THE MONROE DOCTRINE IN THE VENEZUELA DISPUTE

Headpiece The Monroe DoctrineTHE MONROE DOCTRINE IN THE VENEZUELA DISPUTE

Headpiece The Monroe Doctrine

HOW THAT CONTROVERSY PAVED THE WAY FOR THE PANAMA CANAL

BY CHARLES R. MILLER

Editor of “The New York Times”

WITH A MAP, AND WITH TWO CARTOONS FROM “PUNCH” REPRODUCED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION

FARfrom being a subject of importance merely to historians, the Monroe Doctrine is likely, in the months and years to come, to hold the attention of American statesmen and citizens. Our relations to our neighbors in Central and South America, the new responsibilities brought upon us by the operation of the Panama Canal, are among the most important American problems of to-day and to-morrow. It would be impossible to find a writer better informed than Mr. Miller on current affairs, nor one who has more continuously studied the subject at first hand over a period of so many years.—THEEDITOR.

EX-PRESIDENT HARRISON was very testy and Sir Richard Webster unmistakably cross one cool afternoon in September, 1899, when I found a place among the spectators in the Hall of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, where the Commission of Arbitration in the boundary dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela was in session. General Benjamin F. Tracy was drawn into the area of unpleasantness.

“That is not a way in which I am going to be addressed, General Tracy,” said Sir Richard to the ex-Secretary of the Navy.

Sir Richard Webster was the chief counsel of Great Britain before the Arbitration Commission; ex-President Harrison was the leading counsel of Venezuela, and General Tracy was his associate. It was about the forty-fourth day of the proceedings. The ill temper of these great men arose from no national antagonism, no professional jealousy, for in that noble strife of minds each had come to hold in high respect the legal attainments of the others. But they had entered upon the eighth week of perhaps the most wearisome and uninteresting trial of an international cause of which the chronicles of diplomacy hold any record, and court and counsel were tired out and bored beyond expression.

Two years earlier I had sat in the President’s room at the White House and heard Mr. Cleveland talk of the Venezuela boundary dispute and of his part in forwarding it to a settlement. It was in the month of February, 1897, two weeks before the expiration of President Cleveland’s second term. A few days earlier, on February 2, 1897, Sir Julian Pauncefote, on behalf of Great Britain, and José Andradé, representing Venezuela, had signed at Washington a treaty of which this was the first article:

An arbitral tribunal shall be immediately appointed to determine the boundary line between the colony of British Guiana and the United States of Venezuela.

The signing of that treaty, of which ratifications were exchanged on the following fourteenth of June, was a memorable triumph for President Cleveland,for the Monroe Doctrine, and for the principle of arbitration between nations. For it was a message sent to Congress on December 17, 1895—a message which startled two worlds, that had brought about this agreement to arbitrate the questions in dispute.

In a two-hours’ talk on that February day Mr. Cleveland had reviewed some of the chief acts of his administration, and I asked him to tell me, as far as he felt free to do so, the reasons that had called forth his Venezuela message. He spoke at length upon the subject, and with much freedom. Expressing in substance the impression his words made upon me, I wrote at the time as follows of the message and of Mr. Cleveland’s part in bringing the dispute to a settlement:

These words sounded like war, but they insured peace. How can anybody who reads them with his eyes fully open fail to understand what had happened—or rather was about to happen? No gentle and ladylike remonstrance would have changed the course of proximate events. The ponderous Executive fist had to come down with a thump that made people leap to their feet, and it did. The blow was heard and heeded. First there was a British blue book showing a decent respect for the opinions of mankind. Then there were negotiations. Now Venezuela and her powerful co-disputant have honorably come together in a treaty, and the long controversy goes to arbitration.“But we were in danger of war, there was a panic, and stock exchange values shrank four hundred millions.” Let the Stock Exchange think on its mercies. A war averted does not shrink values a tenth part as much as a war fought.

“But we were in danger of war, there was a panic, and stock exchange values shrank four hundred millions.” Let the Stock Exchange think on its mercies. A war averted does not shrink values a tenth part as much as a war fought.

It will be well to say in the beginning that the merits of the boundary dispute and the immediate results of the arbitration are not particularly under examination in this article. The finding of the Paris tribunal was a compromise. The extreme contentions of both disputants were denied, although those of Venezuela were abridged much more than the claims of Great Britain. But had England obtained at Paris every square mile of territory to which, in the ultimate stretch of her audacity, she had asserted right and title, the triumph of President Cleveland and of the Monroe Doctrine would have been in no wise dimmed.

