. 18 The elimination of feudal dues represented a devastating blow
to the financial administration of the French langues, and the corresponding invalidation of noble
title rendered Knighthood itself anomalous to French societal structure. Thus, amidst the
Revolution’s de-legitimization campaigns against the traditional nobility, a peculiar crisis of
identity was foisted upon the Knights of Malta then residing in the French langues of the Order.
The confusion only deepened as events in France unfolded and the true direction of the
Revolution became more apparent. As part of an emerging nationalistic ethos, the National
Constituent Assembly radically redefined the idea of citizenship, transforming the
conglomerated feudal entity of the Ancien Regime into a consolidated French nation. The
Constitution of 1791 defined citizenship in the French nation-state on the basis of certain
“Natural Rights,” effectively denying recognition to those institutions operating within the
political boundaries of France whose internal governmental framework did not fully comport
with those rights. “Sovereignty [being] one,” and appertain[ing] to the nation” as a people and as
a whole, the Order was essentially defined as a foreign institution, operating within France
17
Freller, Malta: The Order of St. John, 198.
18
Ryan, House of the Temple, 151; Sire, Knights of Malta, 234.
6
without proverbial license. 19 Asserting the full implications of this redefinition, the Constitution
abolished all “order[s] of knighthood,” and refused legal recognition to any institution based
upon hereditary title and/or religious vows. 20 The document further declared that French
citizenship would automatically be forfeited “[b]y affiliation with any foreign order of
knighthood…which implies [re: that requires] either proofs of nobility[,]…distinctions of birth,
or…religious vows.” 21 From the moment Louis XVI reluctantly gave his approval to the finished
document, the Knights of Malta ceased to exist as a sovereign body in France, the three French
langues of the Order having been effectively abolished within the political boundaries of France,
and the Knights themselves having been declared non-citizens.
The initial actions of the National Assembly, when coupled with the new artifice of a
liberal constitution, served as a moral pretext for violence against those persons and institutions
who were deemed a threat to the Revolution’s nationalistic principles. The Knights of Malta, as
individuals and as an Order, thus were among the chief objects of popular bile and hatred. As a
result of the general spirit of antipathy towards the nobility engendered in the actions of the
Assembly, the Order’s properties were devalued by successive waves of looting and poaching.
22
Some Knights, recognizing the precariousness of their situation in France, urged conciliation
between the Order and the Assembly. The Chevalier de Foresta, a French Knight residing in
Marseilles, wrote a dispatch to the Order at Malta pleading the case for a neutral course between
loyalty to the Crown and sympathy with the aspirations of the French Republicans: “A single
spark of discord…will produce a fire which will consume the properties and the individuals of
19
“The Constitution of 1791,” in A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution, ed. John Hall Stewart (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1951), 231.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., 232.
22
Sire, Knights of Malta, 152, 153.
7
the Order in France.” He made a further ominous reference to the people “hav[ing]
yesterday…burnt a man to death for having spoken in disrespectful terms of the nation!” 23
Foresta’s misgivings about open opposition to the Revolution notwithstanding, the meaning
behind such events was clear: either one stood with the nation or with the enemies of the nation.
The Knights had to take sides in the struggle over the future of France, and naturally threw in
their lot with the remnant powers of the Ancien Regime.
Though the profound hatred of the Revolutionaries for any institutional representation of
feudal France did indeed steer the Order into a closer, but ultimately fatal, alliance with Louis
XVI, strong personalities should not be discounted as a factor in deciding the course of events.
Grand Master Rohan was a fighting man at heart, and was thoroughly unwilling to compromise
the Order’s position as defender of aristocratic privilege and the monarchy. Early in the
Revolution, as the National Assembly emerged triumphant over the King’s attempts at repressing
its authority, Rohan professed the Order’s “perfect devotion” to the “sacred person” of Louis
XVI, and voiced the Knights’ “determination never to separate [their] interests from those of the
24
crown.” Rohan was faithful to this pronouncement, and so the destruction of the prerogatives
of the Crown inevitably spelled the final demise of the Order in France.
The intertwined fates of the Order and the French Monarchy were sealed by the most
ignoble series of events, beginning with Louis’s tragicomic “Flight to Varennes,” and
culminating in his execution on 21 January, 1793. 25 It was indeed a Knight of Malta – the
Chevalier d’Estourmel – who lent, from the Order’s funds, the twelve-thousand Francs that
23
Ryan, House of the Temple, 190.
24
Cavaliero, Last of the Crusaders, 187.
25
Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003), 216.
8
Louis used to finance his attempted escape. 26 When Rohan received word of the King’s capture,
he suffered a massive stroke, one that rendered him paralyzed on his right side to the end of his
days. Thus, aside from the obvious problem of being indelibly associated with a now wildly
unpopular monarch, the Knights found that the survival of their Order at Malta rested “in the
hands of an invalid.” 27
The most devastating blow to the Knights’ interests in France came during the dark days
plodding the path to Louis’s execution. The Legislative Assembly, having duly noted the Order’s
participation in Louis’s attempted escape, voted to officially confiscate the Knights’ material
assets in France. Thus, on 19 September, 1792, the Knights’ French properties, which included
the Tower of the Temple wherein Louis XVI and his family were already being held prisoner,
were declared property of the French nation, the losses in revenue to the Order totaling some
one-hundred and twelve million livres. In all, these losses amounted to fully one-half of the
Order’s overall revenues from its langues. 28 The declaration against the Knights formed but a
small part of the radical agenda set in motion by the Legislative assembly. The incoming
National Convention abolished the monarchy and declared a “French Republic” on 21
September, destroying the last vestiges of Ancien Regime society in France. 29 Though the
Knights had already been robbed of legal status several years prior, this final blow rendered them
utterly destitute, and few Knights remained to witness King Louis XVI ascending the scaffold.
The Knights of the French langues had lost any hope of a restoration of the Ancien Regime, and
now had only to save themselves from the Republic or stand and perish.
26
Sire, Knights of Malta, 234.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
Tackett, When the King Took Flight, 215.
9
Bereft of property and income, the most of the remnant Knights fled to Malta, where they
were somehow to be provided for on the now meager and ever-declining revenues of the Order. 30
But even in open flight, they exhibited an often profound devotion to duty. The Chavalier
d’Estourmel was delayed in his escape from Paris by his own desperately felt need to assist, with
his own money, in the care of certain nuns of the Order who had been turned out of doors, their
habitations – former properties of the Order – having been confiscated, and their vocation having
been declared unlawful. 31 At Malta, Grand Master Rohan, even in his most pitiable state, refused
himself the comforts and luxuries of his office: he pawned most of his valuable possessions, and
instructed his servants to reserve only one scudo a day for his personal expenses, and to give the
rest to his “distressed brethren.” 32 Amidst the devastation, there were glimmers of personal
courage, and of hope for the future of the Order.
But they were faint, and fading, glimmers. Rohan’s incapacitated state severely weakened
the Order at Malta, and his death, on 13 July 1797, only made matters worse. 33 The Order,
marked enemies of the Revolution, had fallen victim to France’s internal consolidation; with
Rohan’s passing, outright invasion by the French Republic seemed a foregone conclusion. Rohan
himself recognized this: When, on his deathbed, he was told of the likelihood that the Austrian
Ferdinand von Hompesch would likely be his successor, he was said to lament: “The German is
not the man for a crisis such as this[,] and I shall be the last to die Grand Master of an illustrious
34
and independent Order.” Hompesch, though opposed to the Revolution, lacked the iron resolve
30
Porter, History of the Knights of Malta, 432.
31
Sire, Knights of Malta, 234.
32
Ibid.
33
Tennison, Chivalry and the Wounded, 91.
34
Ibid.
10
of Rohan. His ascendancy to the Office of the Grand Master was indeed inopportune given the
increasingly aggressive posturing of the French Republic towards Malta and its Knights.
In the years following Louis’s execution, Robespierre, and the infamous “Reign of
Terror,” the French Revolution underwent a transformation whereby the nationalistic elements of
its guiding principles were incorporated into larger schemes of imperial conquest. General
Napoleon Bonaparte was himself the embodiment of France’s developing national
consciousness, a strong leader dedicated to spreading the principles of the Revolution to other
nations. Further, he had a burning desire to undercut the overseas commercial dominance of his
and France’s chief rival to power: Great Britain. As the Order’s power diminished, the French
state consolidated and grew stronger, and cast – through the eyes of Bonaparte and the Directory
– a greedy gaze upon the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Comino.
35
The Order’s island home was a prize for any aspiring imperial claimant. Malta, situated
between Sicily and the coast of modern day Libya and possessing in Valletta “the finest and
securest port in the Mediterranean,” was considered an essential hub for European commerce in
the Levant. 36 Maltese ports were especially important to French commerce: in the latter half of
the 18th Century, far more French merchant vessels passed through Valletta than those of any
other nation. 37
35
For brevity’s sake, these are admittedly generalized sentiments on the writer’s part, but a fair summary of
Bonaparte’s motives can be obtained in J. Christopher Herold’s Bonaparte in Egypt (New York: Harper & Row,
1962), 1 – 4.
