Respected statesmen continued to uphold the same values. To Theodore Roosevelt, the hero of George Bush and the liberal commentators who gushed over Bush's sense of "righteous mission" during the 1991 Gulf slaughter, "the most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages," establishing the rule of "the dominant world races." The hideous and cowardly Sand Creek massacre in Colorado in 1864, Nazi-like in its bestiality, was "as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." This "noble minded missionary," as contemporary ideologues term him, did not limit his vision to the "beasts of prey" who were being swept from their lairs within the "natural boundaries" of the American nation. The ranks of savages included the "dagos" to the south, and the "Malay bandits" and "Chinese halfbreeds" who were resisting the American conquest of the Philippines, all "savages, barbarians, a wild and ignorant people, Apaches, Sioux, Chinese boxers," as their resistance amply demonstrated. Winston Churchill felt that poison gas was just right for use against "uncivilized tribes" (Kurds and Afghans, particularly). Noting approvingly that British diplomacy had prevented the 1932 disarmament convention from banning bombardment of civilians, the equally respected statesman Lloyd George observed that "we insisted on reserving the right to bomb niggers," capturing the basic point succinctly. The metaphors of "Indian fighting" were carried right through the Indochina wars. The conventions retain their vibrancy, as we saw in early 1991 and may again, before too long.²⁹

The extraordinary potential of the United States was evident from the earliest days, and of no small concern to the guardians of established order. The Czar and his diplomats were concerned over "the contagion of revolutionary principles," which "is arrested by neither distance nor physical obstacles," the "vicious principles" of republicanism and popular self-rule already established in a part of North America. Metternich too warned of the "flood of evil doctrines and pernicious examples" that might "lend new strength to the apostles of sedition," asking "what would become of our religious institutions, of the moral force of our governments, and of that conservative system which has saved Europe from complete dissolution" if the flood is not stemmed. The rot might spread, to adopt the rhetoric of their heirs as they switched roles and took over the leadership of the conservative system in the mid-20th century.³⁰

Flawed as they were, these doctrines and examples constituted a dramatic advance in the endless struggle for freedom and justice; the Wise Men of the time were right to fear their spread. Their 18th century advocates, however, were hardly apostles of sedition and did not delay in imposing their vision of "a political democracy manipulated by an elite" (Richard Morris), the old aristocracy and, in later years, the rising business classes: a "solid and responsible leadership seized the helm," as Morris puts it approvingly. The most dread fears were therefore quickly put to rest. The ex-revolutionaries were also not lacking in ambition. And like Metternich and the Czar, they feared the "pernicious examples" at their borders. Florida was conquered to remove the threat of "mingled hordes of lawless Indians and negroes," John Quincy Adams wrote with the enthusiastic approval of Thomas Jefferson, referring to runaway slaves and indigenous people who sought freedom from the tyrants and conquerors, setting a bad example. Jefferson and others advocated the conquest of Canada to cut off support for the native population by "base Canadian fiends," as the president of Yale University called them. Expansion to north and south was blocked by British power, but the annexation of the West proceeded inexorably, as its inhabitants were destroyed, cynically cheated, and expelled.³¹

"The task of felling trees and Indians and of rounding out their natural boundaries" required that the New World be rid of alien interlopers. The main enemy was England, a powerful deterrent, and the target of frenzied hatred in broad circles. The War for Independence itself had been a fierce civil war enmeshed in an international conflict; relative to population, it was not greatly different from the Civil War almost a century later, and it caused a huge exodus of refugees fleeing from the richest country in the world to escape the retribution of the victors. US-British conflict continued, including war in 1812. In 1837, after some Americans supported a rebellion in Canada, British forces crossed the border and set fire to the US vessel Caroline, eliciting from Secretary of State Daniel Webster a doctrine that has become the bedrock of modern international law: "respect for the inviolable character of the territory of independent states is the most essential foundation of civilization," and force may be used only in self-defense, when the necessity "is instant, overwhelming and leaving no other choice of means, and no moment of deliberation." The doctrine was invoked at the Nuremberg tribunal, for example, in rejecting the claim of the Nazi leaders that their invasion of Norway was justified to forestall Allied moves. We need waste no words on how the US has observed the principle since 1837.³²

The US-British conflict was based on real interests: for the US, its desire to expand on the continent and in the Caribbean; for the dominant world power of the day, concern that the maverick across the seas was a threat to its wealth and power.

Though there was considerable sympathy in England for the rebel cause, the leaders of the newly independent country tended to see a different picture. Great Britain "hated and despised us beyond every earthly object," Thomas Jefferson wrote to Monroe in 1816, giving Americans "more reason to hate her than any nation on earth." Britain was not only an enemy of the United States, but "truly hostis humani generis," an enemy of the human race, he wrote to John Adams a few weeks later. "Taught from the cradles to scorn, insult and abuse us," Adams responded, "Britain will never be our friend till we are her master." Jefferson had proposed a different solution to Abigail Adams in 1785: "I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English," he speculated, "which renders their character insusceptible to civilization. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not their churches that their reformation must be worked." Ten years later, he expressed his fervent hope that French armies would liberate Great Britain, improving both its character and cuisine.³³

²⁹ TTT, 87 (Theodore Roosevelt), 126 (Churchill; for further details, DD, 182f., Omissi, Air Power, 160). Stannard, American Holocaust, 134 (Theodore Roosevelt). Kiernan, European Empires, 200 (Lloyd George). On Bush as the inheritor of Theodore Roosevelt, see John Aloysius Farrell, BG Magazine, March 31, 1991, and much other fascist-racist rhetoric of the moment. For a sample from the liberal press, see my articles in Z magazine, May 1991, and Peters, Collateral Damage. Indochina, APNM, chap. 3, n. 42.

³⁰ Perkins, Monroe Doctrine, I, 131, 167, 176f. See TTT, 69.

³¹ Morris, American Revolution, 57, 47. DD, ch. 1.3. See also Jan Carew, Monthly Review, July-August 1992.

³² On the civil conflict and the flight of refugees, see PEHR, II, 2.2; Morris, Forging, 12ff. Caroline test, commonly adduced in discussion of the UN Charter, cited by law professor Detlev Vagts, "Reconsidering the Invasion of Panama," Reconstruction, I.2 1990.

³³ Lawrence Kaplan, Diplomatic History, Summer 1992.