The Confederate Diplomatic Mission to Mexico

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The Confederate Diplomatic Mission to Mexico - EIU
Jack E. Cunningham
Jack Cunningham is a junior history major from Fox River Grove, Illinois. He wrote this paper for Dr. Hubbard's HIS 4940: Early Republic class. After graduation, Jack plans on pursuing a master’s degree in public history.
My caveat is to concentrate on sources quoted.
Eastern Illinois University :: Historia - (2018 Issue)

Interesting article about Mexico invaded and land taken by the US, courted for diplomatic recognition by the CSA covetous of its lands with the US racing to prevent that. Mexico in the midst of a civil war, invaded by the French, and very poor was a prize in an international diplomatic competition.

The Civil War was ultimately won on the battlefields, but there were many other battles that erupted during the war: the fight to break the Union blockade, battles in Congress, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, and the failed battle for international Confederate recognition. This last issue was the fight the South needed to win in order to prevail in the larger conflict and gain its independence. The Confederacy needed a quick war to defeat the Union, and European recognition was the way to guarantee that victory. European recognition, Confederates hoped, would help them break the superior Union blockade that was starving and strangling the Confederacy, put pressure on the Union from multiple fronts, and allow the Davis administration some leverage over the Union at the negotiating table. Davis and the Confederate Cabinet members thought recognition would be easy. The South had extensive economic ties with England and France, and cordial relations with Mexico. It aimed to invoke the same strategy used by American colonists in 1776 that allowed France to recognize the Americans and intervene on their side. Davis and his diplomats understood the importance of their foreign relations missions to the Great Powers of Europe. Their survival depended on it. Despite the grave importance of their mission, however, the Davis Cabinet and the diplomats sent to Mexico were over confident and did not care to understand the Mexicans. This spelled the end for the mission before it ever began. Union diplomats were determined to keep Mexico out of the hands of the Confederacy, and they had the patience, time, and money to do so.

"Despite the grave importance of their mission, however, the Davis Cabinet and the diplomats sent to Mexico were overconfident and did not care to understand the Mexicans" IMHO the same error as their missions to Europe.

However, Davis and Toombs sent the first Confederate foreign diplomatic mission, not to Europe, but to Mexico. Toombs appointed John Pickett from Kentucky to head the Confederate diplomatic delegation to Mexico.11 On May 17, 1861, Pickett received a letter that contained his formal post as the Confederate commissioner to Mexico and his diplomatic instructions from Toombs. Pickett was to “assure them [Mexico] of the readiness of this Government to conclude a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation with that Republic on terms equally advantageous to both countries.”12 The unstable and poor nation of Mexico hardly appeared a likely candidate for a Confederate diplomatic mission for recognition. But Mexico’s instability, Tombs and Davis believed, might play into the hands of the Confederates because “no country enjoyed less respect or influence in the foreign offices of the world, and none would seem less likely to be flattered by a proud young people, like the Confederacy, seeking international standing.”13 Pickett would be responsible for
opening the door with Mexico then, in turn, opening a door with the European Powers. The planned diplomatic attack was not a frontal assault on Paris or London, but a backdoor approach through Mexico City.14
The CSA playing in Mexico might cause problems with France. What it is to gain Mexico and lost France in the diplomatic game.

The European powers retained a vested interest in Mexico ever since the Spanish left in 1821. Mexico was the jewel of Central America and its resources highly desired by the English and the French in particular. The Mexican government, however, was constantly in turmoil, and it was in massive debt to the European powers, which wanted their cash back from Mexico and decided that they knew how to run the country better than the Mexicans did. After all, since the departure of the Spanish in 1821, the Mexican government went through seventy-five presidents.15 Nor did the Mexican government show signs of stabilizing either. The most formidable opponent to the European plans for Mexico was the United States. Americans had already shown their desire for land in the New World. Their massive land grab in 1848 reaffirmed the European belief that America was a growing economic threat. The Monroe Doctrine was another obstacle to European ambitions in Mexico. Many European leaders and governments had dismissed the Doctrine when it was first announced in 1823. However, as the United States continued to expand west to the Pacific Ocean and grow its economy, Europeans took the Doctrine more seriously. It was not stopping any European power, but it was certainly something to consider. Now, with Americans engulfed in a Civil War, the European plans for Mexico were back on. Americans would be too occupied with their blockade of the East Coast to worry about European fleets entering and leaving the Gulf of Mexico. Of the European powers, the French, under Napoleon III, had the greatest hopes and plans for Mexico. France had seen the turbulent Mexican governments fail time and time again. To restore glory to France and rebuild her Empire, Napoleon III and his noble Spanish wife Eugѐnie, had drafted up plans for an invasion of Mexico that would place Archduke Maximilian of Hapsburg, second in line for the Austro-Hungarian throne, on the throne in Mexico to establish a stable, European government there to hopefully bring glory to France.16 With a weakened, distracted U.S. government, the French saw opportunity to pursue their plan. From the European perspective, secession turned the Monroe Doctrine back into a laughable document. A divided America could not stand up to massive European fleets or armies looking to encroach into Central and South America.

Footnotes
9 Ibid, 79-80.
10 Tombs to Davis, July 24, 1861, in Papers of Jefferson Davis 1861, vol. VII, eds., Lynda Lasswell Crist and Mary Seaton Dix,
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992), 266.
11 Hendrick, Statesmen of the Lost Cause, 107.
12 Toombs to Pickett, May 17, 1861, in The Messages and Papers of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy: Including Diplomatic
Correspondence, 1861-1865, vol. II ed., James D. Richardson (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1966), 21.
13 Hendrick, Statesmen of the Lost Cause, 109.
14 Ibid, 109.
15 Ibid, 108.
16 Ibid, 112.
17 Ibid, 114.
18 Ibid, 115.


 
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