The vital essence of that triumph lay in this, that under the constraint laid upon her by Mr. Cleveland’s message of December 17, England submitted to a judicial determination of her title to territory which for more than half a century she had sought to wrest without due proof of ownership from a country too weak to resist her continuing encroachments.

“If a European Power by an extension of its boundaries takes possession of the territory of one of our neighboring republics against its will, and in derogation of its rights,” said Mr. Cleveland in his message, “it is difficult to see why, to that extent, such European Power does not thereby attempt to extend its system of government to that portion of this continent which is taken,” and this, the message continued, “is the precise action which President Monroe declared to be ‘dangerous to our peace and safety.’”

For Great Britain to take territory on this continent before proving title was an act of which the United States by its President complained as “a willful aggression upon its rights and interests.” Great Britain heeded the protest, yielded to our demand for a judicial examination and finding, and Venezuela had her day in court, and that, not the actual and precise position of the boundary line as finally traced, was the whole point of the matter so far as the United States and the Monroe Doctrine were involved in it. That was our triumph.

Historically, the dispute over the boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela dates from the discovery of America and the Spanish occupation. Following in the track of Columbus, who in his third voyage, in 1498, had sailed along the Orinoco delta, his first sight of the mainland of America, the Spaniards, early in the sixteenth century, had explored the country in search of gold. The El Dorado of fable was supposed to lie somewhere in the region between the upper waters of the Orinoco and Essequibo. By right of discovery, exploration, and settlement, for settlements were established later, the Spaniards gained the right to call Guayana their own, for that name was at first given to the South American shore of the Caribbean Sea.

THE DISPUTED TERRITORYOn this map the Schomburgk Line is laid down in conformity with the claims of Great Britain as to its proper position. By the arbitration Great Britain lost the two strips of land within that line indicated on the map by shaded sections, one at the mouth of the Orinoco and the other between Yuruan and Mt. Roraima. Those shaded sections comprise about 5000 square miles, an area a trifle larger than the State of Connecticut, and represent what Venezuela gained in territory within the Schomburgk Line as defined by Great Britain. Venezuela’s political gain consisted in the complete control of the mouth of the Orinoco, the natural outlet to nearly all of Venezuela and of a large part of Colombia.—EDITOR.❏LARGER IMAGE

THE DISPUTED TERRITORY

On this map the Schomburgk Line is laid down in conformity with the claims of Great Britain as to its proper position. By the arbitration Great Britain lost the two strips of land within that line indicated on the map by shaded sections, one at the mouth of the Orinoco and the other between Yuruan and Mt. Roraima. Those shaded sections comprise about 5000 square miles, an area a trifle larger than the State of Connecticut, and represent what Venezuela gained in territory within the Schomburgk Line as defined by Great Britain. Venezuela’s political gain consisted in the complete control of the mouth of the Orinoco, the natural outlet to nearly all of Venezuela and of a large part of Colombia.—EDITOR.

❏LARGER IMAGE

There was in truth a store of gold in the land; the explorers carried stories of their new wealth back to Spain, and before the end of the sixteenth century Sir Walter Raleigh, with a body of English adventurers and certain Dutchmen, visited Guayana in quest of treasure. The Dutch West India Company planted a settlement near the mouth of the Essequibo about the year 1624, and was strong enough to hold it against the Spaniards, who up to that time had been in undisputed possession. The title of the Dutch to the territory upon which they had established themselves was confirmed by the treaty of Münster in 1648, in which Spain recognized the Netherlands as free and independent states. Early in the lastcentury England captured from the Dutch their settlements of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo, and in the treaty of 1814 these were formally ceded to her. Thus British Guiana came into being. On the one hand, therefore, Venezuela, when she revolted from Spain in 1811, became vested with the title to all the territory which Spain had held by virtue of discovery and exploration save the districts she had ceded to the Dutch; while, on the other hand, England held British Guiana by cession from the Dutch, who had acquired it from Spain by the treaty of Münster.

In that treaty Spain and Holland had not been at pains to draw the boundary line between Guayana, now British Guiana, and the Captaincy General of Caracas, now Venezuela, and from that act of omission arose all the trouble. For many years after England entered into lawful possession of British Guiana by the treaty of 1814 no dispute over the undefined boundary arose. With the running of what is called the Schomburgk Line in 1849 begins the unbroken chain of events that led to the boundary controversy, brought it to a critical stage, called forth the message of December, 1895, and culminated in the finding and award of the Paris tribunal.

