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Part of the book series: Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series ((CIPCSS))

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Abstract

The 1850s saw the consolidation of Mexican conservatism. Chapter 5 explores the worldview of the Mexican Conservative Party , particularly as it was shaped by international events and transnational currents of thought. The period 1848 to 1861, bookended by the US-Mexican War and the French intervention, has seen historians focus on domestic Mexican politics, particularly the struggle between ”reactionary” Conservatives and “progressive” liberals culminating in the War of Reform. However, the chapter argues that those associated with the Mexican Conservative Party understood themselves to be part of an international reaction against the doctrines that, they believed, caused the 1848 revolutions in Europe and contributed to instability in Mexico. In searching for a model to inspire their dream of turning a tumultuous democratic republic into an orderly authoritarian state, the newly formed Mexican Conservative Party looked to the French Second Empire. The chapter analyses the response of Mexican Conservatives to the 1848 revolutions in the aftermath of the US-Mexican War (1846–48). It argues that Mexican Conservatives placed themselves within an international struggle of global importance—a Western version of the Crimean War . In drawing upon the renewed intellectual vigour of conservatism in the late 1840s and 1850s, Mexican conservatives developed a conservative path to modernity, which emphasised order and progress over political liberty and democracy, but nonetheless incorporated many elements of the so-called “spirit of the century”.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ‘La Guerra de oriente’, El Universal, 3 December 1854, front page.

  2. 2.

    ‘La alianza anglo-francesa. – Sus principios y su influyo’, ibid., 12 January 1855, front page.

  3. 3.

    Vigil, México a través, 281; 367; Gargarella, Legal Foundations, 98.

  4. 4.

    El Universal, and ‘Situación de Roma’, 25 May 1849, front and second pages.

  5. 5.

    Ibid., ‘Situación de Europa. – Término probable de la lucha. – Sus consecuencias para la América. – Interés de las Repúblicas americanas’, 19 May 1849, front page.

  6. 6.

    On the revolutions of 1848, see Mike Rapport, 1848: A Year of Revolution (London: Little, Brown, 2008); Axel Körner (ed.), 1848: A European Revolution? International Ideas and National Memories of 1848 (London: Macmillan, 2000); Jonathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848–1851 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

  7. 7.

    Karl Marx , The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, trans. Eden and Cedar Paul (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1926), 23.

  8. 8.

    Quoted in James Dunkerley, Americana: The Americas in the World around 1850 (London: Verso, 2000), 127.

  9. 9.

    José Ramón Pacheco to Drouyn de Lhuys , 24 October 1853, AAE, CP Mexique, 41.

  10. 10.

    ‘La República necesita un hombre’, El Universal, 13 February 1853, front page.

  11. 11.

    Rivera, ‘La convocatoria’, 535–44.

  12. 12.

    For example, ‘Sistema electoral’, El Universal, 18 April 1850, front page. Alamán had also proposed direct elections for Congress and the presidency in Historia de Méjico, V, 937.

  13. 13.

    Michael Costeloe notes that Alamán ’s arguments were “rather surprising given his record of antipathy to popular elections” in ‘Mariano Arista and the 1850 Presidential Election in Mexico’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 18 (1999), 54.

  14. 14.

    Thomson, European Revolutions, 5.

  15. 15.

    Quoted in Pablo Mijangos y González, The Lawyer of the Church Bishop Clemente de Jesús Munguía and the Clerical Response to the Mexican Liberal Reforma (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 72–73.

  16. 16.

    See, for example, ‘Educación democratica’, El Universal, 6 July 1853, front page.

  17. 17.

    ‘Carácter de las últimas noticias de Europa. Un pensamiento que asoma en Francia’, El Universal, 15 and 22 November 1850; front pages; ‘Luis Napoleón Bonaparte’, El Orden, 25 and 26 November 1852, front pages.

  18. 18.

    ‘La revolución francesa de 1791 y de la 1848. Comparaciones. – Consequencias’, El Universal, 13 January 1849, front page.

  19. 19.

    ‘Situación de Roma’, ibid., 25 May 1849, first and second pages.

  20. 20.

    ‘Sistema electoral’, El Universal, 3 December 1848, first and second pages.

  21. 21.

