 February 10, 2009 - Austin Knuppe, research assistant at the Hauenstein Center, gave a talk at the Hauenstein Center's Lincoln Bicentennial Lecture Series. The Center's series was part of the annual conference of the Michigan Council for the Social Studies.
Narratives of U.S. relations with the Middle East usually begin in 1919, with a footnote on Thomas Jefferson's confrontation with the Barbary pirates in Tripoli. Knuppe looked at the deep roots of U.S.-Middle Eastern relations, with emphasis on Abraham Lincoln's presidency and the policies of his secretary of state. |
 Gleaves Whitney, director of the Hauenstein Center introduced Austin Knuppe. Knuppe is a graduate of Calvin College with honors in political science and history. He hopes to pursue graduate studies in international relations and enjoys reading and writing on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Knuppe has been on staff with the Hauenstein Center since 2008. |
 Knuppe began his talk by explaining two prevailing myths in U.S. diplomatic history. The first myth is that the United States did not have a coherent foreign policy with the Middle East until after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Implicit in this argument is that there was essentially no U.S. foreign policy with the Middle East during the American Civil War. The Second myth is that the roots of American empire were sown in the administration of William McKinley and the Spanish-American War in 1898. Knuppe's argument was that the United States’ interaction with the Middle East helped lay the framework for American empire as early as 1865. He hoped to "introduce a new narrative of diplomatic history that considers Lincoln’s relationship with the Middle East as important to understanding America’s role as a world superpower in the aftermath of the Civil War." |
 Knuppe started his presentation by offering a brief history of U.S. relations with the Middle East since the founding. In 1790, Ben Franklin penned a polemic satire entitled "On the Slave Trade" under the guise of an Algerian prince hoping to convince his American audience why it was both legal and moral for him to retain American sailors captured in the Mediterranean as slaves in his empire. President Thomas Jefferson was the first president to have a foreign policy concerned with the Arab world. In 1805, Jefferson dispatched a contingent of U.S. marines to the Barbary States to protect American commercial interests. During Andrew Jackson's administration, foreign policy with the Ottoman Empire grew tense when many prominent politicians in the Congress supported sending foreign aid to Greek rebels in the Balkans. Frontier general (and future president) William Henry Harrison famously exclaimed: “Humanity, policy, religion—all demand it…The star-spangled banner must wave above the Aegean.”
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 Contrary to popular wisdom, the United States maintained a diplomatic relationship with the Middle East during the Civil War. The U.S. foreign minister in Constantinople, Edward Joy Morris, was able to secure Ottoman neutrality in the war, and a promise from the Sultan to capture and prosecute Confederate privateer vessels. In Egypt, the Union blockade of Southern ports allowed Egyptian cotton exports to Europe to flourish. Thus, the United State's economic relationship with Egypt ensured British neutrality by opening up new sources of cotton imports for the UK. U.S. policy with the Barbary States remained tense when Confederate privateers landed in Tangier and were arrested by the Union consulate. With threats of French interference in the Civil War, Lincoln decided to release the privateers. |
 The aftermath of the American Civil War saw a consolidation of ideological, political, and economic power domestically. With the Union victory, Lincoln's "new birth of freedom" demonstrated that the free labor ideology had permanently defeated slave labor sentiment. Politically, the United States became a single entity once again. Instead of saying "the United States are," the colloquialism became "the United State is." Republicans consolidated political control during Reconstruction and came to dominate American politics for the next 50 years. Economically, Walter McDougall argues that the “defeat of the Confederacy removed the last impediment to the maturation of a continental superstate with a booming population, industry, agriculture and trade.”
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 During Reconstruction, the United States approached the Middle East in a new and consolidated fashion. Ideologically, Lincoln's "new birth of freedom" was spread through a network of diplomats, soldiers, and Christian missionaries. Politically, the United States began to assert itself more aggressively by dispatching additional naval units to the Mediterranean. Economically, the introduction of the production line and exports of newly discovered oil created an export-oriented trade relationship with the region. Ideologically, politically, and economically, the United States was beginning to build empire in the Middle East 50 years before the Spanish-American war. |
 Gleaves Whitney and staff took a moment for a picture in front of the Hauenstein Center banner. Listed from left to right: Tabitha Bell, Mandi Bird, Austin Knuppe, Gleaves Whitney, Heather Landis, and Brian Flanagan. |
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