The American Response to Canada Since 1776 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 161 objectives were not clear and it is not clear what we intended to achieve through this bloody confrontation. For the soldiers who fought there, this book is one of reconciliation. For the rest of us, it is a disturbing account of good men with good intentions who died too young and for the wrong reasons. In the end, one is left with a tragic sense that the soldiers who died there fought bravely, but died in vain. The American Response to Canada Since 1776. By Gordon T. Stewart. East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press. 218 pp. $35.00/Hardcover. Reviewed by Christopher Sands, MA. Candidate, SAIS Practically unique among the United States' major bilateral relationships, the nature and purposes of American foreign policy toward Canada has remained somewhat mysterious. The perceptions of diplomats and officials in Ottawa have been the subject of active interest and publication by many Canadian and U.S. writers. Yet the views of American policy-makers have rarely been documented. An important new book by Gordon T. Stewart, an historian at Michigan State University, begins to fill this gap in scholarship. The title, TheAmerican Response to Canada Since 1776, is a conscious reference to Warren I. Cohen's famous work on China. Like Cohen, Stewart considers the continuities which underlie the development of a foreign policy for a secondary, though significant power. The scope of the archival work that Stewart has done for this book is impressive. In addition to the official and private correspondence housed at the U.S. National Archives, there is reference to the personal papers ofSecretaries ofState William Seward and Frank B. Kellogg, and Presidents Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. The commercial aspect of Canada-U.S. relations is given special attention throughout the book. Trade agreements act as milestones, marking distinct phases in the bilateral relationship. Stewart highlights the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, the attempt at a second reciprocity deal in 1911, and the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement of 1988. First, the period after the American Revolution up to 1854 is described as one of tension and rivalry between British North America (Canada was not formed from the British continental colonies until 1867) and the United States. The War of 1812 is only the most severe of several border disputes in this period, and settlement pressures in the western frontier and trade with Europe and the British West Indies created considerable friction. The Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 was forced upon the United States by the British government, and the Pierce Administration became quickly disillusioned with the agreement because it was seen to be more favorable to British interests. The accord was further strained by the Civil War, during which Union leaders were angered by British aid and comfort to the Confederacy, even to the point of allowing guerilla raids to be launched from Canadian territory. When the 1854 Treaty came up for renewal in 1871, the Grant Administration rejected the idea outright. From 1871 to President McKinle/s final rebuff in 1892, the U.S. repeatedly rejected Canadian appeals for a new trade treaty. As a confederation of colonies spanning the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Canada was considered a 162 SAIS REVIEW proxy for British power in North America, and a rival for territory as the U.S. moved to settle the West and secure its borders. Secretary ofState William Seward's Alaska Purchase was undertaken in this context, as were disputes over the division ofthe Oregon Territory. Astonishingly, Stewart uncovers high-level concern in the State Department that Canada might attempt to challenge American interests for the possession of Hawaii. Stewart's book then turns to 1892, when a change ofattitude became apparent in Washington. A new, more commercially-directed approach to U.S.-Canadian relations culminated in the 1911 Reciprocity attempt. The Taft Administration, under pressure from domestic business to secure access to natural resources to fuel American industrial growth, crafted an offer ofReciprocity to the Canadians which. It was hoped that this agreement would break apart the British system ofImperial Trade Preferences. Although this treaty was rejected by Canadians in the 1911...