When Buchanan stepped into the shoes of Pierce he announced expansion to be the future policy of the country. He continued to press the necessity of purchasing Cuba; suggested intervention in helpless, bleeding Mexico, where he hoped to secure additional territory or to establish a protectorate; recommended the oc cupation of Sonora and Chihuahua; proposed to send land and naval forces to Central America in order to protect the transit route; threatened the Fiji Islands, and was favorably disposed to the annexation of Alaska.
The Civil War, inaugurating changes of policy and resulting in the abolition of slavery, ended the agitation for the extension of do minion over tropical peoples disturbed by dis sension and strife, although the difficulties of the blockade of Confederate ports emphasized the need of harbors in the West Indies. The Lincoln administration found little time for a policy of acquisition, although it contemplated acquisition of tropical territory for the coloni zation of free negroes, and, in order to prevent lower California from falling into the hands of the Confederates, was willing to buy or take it as a pledge for a loan to Mexico to meet foreign obligations which endangered foreign intervention. While warning Spain against intervention in Spanish America, and assuring her that her rights in Cuba and Porto Rico were respected by the United States, Secretary Seward significantly added that Cuba must not be used as a base against the American Union. Later in the war (1864), when Spain feared American designs on Samana, he said the United States already had enough terri tory. At the close of the war, when Maximilian slept and the Fenians blustered, the American government, in spite of various predictions and certain tendencies, showed no disposition to interfere with the operation• of natural forces by embarking upon a policy of conquest. En couraged by friendly inviting conditions in the Red River region and in British Columbia and instigated by the desire to compel England to pay large damages for injuries resulting from Confederate cruisers built in English waters, many favored annexation of British America; but the American govern ment under President Grant refused to adopt the °flag-withdrawalx' policy. The pur chase of non-contiguous distant Alaska, how ever, was regarded, not only as a friendly part of a general policy to extinguish European colonial connection in America, but especially as a step toward the annexation of Canada and other territory. In the same year a represen tative of the American navy formally took possession of the Midway Islands in the Pacific. The public mind was at the time too much ab sorbed in domestic questions to consider addi tional annexations. A treaty of 1867 for the purchase of the Danish West Indies was never ratified by the American Senate; and another of 1869-70 for the purchase of San Domingo, partly with a view to the solution of the race problem, failed of ratification in the Senate. During the Cuban insurrection of 1868-78 the American government in order to secure peace was ready to guarantee a payment by the Cubans to Spain for their independence, but several times disclaimed any desire for the island.
In 1873, when events in Hawaii threatened to precipitate the consideration of the expedi ency of its annexation, Secretary Fish, while reflecting upon the possible necessity of future expansion into midocean, said the acquisition of territory beyond the sea met the opposition of discreet and influential leaders and could not be adopted without grave deliberation. In 1874, after considering the question of assuming control of the Samoan Islands as a protectorate, he doubted whether their position and import ance °would be sufficient to satisfy the people that the annexation of the islands to the United States is essential to our safety and prosperity" and did not see the expediency of originating a measure °adverse to the usual tradition of the government.' Evarts in 1877 refused to accept
a protectorate over islands so far distant. Blaine in 1881 and Frelinghuysen in 1883 said that the American policy tended to avoid pos sessions disconnected with this continent— but they felt that the destiny of Hawaii like that of Cuba was an American question. Both Blaine and Bayard, influenced by the absorp tion of Pacific islands by European powers and the decline of native races, recognized the necessity of maintaining the rights to which the United States had become entitled in the unapproptiattul wcic inde pendent and autonomous native governments. In 1885 Bayard informed Germany that the recorded disinclinations of the United States to accept the voluntary offers of other powers to place themselves under American sovereignty and protection showed that the American gov ernment had no idea of acquiring control of the Carolines, but in 1886 he added that the United States had an equal right with Germany to assert a claim of possession to Pacific islands. The inevitable incorporation of Hawaii was only delayed by the refusal of Cleveland to accept the results of the revolution of 1893. The tendency to favor the acquisition of distant islands for protection of American interests was shown by the annexation of Hawaii as a naval base by joint resolution in 1898, and was increased as an inevitable consequence of the dismemberment of Spanish dominions by the War of 1898. At the close of the war, the American government, desiring to avoid occa sion for future collisions with Spain, and to secure naval and cable stations and provide for commercial interests, demanded and ob tained Porto Rico, Guam and the Philippine Islands, and secured the independence of Cuba which became practically an American pro tectorate.
The recent acquisitions in the Pacific are the logical development of the old-time policy of steady expansion of American interests in the Pacific and the Far East, although by the acquisition of the Philippines the government has taken a larger step than heretofore.
As the result of the change to steam power for war vessels, the United States still needs coaling stations in the southern oceans and in various parts of Asia, Africa and Europe.
The successful object-lesson of American regeneration in Porto Rico and of American responsibilities in Cuba and Panama — and more recently in San Domingo, Nicaragua and Haiti — may result in additional acquisi tions in the West Indies; but American policy in the entire Caribbean region is to guide the weaker states and not to extinguish their nationality.
The acquisition of the Danish West Indies in 1917 was largely the result of earlier negotia tions begun to prevent danger of transfer to Germany, which has' for years been devising a i means to secure coaling stations and harbors in the Caribbean, and in 1902 influenced the Danish Landsthing to reject an American Danish treaty for the projected purchase of the islands.
In 1912-14 conditions in Mexico furnished another of the traditional opportunities for American expansion, and a bill for the annexa tion of northern Mexico was introduced. In March 1914, intervention was urged to prevent German intervention; but other methods for pacification were adopted. President Wilson asserted that the United States will never again seek one foot of territory by conquest.