In 1841 the British engineer Sir Robert Schomburgk was commissioned by his Government to ascertain and fix by metes and bounds the line between British Guiana and Venezuela. Then began Venezuela’s protest, and then, too, began the singular migrations of the Schomburgk Line. Lord Aberdeen abandoned it in 1844, but in 1886 it was laid down in British official publications as having made a wide detour to the west, the British maps presenting to the eyes of the Venezuelans a startling incursion upon territory they had supposed to be their own by undisputed title. “The Statesman’s Year Book” of 1885 stated the area of British Guiana to be 76,000 square miles. In 1887, according to the “Year Book,” the area of the colony had expanded to 109,000 square miles. Nor was this the limit of the westward sweep of British pretensions, for in 1890 England obligingly consented to arbitrate her title to a vast tract of territory embracing thousands of square miles wholly outside the Schomburgk Line, and, a circumstance that has oftener explained than excused England’s land hunger, including within its boundaries some of Venezuela’s richest gold mines.

The protests of Venezuela and her appeals for justice became insistent. She demanded an arbitration of the British claims, and her demands meeting with refusal, in 1887 she broke off diplomatic relations. Our aid was invoked by her, and Secretary Bayard tendered our good offices to promote a friendly settlement. Great Britain firmly refused to arbitrate the question except upon the basis of an antecedent concession to her of a very large part of the territory in dispute, including the mouth of the Orinoco and all territory within the extended Schomburgk Line. Meanwhile the Venezuelans grew more and more uneasy as they observed the behavior of British war-ships in and near the mouth of the Orinoco, and the acts of British subjects asserting and exercising rights of occupation and settlement upon territory they held, and rightly held, to be their own.

This was the situation when Secretary of State Richard Olney addressed to Ambassador Bayard in London, on July 20, 1895, that letter of instructions which the British ambassador at Washington described as a “fiery note.” Another British authority called it “Olney’s hectoring note.” Lord Salisbury, very much at his ease, and taking his time about it, replied to this note on November 26. He explained that “it could not be answered until it had been carefully considered by the law officers of the Crown.” It may be recalled that Earl Russell, before making reply to the vigorous protest of our minister, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, against the fitting out of theAlabamain a British shipyard, referred the matter to the “law officers of the Crown.” One of these learned gentlemen having unfortunately lost his mind, there was a delay of some days, of which theAlabamatook advantage to escape the jurisdiction by putting out to sea. As the decision of the law officers, when tardily rendered, was that the ship must be seized, it would appear that England should lay the responsibility for theAlabamaaward of $15,500,000 that she paid to us upon the too deliberate working of her legal machinery.

Secretary Olney in his letter, which of course Mr. Bayard was instructed to lay before Lord Salisbury, had embodied all the substantive declarations of the Monroe Doctrine, and in the very words of Mr. Monroe’s message of 1823. The first fruit of the doctrine, he pointed out, was the independence of South America, for it was to the European Powers banded together in the Holy Alliance, and then preparing to assist Spain in the recapture of her revolted colonies, that Monroe addressed his warning message. Every administration since Monroe’s had given its sanction and indorsement to the doctrine. It had been successfully invoked to put an end to the empire forced upon the Mexican people by Napoleon III, and now it was upon no general justification of interposing in a controversy between two other nations, but specifically upon the Monroe Doctrine, that we based our remonstrance against Great Britain’s high-handed ways with Venezuela.

Great Britain’s assertion of title to disputed territory, followed by her refusal to submit her title to investigation, was “a substantial appropriation of the territory to her own use,” and we should ignore our established policy if we did not “give warning that the transaction will be regarded as injurious to the people of the United States, as well as oppressive in itself.” “While the measures necessary or appropriate for the vindication of that policy are to be determined by another branch of the Government,” continued Mr. Olney, “it is clearly for the Executive to leave nothing undone which may tend to render such determination unnecessary.” This is the passage, doubtless, which provoked the epithets “fiery” and “hectoring.” Those who ponder its meaning may feel that its words were at least ominous.

