Napoleon and Napoleonic Rule

Americans first became aware of Napoleon Bonaparte in the mid-1790s, while he was a commander in the wars of the French Revolution. Newspaper accounts portrayed him as a gifted general along the lines of Julius Caesar. In particular, descriptions of Napoleon's youthful character, elevated reading taste, and magnanimous treatment of conquered enemies pushed many Americans to think of him as a liberal humanitarian. So inspiring were these printed testimonies that at least two individuals in the Philadelphia area, including an African American servant of soon-to-be Pennsylvania governor Thomas McKean, named their children "Buonaparte." The hunger for news about Napoleon contributed, in turn, to a profusion of misinformation. Rumors about Bonaparte's whereabouts and situation became a minor newspaper industry, and in 1799 it took approximately one month to discredit a rumor that the French general had died in Egypt during a military campaign in North Africa.

Though Napoleon did not assume political power until November 1799, Americans long before then grasped the depth of his political influence. When French and British officials initiated peace talks in June 1797, Americans attributed it to the daring accomplishments of Napoleon. In a similar way, observers of American domestic politics suggested that the European victories of Bonaparte had a moderating impact upon the political disputes between Federalists and Democratic Republicans. A few individuals, like U.S. representative Robert Goodloe Harper of South Carolina, identified a malicious element in Bonaparte, but most Americans in the mid-to-late 1790s viewed Napoleon with appreciation and awe.

the general becomes a dictator

News of the 9 November 1799 coup d'état bringing Napoleon to power reached most parts of the United States by late January 1800, but it was not immediately clear how his emergence as a political leader should be understood. At times, Federalist politicians and newspaper editors denounced Bonaparte's rise as another example of the unstable political wrangling and illiberal ideology of the hated French Jacobins. In other situations, they praised Napoleon's regime for quashing democratic despotism and for establishing a foundation upon which international peace and French domestic tranquility might be developed. Democratic Republicans also gave mixed signals about the significance of Bonaparte's assumption of political power. He seemed to some the fulfillment of the French Revolution, a republican champion who persistently opposed monarchists. To others, however, Napoleon represented the betrayal of French revolutionary ideals and the dangers of a standing army.

The ambivalent and relatively nonpartisan approach toward Napoleon was undergirded by the Anglo-French peace treaty of 1802, which temporarily removed the immediate impetus for American discord regarding European politics. By the end of 1802, moreover, most Americans agreed that Napoleon operated as a dictator, not as a benevolent republican. Still, Democratic Republican and Federalist commentators found reason to praise Napoleon's regime. A writer for a Virginia newspaper noted that while Bonaparte continually disregarded constitutional procedures, he was "endowed with the most splendid talents." The author meant that Napoleon had charisma and panache and displayed the ability to shape events in his image. In an era when international conflict forced Americans to make difficult decisions about the character of the United States, and when Americans were developing the myth of the self-made man, the figure of Napoleon was appealing because he exemplified the way in which strong-minded individuals seemed to impose their ideas on external circumstances rather than yielding to the inscrutable forces of fate.

louisiana and the napoleonic wars

Reasons for bitter party conflict over the question of Napoleon reemerged rather quickly with the crisis over French occupation of the Louisiana territory. In 1800 France acquired the territory from Spain in a secret agreement. Napoleon hoped to reestablish a French presence in the New World and planned to use the Louisiana territory as the main source of timber and food for the sugar-producing island of St. Domingue. Once news of France's acquisition of Louisiana reached the United States, however, President Thomas Jefferson moved quickly to protect American interests along the Mississippi River valley. While hinting at the possibility of an Anglo-American alliance if Napoleon did not moderate his imperial designs, Jefferson sent ministers to Paris in hopes of acquiring New Orleans and the right to navigate along the Mississippi River. Federalist politicians, in contrast, urged Jefferson to summon an army and take possession of Louisiana by force; only a sycophantic, Francophilic American would not stand up to the foreign threat looming on the western horizon. Unfortunately for the Federalists, the same St. Dominguans who initiated a massive slave uprising in 1791 indirectly gave the Democratic Republican Party a public relations coup when they successfully thwarted Napoleon's attempts to reconquer their island in the first few years of the nineteenth century. For when Napoleon became frustrated with his inability to reassert French force in the New World, he decided to cut his losses and authorized the sale of the entire Louisiana territory—not just the city of New Orleans—to the United States for the bargain price of $15 million. War with France had not only been averted, but a tremendous territorial boon to the United States had been acquired through peaceful negotiation.

Not coincidentally, the Louisiana Purchase (1803) occurred just before a new round of Anglo-French warfare (1803–1815) enveloped the Western world. As with the military strife of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars provided a framework for vicious rhetoric and partisanship in the United States. Federalists attacked Napoleonic France for its aggrandizing, ambitious policies. Napoleon seemed to aim at nothing less than global domination, and comparisons to the Antichrist were not uncommon. Federalists also lauded the merits of Great Britain as it bore the burden of defending political liberty against the tyrannical assaults of France. Democratic Republicans, on the other hand, held up France as the defender of liberty even as they condemned the hypocritical rhetoric of Napoleon. By contending with monarchical, aristocratic Britain, France facilitated the survival of American republicanism. This did not mean that Democratic Republicans favored an alliance with Napoleonic France and a declaration of war against the British. Rather, Jefferson's administration pursued a policy of neutrality, one in which the United States would seek to establish favorable relations with both Britain and France.

Neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars was much easier to proclaim than to achieve. Caught in the middle of yet another round of Anglo-French conflict, the United States struggled to defend its interests and national honor. Especially damaging to Americans' economic welfare were foreign restrictions on U.S. trade and naval attacks perpetrated by British and French ships. As a result, President Jefferson issued the Embargo of 1807, which prohibited American trade with all foreign countries. Unfortunately for Jefferson and his Democratic Republican colleagues, the embargo was a dismal failure: American exports declined from over $100 million in value in 1807 to just over $20 million in 1808; Federalists enjoyed a partial revival of popular support; and Britain and France refused to modify their policies. Jefferson's successor, James Madison, sought to curtail these negative consequences by repealing the embargo and by promulgating the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, which prohibited trade with Britain and France only. Like its predecessor, however, the Non-Intercourse Act persuaded neither British nor French authorities to respect American maritime and commercial rights. Undeterred in their attempt to influence peaceably European policy toward the United States, Madison and Congress experimented with yet another piece of legislation. Macon's Bill No. 2 (1810) repealed the ban on trade with Britain and France, but simultaneously authorized the president to reimpose that ban on either nation if the other decided to rescind its restrictions on American trade.

At this point, Napoleon sensed a weakness in American policy and exploited it to the advantage of France. In particular, Napoleon had his foreign minister declare that France was lifting its ban on American shipping. Though the actions of Napoleon's minister represented a clear attempt to manipulate American policy, Madison followed through on the promise of Macon's Bill No. 2 and reimposed restrictions on trade with Britain. In other words, Napoleon forced Madison's hand and not so subtly pushed Americans to take a more aggressive stand against the British. And when officials from Britain refused to alter their stance on trade restrictions, Americans appeared to have no choice but war with that nation. Formal conflict came to pass when Congress declared war on Britain in June 1812. Though American ships achieved a number of dramatic triumphs over British vessels, the land confrontation in the struggle that became known as the War of 1812 (1812–1815) was a series of virtually uninterrupted disasters. The United States survived the war with its territorial integrity intact and self-confidence growing, but only because Napoleon's forces occupied the vast majority of Britain's resources, military manpower, and political energy.

the legacies

When Napoleon's enemies defeated his armies and forced him to abdicate in the spring of 1814, Americans responded, predictably, by dividing into partisan camps. Federalists rejoiced at the fall of Bonaparte and viewed the relative indifference among the French populace as a sign that his regime had never been very popular. Democratic Republicans argued that peace would be a blessing for Europe, but lamented the possibility of a return to French monarchical rule. After Napoleon returned from exile in 1815 for his 100 Days Campaign, Americans once again interpreted events along political lines. Federalists feared that the Napoleonic forces of disorder would threaten European stability, while Democratic Republicans claimed that Bonaparte fought for the right of self-determination. In the end, the duke of Wellington defeated Bonaparte's French army at the Battle of Waterloo (1815), and Napoleon's influence upon the United States underwent a drastic transformation. After that date—and more particularly after Napoleon's exile to a remote South Atlantic island, St. Helena—the French commander ceased to affect American life through direct political and military activity.

Yet Bonaparte's legacy in the United States persisted well beyond his political demise. Napoleonic military tactics became a staple for the education of cadets at West Point, while the Congress of Vienna (an assembly of European delegates gathered together in 1814 and 1815 for the express purpose of stabilizing international relationships in the wake of Napoleon's fall) indirectly assisted American economic and cultural growth by successfully establishing the framework for a century of relative transatlantic tranquility. No matter how Americans after 1815 viewed Napoleonic politics and warfare, they generally expressed amazement at the way in which the French general shaped the entire Western world in his image. Referred to as a "luminous star," a "great man," and the subject of "wonder, astonishment, and pity," Bonaparte seemed to comprehend and harness the vast potential of individual willpower in a way that few others in history ever had. Napoleon's name and image, therefore, became one of the most powerful symbols of Romantic belief in the nineteenth century. Transcendentalist thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about him in a collection of essays, Representative Men (1850). Andrew Jackson kept a bust of Napoleon on a bookshelf throughout his career. And dashing Civil War general George B. McClellan reveled in his nickname, Little Napoleon. As late as the 1920s, a poll found that Americans considered Bonaparte one of the three greatest figures of history, along with Jesus Christ and Henry Ford. Napoleon died in exile on St. Helena in 1821, but the French general's image continued to evoke for Americans the power of individual exertion and visionary self-confidence.

See alsoDemocratic Republicans; Embargo; Federalist Party; French; Haitian Revolution; Louisiana Purchase; Presidency, The: Thomas Jefferson; Presidency, The: James Madison; War of 1812 .

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Matthew Rainbow Hale