Reconstruction and Anti-imperialism

Abstract

In chapter 2, Don Doyle shows how, for Americans and Mexicans, the regime of Emperor Maximilian I represented an extension of the same concepts underlying the Confederacy. Not accidentally, when the war ended, the Maximilian regime harbored and even sponsored about 2,000 Confederate exiles in the northern part of the country. Through diplomacy and military pressure, Secretary of State William Seward eliminated both a possible Confederate revival and a continued French presence in Mexico. Rather than an aggressive act of expansion, argues Don Doyle, US policy reflected a spirit of republican camaraderie that coincided with Reconstruction and ended once Reconstruction ended.