36
Albert Ganado and Joseph C. Sammut, Malta in British and French Caricature, 1789 – 1815 (Valletta: Said
International, Ltd., 1989), 11; A.B. Roger, The War of the Second Coalition, 1789 – 1801 (London: Oxford
University Press, 1964), 15.
37
Alexander B. Rodger, The War of the Second Coalition, 1789 – 1801 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964),
15.
11
Napoleon saw Malta as a springboard to a French Empire in the Orient. This desire
contributed immeasurably to his designs on Britain and Malta. Aware that uninhibited access to
the Mediterranean Sea was imperative for the British in maintaining control of their far flung
imperial possessions (India especially), Napoleon sought to build a strong naval presence on a
widely dispersed series of island chains therein. Thus he trained his sights on Sardinia, Crete,
Corfu, and Malta.
38
Bonaparte was indeed a force to be reckoned with on the Continent, but his power at sea
was largely untested, and there were yet impediments to his schemes of imperial conquest
besides the island kingdom of Britain. He had an implacable enemy in Russia, a nation that had
begun to establish a naval presence in the Mediterranean under the auspices of its diplomatic
agreements with the Turks. 39 The Order, having spurned British aid at the behest of the resident
majority of French Knights at Malta, 40 thusly began to view Russia as a last hope and ally.
The official attitude of the Order towards Russia can be fairly summarized in the words
of the Alsatian Knight Charles de Knonau: “Russia is now our diplomatic Orient, and from her
comes the light, faint it is true, and false, but seeing that it has lit up the horizon, we must follow
where it leads.” 41 The French Knights of the Order, now concentrated at Malta, were, however,
conflicted about their loyalties, and there was discord within their ranks as to the proper course
of action. 42 Still, it was clear that the Order’s longstanding policy of official neutrality (which
38
Ibid., 16, 21.
39
Cavaliero, Last of the Crusaders, 158.
40
“The Poussielgue Report,” in Malta Surrendered: An Eyewitness Account of Napoleon’s Invasion in 1798: The
Doublet Memoirs and The Poussielgue Report, ed. and trans. Joe Scicluna (Valletta: Allied Publications, 2011), 8,
14.
41
Freller, Malta: the Order of St. John, 203, 204.
12
prevented it from becoming embroiled in wars between Christian powers and helped it maintain
peaceful relations with all states wherein it possessed property) would no longer be tenable. 43 As
in the initial stages of the Revolution, sides had to be chosen, and the Knights, in an act of
desperation, threw in their lot with the Russians.
Napoleon urgently felt the need to act, to take up residence at Malta before his enemies
could move in, was exacerbated by the looming presence of the Russians in Europe. Though
Catherine the Great had passed away a year before Rohan, the Russian advance upon Eastern
Europe continued unabated, with the third and final Partition of Poland in 1795 annexing to her
domains a further sizeable chunk of territory therein. 44 Catherine herself had been a fickle
supporter of the Order, but her successor, Czar Paul I, was ostensibly agreeable to the Knights’
interests: upon absorbing the Order’s Polish Priory into his own realm, he greatly increased the
revenues allotted to it, and arranged to have it incorporated into the new Anglo-Bavarian langue
as a means of at least partly compensating the Order for the property and revenue it had lost in
France. 45 But the new Czar was also, like Napoleon, an ambitious and energetic imperialist, and
one who now had a real claim to authority within the Order itself. Paul’s devotion to the Order
stemmed from his Romantic ideas of Chivalry, but also from his inherently conservative
disposition as the head of a state that was perhaps the last truly stalwart representative of the
Ancien Regime left in Continental Europe, albeit in distinctly Russified form. 46
42
“The Doublet Memoirs,” in Malta Surrendered: An Eyewitness Account of Napoleon’s Invasion in 1798: The
Doublet Memoirs and The Poussielgue Report, ed. and trans. Joe Scicluna (Valletta: Allied Publications, 2011), 149.
43
Ryan, House of the Temple, 11.
44
Freller, Malta: the Order of St. John, 206.
45
Reuben Cohen, Knights of Malta, 1523 – 1798 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920), 53, 54.
46
Freller, Malta: the Order of St. John, 207.
13
The Grand Master’s office actively courted Russian assistance, dispatching the Balli de
Litta as official Ambassador to the Czar’s imperial court, in the hope of hammering out the
details of a defensive alliance between the two powers. 47 Napoleon, aware of the Order’s
diplomatic mission to Russia (a letter sent from the Balli de Litta to the Grand Master, detailing a
proposal of alliance, was intercepted by Napoleon’s army and promptly sent to the Directory at
Paris), 48 resolved to send spies to Valletta. One of them, Etienne Poussielgue, wrote a detailed
account of the state of the Knights. He estimated that, of the approximately six-hundred Knights
then dwelling at Malta, two-thirds were French. 49 The inhabitants of the island were, as
Poussielgue reported, in a state of disquietude at Napoleon’s conquests in Italy. Further, the
Order, in caring for its exiled Knights, was then running a budget deficit of approximately two
million livres, and thus was in no condition to shoulder the additional cost of a proper defense. 50
Russia seemed the only power capable of defending the Knights, an ostensible fact
known to all interested parties. On 29 November, 1797, a solemn ceremony was performed at St.
Petersburg, solidifying an alliance between the two great remaining defenders of the Ancien
Regime. On that day, Czar Paul I, his Empress, and the exiled French Prince de Conde, were
invested with the Grand Cross of the Order (an honor normally reserved to the greatest of the
Order’s own Knights), and Paul was named “Protector of the Order at Malta.” 51
Napoleon, at this stage, hardly needed to persuade the Directory to support Malta’s
invasion. The time to act was short, and France, if it was to overcome British sea domination of
the East, had to occupy Malta before the Russians could arrive to make their agreements with
47
Porter, History of the Knights of Malta, 435.
48
Ibid., 439.
49
“The Poussielgue Report,” in Malta Surrendered, 5.
50
Ibid., 7, 15.
51
Porter, History of the Knights of Malta, 439.
14
the Order effectual. In a letter to Talleyrand, he relayed intelligence that the Knights were “dying
of hunger,” and that the native Maltese population seemed well-disposed to a French takeover of
the islands. 52 He further bragged of having “purposely confiscated all [the Order’s] possessions
in Italy,” another blow to their already depleted financial resources. 53 The Directory, having
submitted to Napoleon’s judgment on the matter, and assented to his imperial schemes on Egypt,
issued an unpublished decree on 12 April, 1798, instructing General Bonaparte to occupy
Malta. 54 In so doing, the Directory made clear its grievances against the Order: that the Knights
had displayed a hostile attitude towards France from the Revolution’s outset, harbored declared
enemies of the Republic (émigré Knights who had effectively renounced their French citizenship
by virtue of their continued affiliation with the Order), and had allied themselves to a nation that
threatened France’s vital national interests. 55
Napoleon’s departure from Toulon on 19 May 1798 sounded the death knell of the Order
at Malta. 56 The French armada that descended upon the Knights’ island fortress contained fourhundred ships, carrying more than fifty-five thousand men and ample munitions for a prolonged
siege. 57 The situation, when viewed through Hompesch’s eyes, must have looked hopeless.
Though the fortifications at Malta were in good repair, the manpower available was
52
Letters and Documents of Napoleon, Vol 1: The Rise to Power, ed. and trans. John Eldred Howard (2 Vol: New
York: Oxford University Press, 1961), 201.
53
Ibid.
54
Ibid., 233.
55
Ibid.
56
Alexander B. Rodger, The War of the Second Coalition, 1789 – 1801 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964),
38.
57
J. Christopher Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 1.
15
insufficient. 58 Valletta could only feasibly muster about three-hundred and thirty Knights and
fewer than three-thousand Maltese infantrymen. 59 The staggeringly large French armada
approached Valletta on 9 June 1798, and struck panic in the hearts of the Maltese: “[the people
ashore]…when they looked at the horizon, could not see water, but only sky and ships.” 60
Napoleon’s entourage of warships, “whose masts resembled a huge forest,” swathed the bare
rock of Malta. 61
Having arrived outside of the Grand Harbor at Valletta, Napoleon promptly sent a
dispatch to the Grand Master requesting permission to dock inside the harbor gates and replenish
his depleted water stores. 62 Hompesch, knowing Bonaparte’s true intent, gave his reluctant
consent, but on the condition that only four vessels be permitted within the gates at a single time,
per a decree of the Order’s Sacred Council of 1768. 63 Bonaparte, having arrived at Malta with
the intention of having his honor impugned, feigned outrage at the Order’s cold reception and
shot off a reply in which he threatened to “secure by force what ought to have been accorded…in
the name of hospitality.” 64
The battle that ensued the following day (10 June) was embarrassingly brief and onesided. Napoleon staged a swift invasion of the Maltese countryside and possessed the most of it
58
Sire, Knights of Malta, 239.