Lord Salisbury based his reply of November 26 in the main upon the familiar European contention that while the Monroe Doctrine is interesting, and may have had a salutary effect when first promulgated, it has never “been inscribed by competent authority in the code of international law,” and that Mr. Olney’s principle that “American questions are for American decision ... cannot be sustained by any reasoning drawn from the law of nations.” He reviewed the dispute with Venezuela, defended with many and plausible citations of authority Great Britain’s procedure in the territory claimed by her, made a tart reference to “large tracts” of territory once Mexican but now a part of the United States, and firmly declined “to submit to the arbitration of another Power or of foreign jurists, however eminent, claims based on the extravagant pretensions of Spanish officials in the last century, and involving the transfer of British subjects who have for many years enjoyed the settled rule of a British colony to a nation of different race and language, whose political system is subject to frequent disturbances, and whose institutions as yet offer very inadequate protection to life and property.”

The substance and meaning of Lord Salisbury’s despatch, and the attitude which Great Britain assumed, were set forth with conspicuous moderation and fairness by Mr. Cleveland in his Princeton lectures:

These dispatches exhibit a refusal to admit such an interest in the controversy on our part as entitled us to insist upon arbitration for the purpose of having a line between Great Britain and Venezuela established; a denial of such force or meaning to the Monroe Doctrine as made it worthy of the regard of Great Britain in the premises; a fixed and continued determination on the part of Her Majesty’s Government to reject arbitration as to any territory included within the extended Schomburgk Line. They further indicate that the existence of gold within the disputed territory had not been overlooked; and, as was to be expected, they put forward the colonisation and settlement by English subjects in such territory during more than half a century of dispute as creating a claim to dominion and sovereignty, if not strong enough to override all question of right and title, at least so clear and indisputable as to be properly regarded as above and beyond the contingencies of arbitration.[7]

It was then that President Cleveland, patient, but knowing that patience has its bounds, loving peace, and willing to make the full measure of sacrifice to that high end, but with firm conviction that ourinterposition in the controversy was necessary and could not longer be delayed, sent to Congress the special message of December 17, 1895. That message fixed the attention of the civilized world upon the Venezuela boundary dispute, a matter which had up to that time held only small place in the thoughts of men other than the immediate official participants; for President Cleveland’s plain words brought clearly into view the possibility of war—war between the United States and Great Britain. Christmas was at hand. At that season nobody was thinking of war, and war between the English and ourselves had long been held to be at any and all seasons unthinkable. The civilized world was startled; it is not too much to say that some men of large affairs and international dealings were stunned. “The crime of the century,” was the phrase applied to the message by some whose alarm at the possibility of war was equaled by their ignorance of the long series of disturbing events which led Mr. Cleveland to perpetrate that “crime.”

It was no crime; it was a saving act, a step that made for peace, and removed a source of long-standing irritation that was a menace to peace. The pen of Richard Olney was the one to set forth the legal basis of our demand—the pen of a great lawyer, not too much cramped by the circumstance that it was also the pen of a diplomat. Mr. Cleveland’s strong hand was the one to write the words that proclaimed the Nation’s duty. The Monroe Doctrine has never had a sturdier defender or a sounder defense. Lord Salisbury’s amusingly English and almost sneering references to the doctrine as one “to be mentioned with respect on account of the distinguished statesman to whom it is due,” but having no relation to the affairs of the present day, evoked that memorable sentence in Mr. Cleveland’s message, in which he said that the Monroe Doctrine “was intended to apply to every stage of our National life, and cannot become obsolete while our Republic endures.”

To the Salisbury argument that the doctrine must be ruled out because it has never been inscribed in the code of international law, and “cannot be sustained by any reasoning drawn from the law of nations,” Mr. Cleveland replied that “the Monroe Doctrine finds its recognition in those principles of international law which are based on the theory that every nation shall have its rights protected and its just claims enforced.” When we urged upon Great Britain the resort to arbitration, we were “without any convictions as to the final merits of the dispute”; we desired to be informed whether Great Britain sought under a claim of boundary “to extend her possessions on this continent without right, or whether she merely sought possession of territory fairly included within her lines of ownership.”

Having been apprised of Great Britain’s refusal of an impartial arbitration, “nothing remains,” said the President, “but to accept the situation, to recognize its plain requirements, and to deal with it accordingly.”

Mr. Cleveland, therefore, suggested to Congress an adequate appropriation for the expenses of a commission appointed by the Executive to “make the necessary investigation and report upon the matter with the least possible delay.” Words of grave import followed this recommendation:

When such report is made and accepted, it will, in my opinion, be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which after investigation we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela.In making these recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibilities incurred, and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow.I am nevertheless firm in my conviction that, while it is a grievous thing to contemplate the two great English-speaking peoples of the world as being otherwise than friendly competitors in the onward march of civilization, and strenuous and worthy rivals in all the arts of peace, there is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice, and the consequent loss of National self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people’s safety and greatness.