    El Universal, ‘Soberanía Popular’, 7 and 10 December, front and second pages, 13 December, front page, 17, 18 and 27 December 1848, front and second pages. See also ‘Sistema Electoral’, 3 December 1848 and ‘elecciones’, 19 December 1848.

  22. 22.

    ‘Los retrogrades y la Monitor (concluye)’, El Universal, 25 December 1848, front page.

  23. 23.

    Maurice Agulhon, The Republican Experiment 1848–1852, trans. Janet Lloyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 119–24.

  24. 24.

    Sperber, European Revolutions, ch. 5.

  25. 25.

    ‘El espiritu del siglo presente no es la democracia pura—Pruébase con la actual revolulción de Europa (concluye)’, El Universal, 2 September 1849, front page.

  26. 26.

    ‘Revista política del mes de Febrero de 1849’, ibid., 10 May, p. 2; ‘Situación de Europa—Término probable de la lucha—Sus consecuencias para la América—Interés de las Repúblicas americanas’, 19 May, p. 2; ‘Revista política de Europa. Mes de marzo de 1849’, 10 June 1849, p. 2.

  27. 27.

    ‘Espíritu positivo del siglo—Su origen—Sus consecuencias—Aplicaciones en Méxcio’, ibid., 8 July 1849, front and second pages.

  28. 28.

    ‘Principios conservadores’, ibid., 2 July 1849, front page. Capitals in the original.

  29. 29.

    See, for example, ‘Fusion’, ibid., 9 June, and ‘Elecciones—partidos’, 22 June 1849, front pages.

  30. 30.

    Zamacois, Historia de Méjico, XIII, 291–92.

  31. 31.

    ‘Revolución moral (El Universal.)’, El Siglo XIX, 23 February 1850, front page.

  32. 32.

    ‘Elecciones. – Voluntad nacional. – Situación del país. – Partido conservador. – Lucha electoral. – Esperanzas’, ibid., 12 August, and ‘Mas sobre elecciones’, 5 September 1849.

  33. 33.

    ‘Porque triunfa el partido conservador?’, ibid., 9 September 1849, front page.

  34. 34.

    Zamacois, Historia de Méjico, XIII, 346. Leading Conservatives were elected deputies though, including Alamán , Manuel Díez y Bonilla and Luis Gonzaga Cuevas .

  35. 35.

    Costeloe, ‘Mariano Arista ’, 54.

  36. 36.

    This was the role the Bourbonist newspaper El Sol had ascribed to Napoleon Bonaparte in French history after his 1799 coup d’état. ‘Política. Continúa el anterior’, El Sol, 29 December 1821, pp. 31–32.

  37. 37.

    ‘Reacción que ha tenido lugar en Europa y en América respecto de las ideas políticas’, El Universal, 16, 19, 22 and 24 December 1853, p. 2.

  38. 38.

    ‘Luis Napoleón Bonaparte’, El Orden, 25 and 26 November 1852, front pages.

  39. 39.

    ‘Una ojeada sobre el viejo continente—Reacción’, El Universal, 29 January 1853, front and second pages.

  40. 40.

    ‘Luis Napoleón Bonaparte’, El Orden, 25 and 26 November 1852, front pages.

  41. 41.

    ‘Un ojeada sobre el viejo continente. – Reacción’, El Universal, 28 and 29 January 1853, front and second pages.

  42. 42.

    ‘Luis Napoleón Bonaparte’, El Orden, 25 and 26 November 1852, front pages.

  43. 43.

    ‘Un ojeada sobre el viejo continente. – Reacción’, El Universal, 28 and 29 January 1853, front and second pages.

  44. 44.

    ‘Los principios conservadores y el progreso’, El Universal, 5 July 1853, front page.

  45. 45.

    Levasseur to French Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys , 30 April 1853, AAE, CP Mexique, 41.

  46. 46.

    Alphonse Dano to Drouyn de Lhuys , 3 October 1853, CP Mexique, 41.

  47. 47.

    Levasseur to Drouyn de Lhuys , 2 March and 27 April 1853, CP Mexique, 41.

  48. 48.

    Pierre Rosanvallon, La démocratie inachevée: Histoire de la souvaraineté du people en France (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), ch. 5.