59
Thomas Freller and Gabrielle Von Trauchburg, The Last Knight of Malta (Valletta: Midsea Books Ltd., 2010),
106.
60
Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt, 1.
61
Ibid.
62
Freller, Malta: the Order of St. John, 210.
63
Ryan, House of the Temple, 276, 277.
64
Letters and Documents of Napoleon, 235.
16
by noon of the same day. The island of Gozo was under occupation by nightfall. 65 On 11 June,
Napoleon’s forces returned to Valletta, surrounded the city, and waited for the Grand Master’s
inevitable surrender. Hompesch, having scarcely any choice but to capitulate, promptly
surrendered the capitol city on the following morning. 66 Napoleon’s victory was almost
bloodless: he lost a mere three men in the entire campaign. 67
The Knights of Malta lost everything, including their home. The capitulation documents,
signed aboard Napoleon’s flagship L’Orient, banished the Knights from the islands (save for the
few Knights who were documented friends of the Republic: these were invited to remain) and
imposed the principles of the Revolution via a series of articles providing for a provisional
government to replace that of the Order. 68 In an official dispatch sent to the Directory, Napoleon
boasted that the “standard of liberty floats on the forts of Malta.” 69
Dispersed from yet another home and base of operations, the Knights mostly fled to
Russia, swelling the ranks of the new Russian Priory. 70 The Priory in turn had sufficient strength
to declare Czar Paul I, its patron, the new Grand Master, thrusting aside the exiled Ferdinand von
Hompesch and effectively destroying the Knights as an independent Order. 71 Though Russian
domination was short-lived, the Knights of Malta never recovered their former status, and would
never again be permitted to reclaim the islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino as their exclusive
possessions. The French occupation of Malta was also short-lived, as Napoleon’s Egyptian
65
Freller, Malta: the Order of St. John, 210.
66
Ibid.
67
Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Napoleon: A History of European Civilization from 1789 – 1815 (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1975), 109.
68
Letters and Documents of Napoleon, 238 – 241.
69
Ibid., 237.
70
Freller, Malta: the Order of St. John, 208.
71
Ibid.
17
campaigns ended in disaster, and the British quickly took possession of his only briefly realized
imperial gains. Though the Peace of Amiens stipulated the re-installment of the Knights at Malta,
civil unrest amongst the native Maltese (who preferred British rule) made the prospect untenable,
and defeated the Order’s last hope of a restoration. 72
The strength and vitality of the Order of the Knights of Malta was predicated upon the
continuation, in form and substance, of received institutions dating from a bygone Age. The
French Revolution in its infantile form shattered these institutions; in imperial form, it
perpetuated itself outward to collect and discard the pieces. The Knights were victims of radical,
unforeseen changes to their world. Their institution – as it was then constituted – was
dismembered by the machinations of an implacably hostile foe. Though it would be futile to
attempt to relive the glories of an archaic past, there are yet faint glimmers of it that can never be
wholly extinguished in the hearts of true believers. The Knights are a mythology, but Christian
civilization needs the myth if it is to turn the barren rock of modernity into something worth
defending. If the days of the Knights of Malta were numbered, what of our own? Where are the
true Knights of Malta, those who might “adorn their Knighthood with a true charity, the Mother
and solid foundation of all virtues [?]” 73 If the myth was untrue then, can it be made true now?
72
Ganado, Malta in British and French Caricature, 57, 59.
73
Ryan, The House of the Temple, 4.
Navigating “The Embryo of a Tornado”: James Madison and the Louisiana Purchase
Tristan New
James Madison, Secretary of State at the time of the Louisiana Purchase (30 April 1803),
played an essential diplomatic role in that territory’s acquisition by the United States. This role
chiefly applied diplomatic pressure in communications with French charge d’affaires LouisAndre Pichon and in his official instructions to American diplomats Robert R. Livingston and
James Monroe. Madison’s exclusive diplomatic objective in dealing with France was the
acquisition of New Orleans and West Florida, both essential to the preservation of American
commercial and security interests. On April 12 1803, however, France, under the direction of
First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, submitted an offer too good to refuse: the sale of the immense
and largely uncharted Louisiana Territory. This unanticipated decision stunned the American
diplomats stationed in Paris in its magnitude, but it was, in actuality, a product of the adroit
diplomatic maneuvering of Madison and a number of external factors over which the State
Department had no control. Although conventional accounts downplay Madison’s significance,
Madison, through his pragmatic approach in dealing with the French government and his
instructions to America’s diplomatic agents, played an indispensable role in the acquisition of
Louisiana by the United States.
The American effort to acquire New Orleans and West Florida was prefigured by the
Treaty of San Ildefonso of October 1 1800, whereby Spain retroceded Louisiana to France. 1
Although this agreement was conducted in secret, rumors concerning it began circulating in the
1
Jon Kukla, A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (New York: Anchor
Books, 2003), 214.
18
19
United States, and, in May 1801, American Minister to England, Rufus King, corroborated them,
stating that the reported retrocession “has, in all probability, since been executed.” 2
The potential threat to American security represented by transfer deeply concerned both
President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison because it shifted control of
Louisiana from a relatively weak Spain to France, a major military power. As Madison wrote to
Robert Livingston, “It cannot be the interest of this country to favor any voluntary or compulsive
transfer of the possession in question from Spain to France.” Madison tempered this
disapprobatory remark, stating:
Should it be found that the cession from Spain to France has irrevocably taken
place, or certainly will take place, sound policy will require…that nothing be said
or done which will unnecessarily irritate our future neighbors, or check the
liberality which they may be disposed to exercise in relation to the trade and
navigation through the mouth of the Mississippi. 3
Unprepared for the French assumption of Louisiana, the American State Department was
forced to resort to a flexible brand of diplomacy, whereby it would exert as much negative
pressure on France as possible without bringing about direct hostilities.
The pragmatic and restrained approach to the Louisiana question initially adopted by
Madison contrasted sharply with that of President Jefferson, whose penchant for grandiloquent
gesture vastly exceeded Madison’s. Jefferson, at least rhetorically, adopted a belligerent posture
toward France, using personal friend Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours as an intermediary to
relay bellicose remarks such as the observation that the French reacquisition of Louisiana would
2
Rufus King to James Madison, May 1, 1801 in The Papers of James Madison, Secretary of State Series, eds. Robert
J. Brugger, Robert A. Rutland, Robert Rhodes Crout, Jeanne K. Sisson, and Dru Dowdy vol. 1, 4 March–31
July 1801 (5 vols. to date. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986-), 132-135.
3
Madison to Robert Livingston, September 28, 1801 JM: SOS 4: 142-147.
20
yield “a war which will annihilate her on the ocean” and that “This speck which now appears as
an almost invisible point in the horizon, is the embryo of a tornado which will burst on the
countries on both sides of the Atlantic, and involve in its effects their highest destinies.” 4
Madison, too, invoked the threat of the commencement of hostilities with France over
Louisiana, but, in contrast to his longtime associate and collaborator, primarily as a means of
securing American acquisition of New Orleans and West Florida. He instructed Livingston to
expend maximum effort to relieve Napoleon of any dreams of a North American empire. France
could avert conflict either by failing to assume the possession of Louisiana guaranteed it by the
Treaty of San Ildefonso or by selling New Orleans and the Floridas to the United States. In case
the rumors were false and France had not reacquired Louisiana, he instructed the American
Minister in Madrid to pursue the same territorial objective through negotiations with the Spanish
government. 5 Madison did not totally eschew the threat of war as a means of persuading
Napoleon to respect America’s interests regarding the desired territories. However, the Secretary
of State did approach the Louisiana question with more moderate tone than that employed by
Jefferson. Madison had already begun to display a practicality of approach which proved
essential in bringing about the opportunity for the United States to subsequently to purchase the
territory.
The American sense of apprehension regarding Louisiana was exacerbated in November
of 1802, when the Spanish Intendant at New Orleans, Juan Ventura Morales, suspended the
American right of commercial deposit at the city’s docks. 6 This decision sparked a firestorm of
animosity in the western section of the United States. New Orleans was absolutely vital to their
4
Alexander DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana (New York: Scribner, 1976), 114-115.
5
Ibid., 115-116.
6
Kevin R.C. Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2007), 288.
21
commercial pursuits (and therefore their livelihoods); deprivation of access to it would be
tremendously detrimental to them. 7 Madison desired to appease these restless Westerners, whose
loyalty to the United States might be breached if the nation failed to protect their commercial
interests. 8 The Secretary of State therefore informed British charge d’affaires Edward Thornton
that the United States needed to acquire incontrovertible sovereignty over some territory directly
adjacent to the mouth of the Mississippi, whereby it might enjoy an untouched right of
navigation. 9 Nevertheless, writing to Robert Livingston, he expressed hope that the suspension
would be revoked by Spain:
The excitement however which it has produced ought to admonish the Holders
whoever they may be, of the Mouth of the Mississippi, that justice, ample justice
to the Western Citizens of the U. States, is the only tenure of peace with this
Country. There are now or in two years will be, not less than 200,000 Militia on
the waters of the Mississippi., every man of whom would march at a Minutes
warning to remove obstructions from that outlet to the Sea, every man of whom
regards the free use of that river as a natural & indefeasable right, and is
conscious of the physical force that can at any time give effect to it. This
consideration ought not to be overlooked by France, and would be alone
sufficient, if allowed its due weight, to cure the phrensy which covets
Louisiana.” 10
Madison and Jefferson responded to the suspension of the right of deposit in January
1803 by securing a congressional appropriation of $2,000,000 for unstated diplomatic purposes.