In making these recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibilities incurred, and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow.

I am nevertheless firm in my conviction that, while it is a grievous thing to contemplate the two great English-speaking peoples of the world as being otherwise than friendly competitors in the onward march of civilization, and strenuous and worthy rivals in all the arts of peace, there is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice, and the consequent loss of National self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people’s safety and greatness.

The commission of inquiry was appointed. It promptly began and industriously pursued its investigations for many months, the governments of Great Britain and Venezuela willingly contributing to the success of the commission’s labors by placing at its disposal elaborate statements and all available evidence, while in the archives of Spain and Holland documents were made accessible that threw much light upon the remote origins of the controversy. But before the commission had finished its work, Great Britain and Venezuela, by the treaty of January 2, 1897, agreed to an arbitration. The labors of the commission were not in vain, however. It reached the conclusion that neither the extreme claims of Great Britain nor those of Venezuela were admissible, being unsupported by proofs of title, and the great mass of documentary evidence it had collected was of much use and value for the arbitral tribunal.

By the terms of the Pauncefote-Andradé Treaty, signed at Washington January 2, 1897, Great Britain and Venezuela agreed to the appointment of an arbitral tribunal “to determine the boundary line between the colony of British Guiana and the United States of Venezuela.” The tribunal was to “ascertain the extent of the territories belonging to, or that might lawfully be claimed by, the United Netherlands, or by the Kingdom of Spain, respectively, at the time of the acquisition of the colony of British Guiana,” in order to establish the chain of lawful title. Rules of procedure were prescribed in the treaty. Adverse holding for fifty years, or exclusive political control, as well as actual settlement of a district was to be considered as making a good title; recognition and effect were to be given to rights and claims resting on other grounds valid in international law; and such effect was to be given to the occupation, at the time of signing the treaty, of the territory of one of the parties by the citizens or subjects of the other, as the equities of the case and the principles of international law should be deemed to require. It was provided in article II that the tribunal should consist of five jurists. Those named on the part of Great Britain were Baron Herschel, and Sir Richard Collins of the Supreme Court of Judicature. Baron Herschel having died before the convening of the tribunal, Lord Chief-Justice Russell was named to fill the vacancy. On the part of Venezuela, Chief-Justice Fuller of the United States Supreme Court, and Associate-Justice David Brewer of that court, were named. The fifth member of the tribunal named by these four was Frederic de Martens, the Russian jurist, who became president of the tribunal.

The tribunal assembled in Paris on January 25, 1899. After various and necessary adjournments, it began the formal consideration of the case on June 15. After seven weeks of painstaking toil, in which the story of Spain’s earliest search for the gold of the West, the terms of the treaty of Münster, the law and practice of nations in respect to discovery, occupation, and settlement, and an intolerable mass and multitude of documentary and legal details pertaining to each and all of these matters, had been minutely examined and expounded for the information, but certainly not the edification, of the five learned jurists sitting in judgment in the case, the evidence of nervous strain and irritation to which I have referred in the beginning of this article was apparent. On the forty-seventh day Sir Richard Webster sarcastically invited the attention of ex-President Harrison to certain comments of Sir Travers Twiss on the Oregon case. “I had read Twiss on the Oregon case through long before I had the privilege of seeing you,” replied Mr. Harrison. “This investigation has been long and wearisome,” said General Tracy, but he reminded the tribunal that it involved the “investigation of four hundred years of history.” And on the fiftieth day Mr. Harrison, in closing his argument, said: “Counsel who addresses this tribunal comes to his work in a frame of weariness of mind and body, and he addresses judges who are weary.”

It was on the fifty-sixth day that the tribunal announced its award. The true divisional line, as determined by the unanimous decision of the five jurists, gave sanction, as has been said, to the extreme pretensions of neither party. A large area west of the Essequibo River, to which Venezuela, without warrant, had laid claim, was held to be British territory; but, on the other hand, valuable tracts within the Schomburgk Line were awarded to Venezuela, the most important being the region of which the coast-lineruns from Barima Point, at the mouth of the Orinoco, to Point Playa. The confirmation of the title to this territory, as to which Great Britain had firmly refused arbitration, gave Venezuela exclusive control of the mouth of her great river and of both its banks. The vast area, including the rich gold-mines, which Great Britain had belted about by the audacious westward extension of her claims, went altogether to Venezuela.

