Austro-American Relations during the Era of the American Civil War

Abstract

For most of the nineteenth century prior to the American Civil War relations between the United States and Austria were characterized by rancor and ill feeling. As Protestants with strong nativist sentiments and republicans anxious to spread their political institutions to other nations, Americans generally regarded Catholic Austria and its conservative monarchy with great suspicion and distrust. An attempt by an Austrian Catholic missionary society in the 1820's to foster Catholicism in America led to sharp recriminations against the government in Vienna, which some even accused of supporting conspiracies against the United States. In 1848, when revolution swept the Habsburg empire, Americans almost unanimously supported the revolutionaries, condemning an Austria which the North American Review called a “conglomeration of dissimilar races having no principle of unity but despotism.” Secretary of State John M. Clayton ordered A. Dudley Mann to Hungary to welcome the country into the family of nations as soon as her independence was assured. When the Hungarian revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth toured the United States, he met a hero's welcome wherever he went. In response, Austria pursued an unfriendly policy of her own towards the United States, even briefly breaking off diplomatic relations.