They used this money to appoint (without first obtaining his express consent) James Monroe,
greatly venerated by residents of the American West, as envoy extraordinary to France. In this
capacity, Monroe was to assist Robert Livingston, who had reached an impasse in negotiations
7
Charles E. Hill, “James Madison.” in The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, ed. Samuel Flagg
Bemis (New York: Cooper Square, 1963), 17.
8
9
DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana, 121-122.
Irving Brant, James Madison: Secretary of State, 1801-1809 (Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), 99.
10
James Madison to Robert R. Livingston, December 17, 1802, in JM: SOS, 4: 197-199.
22
with the French government, in striving to acquire the Floridas and New Orleans. 11 Explaining
the imperative for commissioning Monroe, Madison wrote to a Congressional committee that
“The Floridas and New Orleans command the only outlets to the sea” for the Western region of
the United States and “must become a part of the United States, either by purchase or
conquest.” 12 Here, Madison clearly iterated the United States’ need to acquire those territories,
consideration for which indelibly shaped his approach to dealing with the French.
Madison attempted to augment Monroe’s appointment by appealing to Louis Pichon for
assistance. Madison presented Pichon an explanation of the necessity of American possession of
New Orleans and West Florida (namely, its vitality to the preservation of American settlements
on the upper Mississippi and Mobile Rivers) and the territory’s minimal value to France. The
Secretary of State made no pretenses of American desire for the territory west of the Mississippi
River, but rather insisted that France had a manifold interest in establishing the Mississippi as its
boundary with the United States. Madison ended his exchange with Pichon by suggesting that,
should Napoleon fail to heed these suggestions, “it might happen that the conduct of France
would decide political combinations which, getting the upper hand of all these considerations,
would tend to produce results no doubt disagreeable to the United States, but certainly still more
13
so to France and her allies.” These suggestions apparently impressed Pichon, who reported to
French Foreign Minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord that “…these feelings of
concern which Mr. Madison expressed to me are generally felt and …public opinion in the latest
11
Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), 203-204.
12
Brant, Madison, Secretary of State, 106.
13
Henry Adams, History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Library of
America, 1986), 295-296.
23
circumstances expresses itself at least as strongly and energetically as the government.” 14 By
using implicitly bellicose language, Madison succeeded in making his point to Pichon, thereby
strengthening American chances of acquiring the territories necessary to the preservation of its
commercial and security interests.
Madison continued to use forceful language to make Pichon aware of the extent of
animosity supposedly brewing in the United States because of the Treaty of San Ildefonso and
the suspension of the right of deposit in New Orleans. As the charge d’ affaires reported:
He told me that it was true the nation was in a ferment, especially in the West; that
it felt its strength, and that it needed all the confidence it has in the government to
prevent it from acting. That this circumstance had made the United States itself
examine the national disposition, and to conclude that it held the balance in the
new world and could decide it at any moment: there was one power
which realized this perfectly, and it was to be hoped that all would realize it. 15
Madison asserted the preeminence of the United States in the New World, stating:
That the United States had no inclination to make a trial of their strength but if
they were obliged to do so, it was easy to see what the outcome would be: that in
truth their interest was that the new world remain at peace; that the wars of
Europe should not prolong their ravage there, and that it would depend in great
part on them, one day, to guarantee it this tranquility. 16
Through these exchanges with Pichon, Madison capitalized on the extent of American
Westerners’ unrest regarding the prospect of French assumption of Louisiana. The latter was
fueled by Westerners’ need for access to the port of New Orleans for commercial purposes. 17
14
Brant, Madison, Secretary of State, 117-118.
15
Ibid., 120
16
Ibid.
17
Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, The Oxford History of the United
States, ed. David M. Kennedy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 368.
24
Madison’s application of diplomatic pressure to Pichon (and, thereby, the French government)
was grounded in his belief in the absolute necessity of the Mississippi to American commercial
interests; the Secretary had written to American Minister to Spain Charles Pinckney regarding
the river in 1802: “It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac and all the navigable rivers of the
Atlantic states formed into one stream.” 18 French control over New Orleans would be immensely
detrimental to the ability of American traders to ship their goods abroad; it was therefore
essential for the United States to obtain possession of the territory and thereby eliminate the
threat to the nation’s ability to engage in international commerce.
Madison’s approach to resolving the numerous problems inherent in French control over
Louisiana was exemplified most clearly in his instructions to America’s diplomatic agents in
Paris. Writing in January 1803 to Robert Livingston to notify him of the recently approved
Monroe mission, Madison clearly outlined the nation’s diplomatic objectives toward France. He
stated that, “The object…will be to procure a cession of New Orleans and the Floridas to the
United States and consequently the establishment of the Mississippi as the boundary between the
United States and Louisiana.”
19
The Secretary of State reiterated these goals in a March 2, 1803, letter addressed both to
Livingston and James Monroe, wherein Madison proclaimed that “The object in view is to
procure by just and satisfactory arrangements, a Cession to the United States, of New Orleans,
and of West and East Florida, or as much as the actual proprietor thereof can be prevailed upon
to part with.” The diplomatic agents were instructed to acquire, in perpetuity, “the territory East
of the River Mississippi, comprehending the two Floridas, the Island of New Orleans and the
18
Irving Brant, The Fourth President: A Life of James Madison (Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), 321.
19
Madison to Livingston, 18 January 1803, in JM:SOS vol. 4, 259-261.
25
Islands lying to the North and East of that channel of the said river, which is commonly called
the South-pass, together with all such other Islands as appertain to either West or East Florida.” 20
Again, Madison articulated the guiding principle of diplomatic conduct towards France: the
acquisition of the Floridas and New Orleans.
The objectives Madison outlined to these two agents were not fulfilled as originally
stated, but were in fact (at least on a territorial scale) superseded. On 11 April 1803, Napoleon
summoned his Treasury Minister, Francois de Barbe-Marbois, to inform him of his decision to
sell the Louisiana Territory in its entirety. 21 On 12 April, Monroe arrived to Paris, completely
oblivious to this development. Barbe-Marbois divulged to Livingston Napoleon’s decision to sell
all of Louisiana to the United States, having conferred responsibility for conducting the
negotiations to the Minister. Although this offer did not precisely correspond to the instructions
given by Madison, Livingston accepted with great enthusiasm the challenge of negotiating the
purchase of the entire Louisiana Territory, possibly desiring to magnify his own prestige within
the United States. 22 The three diplomatic agents involved in the prospective transfer- BarbeMarbois, Livingston, and Monroe- began conducting serious negotiations regarding the sale of
the Louisiana territory on 15 April and gathered at Monroe’s Parisian lodgings on 27 April to
debate a number of treaty drafts. On 30 April, they initialed the treaty ceding Louisiana to the
United States, as well as two accompanying conventions. 23
20
Madison to Livingston and James Monroe, 2 March 1803, ibid., 364-379.
21
DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana, 164.
22
Ibid., 167; Ammon, James Monroe, 212.
23
DeConde, This Affair of Louisiana, 168-171.
26
Under the terms of Article I of the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, the United States acquired,
in its entirety, the expanse retroceded by Spain to France under the 1 October, 1800 Treaty of
24
San Ildefonso. Although this territory did not encompass West Florida, which Madison had
consistently instructed first Livingston, and then both Livingston and Monroe, to obtain, it
nevertheless constituted a significant territorial windfall for the United States. For the scant price
of $15 million, the United States acquired approximately 900,000,000 square miles of Western
territory, including the highly coveted port of New Orleans. 25
Despite the enormity of their diplomatic breakthrough, Livingston and Monroe were
compelled to apologize for failing to fulfill Madison’s instructions. In a jointly written letter,
dated 13 May, they explained their rationale for proceeding to accept the offer fielded by BarbeMarbois. While they conceded that “An acquisition of so great an extent was, we well Know, not
contemplated by our appointment,” they observed that the benefits inherent to the purchase
overshadowed any transgressions they may have committed in straying from their instructions.
Most notably, the United States had acquired both banks of the Mississippi; if they had merely
acquired the right bank, as instructed, and left the opposite side under French possession, conflict
would have inevitably ensued. By attaining unmitigated American control over the entire course
of the Mississippi River and its port of New Orleans, they vastly exceeded the expectations of
Secretary of State Madison. 26
24
Louisiana Purchase Treaty, April 30, 1803. Accessed at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/louis1.asp
25
Wood, Empire of Liberty, 369.
