Navigating Neutrality: Early American Governance in the Turbulent Atlantic by Sandra Moats (review)

Reviewed by: Navigating Neutrality: Early American Governance in the Turbulent Atlantic by Sandra Moats Terri D. Halperin Navigating Neutrality: Early American Governance in the Turbulent Atlantic. By Sandra Moats. The Revolutionary Age. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press and Virginia Open, 2021. 231 pages. Cloth, paper, ebook. In Navigating Neutrality, Sandra Moats has given us a valuable account of neutrality policy in the 1790s. She shows both that the policy of neutrality had long-standing historical roots and that it presented a daunting challenge for the new government to implement and enforce under the U.S. Constitution, with little existing bureaucratic infrastructure and a skeptical public. By exploring its origins, drafting, and enforcement, Moats successfully explores "neutrality's profound and enduring consequences in the 1790s and beyond" (8). Government leaders, including George Washington, quickly learned that proclaiming neutrality was "easier than maintaining it" (1). It was the project of maintaining and enforcing the policy that "contributed to America's transformation from a paper republic into an autonomous nation fully embracing its constitutional responsibilities" (1). This study touches many fields, including diplomatic history, state building, political partisanship, and biography. For neutrality to be effective as a policy, it had to be accepted by Americans as well as by foreign powers. Moats scrutinizes the United States' advocacy for its policy of neutrality in the world, which it often did from a weak position vis-à-vis other nations. Growing partisan division is a familiar part of any history of the 1790s, and most of what Moats says in this regard will not be new to most readers. Although she discusses the widening divide between Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton and Republicans such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, it is just one of a host of issues that confronted Washington throughout his presidency. Perhaps her most important contribution to the scholarship is her elaboration of state development.1 Here was a young nation with a new government that achieved relative success in implementing a far-reaching policy both at home and abroad. The French Revolution provoked a European war beginning in early 1793 that precipitated a series of challenges and crises, both domestic and foreign, for Washington's administration. They had to navigate this dangerous world to preserve and protect America's independence. The United States and France were still bound by the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce signed in 1778 during the American Revolution, but both countries disputed the precise obligations involved. France and End Page 459 especially Great Britain increased their attacks on each other's as well as other nations' ships, endangering American shipping and trade. The United States also faced an influx of refugees fleeing the chaos, war, and political repression in Europe, significant numbers of whom came from France and Great Britain. Furthermore, Washington had to contend with the arrival of Edmond-Charles-Édouard Genet, the French minister to the United States, in Philadelphia. Genet made free use of American ports to outfit and refit captured British ships, bringing the war ever closer to the United States. It was in this environment of political, economic, diplomatic, and social uncertainty that Washington's cabinet debated the policy of neutrality. The men who argued about neutrality and who drafted and implemented the 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality sit at the heart of Moats's narrative. She positions Washington at the center and portrays him as the voice of reason who managed to achieve "the near impossible when he forged a consensus neutrality policy" (1). Moats adds another voice to a growing body of work that explores and highlights Washington's effectiveness as a leader, which includes Lindsay M. Chervinsky's The Cabinet.2 These scholars characterize Washington as a forceful and politically savvy leader. Moats especially emphasizes his ability to find points of agreement among his increasingly divided cabinet and forge a workable and effective policy. She points to Washington's experience leading the Continental army during the American Revolution as crucial not only to understanding how he acted as president but also to explain his commitment to neutrality. She devotes a chapter to Washington's correspondence with his friends and professional colleagues from the...