With the treaty signed, it now moved to the United States Senate for ratification. With an election looming and the Republican controlled Senate already on record as being hostile to the negotiations, the treaty faced an uphill battle. As the debate unfolded, the arguments against ratification of the treaty proceeded along four main lines of attack: the role of the Senate in treaty making; Anti-British feeling; protectionist sentiment; and the hostility of the New England fishing industry. On May 8, 1888, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released its majority report, recommending that the treaty not be ratified. The report excoriated the executive branch for appointing commissioners without the “advice and consent of the Senate” and it warned against such a usurpation of the Senate’s constitutional powers regarding the negotiation of treaties:

It is not difficult to see that, in evil times, when the President of the United States may be under the influence of foreign and adverse interests, such a course of procedure might result in great disaster to the interests and even the safety of our Government and people.

 Thus, the Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sought to attack the treaty on constitutional grounds. Senator William Chandler of New Hampshire followed this line of attack in his speech on the treaty on July 16, 1888. The fourth of Senator Chandler’s reasons why the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty was a “national dishonor” was because two of the commissioners were “appointed by the President without the consent of the Senate.” Senator Chandler argued that the Constitution gives the President “no power to appoint officers of the United States to negotiate with foreign nations” without the consent of the Senate. He concluded that the appointment by the President of two negotiators (Putnam and Angell) without the consent of the Senate was “a gross violation of the Constitution, willfully, recklessly, and defiantly perpetuated; and the Senate might well have refused on this ground even to consider the terms of a treaty thus first introduced into its presence.” It is little wonder that a Senate with a Republican majority would zealously guard its prerogatives when faced with the first Democratic president since James Buchanan, even going so far as to impugn his motives and suggest that he was in the thrall of a foreign power (in this case, Great Britain). This wild accusation signaled that the Republicans were moving their rhetoric onto more emotive ground.

Anglophobia was a powerful force in the United States in the late nineteenth century. In his book on the subject, Edward P. Crapol states “in the years between the American Revolution and the Spanish-American War the popular perception of England was an amalgam of oppressor, rival, and nemesis.” The American historical experience with Great Britain during the nineteenth century fed this perception, whether is was the War of 1812, the disputes over the northwestern border, or British actions during the Civil War. “Then, in the last decades of the century, as the United States directly confronted Britain for economic and political hegemony, this Anglophobic response was characterized by an emotional and psychological combination of jealousy and resentment, frustration and hostility.”

The political conversation around the fisheries dispute during Grover Cleveland’s first term was rife with expressions of Anglophobia and accusations that the Administration was pro-British, a charge that was not unfounded. Marc-William Palen notes that “President Grocer Cleveland and his cabinet tended openly toward Anglophilia amid a time of intense Anglophobia.” Senator Harrison Holt Riddleberger of Virginia denounced the Cleveland Administration as “pro-English from the President to the last Cabinet officer.” Senator Eugene Hale of Maine accused Democrats of having “grown somewhat sensitive over the charge made in many places and profoundly believed by the American people that the Democratic party is un-American in its attitude, … and is imbued with British views and British policies and British theories.”

The Anglophobe attacks on the Cleveland were intertwined with the struggle for Irish-American votes. Great Britain had exacerbated the Irish “issue” by its choice of lead negotiator, Joseph Chamberlain, a well-known opponent of Irish Home Rule – a fact which led to him being given protection while in the United States. Once the treaty was before the Senate, Bayard lamented in a letter to the US Minister to Italy that the Anglophobia of Irish Americans endangered passage of the treaty, which could “be sacrificed by ‘domestic issues between Great Britain and one of her dependencies, with which we have properly nothing whatever to do.’” Bayard was right to be apprehensive, with the presidential election only months away, the Republicans sought to attract Irish voters to their cause. In his denunciation of the Bayard-Chamberlain treaty, Republican Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado declared “that in the annuals of history, there has been no nation that has been so regardless of the rights of others as the English nation.” He then went on to condemn Great Britain for putting “a million and a quarter of Irish people in the grave.”

Anglophobia was also deeply intertwined with the debate over tariff reform that the Cleveland Administration was simultaneously waging. In his annual message to Congress on December 6, 1887 (in the midst of the negotiations that would lead to the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty), the President recommended that “our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable, and illogical source of unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and amended.” This was a direct challenge to the protectionist elements in the United States and the Republican Party. To pay for the Civil War, the United States government had raised taxes of all kinds, including tariffs on imported goods, to raise the revenue necessary to pay for the war. The high tariffs had the added benefit of protecting American industries and manufacturers from foreign competition and the Republican Party closely associated itself with a protectionist high tariff.