From London “Punch” for December 28, 1895“THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON!!”PRESIDENTCLEVELAND: “Waal, Salisbury, sir, whether you like it or not, we propose to arbitrate on this matter ourselves, and, in that event, we shall abide by our own decision.”“An inquiry [as to the true divisional line between the Republic of Venezuela and British Guiana] should, of course, be conducted carefully and judicially.... When report is made [by a Commission appointed by Congress] and accepted, it will, in my opinion, be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands, [etc., etc.,] ... which after investigation we have determined of right to belong to Venezuela.”—President Cleveland’s message to Congress, vide “Time’s,” December 18.

From London “Punch” for December 28, 1895

“THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON!!”

PRESIDENTCLEVELAND: “Waal, Salisbury, sir, whether you like it or not, we propose to arbitrate on this matter ourselves, and, in that event, we shall abide by our own decision.”

“An inquiry [as to the true divisional line between the Republic of Venezuela and British Guiana] should, of course, be conducted carefully and judicially.... When report is made [by a Commission appointed by Congress] and accepted, it will, in my opinion, be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands, [etc., etc.,] ... which after investigation we have determined of right to belong to Venezuela.”—President Cleveland’s message to Congress, vide “Time’s,” December 18.

Of the whole territory in dispute, far the larger portion went to Great Britain, and some few persons who uttered cries of distress over the message of December 17 counted this as a rebuke and rebuff for President Cleveland. That was the very hardihood of perversity in taking a false view. Mr. Cleveland had declared that our Government was “without any convictions as to the final merits of the dispute.” The supreme, the vital point isthat in the award of the Paris tribunal, accepted by both parties, law triumphed over force. The boundary line was traced, and titles with which Great Britain had vested herself by her own acts, heedless of the protests of Venezuela and rejecting her and our appeals for adjudication, were passed upon by an impartial arbitral tribunal according to evidence and the principles of public law. Whoever gained, whoever lost, that was quite immaterial from our point of view. The process of territorial expansion by stealthy encroachment, by unwarranted shifting of boundaries, and the alteration of maps and statistics, was at an end. The sovereignty of the lawful owner replaced that of the squatter. Venezuela was delivered from duress and from peril, no longer was her soil or her destiny under the menace of foreign control, and the situation created by the attempt of a power over the sea to extend the European system within this hemisphere, which Monroe declared to be dangerous to our peace and safety, and against which Mr. Cleveland had invoked the Monroe Doctrine, no longer existed. Mr. Cleveland had triumphed, the Monroe Doctrine had triumphed, peace had triumphed. General Harrison and Sir Richard Webster parted with expressions of mutual esteem, and the report of the proceedings of the Paris tribunal, in eleven folio parts, now on the shelves of the New York Public Library, was presented by the Marquis of Salisbury, while to Mr. Richard Olney was tendered not long ago the appointment as Ambassador at the Court of St. James’s.

The consequences of this successful and momentous assertion of the Monroe Doctrine may now be traced. Three times within the century of its declaration the doctrine was firmly asserted and maintained by the United States as the public system of the Western World, for it may with entire propriety be called our public system, as the concert of Europe is the public system of that continent. First, when President Monroe proclaimed it as a warning to the Holy Alliance, plotting the restoration to Spain of her revolted colonies in Latin America. Second, when Secretary Seward’s repeated protests against the establishment of an empire and an emperor, the Austrian Maximilian, in Mexico against the will of the people by French arms, were ominously reinforced by the despatch of General Sheridan to the banks of the Rio Grande with 80,000 disciplined and experienced troops, freed from active service by the ending of the war between the States, the French evacuation of Mexico speedily following. The absence of any mention of the Monroe Doctrine in Secretary Seward’s correspondence in respect to the French adventurer in Mexico is without significance. The spirit and the principle of Monroe’s declaration were the declared motives of his action. Third, when President Cleveland, by virtue of the doctrine, “intended to apply to every stage of our National life,” constrained England to submit her boundary dispute with Venezuela to a judicial settlement. The next application of the doctrine, the fourth in this series, all of primary importance, fell within the present century, when the substitution of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty for the Clayton-Bulwer convention of half a century earlier dissolved our partnership with Great Britain in an agreement to extend a joint protectorship over any transportation route across the isthmus, and so cleared the way for the building and exclusive control by ourselves of the Panama Canal.

