<P> Relations with Britain (and Canada) were tense; Canada was negligent in allowing Confederates to raid Vermont . Confederation came in 1867, in part as a way to meet the American challenge without depending on British armed forces . </P> <P> The U.S. looked the other way when Irish activists known as Fenians tried and failed badly in an invasion of Canada in 1871 . The arbitration of the Alabama Claims in 1872 provided a satisfactory reconciliation; The British paid the United States $15.5 million for the economic damage caused by Confederate warships purchased from it . Congress did pay Russia for the Alaska Purchase in 1867, but otherwise rejected proposals for any major expansions, such as the proposal by President Ulysses Grant to acquire Santo Domingo . </P> <P> James G. Blaine, a leading Republican (and its losing candidate for president in 1884) was a highly innovative Secretary of State in the 1880s . By 1881, Blaine had completely abandoned his high - tariff Protectionism and used his position as Secretary of State to promote freer trade, especially within the Western Hemisphere . His reasons were twofold: firstly, Blaine's wariness of British interference in the Americas was undiminished, and he saw increased trade with Latin America as the best way to keep Britain from dominating the region . Secondly, he believed that by encouraging exports, he could increase American prosperity . President Garfield agreed with his Secretary of State's vision and Blaine called for a Pan-American conference in 1882 to mediate disputes among the Latin American nations and to serve as a forum for talks on increasing trade . At the same time, Blaine hoped to negotiate a peace in the War of the Pacific then being fought by Bolivia, Chile, and Peru . Blaine sought to expand American influence in other areas, calling for renegotiation of the Clayton--Bulwer Treaty to allow the United States to construct a canal through Panama without British involvement, as well as attempting to reduce British involvement in the strategically located Kingdom of Hawaii . His plans for the United States' involvement in the world stretched even beyond the Western Hemisphere, as he sought commercial treaties with Korea and Madagascar . By 1882, however, a new Secretary was reversing Blaine's Latin American initiatives . </P> <P> Serving again as Secretary of State under Benjamin Harrison, Blaine worked for closer ties with the Kingdom of Hawaii, and sponsored a program to bring together all the independent nations of the Western Hemisphere in what became the Pan-American Union . </P>

What was the us foreign policy before ww1