Cleveland’s advocacy of lower tariffs was used by protectionists as further evidence of his pro-British leanings. The Cobden Club had been founded in London 1866 in order to foster the global spread of the free trade philosophy of Richard Cobden, especially in the United States. The club’s motto was “Free Trade, Peace, and Goodwill among Nations.” Protectionists viewed the Cobden Club’s American members as a fifth column, working from within to destroy the United States’ wall of protection for the benefit of Great Britain. This protectionist view of a British conspiracy to subvert America’s economy via free trade was stoked by the number of Cobden Club members who held influential positions in the Cleveland Administration, including Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard, Secretary of War William C. Endicott, Secretary of the Interior L. Q. C. Lamar, and presidential advisor, protectionist apostate, and Arch-Cobdenite David A. Wells.

In a letter written to the American Minister to Great Britain after the treaty had been sent to the Senate, Bayard lamented that “the phalanx of protected interests moves to the aid of any threatened element, and has but one creed and one sole article to that creed.” Bayard’s fears once against proved justified. During the debates on ratification, Senator Riddleberger claimed “that the ratification of this fisheries treaty would lead us to free trade,” quoting a series of British newspaper articles rejoicing in the treaty’s free trade implications as support for his claim. Such claims dovetailed with the concerns of New England’s fishing industry who saw the Canadian seizures of American fishing vessels during the tumultuous fishing season of 1886 as blatant attempt by Canada, and by extension Great Britain, to readmit Canadian fish into the United States duty-free.

As mentioned, the states of New England were entirely represented in the Senate by Republicans, men that were closely attuned to the needs and demands of the fishing industry. The demands of the fishing industry in relation to access to the waters of British North America were driven by practical considerations. By the mid-1870s, the method of fishing using nets instead of the hook-and-line method had made inshore fishing (fishing within three nautical miles of shore) obsolete. As seen above, the fisheries clauses Treaty of Washington had allowed inshore fishing access for Americans in exchange for the duty-free importation of Canadian fish into the United States. Once American fishermen no longer needed access to those inshore areas, they came to view the duty-free importation of British North American fish as unwanted competition. So naturally, it was the fishing industry that pushed for the abrogation of the fisheries clauses of the Treaty of Washington at the earliest possible date in order to end “free fish” for Canada.

Once President Arthur gave Great Britain notice of the abrogation of the fisheries clauses on July 1, 1883, Congress lost no time in re-imposing the duty on Canadian fish, which it scheduled to take effect on July 1, 1885 – the same day that the fisheries clauses would expire. With its demands met, the American fishing industry looked forward to the competitive edge they would now enjoy in the domestic market and it was because of this expectation that they grew so alarmed when the Cleveland Administration extended the access to British North American waters until January 1, 1886 and began seeking a settlement of the fisheries issue with Great Britain. In response, the fishing industry began vociferously arguing against any agreement with the British that would lead to a return of duty-fee Canadian fish. This agitation was one of the motivations for Senator Frye’s resolution of April 1886 that rejected the setting up of a commission to settle the fisheries dispute.

As angry as it was with the Canadian seizures of American fishing vessels, the fishing industry also saw the debate around a retaliation bill as a way to close the “fresh fish” loophole in the duties on Canadian fish that had been passed in 1883. In the few short years since that time, refrigeration technology had rapidly outpaced existing regulations, which caused the government to rule that frozen fish were classified as fresh fish. From the fishing industry’s perspective this allowed duty-free “fresh fish” to pour into the United States from Canada. The Retaliation Act of March 1887 offered a way to close this loophole by banning the importation of Canadian fish. Democratic Senator John T. Morgan of Alabama declared that the Republican opposition to the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty was designed to close the fresh fish loophole in America’s tariff wall: “all of this contention about this treaty means that, and nothing more than that. It is intended to force the President of the United States by a proclamation to prohibit the coming of free fish into the United States.”

The Republican opposition to the treaty was fueled by the overlapping vested interests of protectionism and the New England fishing industry, which was effectively a subset of the protectionist lobby. The Anglophobia that fueled much of the opposition to the treaty was a major theme of protectionist rhetoric. Protectionist saw Great Britain as the great economic enemy, ever seeking to tear down the tariff wall and destroy American industry. As exaggerated as this accusation was, it was not without foundation. Since the 1850s, Great Britain and Canada had actively sought to use American access to British North American waters in order to gain duty free entry of Canadian goods into the United States. The truth that lie at the heart of the Anglophobe attacks on the Bayard-Chamberlain treaty undoubtedly contributed to its downfall.