26
Livingston and Monroe to Madison, 13 May 1803, JM: SOS vol. 4., 601-606; Kukla, A Wilderness So Immense, 287288; Mary Hackett, “James Madison’s Secretary of State Years, 1801-1809: Successes and Failures in Foreign
Relations,” in A Companion to James Madison and James Monroe, ed. Stuart Leibiger (Wiley-Blackwell: Hoboken,
New Jersey, 2013), 181.
27
Responsibility for bringing about the Louisiana Purchase has been ascribed to a number
of different factors by historians, including the resumption of hostilities between France and
Britain in 1803, the bankruptcy of the French treasury, and the decimation of a French military
expedition to San Domingo by yellow fever (which dissipated any ambitions for a North
American empire harbored by Napoleon). However, Napoleon’s decision to sell Louisiana was
in no small part the result of James Madison’s adroit combination of direct diplomatic pressure
(via Louis Pichon) and persistence in pressing for untrammeled American commercial access to
New Orleans. While any comprehensive analysis of the Louisiana Purchase would be hampered
by failure to consider the aforementioned factors, Madison’s approach to diplomacy with Francesometimes blustering and sometimes restrained, but always adaptive to circumstance-was
instrumental in bringing about the transfer of Louisiana from France to the United States through
the Louisiana Purchase Treaty of 30 April 1803.
American Moral Diplomacy:
Missionaries, the Wilsonian Paradigm, and the Congo Reform Movement
Matthew E. Kelley
The United States has often been classified as an isolationist power at the end of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. However, this is a misconception.
Powerful forces pushed the United States into a greater role in international affairs. One of these
movements centered on evangelical missionaries serving overseas in faraway European colonies.
One prime example of the influence of missionaries on American foreign policy is the Congo
Free State at the turn of the century. History knows the Congo Free State as the symbol of human
atrocities in Africa. The impact of missionaries serving in the Congo on American foreign policy
shows proof of what political scientist Walter Russell Mead refers to as the “Wilsonian
Paradigm.” The history of American foreign policy over this issue is perfectly characteristic of
this paradigm, and shows the early development of the American practice of moral diplomacy.
The Congo Free State was unique among European colonies in the nineteenth century and
it was because of this uniqueness that its atrocities were so brutal. Inspired by his father’s dreams
of imperialism, King Leopold II of Belgium saw the mapping of the Congo as the crucial time
and location to launch Belgium’s colonial empire in the 1860s and 1870s. 1 By the mid1870s Leopold II formed an organization that later became known as the Association
Internationale du Congo to inquire about gaining international recognition for possession of the
1
George Martelli, A History of the Belgian Congo, 1877-1960 (London, UK: Chapman & Hall Ltd, 1962), 13-14.
28
29
territory. 2 Though it was mostly explored by British adventurers, Great Britain had no inclination
to gaining it as part of their already vast colonial possessions. Leopold II, through his close
relationship and family ties to Great Britain, was able to gain the support of British explorers for
his organization. After obtaining a material foothold to the territory through funding these
explorers to expand their treks up the Congo River, all that Leopold II required was international
recognition of his possession.
A major problem occurred when the Belgian government, a legislative body under the
king, refused to get involved in the procurement of the colony. The legislature was made up of a
majority of Socialists and Catholics, who created an anti-imperialist bloc. Thus, Leopold II
changed the Association Internationale du Congo into a sort of quasi-private corporation under
his dominant presidency. 3 In addition, he required international recognition for the organization,
not for the Belgian government. To do this, Leopold sought recognition at the Conference of
Berlin in 1884. The conference included representatives from most of the European colonial
powers, and it focused on legitimizing territory and trade in Africa. 4 The most concerned over
Leopold’s possession of the Congo were Great Britain, Portugal, and France. Great Britain was
the easiest to sway, but the French and the Portuguese, who claimed territory at the mouth of the
Congo River, were difficult to persuade.
In an effort to gain international support, Leopold II looked to the United States for
recognition. Leopold promised the U.S. to civilize the Congo and suppress slavery while
2
Roger Antsey, King Leopold’s Legacy: Congo under Belgian Rule, 1908-1960 (London, UK: Oxford University Press,
1966), 1.
3
Ibid.
4
Martelli, A History of the Belgian Congo, 98
.
30
continuing the freedom of trade in the territory. 5 He steered much of his language to fit the wave
of support in the U.S. for relocating freed men to Liberia. 6 He was able to gain support from
Henry S. Sanford, former ambassador to Belgium, and Congressman John T. Morgan, a leading
member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Senate. They persuaded the current president,
Chester A. Arthur, to include Leopold’s right to the Congo in his annual address to Congress in
1884. The U.S. government was won over to support the Association Internationale du Congo
with formal, international recognition of Leopold’s private dominion over the territory. 7 They
promised to civilize the area and open the door for American missionaries to establish
themselves in the Congo; a force Leopold first saw as allies but later became his enemy.
Missionaries to the Congo after Leopold II’s takeover of the territory were not a new
phenomenon. The origins of missionaries to the coast line and mouth of the Congo River date
back to the Portuguese in 1482. 8 Missions were few and were run by the Catholic Church, but
they were never able to gain a permanent foothold. By the sixteenth century, the Catholic
missionaries had left, and the population had completely reverted back to indigenous beliefs. The
next wave of missionaries came in the seventeenth century. Dutch Calvinists established
missions at the mouth of the Congo River, but their goal was not to help civilize or preach the
Gospel to the indigenous population. Instead, they set up the infamous Bas-Congo region to
supply slaves to the Western Hemisphere. 9 They divided the population and conducted raids on
5
Jeanne M. Haskins, The Tragic State of the Congo: From Decolonization to Dictatorship (New York, Algora
Publications, 2005), 1, accessed April 26, 2015, eBook Collection (EBSCOhost).
6
Martelli, A History of the Belgian Congo, 91.
7
Matthew G. Stanard, Selling the Congo: A History of European Pro-Empire Propaganda and the Making of Belgian
Imperialism (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2012), 27.
8
Martelli, A History of the Belgian Congo, 7.
9
Ibid.
31
villages to steal men, women, and children for the slave trade. This continued until the end of the
slave trade by the British and the Americans, which then helped start the wave of Anglomissionaries into Africa as a whole.
The promise Leopold II made to the United States saw an immediate surge of Protestant
missionaries from America to the Congo Free State as it was being occupied. The impact though
was that they were able to visit the interior for the first time thanks to his development of roads,
steamboat access, and rail lines built to pierce into Central Africa. From 1885 to 1890, the Congo
Free State saw an influx of hundreds of Protestant missionaries from the U.S. move inland and
10
setup missions all along the coast of the Congo River. The two largest groups of missionaries
from the United States came from the American Baptists, often from the American Baptist
Missionary Union, and the American Presbyterian Church. 11 By 1890, somewhere between
600 and 1,000 missionaries from the United States were involved in the Congo Free State.
Instead of trying to limit missionaries, Leopold II encouraged them and even used them for
some of the official government functions of the Congo Free State. Some of these jobs that
the missionaries took included land surveyors and linguists. 12 Although missionaries stayed
apart from the commercial aspects of the state’s work, they marched right alongside the
commercial agents of Leopold as they conducted their business and built more inland towns
and outposts. A majority of the Protestant missionaries in the Congo saw themselves not only
as spreaders of the Gospel, but as social engineers working towards a “Christian society.” 13
Thus, missionaries had a perfect view of the conduct of state officials and policies going on
within the Congo Free State.
10
Marvin D. Markowitz, “The Missions and Political Development in the Congo,” The Journal of the International
African Institute 40, no. 3 (1970) 234, (accessed May 1, 2015) http://www.jstor.org/stable/1158884.
11
Stanard, Selling the Congo, 43.
12
Markowitz, “The Missions and Political Development in the Congo,” 236.
32
Strange letters and news began emerging from missionaries in the Congo Free State in
the 1890s. As it drew closer to the turn of the century, these reports grew in number until the
American, Protestant church communities finally understood what was being done in the
Congo. 14 It seemed as though Leopold II was continuing the Dutch model of “economic
exploitation to enrich the metropole.” 15 He used his company officials and taxation to extract
resources from the colony while harshly subjugating the people to forced labor. Many
missionaries condemned this as state-sponsored slavery of the Congolese people.
16
The main source of the atrocities was rubber production. The high demand for rubber
extraction resulted in high quotas being placed on regions, which pushed authorities to extract it
by any means possible. 17 It resulted in mass killings, pillaging of villages, kidnapping of
children, and brutal punishments. The most infamous of these punishments was the severing of
hands and ears of the native population. 18 In addition, forced labor allowed little time for the
production of food. As a result, starvation was rampant as well within the Congo Free State. It
13
Ibid.
14
John Daniels, “The Congo Question and the ‘Belgian Solution,’” The North American Review 188, no. 637 (1908),
891, accessed May 1, 2015, http://jstor.org/stable/25106259.
15
Stanard, Selling the Congo, 27.
16
Haskin, The Tragic State of the Congo, 9.