The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was never popular in this country. It was entered into at a time, in 1850, when the discovery of gold in California, and the consequent tide of travel to the land of easily acquired riches, brought into view the need for facilities of transportation across the isthmus; and also, it should be said, when the responsible statesmen of the Nation were perhaps less mindful than at any other time since Monroe’s administration of the import and the saving force of the doctrine that bears his name. Nevertheless, the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty itself, after a fashion, a most illogical and inconsistent fashion, was on our part an attempt to apply the prohibitions of the doctrine against European colonization in this hemisphere. Great Britain was encroaching upon the territory of Central American States, and she stood in the way of the building of the canal. We negotiated the treaty to free ourselves from this embarrassment, and by that singular bargain, through the waiver of a right, we secured the recognition of a right; that is, we persuaded Great Britain to assent to MonroeDoctrine principles in Central America at the price of taking her as a partner in any undertaking for a transportation route across the isthmus, which was in itself contrary to the spirit of the doctrine.

The treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, ending our war with Mexico, was signed February 2, 1848. By its terms Mexico ceded to us the territory now included within the borders of the States of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and parts of Colorado and New Mexico. Great Britain strenuously opposed the cession to us of any territory on the Pacific coast. Failing to control the acts of Mexico in that respect, she took measures in her own way to offset our great territorial gain. Six days after signing the treaty she despatched her fleet from Vera Cruz to the coast of Nicaragua, and forcibly took possession of San Juan at the mouth of the river of that name. She set up a governor, erected fortifications, and changed the name of the place to Greytown. This gave her command of the only canal route then under consideration, for it was at a much later time that the Panama route came to the fore as more practicable. The seizure of San Juan was a move so plainly hostile to our interests that our Government at once sent a diplomatic representative to Nicaragua, and a treaty known as the Hise Treaty was negotiated in June, 1849, by which Nicaragua granted to the United States “the exclusive right and privilege” of constructing a canal or railway between the two oceans across Nicaraguan territory. This treaty was not sent to the Senate and was never ratified by either country.

The occupation of San Juan, or Greytown, by the British, and their proceedings upon the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua, where they had set up a trumpery Indian king, and by virtue of a “treaty” with him assumed a protectorate over the region, were a cause of growing uneasiness at Washington. In pursuance of her age-long policy of insuring her domination of the seas by occupying strategic points giving control of great routes of navigation, Great Britain had with a cool disregard of our rights and interests seized upon vantage-ground in Central America that would make her mistress of interoceanic communication. Holding Greytown, she was in complete control of any Nicaraguan canal, for the only practicable route was that which would make Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River a part of the canal. Thus, upon the one hand, our freedom of action in respect to a canal was hampered, and, upon the other, England, notwithstanding her many excuses and protestations to the contrary, was manifestly establishing a colony in Central America.

With a view to the removal of these sources of embarrassment and of difference between the two countries, Mr. Clayton, Secretary of State, pressed Great Britain to withdraw her pretensions to dominion over the Mosquito Coast. Her reply was a refusal, but an intimation was given that the British Government would be willing to enter into a treaty for a joint protectorate over the proposed canal. This was the germ of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, negotiated at Washington between Secretary of State Clayton and Sir Henry Bulwer, the British minister, and signed April 19, 1850. Article I of the treaty, here subjoined, is a declaratory and self-denying ordinance:

The Governments of the United States and Great Britain hereby declare that neither the one nor the other will ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over the said ship canal; agreeing that neither will ever erect or maintain any fortifications commanding the same or in the vicinity thereof, or occupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume, or exercise any domain over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America; nor will either make use of any protection which either affords or may afford, or any alliance which either has or may have to or with any State or people, for the purpose of erecting or maintaining any such fortifications, or of occupying, fortifying, or colonizing Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America, or of assuming or exercising dominion over the same; nor will the United States or Great Britain take advantage of any intimacy, or use any alliance, connection, or influence that either may possess with any State or Government through whose territory the said canal may pass, for the purpose of acquiring or holding, directly or indirectly, for the citizens or subjects of the one, any rights or advantages in regard to commerce or navigationthrough the said canal which shall not be offered on the same terms to the citizens or subjects of the other.

