Some External Interests
the throne of Mexico as a puppet Emperor. The United States protested against this, refused to give Maximilian any recognition whatever and maintained friendly relations with the native Mexican government, though its president, Benito Juarez, was a fugitive in the northern mountains.
But 1865 came at last. With the end of the Civil War the United States, with an efficient army in the field, was ready to enforce its diplomatic demands with military acts. The Republican administration promptly read the international riot act to Louis Napoleon, practically ordering him to withdraw his army from Mexico. He tried to temporize, offering to remove his troops if the United States would recognize Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico. This the United States flatly refused to do, but instead it entered into closer relations with the Mexican republican government which was then in the field waging vigorous war against the invaders. At that Louis Napoleon gave up his enterprise and withdrew his army from Mexico with all possible haste, the “empire” of Maximilian collapsed in the tragedy of his death and the independent Republic of Mexico was restored.
Meantime a third great achievement of Republican statesmanship was in progress in the far north. Before the war there had been a futile proposal to purchase the Russian province in America known as Alaska, though with no notion of the real value of that country. During the war and before the practicability of a transatlantic telegraphic cable was established, American attention was again called to that region through an attempt to build by way of Alaska and Siberia an overland telegraph line to Europe. Finally,
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