  49. 49.

    See the entry in Jean Dubois, Le Vocabulaire politique et social en France de 1869 à 1872. A travers les œuvres des écrivains, les revues et les journaux. Thèse, etc (Paris, 1962).

  50. 50.

    Walter Bagehot , ‘Caesarism as it Exists Now’, The Economist, 4 March 1865 in Norman St John Stevas, The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, 15 vols. (London: The Economist, 1965–86), IV, 112.

  51. 51.

    Anonymous, Le Tiers Parti et les libertés intérieures (Paris: E. Dentu, 1866), 13.

  52. 52.

    Fowler, Santa Anna , 296–303.

  53. 53.

    Levasseur to Drouyn de Lhuys , 27 April 1853, AAE, CP Mexique 41.

  54. 54.

    Fowler, Santa Anna , 297; Johnson, Ayutla, 19

  55. 55.

    Fowler, Independent Mexico.

  56. 56.

    Mantecón, Santa Anna , 54–57; Johnson, Ayutla, 63.

  57. 57.

    Rosanvallon, Démocratie inachevé, 214–15.

  58. 58.

    Levasseur to Drouyn de Lhuys , 27 April 1853, AAE, CP Mexique 41.

  59. 59.

    Alamán to Francisco Serapio Mora , 2 May 1853, AHGE, Francia, L. 29; e. 365. ‘Ley sobre imprenta’, El Universal, 29 April 1853, front page; Anonymous, El partido conservador, 913.

  60. 60.

    ‘La prensa periódica’, El Universal, 8 June 1853, front page.

  61. 61.

    ‘La prensa periódica (concluye)’, El Universal, 9 June 1853, front page.

  62. 62.

    Agulhon, Republican Experiment, 178–83.

  63. 63.

    See Anceau, Napoléon III.

  64. 64.

    Hale, Mexican Liberalism, 259.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., 288.

  66. 66.

    ‘Espiritu de progreso que se halla en los principios conservadores’, El Universal, 21 July 1853, front page.

  67. 67.

    ‘Espíritu positivo del siglo—su origen—sus consecuencias—aplicaciones en México’, El Universal, 8 July, front and second pages; ‘Progreso—espíritu del siglo—espíritu de los mexicanos’, ibid., 15 August, front page; ‘El espiritu del siglo presente no es la democracia pura—Pruébase con la actual revolulción de Europa’, ibid., 1 and 2 September 1849, front pages. Although El Universal used the word “positivism” (positivismo) it is not clear what link, if any, this had with the ideas of Comte or earlier Saint-Simonians. Chevalier, though, also made a distinction between political liberty and civil liberty. The former was only the concern of a narrow elite, whereas the latter was important for majority because its benefits were greater. Michel Chevalier, Examen du système commercial connu sous le nom de système protecteur (Paris: Guillaumin et Cie., 1852), 10–18. The classic studies of positivism in Mexico see it introduced after the Mexican Second Empire. See Leopoldo Zea, El Positivismo en México (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1943), and Apogeo y decadencia del positivismo en México (Mexico City: Colegio de México, 1944). See also Hale, Transformation of Liberalism.

  68. 68.

    ‘No hay libertad sin industria’, El Universal, 20 December 1851, front page. It should be noted, though, that at the time of this article Chevalier was a supporter of free trade.

  69. 69.

    ‘Arreglo del acta de navegacion’, ibid., 4 January 1852. On the organisation of the society see Reglamento interior para el gobierno de Sociedad Mexicana, etc. (Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido, 1851), and Actas de la Sociedad Mexicana promovedora de mejoras materiales y morales, desde su instalacion (Mexico City: M. Murguia y compañia, 1854). The paper also supported the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística. For example, ‘Instituto de geografía y estadística’, ibid., 14 April 1851, front page.

  70. 70.

    ‘Agricultura’, El Universal, 7 May 1850, front page.

  71. 71.

    For example, ‘Mejoras materiales’, 1 July 1849; ‘Mejoras positivas’, 5 February 1851; ‘Camino de Hierro de Veracruz a Acapulco’, 14 January; ‘Mejoras materiales’, ibid., 18 January 1852.

  72. 72.