17
Stanard, Selling the Congo, 30.
18
Haskin, The Tragic State of the Congo, 2.
33
was these atrocities that missionaries began reporting back to the U.S., in which “the most
inhumane cruelty and butchery were being practiced upon the natives of the Congo Free
State.” 19
Missionaries created domestic pressure on the U.S. government by sending back reports
and pictures of what was going on in the Congo to their churches. Reverend A. E. Scrivener, a
Baptist missionary, wrote a letter describing everything in the state being conducted for business
and nothing for philanthropy. He heavily wrote criticisms of military rule by the Force Publique,
a militia unit organized by the state to extract quotas. While he was stationed in the Momboyo
River region, he recorded his eyewitness account of the atrocities for the people in the U.S. to
know:
Each time the corporal goes out to [extract] rubber, cartridges are given to him.
He must bring back all not used; and for everyone used, he must bring back a
right hand!... As to the extent to which this is carried on, he informed that in the
sixth months they, the state, on the Momboyo River had used 6,000 cartridges,
which means that 6,000 people are killed or mutilated. It means more than 6,000
for the people have told me repeatedly that soldiers kill children with the butt of
their guns. 20
Rev. Scrivener wrote another letter in 1903 that described the population of the Ngonyo
village as declining from 2,000 in 1898 to 200 in 1903. 21
From the Presbyterian Church, William Henry Sheppard, Jr. became nationally
recognized for his articles and photographs sent back to the States. 22 He was a prominent African
American missionary in the Congo and missioned primarily in the Southern Congo. He too
19
.
Daniels, “The Congo Question,” 891
20
Antsey, King Leopold’s Legacy, 6-7.
21
Ibid., 8.
22
Benedict Carton, “From Hampton ‘Into the Heart of Africa:’ How Faith in God and Folklore turned Congo
Missionary William Sheppard into a Pioneering Ethnologist,” History of Africa 36 (2009), 53, accessed May 1, 2015,
http://www.jstor .org/stable/40864516.
34
observed the atrocities committed by the Force Publique, and he wrote on killings of whole
families and enslaving survivors of slaughtered villages. 23 He also sent back photographs of
mutilations and burnings that were published by the Presbyterian Church. 24 The church
distributed pamphlets including his letters and photographs to its members during mass. They
were distributed to the community and caused outrage over the atrocities to grow. Soon,
newspapers began to pick up reports via missionaries in the early 1900’s.
The pressure against King Leopold II and the Congo Free State increased until there were
calls for immediate action in 1902 and 1903. Support for action grew until non-government
organizations to press the U.S. federal government to do something about this crisis. The most
influential of these groups was the Congo Reform Association. 25 Created in 1903, the Congo
Reform Association was unique because it was not centered in the U.S. alone. It also had an
organization in Great Britain and worked as a domestic and international organization for
reforming the Congo Free State. The American Congo Reform Association was chaired by many
prominent religious leaders: Dr. Thomas Barbour, Foreign Secretary of the American Baptist
Missionary Union, Booker T. Washington, Presbyterian minister Henry Van Dyke and Lyman
Abbot. 26 This group included a mixture of intellectual elites, such as David Starr Jordan,
Stanford University president, and author Mark Twain as chairman. Their goal was to curb social
injustice. 27 The church leaders used their contacts with missionaries to gather primary sources for
23
Ibid., 54.
24
Ibid., 70.
25
Daniels, “The Congo Question,” 892.
26
Hunt Hawkins, “Mark Twain’s Involvement with the Congo Reform Movement: ‘A Fury of Generous
Indignation,’” The New England Quarterly 51, no. 2 (June 1978), 161, accessed May 1, 2015,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/364304.
27
Ibid.
35
publication and the others helped with publication and government influence. Mark Twain
published many of these pamphlets and articles with his own money. 28 He even wrote several
pieces himself, including King Leopold’s Soliloquy. They are estimated to have had reached 68
million Americans through distribution to create pressure on the U.S. government.
As organizations such as these gained influence, the pressure mounted on the federal
government to act. Presbyterian missionary William Morrison organized protests while meetings
occurred in Washington D.C. 29 Morrison, backed by the Congo Reform Association, presented
the atrocities to the U.S. Senate on 19 April 1904 along with a conference of other missionaries,
who had eyewitness accounts from their experiences in the Congo. Their presentation was called
The Memorial Concerning Conditions in the Independent States of the Congo, and it won
congressional support. These congressmen began writing to the State Department and President
Theodore Roosevelt requesting immediate action and diplomatic pressure on the Congo Free
State. Among them, some of the harshest letters came from Representative Edwin Denby of
Michigan, who suggested transfering the lands to the more democratic body of the Belgian
government, and he demanded reform for the current conditions. 30 Mark Twain sat down with
President Teddy Roosevelt to convince him to take immediate action. 31 Around 1906, Roosevelt
heeded to public outcry and pushed for the State Department to put pressure on Leopold II.
28
Ibid., 156.
29
Ibid., 154.
30
Daniels, “The Congo Question,” 896.
31
Hawkins, “Mark Twain’s Involvement with the Congo Reform Movement,” 148.
36
The Congo Reform Association did not create pressure on the U.S. government alone.
They also worked towards making international law fall in their favor in order to put legal
pressure on Leopold. This developed into an internationally led Congo Commission of Inquiry in
July, 1904. 32 It was led by international representatives, including U.S. representatives and
backed by the Congo Reform Association. They conducted an international investigation into the
Congo Free State. Many reports came out of their investigation by the end of 1905. 33 These
included the Casement Report conducted by British official Roger Casement, funded by both the
British and American Congo Reform Association. 34 The official reports of moral and
humanitarian violations caused further uproar in these countries and other European powers.
Additional pressure on the signatories of the Berlin Act came with the publication of British
author and Congo reform activist Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. 35 Thus, international
pressure based on morality originated from an international body to reform the Congo Free State.
Back in the U.S., the State Department proved reluctant to apply pressure on Leopold II.
This changed in 1905, when Theodore Roosevelt made Elihu Root the Secretary of State. 36 Root
supported the Congo Reform Association before he was in the State Department. He bought
heavily into the idea of Christian enlightenment in foreign policy, and he took the influence of
missionary pressure as a true priority. By 1906, Root increased diplomatic pressure on Belgium
to reform. 37 He also worked at looking into the international law of the Berlin Agreement signed
32
Daniels, “The Congo Question,” 892.
33
Ibid.
34
Hawkins, “Mark Twain’s Involvement with the Congo Reform Movement,” 153.
35
Ibid., 148.
36
Daniels, “The Congo Question,” 894.
37
Hawkins, “Mark Twain’s Involvement with the Congo Reform Movement,” 172.
37
in 1885. By the wording of the agreement, Root declared that “the present situation is not that
which was contemplated or foreseen when the Free State was called in life.” 38 Leopold had not
upheld his agreement to protect the natives and promote civilization there. Root looked to the
signatories of the agreement to help remedy the situation for the sake of “the protection of the
natives and the amelioration of their moral and material conditions.” 39 Thus, the U.S.
government sided with missionaries and the Congo Reform Association in calling for immediate
intervention to “enforce respect for the humanitarian guarantees.” 40
U.S. pressure broke Belgium removing the Congo Free State from King Leopold II’s
rule. Most of the Congo Reform Association agreed to the Belgians taking over, and they saw
that leadership as more democratic than the previous commercial, military, and elite-driven rule.
It took about a year before the Belgian government, backed by an international coalition led by
Britain and America, agreed to take the Congo Free State from King Leopold II’s private reign in
1908. 41 The Congo passed into the government’s hands with the promise of correcting the
atrocities committed under his leadership. The exact number of the people who died from 1885
to 1908 in the Congo Free State will never be known. Some estimates conclude that 10 million
perished as of direct results of the state. Others think that the population was depleted from 30
million to 8 million by the end. 42 The number of severed hands and ears are incalculable, but it
became synonymous with the history of the Congo Free State. Thus, the heart of darkness was
38
Daniels, “The Congo Question,” 894.
39
Ibid., 893.
40
Ibid.
41
Haskin, The Tragic State of the Congo, 2.
42
Ibid.
38
not enlightened by King Leopold II as promised, but it was saved by those American
missionaries carrying the Gospel and a dream of a “Christian society” along with them.
The recollection of this particularly dark period of foreign affairs definitively shows the
proof in Walter Russell Mead’s “Wilsonian Paradigm” in American foreign policy. Though
named after President Woodrow Wilson, its influences, characteristics, and the practice of moral
diplomacy were present in American foreign policy much sooner than his presidency. 43 The
Congo Reform Movement proves just how influential it was on policy making. The importance
of American missionary activity in foreign policy is proven by this example of pressure for
reforms in the Congo. Driven by morality and humanitarianism, they advocated against social
injustice as defined by Mead’s “Wilsonian Paradigm.” 44 This example also shows how nongovernmental agencies, even ones made across nations, were used in the establishment of foreign
policy. They sought to persuade the U.S. to use its influence to promote an early idea of a human
rights agenda defined by Mead, but articulated in the outcry of atrocities committed against the
Congolese. The use of public opinion and the sentiment against military elite also appeared in the
reform movement. 45 The use of universities and international law remained relevant as well in
swaying the government to intervene. Therefore, the Congo Reform Movement is an excellent
example that demonstrated the presence of the “Wilsonian Paradigm” in the creation of
American foreign policy.
