Category: Our Glorious National Heritage

Archival Follies, Our Glorious National Heritage

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Can’t Control Me

daelnorwood

Or, Limited (Antebellum) Government in Action

William S. Wetmore

So: there I was, reading through the official “instructions” (orders) to Commodore Lawrence Kearny, commander of the East India Squadron, on how he was to engage with the Chinese authorities while on his mission to protect American commerce during the first opium war … when I ran across this:

Heretofore on the arrival of an American vessel in the waters of China, the Chinese authorities have always been given to understand by the American merchants, that the principal objects in view, were to visit desolate Islands for the purpose of rescuing shipwrecked mariners, & returning them to their native Country; to capture piratical vessels preying on their commerce; and to instruct their young men and boys to navigate vessels of war. – It might be well to keep up such impressions in the minds of the Chinese, as they are not incompatible with what you are to represent as you leading object, namely to prevent the smuggling of opium under cover of the American Flag, which your government has understood had been, or may be attempted by other nations.

~Sec. James K. Paulding to Com. Lawrence Kearney, Navy Department, 2 November 1840, Roll 32,
M149: Letters Sent by the Secretary of the Navy to Officers, 1798-1868 (Washington: NARA, 1950)

Huzzah what? Americans had convinced the Chinese that they were only sending warships up to Canton to teach kids how to sail and play rescue boats? And that was a ruse to continue in the name of better relations? Weird, right?

Now, Secretary James Kirke Paulding, though an imaginative fellow, and good enough with a pen, was not among the finest diplomats or naval strategists of his day. And was certainly no expert on China.* So then the question becomes: where on God’s green earth did he get such an idea?

A few days later, I found a far more direct answer than I expected, in a letter from a prominent China trader to Paulding. A few sections of its paragraphs were marked with large X’s, as if to highlight them ; the paragraph excerpted below had two such marks:

“Heretofore on the arrival of American vessels of War in the Chinese waters, the Chinese authorities have always been given [to] understand by the American Merchants that their object was to visit desolate Islands [to] rescue unfortunate shipwrecked seamen & to return them to their country & friends, and to capture piratical vessels, and also to give instruction to many young lads on board, and to learn them to navigate and manage vessels of War.”

~William S. Wetmore to J. K. Paulding (SecNav), New York, 22 July 1840, roll 174, M124: Miscellaneous Letters Received by the Secretary of Navy, 1801-1884 (Washington: NARA, 1960)

Aha.

Gotta love cut and paste governance.

I don’t know for sure if what Wetmore says is true, but I strongly suspect that the probability of the U.S. mercantile community at Canton maintaining a stable set of lies for nearly 60 years is quite low — so at best this particular bundle of nonsense was only laid on the Chinese once or twice.

Though to be fair to Paulding, this kind of drafting of orders appears to have been (or have become) normal procedure. A few years later, when preparing for Caleb Cushing’s mission to China, then-Secretary of State Daniel Webster sent out a form letter to American merchants active in the trade asking for information and advice:

Sir:

You will have learned that, under the authority of an act of Congress, a public mission is about to proceed from the United States to China, for the purpose of cultivating friendly relations with that Empire, and of opening and enlarging, as far as practicable, commercial intercourse between the two countries.

For its own information, and the use of the mission, the Government desires to avail itself of opinions and suggestions of intelligent persons, who have had personal acquaintance with that country, or have been concerned extensively in the trade between it and the United States.

The general objects of the mission sufficiently indicate the points to which these suggestions may refer.
Any communication from you upon the subject would be gratefully received by this Department.

~Daniel Webster, Circular, Department of State Washington, March 20, 1843, roll 101, M179:Miscellaneous Letters of the Department of State, 1789-1906 (Washington, DC: NARA, 1963)

Basically, this is step one of a process analogous to that which led Paulding to use Wetmore’s advice verbatim.**

Say what you will in favor of limited government, but it has its drawbacks: namely, when the time comes, your bureaucracy knows absolute squat about anything, and you have to depend on the kindness of strangers to help you sail (literally, in this case) the ship of state.