    Mantecón, Santa Anna , 40; 44–46.

  73. 73.

    Arrangoiz , Méjico desde 1808, II, 340–41; Anonymous, El partido conservador, 909–10; Miranda , Esposición pública, 41.

  74. 74.

    Levasseur to Drouyn de Lhuys , 3 June 1853, AAE, CP Mexique 41.

  75. 75.

    ‘Política europea y americana—necesidad de estudiar la primera y de abrir un camino á la segunda—alianza de los principios conservadores para el porvenir de la raza española—reformas importantes en el ‘Universal’’, El Universal, 1 August 1853, pp. 2–3.

  76. 76.

    ‘Congreso Americano’, ibid., 23 June 1853, front page.

  77. 77.

    Levasseur to Drouyn de Lhuys , 30 April 1853, AAE, CP Mexique, 41.

  78. 78.

    Díez de Bonilla to Gabriac, 2 March 1854 contained in Gabriac to foreign minister, ‘Reservé et confidentielle’, 4 March 1855, AAE, CP Mexique, 43.

  79. 79.

    See, for example, El Universal: ‘Temores de la política de la Unión Americana’, 6 December 1851, front page; ‘Situación política de Europa’, 15 March 1852, front page; ‘Cuestión de Oriente’, 24 October 1853, p. 2; ‘Los estados unidos a favor de la Rusia’, 25 March 1854, front page; ‘La guerra oriente—Nuestra intereses y nuestra simpatías’, 15, 16 and 18 December 1854, front pages; ‘La demagogia y los Estados-Unidos—La cuestión de Cuba en España’, 10 and 14 April 1855, front page; ‘La revolución en Europa y en America—quienes son los enemigos de nuestro gobierno’, 6 August 1855, front page.

  80. 80.

    Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 307–08 and 320–21; Meinig, The Shaping of America, 160; Donathon Olliff, Reforma Mexico, 26.

  81. 81.

    Meinig, Continental America, 191; Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 210; Thomas Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Late Jacksonian America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 134–35.

  82. 82.

    El Universal frequently translated, published and commented upon US articles expressing views towards Mexico inspired by the ideas of Manifest Destiny. For example, on The New York Herald, ‘Temores permanentes de la política americana respecto de nuestra pais’, 8 and 9 January 1852, front pages; on The United States Review, ‘La prensa de los Estados-Unidos y la República de México’, 2 February 1853, front and second pages. El Universal also dedicated a series of editorials to “Manifest Destiny” itself: ‘La raza española y la raza anglo-sajona’, 15, 25, 29 September and 5 October 1853, pp. 2–3, pp. 2–3, p. 2 and p. 2. See also El Orden on the The Weekly Picayune: ‘México—su porvenir’, 28 April 1853, front page.

  83. 83.

    ‘The War’, United States Democratic Review, 20 (1847), 100.

  84. 84.

    Hietala, Manifest Design, 153.

  85. 85.

    Franklin Pierce , ‘Inaugural Address’, 4 March 1853, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/index.php (accessed 4 October 2014).

  86. 86.

    James Gadsden to Manuel Díez de Bonilla , 14 and 29 November 1853 in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, IX, 650–63 and 667–69.

  87. 87.

    Fowler, Santa Anna , 306–07; Carmen Vázquez Mantecón, Santa Anna , 116–30; Richard Johnson, The Mexican Revolution of Ayutla, 1854–1855: An Analysis of the Evolution and Destruction of Santa Anna ’s Last Dictatorship (Rock Island: Augustana College Library, 1939), 35.

  88. 88.

    James Buchanan , ‘Message to the Senate on the Arrest of William Walker in Nicaragua’, 7 January 1858, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=68291 (accessed 4 October 2014).

  89. 89.

    Lewis Cass to John Forsyth , 17 July 1857, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, IX, 234–38.

  90. 90.

    John Forsyth to Luis Gonzaga Cuevas , 18 March 1858, in ibid., IX, 971–76.

  91. 91.

    Forsyth to Cass, 4 April 1857, in ibid., IX, 902–09.

  92. 92.

    On Cuba, see Piero Gleijeses, ‘Clashing over Cuba: The United States , Spain and Britain , 1853–55’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 49 (2017), 215–41. On filibusters, see Robert May, Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).