43
Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (New York:
Routledge, 2002), 139.
44
Ibid., 144.
45
Ibid., 152, 163.
Was America’s Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan the Right Choice or Not?
Cortni Cox
As weapons of war have advanced, they have become deadlier than people could have ever
imagined. World War I brought about the creation of chemical warfare. World War II, however, brought
something even deadlier than chemical warfare: the atomic bomb. Developed by the United States as a
top-secret weapon, the first atomic bomb was detonated in New Mexico in early 1945. The destruction
caused by the blast made its creators realize its war-ending potential. The United States’ deployment of
atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, was not made lightly. Yet, opinion varies on
whether dropping the bombs was the right decision. Difficult though the decision was, President Harry
Truman made the right decision to use the atomic bomb and effectively end World War II.
The origin of the atomic bomb began on 11 October 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt
received a letter from the physicist Albert Einstein. The letter told of a new field of physics, nuclear
fission, that when applied to uranium could release a great deal of energy. Einstein believed that a
sustained nuclear reaction could be produced and offered the possibility of the construction of extremely
powerful bombs. Einstein noted that Germany would probably pursue the same line of research.
Roosevelt took this warning seriously, and, within a month, had organized a research committee. The
United States knew their country needed to build an atomic weapon before Germany or Japan completed
such an effort.1
On 12 May 1942, President Roosevelt signed an order creating the Manhattan Project, a secret
group designed to develop the nuclear weapon. This was the largest secret project ever undertaken by the
U.S. government up to that time. Named after the city in which the project was based, the group’s efforts
were highly classified, so much so that Vice-President Harry S. Truman did not know of its existence
until after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945. The Manhattan Project allowed the United States to unlock
1
Jack Dennis, The Nuclear Almanac. (Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1984), 22.
39
40
the mysteries of the atom, but it also introduced the most destructive force known to mankind. On 23
September 1939, General Leslie R. Groves became its commanding officer. Groves’ decisiveness
astonished observers. He quickly chose three cities in which the Manhattan Project would be carried out:
Hanford, Washington; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Los Alamos, New Mexico. 2
The scientific community was tasked with transforming the science into weaponry. Some
scientists believed that a large amount of uranium was necessary to create a bomb. The experiments of
Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, however, revealed that only a small amount was needed to make an
atomic bomb. 3 J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had been invited to join the Manhattan Project by Ernest
Lawrence and his team, developed the basic principles of a bomb design, and he determined how much
U-235 – the isotope created by Frisch and Peierls’ experiments – was required for a high-yield nuclear
detonation. 4 The Manhattan Project produced three bombs: the first bomb was known as “Gadget” and
was used as the test model. The second bomb was named “Little Boy,” and the third bomb named “Fat
Man.”5
Groves wanted the first bomb to be ready by 1 August 1945, so on 1 March 1945, Oppenheimer
split Los Alamos’s efforts into two separate projects named “Alberta” and “Trinity.” The latter was the
final phase of the Manhattan project. They decided to test the plutonium-core bomb on an 18 by 24 mile
section inside a bombing range of the 2,000 square miles at Alamogordo Air Base in New Mexico, which
was 125 miles south of Albuquerque and 30 miles east of the nearest settlement. The Trinity Site was 210
miles from Los Alamos. 6
2
Ibid., 26.
3
James P. Delgado, Nuclear Dawn. (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2009) 33.
4
Ibid., 37.
5
Ibid., 51.
6
Ibid., 51-53.
41
On 15 July at 05:29:45 hours, Gadget, the codename of the first bomb, was detonated. The blast
was equivalent to 18.6 Kilotons of TNT. After the blast faded, two lead-lined Sherman tanks rumbled to
life and drove into the heart of the test area to find a mile-wide area devoid of life, scorched, and swept
clean. The tower the bomb rested on was gone leaving only the stubs of its concrete supports. A crater
400 yards in diameter and 25 feet deep at the center tapered up to a 20-foot deep depression at the edges,
which the blast melted sand that created greenish-gray highly radioactive glass.7
Everyone reacted differently to the test. Oppenheimer recalled that some people laughed, a few
people cried, but most were just silent with either amazement or terror at what they had just witnessed.
Oppenheimer later reported that General Thomas Farrell approached Groves and said, “The war is over.”
Groves replied, “ Yes, after we drop two bombs on Japan.”8 President Roosevelt’s death in April left
President Truman to make the decision on how these bombs should be used. Truman understood the
weapons could end the war quickly, and it would solve several problems plaguing American strategists
since early 1945. These bombs could eliminate the need to invade the Japanese mainland, saving an
untold number of lives on both sides.
Before the testing of Gadget at Trinity, Truman had scheduled a conference with British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill and Russian Premier Joseph Stalin. The new bomb was the topic of the
conference. After Truman received more complete reports about the test, he told Churchill that a
plutonium bomb and a uranium bomb would be ready for use in Japan soon after 1 August and certainly
by 10 August. Churchill, like Truman, hoped that this removed the need of having to invade Japan. On
24 July, surrounded by American and British advisors, Truman told Stalin that America now had a
weapon “of unusual destructive force.” Stalin replied that he hoped Truman would make good use of it
7
8
Ibid., 61-62.
Ibid., 63.
42
against Japan. 9 As Stalin would soon realize, Truman was far from giving him the whole truth about these
weapons.
It is not clear if Truman had decided to use the weapons against Japan before he saw Gadget’s
destruction. No matter when he decided, it could not have been an easy choice, but, in the end, he
determined that it was the best option. The United States prepared the two atomic bombs for use on Japan.
The United States asked Japan to surrender, and told them that surrendering would not mean the end of
their imperial system. Japan ignored the Americans and it cost them. President Truman’s political
advisors suggested that he refrain from dropping the bomb, but, instead, describe the destruction it would
cause. Truman’s military advisors, however, objected to this advice fearing it would reveal America’s
upper hand. They also argued that the Japanese would not believe their warnings. 10
On 1 June 1945, the Scientific Panel and the Interim Committee (a secret group created by
Secretary of War Henry Stimson) unanimously adopted the following recommendation about the atomic
bomb: 1. The bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible. 2. It should be used on a dual target
(military installation or war plant) most susceptible to damage. 3. It should be used without prior
warning. 11
Before reaching this conclusion, the Interim Committee considered alternatives to using the
bombs. They discussed providing detailed, advanced warnings about the bomb, which would promise
destruction if Japan resisted, and hoped that they surrendered. They also discussed a demonstration of the
bomb with Japanese officials present. They decided against this because they worried that the bomb might
fail since this kind of weapon was so new and advanced. 12 Showing the Japanese a failed atomic weapon
would have lessened Japan’s willingness to surrender. This idea was also rejected because, after the
9
Dennis. The Nuclear Almanac. 41.
10
Ibid., 35.
11
Lawrence Lifeschultz, Hiroshima’s Shadow. (Connecticut: The Pamphleteer’s Press, 1998), 201.
12
Ibid.
43
testing of Gadget, there were only two bombs left. If they used one to demonstrate what it could do and
the Japanese still did not surrender, then they would only have one left to use against the enemy.
Leo Szilard, who worked with Enrico Fermi to help build the first nuclear reactor, believed that
“moral responsibilities” should influence how the weapon was used. Szilard created the July 17th Petition
of the Manhattan scientists. One hundred and fifty-five members signed the petition. They hoped that this
petition would dissuade the President from using the atomic weapon. The petition said that the atomic
bomb should only be used if: the opportunity had been given to the Japanese to surrender on terms
assuring them the possibility of peaceful development in their homeland; that convincing warnings had
been given that a refusal to surrender will be followed by the use of a new weapon; or the responsibility
for the use of the atomic bombs be shared with our allies. 13 Szilard also believed that someone needed to
explore how the A-bomb would affect world affairs after the war, and how America’s role would change
if they used the bomb to end the Pacific war. The second concern was about the future of atomic energy,
and how there needed to be a plan for post-war research. 14
General Groves delayed the petition from reaching President Truman and his Secretary of War,
Henry L. Stimson, because he thought that the bomb needed to be used. Stimson considered the bomb “a
profound psychological shock.” American leaders wanted the bomb to produce shock among the Japanese
ruling oligarchs, which would strengthen the positions of those who wished for peace, and weakened the
military party. The Japanese government and military researched the atomic bomb, and they came to the
conclusion that if it did exist, then it would mean the difference between life and death in the war. But
Japan’s nuclear physicists thought that no country during wartime would be able to develop an atomic
bomb. That was why the bombing of Hiroshima caught them completely off guard. 15 Some historians
believed America acted hastily in using the atomic bomb. Acting Secretary of State, Joseph C. Grew,
13
14
15
Ibid., 556.
