Execution of the Emperor Maximilian

In 1824, responding to the recent independence of Latin American states, British Foreign Minister George Canning wryly commented that "the deed is done; the nail is driven, Spanish America is free; and if we do not mismanage our affairs badly, she is English." Such words, pronounced just one year after John Quincy Adams' landmark Monroe Doctrine, substantiated the fears that had led the American government to issue a sharp warning to the European powers to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. Canning's comment bespoke, however coyly, a desire to check American expansionism. Yet it was to be France, not England, that would pose the greatest challenge of the century to the newly-defined hegemony of the United States. Napoleon's liberal President Benito Juarez. Not coincidentally, the invasion came at a moment of great weakness for the United States--during the agony of the Civil War.

The purpose of this research is to look at the way in which U.S. diplomats--namely Secretary of State William Seward--evolved from gracious co-hosts to unflinching accomplices in the execution of the Emperor Maximilian. In stymieing the French advance, Seward was brilliantly methodical, yet he did not act alone. As we shall see, he was greatly aided by a stellar supporting cast made up of, among others, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, the resilient Juarez, the American public, and even Napoleon himself, whose near-reverent fear of the United States caused him to abandon his de

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Category: History - E