*Yes, that is his actual name. No, he was not awesome enough to have it — though he did have a certain way with words, even when he was wrong wrong wrong.

For example, here’s JKP on feeling pressure to build steam ships for the Navy: ” After asking how anyone could ‘consent to let our old ships perish, and transform our navy into a fleet of sea monsters,’ James Paulding gasped: ‘I am being steamed to death!'” Stephen Howarth, To Shining Sea: A History of the United States Navy, 1775 – 1998 (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), p. 141

**The situation was even a bit sadder than that, because Webster — despite all his contacts / backing from Northeastern merchants — also did not know which ports dealt in the trade, and which had to first find out who the major China traders were. A few days before he sent out the form letter, he asked the each of the customs collectors of the major East Coast ports to compile a list of merchants “interested” in the China trade; this list appears to have served as a basis for soliciting further advice.

Archival Follies, Our Glorious National Heritage

Antebellum America Salutes the British Empire!

daelnorwood

One Fingered, Naturally

Middle_finger

In April 1841, whilst conducting the East India squadron to Chinese waters to safeguard American merchants against from harm during the First Opium War, Commodore Lawrence Kearny received some interesting supplementary orders:

“Sir,

It is understood that the citizens of the U. States who were made prisoners by the British forces during the late troubles in Canada [e.g. the Rebellion of 1837], and subsequently banished to distant parts of the Globe, are at liberty to return to their native land, but have no means of conveyance – Therefore, should the Constellation or Boston fall in with any of those persons, it is the desire of the department that a free passage to the United States should be offered them.”

~George E. Badger to Lawrence Kearney, Navy Department, 23 April 1841

In other words, Kearny – and any and all other Navy captains – was to give Americans who had been transported to Australia, and similar, as punishment for participation in a rebellion a free ride back to the good old U.S. of A.

Maybe not quite as egregious as if Saudi Arabia started playing taxi for GTMO detainees – but certainly in the same ballpark of diplomatic subtlety.

The early 1840s were not great years for Anglo-American relations, needless to say.

1.) “Squadron” was the somewhat grandiose title the Navy applied to the grouping of the 42-year old frigate Constellation and the sloop-of-war Boston under one command.

Theske Slijkerman, “Irritatie,” Flickr, CC License

Our Glorious National Heritage, The Past is a Foreign...Something

The Engine of American Diplomacy

daelnorwood

Or, Choo-Choo! Goes the Tariff Negotiation

Mariposa

One of the clichés of East-West relations in the early modern era was the attempt to use representations of Western technology – especially maps and model machines – to awe non-Westerners into submission. Perhaps hoping for a repeat of Columbus’s trick with the lunar eclipse, Euro-American statesmen and diplomats apparently thought that the mere suggestion of the advanced state of Western civilization would be enough to persuade proud sovereigns to open ports, lower tariffs, and alienate land for the benefit of the major Atlantic-basin powers.

Needless to say, things rarely went down that way. In developed parts of Asia – and especially in China – these attempts repeatedly failed. The most famous of these faceplants was probably Great Britain’s 1793 embassy to China, led by Lord Macartney. The Chinese emperor declared the fancy clockwork the Brits brought – lugged across the world at great expense, and costing many man-hours to assemble – as “good enough to amuse children.” Bafflingly, the stopped cogs and wheels the Brits brought as gifts failed to make the gates to the Middle Kingdom fly off their hinges.

However, this failure – as in so many other instances of cross-cultural contact – did not impede others from flattering through imitation.
Continue reading “The Engine of American Diplomacy” →

Knowledge Droppings, Our Glorious National Heritage

How did knowledge drop in Early America? Part II

daelnorwood

Because I know you were dying to find this out

packing_papers

Further reading in Cushing’s papers gives us some info at least approaching an answer to this query:

Dear Sir

I take an early opportunity to write to you on the subject of the Historical Society, agreeably to your obliging request. It was incorporated by the Legislature of this State, in the year 1809, when Clinton, Tompkins, Brockholst, Livingston, Bishop Moore, & other eminent men of that day, were among its active members. Its corporate name is, “The New York Historical Society.”