Ibid., 103.
Sadao Asada, "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb and Japan's Decision to Surrender: A
Reconsideration." Pacific Historical Review 67, No. 4 (1998): 507-508.
44
argued that if the United States would have modified its “unconditional surrender” idea and offered Japan
“a constitutional monarch under the present dynasty,” Japan would have surrendered without the use of
atomic bombs. 16
On 6 August 1945 at 8:16 a.m. Japanese time, an American B-29 bomber named the Enola Gay
dropped the atom bomb nicknamed “Little Boy.” This bomb was made out of Uranium-238. Enola Gay
had to be modified because the atomic bomb was such a heavy load; the B-29 bomber got new propellers,
stronger engines, and faster opening bomb bay doors. Little Boy exploded 1,900 feet over the Aioi
Bridge, 17 and it unleashed the equivalent of 12,500 tons of TNT. There were 90,000 buildings in
Hiroshima before the bomb was dropped; only 28,000 remained after the bombing. The bomb’s blast
wave shattered windows for a distance of ten miles and was felt as far as 37 miles away. Hiroshima
disappeared under a thick, churning foam of flames and smoke. This bomb killed civilian women and
children in addition to soldiers. Hiroshima’s population had been estimated at 350,000. Approximately
70,000 died immediately from the explosion and another 70,000 died from radiation within five years.
Even after the first bomb was dropped, General Korechika Anami of the Japanese Imperial Army
insisted on not only the preservation of the imperial institution, but also on three additional conditions
when it came down to surrendering. The first one was that there be no military occupation of the
homeland by the Allies. The second one was that the Japanese armed forces be allowed to disarm and
demobilize themselves voluntarily. The third one was that the Japanese government would prosecute any
Japanese war criminals.
Before the second bomb was dropped, the United States, through the press, radio, and leaflets
dropped throughout Japan, warned that America still possessed the “most destructive explosive ever
16
Lifschultz, Hiroshima’s Shadow. 500.
17
Delgado, Nuclear Dawn. 92.
45
devised by man” and that “[a]ny doubts about the truth of our statement can be remembered by the fate of
Hiroshima” the message stated. 18
On the morning of 9 August at about 7:50 a.m. Japanese time, an air raid warning was sounded in
Nagasaki, but the all-clear signal was given at 8:30 a.m. Then at 10:53 a.m., two B-29 Superfortresses
were sighted. Since there were just two, the Japanese assumed that the planes were only on a
reconnaissance mission, and they did not sound another raid alert. The Japanese then observed one B-29
bomber drop instruments attached to three parachutes, and then another B-29 bomber named Bock’s Car
released the atomic bomb. This bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” was made out of plutonium-239 and was
approximately 40% more powerful than Little Boy. Fat Man exploded over the narrow Urakami Valley
northwest of downtown Nagasaki and obliterated everything within a 0.6-mile diameter.19 When the bomb
dropped, there were 286,000 people living in Nagasaki. Of these, 64,000 killed and another 75,000
sustained severe injuries. The damage of this bomb was less extensive than in Hiroshima because the river
valley boxed in the explosion, and it was dropped two miles off target.20
Emperor Hirohito decided that Anami’s war faction was too controlling, especially since the
appearance of the atomic bomb. He believed that the continuation of war only spelled needless suffering
for his subjects and Japan’s ruin as a nation. 21 On 15 August 1945, Japan announced their surrender.
Emperor Hirohito realized that, if necessary, the Allies would completely destroy Japan and kill as many
civilians as needed to achieve “unconditional surrender.”22
18
Ibid, 98.
19
Ibid.,107.
20
Ibid., 109.
21
22
Sadao, "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb,” 477-512.
Edwin P. Hoyt, Japan’s War The Great Pacific Conflict. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1986), 420.
46
One argument made about the atomic bomb is that it was a blessing in disguise to the Japanese,
and that the bomb effectively saved more civilian Japanese lives than it took. It also saved the lives of
countless Japanese soldiers. Some called it the Divine Wind that saved Japan from national hara-kiri.
Military and governmental authorities fully supported the bomb on the grounds that it hastened the defeat
of the enemy, and it saved American soldiers’ lives.23 Naval and land forces, who had been preparing for
the invasion of Japan’s homeland, were elated that the bomb had been dropped. For them, this meant that
they did not have to suffer a long, bloody campaign that would require them to go beach-by-beach, cityby-city. The war was over. Americans at home were also happy with this turn of events; they realized that
this meant their loved ones had a greater chance of coming home to them. 24 Public opinion polls revealed
that 69% of the American people supported the atomic bombing of Japan, while 17% felt otherwise, and
14% had no opinion at all about the bombing. 25
Before the atomic bomb, American leaders sought Soviet intervention into the war. The Soviet
entry would have meant the strategic bankruptcy of Japan, and it would have determined the fate of the
Japanese Empire. 26 America saw the bomb as a way to end the war before the Red Army and Soviet
political influence extended too far into Manchuria. To Truman, Stimson, and Secretary of State James F.
Byrnes, the bomb meant that the United States would not have to share victory over Japan with the
Russians, which was just an added bonus of the bomb. Secretary of State Byrnes was anxious to get the
Japanese issue over with before the Russians got involved because he did not want them to be in a
position to make claims against China. Secretary Byrnes was said to have preferred the atomic bomb over
any of the other available options. He saw it as a way to strengthen America’s diplomatic hand, not only
23
"The Laws of War and the Atomic Bomb." The American Journal of International Law vol. 39, no. 4 (1945): 784788.
24
Delgado, Nuclear Dawn. 117.
25
Ibid., 120.
26
Asada, "The Shock of the Atomic Bomb,” 504.
47
in the Far East, but in negotiations over the fate of Europe in general, particularly eastern Europe. Some
thought that the decision to use the bomb on Japan was connected to Truman’s confrontational approach
to the Soviet Union. 27
Many people believed that Japan would have surrendered on 1 November, the day scheduled for
the United States invasion of Kyushu because of the impending winter, and that the country suffered
because of the season’s poor rice crop. Most historians thought that Japan would not have been able to
endure the winter of 1945-1946. Despite this knowledge, people questioned the reasoning for using the
bombs. If there was a solid chance for a Japanese surrender, why use a weapon that was going to change
the way people viewed war? If Japan was struggling to survive, why not save the weapon and use it
against an enemy that might threaten America in the future?
One argument supporting the use of the A-bombs was if another country, like Germany, had
created the atomic bomb first. There would have been no questions about them using it. People would not
have been surprised by the violent nature of the weapon simply because Germany made it. So, is it
because America was the first one to make and use an atomic weapon that they were put under such
scrutiny, or would the weapons have been controversial no matter who used them? It is a question that has
no answer. America knew the cost when they decided to drop the bomb but they understood the risk.
Would other countries have reacted the same way, or would they have decided they were not worth the
risk?
From 1942-1945, Japan suffered a number of strategic bombing campaigns from the American
Air Forces that resulted in very high casualties. Both bombs put together did not have a casualty rate as
high as the strategic bombings campaigns. General Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, who was Commanding
General of the United States Army Air forces (USAAF), demonstrated how deadly the air attacks were
when he wrote his final “War Report.” He concluded that the air strikes had killed 260,000, injured
27
Gar Alperovitz, Robert L. Messer, and Barton J. Bernstein, "Marshall, Truman, and the Decision to Drop the
Bomb." International Security vol. 16, no. 3, 204-221.
48
412,000, left 9,200,000 homeless, and demolished or burned down 2,210,000 houses. 28 These numbers
are clearly larger than the ones from the two atomic bombings.
Some people shared the same opinion, but not everyone agreed on how things should have gone
when it comes to using the atomic bombs. One side accepted the bomb while the other side found it
unethical. Both sides had good arguments and facts to back their beliefs, and each side hoped they were
recognized as correct in their beliefs. In reality, there would never be an answer to whether or not
America made the right choice by dropping the bombs. Dropping the atomic bomb changed the way
humans view war. As R. R. Wilson said, the use of the bomb really did end the war, and really did save
many American and Japanese lives. But he also believed that the atomic bomb should never, under any
circumstances, be used again. 29
There was a lot of consideration and planning that went into the bombs being dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America wanted to do what they believed was best for them and Japan, and
these bombs were the answer. While the atomic bomb was not the only reason that Japan surrendered, it
forced them to realize that America would go to extremes just to prove that they planned to make this war
as tough on Japan as they could. The question that still remains today is whether America made the right
choice concerning the use of the bomb. This question will probably never be answered in a satisfactory
way because there are too many variables that affect the answer.
28
Thomas R. Seattle, "It Made a Lot of Sense to Kill Skilled Workers,": The Firebombing of Tokyo in March 1945.
The Journal of Military History vol. 66, no. 1 (January 2002): 103-133.
29
R.R. Wilson, "Hiroshima: The Scientists' Social and Political Reaction." Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society vol. 140, no. 3 (1996): 350-357.