On August 21, 1888, as expected, the Senate voted against ratification of the treaty. President Cleveland, anticipating this, had drafted a message to Congress explaining that the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty had sought to address “the numerous vexatious interferences and annoyances” which the Canadians had visited upon American fishermen by ensuring that they would not recur. The Senate had now rejected this remedy, leaving the “inexcusably harsh and oppressive” treatment of American fishermen at the hands of the Canadians unaddressed. Therefore, the President recommended “immediate legislative action conferring upon the Executive the power to suspend by proclamation the operation of all laws and regulations permitting the transit of goods, wares, and merchandise in bond across or over the territory of the United States to or from Canada.”

Senator Edmunds of Vermont might well point out that the President had the Retaliatory Act of 1887 at his disposal, but the force of the message changed the political narrative away from the defeat of the treaty and toward Cleveland’s strong Pro-American, Anti-British response. Although Cleveland’s message drew praise from the Democratic politicians, newspapers, and many in the Irish-American community, there was no realistic expectation that the Republicans in the Senate would act on it and they did not disappoint. The House of Representatives passed another retaliation bill, but the Senate declined to act on the President’s message.

The interconnected currents of Anglophobia, protectionism, and the hostility of the fishing industry combined with the partisan politics of a Presidential Election year to defeat the Bayard-Chamberlain treaty. It is tempting to argue that the treaty was doomed from the start given the resolution of April 13, 1886 in which the Senate declared its hostility to any attempt to negotiate a resolution to treaty. There is still, however, the matter of the modus vivendi signed by Bayard and Chamberlain putting into immediate practice several key elements of the Bayard-Chamberlain treaty. The modus vivendi was initially supposed to last for two years in order to provide time for all parties to ratify the treaty. While the treaty was rejected by the United States Senate, the modus vivendi remained in force even after the envisioned two-year period and was even codified in Canadian and Newfoundland law, to the lasting economic benefit of the very New England fishing industry that had been so hostile to Bayard’s treaty; American fishing vessels could now rely on smaller permanent crews since they were able to purchase bait and hire temporary crews in Canada and Newfoundland. In the end, Cleveland and Bayard did effectively resolve the Atlantic fisheries dispute through the same mechanism by which they had extended the 1885 fishing season: an informal diplomatic arrangement without the consent of the Senate. Score one for executive power.

Image: U.S. Senate Chamber from The Political History of the United States, 1888. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Sources:

U.S. Senate, The Miscellaneous Documents of the Senate of the United States for the First Session of the Fiftieth Congress, Misc. Sen. Doc. 109, Serial Set 2516 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1888). https://www.google.com/books/edition/United_States_Congressional_serial_set/ViQ2AQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

19 Cong. Rec. 6355 (1888), https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1888-pt7-v19/context.

Edward P. Crapol, America for Americans: Economic Nationalism and Anglophobia in the Late Nineteenth Century (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1973).

Marc-William Palen, “Foreign Relations in the Gilded Age: A British Free-Trade Conspiracy?” Diplomatic History, 37, no. 2 (April 2013), 217-247, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26376445.

19 Cong. Rec. 7157 (1888), https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1888-pt8-v19/context.

19 Cong. Rec. 7393 (1888), https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1888-pt8-v19/context.

Charles C. Tansill, The Foreign Policy of Thomas F. Bayard, 1885-1897 (New York: Fordham University Press, 1940).

19 Cong. Rec. 7220 (1888), https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1888-pt8-v19/context.

Miller Center, University of Virginia, “Presidential Speeches: Grover Cleveland Presidency: December 6, 1887: Third Annual Message,” https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/december-6-1887-third-annual-message.

Charles W. Calhoun, Minority Victory: Gilded Age Politics and the Front Porch Campaign of 1888 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 15-16.

19 Cong. Rec. 7155-7156 (1888), https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1888-pt8-v19/context.

Charles S. Campbell, Jr., “American Tariff Interests and the Northeastern Fisheries, 1883-1888,” Canadian Historical Review 45, no. 3 (September 1964).

19 Cong. Rec. 7155 (1888), https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1888-pt8-v19/context.

Joanne Reitano, The Tariff Question in the Gilded Age: The Great Debate of 1888, (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994).

Allan Nevins, Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (New York: Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1932).

19 Cong. Rec. 7902 (1888), https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1888-pt8-v19/context.

John A. S. Grenville and George Berkeley Young, Politics, Strategy, and American Diplomacy: Studies in Foreign Policy, 1873-1917 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).

19 Cong. Rec. 7903 (1888), https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GPO-CRECB-1888-pt8-v19/context.

Alvin C. Gluek, Jr. “Programmed Diplomacy: The Settlement of the North Atlantic Fisheries Question, 1907-12,” Acadiensis, 6, no. 1 (Autumn 1976), 43-70, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30302582.