  93. 93.

    ‘Relaciones de México con las potencias estranjeras’, El Universal, 1 May 1853, front page. El Orden made the same argument, ‘Nuesta fe política’, El Orden, 21 and 22 August 1852, front pages; ‘México y los Estados-Unidos’, ibid., 8 December 1852, front page; ‘Desenlace de la revolución: La federación mexicana comprada con otras (concluye el sexto articulo)’, ibid., 5 January 1853, front page.

  94. 94.

    ‘Reflexiones sobre los gobiernos, aplicadas a la República’, La Sociedad, 6 January 1858, front page.

  95. 95.

    Santoni, Mexicans at Arms, 215–16; Dennis Berge, ‘A Mexican Dilemma: The Mexican Ayutamiento and the Question of Loyalty, 1846–1848’, Hispanic American Historical Review, 50 (1970), 229–56.

  96. 96.

    Examples are numerous; see, for example, ‘Traición de la patria—inconsequencias’, El Orden, 3 May, front page; ‘Los anexionistas’, ibid., 12 and 16 May, front pages; ‘No hay anexionistas’, ibid., 30 May and 2 June, front pages; ‘Los Partidos’, ibid., 11 May 1853, front page; ‘Situación actual de la República. – El pasado y el porvenir’, El Universal, 11 October 1850, front page; ‘El porvenir de México. – La idea anexionista y la idea conservadora’, ibid., 13, 16 and 18 October, front pages; ‘El espiritu anexionista, ibid., 29 July 1853, front page; ‘Estado de la cuestión’, La Sociedad, 5 April 1858, front page.

  97. 97.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 18 January 1857, AAE, CP Mexique, 46; 21 January 1858; AAE, CP Mexique, 48; Gadsden to Marcy, 19 August 1855, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, IX, 782–84.

  98. 98.

    Félix Ruiz, ‘La intervención europea’, La Sociedad, 10 June 1856, front page. Similar examples in La Sociedad are numerous, for example: ‘Que sería México bajo el domine norte-Americano’, 18 April, front page; ‘El partido liberal y los Estados-Unidos’, 15 May 1858, front page; ‘Las potencias occidentales de Europa y la Unión norte-americana respecto de los asuntos de Centro América y México’, 7 January, front page; ‘Allianza de los constitucionales y el gobierno de los Estados-Unidos—Los discursos de Mac-Lane y de Juárez —La circular de Ocampo—Protesta solemne del gobierno de la República, 17 April 1859, front and second pages. These same arguments were also made in the diplomatic correspondence of the Conservative government: Díez de Bonilla to Almonte , 20 April 1859; Muñoz Ledo to Almonte , 24 Febraruy 1860, AHGE, Francia, L. 38; e. 558; Castillo Lanzas to Almonte , 1 May, 1 August, 1 September and 2 October 1858, AHGE, Francia, L.38. e. 550. Muñoz Ledo to Almonte 29 March; Hidalgo to Almonte and Tomás Murphy Jr., 23 March 1860. Francia, L. 38; e. 558.

  99. 99.

    Petition of Ignacio Aguilar to Louis-Napoléon , 15 December 1858, contained in Gabriac to Walewski , ‘Personnelle et particulière’, 1 January 1859, AAE, CP Mexique, 50.

  100. 100.

    Petition of Joaquin Velázquez de León , 15 January 1859 enclosed in Gabriac to Walewski , 1 February 1859, ‘Particulière’, 1 February 1859, AAE, CP Mexique, 50.

  101. 101.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 11 May 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 48.

  102. 102.

    Gadsden to William Marcy, 5 November 1855, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, IX, 792–94. Gadsden argued that Washington should actively promote liberals. Gadsden to Marcy, 25 November 1855, in ibid., IX, 797–99.

  103. 103.

    Forsyth to Cass, 1 July 1858, in ibid., IX, 1010–12.

  104. 104.

    James Buchanan , ‘Second Annual Message to Congress’, 6 December 1858.

  105. 105.

    William Churchwell to Cass, 8 February 1859, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, IX, 1024–30.

  106. 106.

    Olliff, Reforma Mexico, 124–28.