The Congressional Journals & Documents are regularly sent to the Society, but there are other publications to which we may be entitled – such as – the American State Papers, Diplomatic Correspondence, Gale & Seaton’s Debates, the Madison Papers, the Catalogue of the Library of Congress & of the State Department, &c.

I need not add, that should it be in your power to procure for our Library copies of any of these or other works published by Congress, you will confer a great obligation upon the Society.

The Library now contains about 12000 volumes, chiefly books of great value in connexion to the history of our country. Since my accession to the laborious office of Librarian, now nearly two years, more than a thousand volumes have been added, of which a great part have been donations; and it is my ambition to render it the most complete collection of books relating to America to be found in our country. …

~George Folsom to Caleb Cushing, New York, 11 Dec 1840, in Caleb Cushing Papers, Mss Division, Library of Congress

So: the New York Historical Society (or, as it affects itself to be now, the “New-York Historical Society“) was considered a “public” library eligible to recieve Congressional documents, though not by any means all government documents (hence the letter to Cushing).

Interesting. So “public” in the sense of being “public spirited” not, say, “open to the rabble,” like the later Carnegie-funded libraries would be. Now the next question is, how deep did this distribution go? Did libraries without the ambition to become the best collection of Americana also get government reports?

(Also: thanks to those who commented; I haven’t gotten a chance to do any secondary reading, but Alan Taylor’s William Cooper’s Town is on my list)

More to come.

Image cite: marsi, “packing papers,” Flickr, CC License

Knowledge Droppings, Our Glorious National Heritage

How did knowledge drop in Early America?

daelnorwood

Or, if a congressional report falls in the forest, can anyone find it?

Holiday

I ran across this letter today while poking through the correspondence of Caleb Cushing, a Massachusetts Congressman and semi-influential figure in Whig politics. On the surface, it’s a perfectly normal letter, but the more I started thinking about it, the weirder it seemed.

But first, here’s the text:

Dear Sir,

I had the honor to receive the documents relative to the northeastern boundaries, & I feel truly obliged to you for your very kind & polite attention in putting yourself to the trouble of procuring & forwarding it. Our public libraries which are entitled to a copy of the Congress documents, do not generally receive them till very late, & they are often permitted to lie for a long time boxed up at the State house, because the officers of the library do not call for them – With renewed thanks for your repeated courtesies,
I have the honor to be,
very respectfully, &c
J. G. Bradford

~J. G. Bradford to Caleb Cushing, Boston, 20 July 1839, Container 20, Caleb Cushing Papers, Mss Division, Library of Congress

Cushing has a ton of letters just like this — either requests for public documents or thanks for the same. The correspondence files of most other politicians, in fact, from the backbenchers to important national figures, is just the same; at times, such request for reports almost outnumber requests for patronage gigs.

So what struck me was not that Cushing was doing such distribution, but that Bradford expected that public libraries would obviate the need for a personal request. On the face of it, that sounds perfectly commonsensical; of course Congress would distribute documents that way! But then you think…to what public libraries? They didn’t exist yet (or at least I didn’t thinks so). And then as the sheer number of requests — even from areas wading in seas of cheap print, like urban New England – attests, the reality seems to be that these documents were fairly difficult to lay hands on. Or maybe I’m only getting exposure to the lazy / motivated people.

Before seeing this letter, I had assumed that either government officials (Congressmen, et al.) distributed their alloted copies themselves, especially to their favored newspapers (which commonly summarized important reports and speeches); or people read summaries of reports in other print media. But this bit about public libraries really makes me wonder…

So my question is: what was the legislation on this? How were these documents supposed to be distributed? How were the actually distributed? And what does the daylight between these two poles mean?

I’m going to do a bit of digging on this, but suggestions (or even better, facts) welcome.

Image cite: nacaseven, “Holiday!” Flickr, CC License