Anson Burlingame (November 14, 1820 – February 23, 1870) was an American lawyer, Republican/American Party legislator, diplomat, and abolitionist. As diplomat, he served as the U.S. minister to China (1862–1867) and then as China's envoy to the U.S., which resulted in the 1868 landmark Burlingame Treaty.
Early life
Burlingame was born in New Berlin, Chenango County, New York. In 1823 his parents (Joel Burlingame and Freelove Angell) took him to Ohio, and about ten years afterwards to Michigan. Between 1838 and 1841 he studied at the Detroit branch of the University of Michigan, and in 1846 graduated from Harvard Law School. He was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Sigma chapter). On June 3, 1847, he married Jane Cornelia Livermore. They had sons Edward Livermore Burlingame (born 1848) and Walter Angell Burlingame (born 1852), as well as a daughter Gertrude Burlingame (born 1856).
Shortly afterwards, Burlingame delivered what The New York Times referred to as "the most celebrated speech"[2] of his career: a scathing denunciation of Brooks' assault on Sumner, branding him as "the vilest sort of coward" on the House floor. In response, Brooks challenged Burlingame to a duel, stating he would gladly face him "in any Yankee mudsill of his choosing". Burlingame eagerly accepted; as the challenged party, he had his choice of weapons and location. A well-known marksman, he selected rifles as the weapons and the Navy Yard on the Canadian side of the U.S. border in Niagara Falls as the location (in order to circumvent the U.S. ban on dueling). Brooks, reportedly dismayed by both Burlingame's unexpectedly enthusiastic acceptance and his reputation as a crack shot, neglected to show up, instead citing unspecified risks to his safety if he were to cross "hostile country" (the northern U.S. states) in order to reach Canada.[3] Burlingame's solid defense of a fellow Bostonian greatly raised his stature throughout the North.[4]
Diplomatic posts
Burlingame was given this Daimyo Oakbonsai when he passed through Japan during his return to the U.S. It is on display at the Gardens of Lake Merritt, Oakland, California.[5]
Minister to China (Qing Empire)
On March 22, 1861, after Burlingame lost his bid for re-election, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Burlingame as Minister to the Austrian Empire, but Burlingame, who had championed the Hungarian Lajos Kossuth and his drive for independence from the Austrian Empire, was not acceptable and did not serve.[6]
On June 14, 1861, Lincoln instead appointed Burlingame as minister to the Qing Empire. Burlingame worked for a cooperative policy rather than the imperialistic policies of force which had been used during the First and Second Opium Wars and developed relations with the reform elements of the court. As he put it, the "cooperative policy... substituted for the old doctrine of violence one of fair diplomatic action," and the representatives of the Western powers agreed that they would not interfere in the internal affairs of China. Burlingame reported that he had used his diplomacy to get the European powers to agree that they would "give to the treaties a fair and Christian construction; that they ... never would menace the territorial integrity of China."[7]
China's envoy to U.S. and European nations
The success of this diplomacy was not lost on Qing dynasty court officials. On November 16, 1867, when he was set to retire and return to his political career at home, the Chinese government appointed Burlingame envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to head a Chinese diplomatic mission to the United States and the principal European nations. The mission, which included two Chinese ministers, an English and a French secretary, six students from Peking, and a considerable retinue, arrived in the United States in March 1868. Burlingame used his personal relations with the Republican administration to negotiate a relatively quick and favorable treaty. In a series of speeches across the country, he displayed eloquent oratory to advocate equal treatment of China and a welcoming stance toward Chinese immigrants.
On July 28, 1868, the mission concluded at Washington, D.C., a series of articles, supplementary to the Reed Treaty of 1858, and later known as the Burlingame Treaty. The treaty provided that Chinese subjects in the United States should enjoy the same rights as citizens of the most favored nation, a legal strategy which up until that point had only been used to expand foreign privileges in China. Burlingame worked successfully to include a clause permitting Chinese to become citizens, which was barred by American law. This treaty was the first equal treaty between China and a western power after the Opium War.[8]
Subsequently, Burlingame also negotiated treaties with Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and Prussia.[9] He died suddenly at Saint Petersburg on February 23, 1870, while negotiating terms for a treaty with Russia. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[10]
Bust of Anson Burlingame, by Zhou Limin, at the Burlingame Public Library 2018[11][12]
After Burlingame's death, the spirit and many of the specific provisions of the treaty bearing his name were reversed. Foreign powers continued to encroach upon China, and Congress passed strict laws against Chinese immigration. The success of the Communist Revolution of 1949 led to animosity between the two countries and Burlingame's reputation was as a naive and euphoric advocate of China. After warming of relations in the 1980s, Burlingame's reputation began to rise again, however.[13][14]
Anson Burlingame's portrait, painted by Albion Harris Bicknell, hangs in historic Faneuil Hall, Boston. In 2018, upon the 150th anniversary of the Burlingame Treaty, a new bust of Anson Burlingame sculpted by Zhou Limin was unveiled at an international ceremony held at the Burlingame Public Library in Burlingame, California.[11][12]
References
Citations
^John Schrecker, "'For the Equality of Men -- for the Equality of Nations': Anson Burlingame and China's First Embassy to the United States, 1868." Journal of American-East Asian Relations, 17.1 (2010): 10.
Anderson, David L. "Anson Burlingame: American Architect of the Cooperative Policy in China, 1861–1871." Diplomatic history 1.3 (1977): 239–256. online
Anderson, David L. "Anson Burlingame: Reformer and Diplomat." Civil War History 25.4 (1979): 293–308. online
Biggerstaff, Knight. "The Official Chinese Attitude Toward the Burlingame Mission" American Historical Review, 41#4 (1936), pp. 682–702 online
Schrecker, John. "'For the Equality of Men -- for the Equality of Nations': Anson Burlingame and China's First Embassy to the United States, 1868," Journal of American-East Asian Relations 17.1 (2010): 9-34. online
Williams, Frederick Wells. Anson Burlingame and the First Chinese Mission to Foreign Powers (New York: Scribner's, 1912). online