  107. 107.

    Schoonover, Dollars over Dominion; Olliff, Reforma Mexico; Josefina Zoraida Vázquez, ‘Los últimos intentos expansionistas’, in México y el mundo: historia de sus relaciones exteriors, 8 vols. (Mexico City: Senado de la República, 1990), I, 151–80.

  108. 108.

    See Patricia Galeana, El tratado McLane-Ocampo: la comunicación interoceánica y el libre comercio (Mexico City: UNAM, 2006).

  109. 109.

    Pearl Ponce, ‘“As Dead as Julius Caesar”: The Rejection of the McLane-Ocampo Treaty’, Civil War History, 53 (2007), 346.

  110. 110.

    A French report on the incident concluded that the incident must be considered an intervention by Washington in the War of Reform on behalf of Juárez ’s liberals. ‘Saisie des bateaux à vapeur le Miramon et le Marquis de la havane par le frégate américaine, le Saratoga, Captain Turner’, 28 April 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 53.

  111. 111.

    ‘Los yankees en el gulfo mexicano’, Diario Oficial del Supremo Gobierno (Mexico City), 20 March 1860, front and second pages. See also ‘Los Yankees prestando ayuda a nuestros demagogos—La campaña de Veracruz’, La Sociedad, 18 March 1860, front page.

  112. 112.

    Josefina Zoraida Vázquez and Lorenzo Meyer, The United States and Mexico (Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 66.

  113. 113.

    A view most recently restated by Delmon, ‘Les acteurs de la politique’, 75–99. See also Dugast, La tentation mexicaine; Gouttman, La guerre du Mexique; Lecaillon, Napoléon III; Barker, The French Experience in Mexico 1821–1861; Schefer, La Grande Pensée de Napoléon III.

  114. 114.

    Delmon, ‘Les acteurs de la politique impériale’, 99.

  115. 115.

    Barker, ‘In Quest of the Golden Fleece’; Barker, ‘The French Legation in Mexico’; Cunningham, Mexico, 4–5.

  116. 116.

    Forsyth to Cass, 25 June 1858, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, IX, 1007–10.

  117. 117.

    And with the moderate liberal president Comonfort , who in several meetings Gabriac encouraged to renounce the liberal government he headed and suspend the Constitution, a course of action that Comonfort took in December 1857. Gabriac to Walewski , 5 February 1857, CP Mexique, 46; same to same, 22 November, 18, 28 and 31 December 1857, CP Mexique, 47.

  118. 118.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 30 May 1858; Walewski to Gabriac, 29 July 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 48; Walewski to Gabriac, 28 August 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 49.

  119. 119.

    Díez de Bonilla to Louis-Napoléon , 9 May 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 53; La Sociedad, 9 May 1860, ‘El exmo. Sr. ministro de Francia en México’.

  120. 120.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 1 August 1858; Walewski to Gabriac, 28 August 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 49.

  121. 121.

    Walewski to Gabriac, 30 May 1859, AAE, CP Mexique 51.

  122. 122.

    Walewski to Gabriac, 30 November 1859, AAE, CP Mexique, 52.

  123. 123.

    Saligny to Thovenel, 26 November 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 53.

  124. 124.

    Levasseur to foreign minister, 2 June 1853, AAE, CP Mexique, 41.

  125. 125.

    Dano to Drouyn de Lhuys , 4 January 1854, AAE, CP Mexique, 42.

  126. 126.

    Gabriac to Drouyn de Lhuys , 31 December 1854, 1 January and 25 January 1855, AAE, CP Mexique 43.

  127. 127.

    Radepont ‘Project pour la régénération du Mexique’, undated, enclosed in Radepont to Gabriac, 4 October 1856, AAE, CP Mexique, 46. See also Radepont to Louis-Napoléon , 25 February 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 48. Radepont remained in contact with Louis-Napoléon during the intervention and his correspondence to the emperor is contained in AN, AP400/62.

  128. 128.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 2 October and 29 October 1856, AAE, CP Mexique, 46.

  129. 129.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 31 December 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 49.

  130. 130.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 1 December 1856, AAE, CP Mexique, 46.

  131. 131.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 14 March 1857, AAE, CP Mexique, 46.

