Influence
The balance of power between the northern and southern U.S. states was threatened by the proposed Golden Circle. Federalists feared that a new Caribbean-centered coalition would align the new Latin American states with the slave states in the US. This would tilt the balance of power southward and weaken U.S. federalism in favor of the Pan-American confederalist union. Those Americans in favor of the Gold Circle believed that an alignment with the remaining slaveholding Caribbean territories would reinforce their political strength.
After the civil war, many Americans from the South moved their slave-based operations to Cuba and Brazil (see Confederados), where slavery remained legal into the 1880s. Other American adventurists in Latin America repeated some elements of the Golden Circle. William Walker was the most successful of the individuals who tried to build a Latin American empire. Some historians think that the Spanish-American War was a continuation of these policies.
Read more about this topic: Golden Circle (proposed Country)
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“The Family is the Country of the heart. There is an angel in the Family who, by the mysterious influence of grace, of sweetness, and of love, renders the fulfilment of duties less wearisome, sorrows less bitter. The only pure joys unmixed with sadness which it is given to man to taste upon earth are, thanks to this angel, the joys of the Family.”
—Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872)
“Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The example of America must be the example, not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because it is the healing and elevating influence of the world, and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)