  132. 132.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 25 August, 26 September, 1, 12 and 17 October 1855, AAE, CP Mexique, 44; 1 and 14 August, 19 September, 11 November and 1 December 1856, AAE, CP Mexique, 46; same to same, 5 February, 11 April, 20 and 25 October 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 49.

  133. 133.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 18 April 1859, CP Mexique, 51.

  134. 134.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 19 December 1859 and 20 February 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 52.

  135. 135.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 30 January 1857.

  136. 136.

    Enclosed in Gabriac to Walewski , 22 April 1857, AAE, CP Mexique, 47. The forwarded despatch is identical to Forsyth to Cass, 4 April 1857, in Manning, Diplomatic Correspondence, IX, 902.

  137. 137.

    A view shared by Chevalier, Des mines, 93–97.

  138. 138.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 11 May 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 48.

  139. 139.

    Gabriac to Walewski , 27 January 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 52.

  140. 140.

    Drouyn de Lhuys to Levasseur , 29 Decemeber 1852, AAE, CP Mexique, 40; Drouyn de Lhuys to Dano, 31 January 1854, AAE, CP Mexique, 42; Drouyn de Lhuys to Dano, 30 November 1854, AAE, CP Mexique, 43.

  141. 141.

    Walewski to Gabriac, 2 July 1857, AAE, CP Mexique, 47.

  142. 142.

    Walewski to Gabriac, 15 November 1855, AAE, CP Mexique, 44.

  143. 143.

    Walewski to Gabriac, 29 November 1856, AAE, CP Mexique, 46; 27 February 1858, AAE, CP Mexique, 48.

  144. 144.

    Thouvenel to Saligny , 30 May 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 53.

  145. 145.

    ‘Note pour le Ministère’, April 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 53.

  146. 146.

    Stève Sainlaude, La France et la Confédération sudiste, 1861–1865: la question de la reconnaissance diplomatique pendant la guerre de Sécession (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011), 192; Thier, ‘The View from Paris’; Thier, ‘A World Apart, A Race Apart?’; Roger, The American Enemy; Rémond, Les États-Unis.

  147. 147.

    Palmerston to Clarendon , 31 December 1857 quoted in Richard van Alstyne, ‘Anglo-American Relations, 1853–1857: British Statesmen on the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and American Expansion’, American Historical Review, 42 (1937), 491–500.

  148. 148.

    Clarendon to Cowley, 21 May 1857, FO 519/175.

  149. 149.

    Palmerston to Russell , 13 August 1863; Palmerston to Russell , 11 September 1863; Palmerston to Russell , 26 September 1863, PRO 30/22/22.

  150. 150.

    ‘Note verbale remis par Lord Cowley’, 7 February 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 52.

  151. 151.

    Gabriac to Thouvenel, 24 April 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 53.

  152. 152.

    ‘Proposition anglaise’, January 1860, AAE, CP Mexique, 52.

  153. 153.

    Louis-Napoléon states clearly that the US Civil War afforded him a free hand to pursue his policy in Mexico. Louis-Napoléon to Count Flahault, 9 October 1861, AN, 400AP/63.

  154. 154.

    Hidalgo to foreign minister, 30 March 1860, AHGE, Francia, L. 38; e. 558.

  155. 155.

    Hidalgo y Esnaurrízar to Édouard Thouvenel, 12 May 1860, AHGE, Francia, L.38; e. 558.

  156. 156.

    ‘Mexican Affairs; Decision of the European Powers upon their Mexican Policy—Cruelties Practised by Rojas—A Terrible Affray—Anxiety for the Fate of the McLane Treaty’, The New York Times, 14 April 1860, no page nos. given.

  157. 157.

    Charles Dupin to Louis-Napoléon , 9 November 1863, ‘Du Mexique dans ses rapport avec Napoléon III par le baron Charles Dupin , sénateur’, AAE, MD Mexique, 10.

  158. 158.

    Belly , ‘Du conflit anglo-américain’, 122.

  159. 159.

    Quoted in Olliff, Reforma Mexico, 150–51.

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Shawcross, E. (2018). The Western Question. In: France, Mexico and Informal Empire in Latin America, 1820-1867. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70464-7_5

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