These stipulations applied only to a canal route across Nicaragua in Central America, not to Panama. But we carried our spirit of complacent self-denial to a further and extraordinary length in article VIII. The first clause of that article is here quoted:

The Governments of the United States and Great Britain having not only desired, in entering into this convention, to accomplish a particular object, but also to establish a general principle, they hereby agree to extend their protection, by treaty stipulations, to any other practicable communications, whether by canal or railway, across the isthmus which connects North and South America, and especially to the interoceanic communications, should the same prove to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, which are now proposed to be established by the way of Tehuantepec or Panama.

James Buchanan, then our Minister to England, in a memorandum for Lord Clarendon, written on January 6, 1854, referring to the relation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty to the Monroe Doctrine, said that while that doctrine would be maintained whenever the peace and safety of the United States made it necessary, “yet to have acted upon it in Central America might have brought us into collision with Great Britain, an event always to be deplored, and if possible avoided”; therefore these “dangerous questions” were settled by a resort to friendly negotiations. In view of the flimsy nature of Great Britain’s asserted rights in Central America, and of the manifest unfriendliness of the motives that had prompted her to plant her flag, her colonies, and her forts in the pathway of communication between our Atlantic and Pacific coasts, it must be said that Mr. Buchanan’s memorandum could not easily have been outdone in politeness. The sounder opinion, the opinion which the country has held and acted upon, is expressed by Francis Wharton in that edition of the “Digest of International Law of the United States” which he edited:

For Great Britain to assume in whole or in part a protectorate of the Isthmus or of an interoceanic canal, viewing the term protectorate in the sense in which she viewed it in respect to the Belise and the Mosquito country, would be to antagonize the Monroe Doctrine; and for the United States to unite with her in such a protectorship would be to connive at such antagonism. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, if it were to be construed so as to put the Isthmus under the joint protectorate of Great Britain and the United States, would not only conflict with the Monroe Doctrine, by introducing a European Power in the management of the affairs of this continent, but it would be a gross departure from those traditions, consecrated by the highest authorities to which we can appeal, by which we are forbidden to enter into “entangling alliances” with European Powers. No “alliance” could be more “entangling” than one with Great Britain to control not only the Isthmus, but the interoceanic trade of this continent. No introduction of a foreign Power could be more fatal to the policy of Mr. Monroe, by which America was to be prevented from being the theatre of new European domination, than that which would give to Great Britain a joint control of the continent in one of its most vital interests.

The appearance of Ferdinand de Lesseps upon the isthmus and the public discussion of his canal project brought the possibilities of foreign control plainly into view, and public opinion in this country ripened into form and expression. “The policy of this country,” said President Hayes in his message to Congress on March 8, 1880, “is a canal under American control. The United States cannot consent to the surrender of this control to any European Power or to any combination of European Powers. If existing treaties between the United States and other nations, or if the rights of sovereignty or property of other nations stand in the way of this policy—a contingency which is not apprehended—suitable steps should be taken by just and liberal negotiations to promote and establish the American policy.” And Secretary Blaine in 1881 instructed Minister Lowell to let it be known that in the opinion of the President our treaty of 1846 guaranteeing to New Granada, afterward the UnitedStates of Colombia, the protection of the projected canal across the Isthmus of Panama, did not require reinforcement or assent from any other Power; and that any attempt to supersede it by an agreement between European Powers would “partake of the nature of an alliance against the United States, and would be regarded by this Government as an indication of an unfriendly feeling.”

From London “Punch” for October 11, 1899PEACE AND PLENTYLORDSALISBURY(chuckling): “I like arbitration—in theproper place!”

From London “Punch” for October 11, 1899

PEACE AND PLENTY

LORDSALISBURY(chuckling): “I like arbitration—in theproper place!”

In a further instruction to Mr. Lowell, on November 19, 1881, Secretary Blaine stated at length the reasons for holding that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty had become obsolete, or at least inapplicable to the conditions existing thirty years after its ratification, and he expressed the hope of the President that Great Britain would consent to such modifications as would remove every obstacle to our fortification and holding political control of the canal “in conjunction with the country in which it is located.”

President Cleveland, in his first administration, did not approve the policy of exclusive American ownership, control, and guaranty, favoring rather a neutralized canal“open to all nations and subject to the ambitions and warlike necessities of none.” But Mr. Gresham, Secretary of State in Mr. Cleveland’s second term, expressed the “deep conviction” of our Government that the canal should be constructed “under distinctively American auspices.” Secretary Olney, who succeeded Mr. Gresham, in a memorable communication rejected the argument frequently heard, that the treaty had been abrogated by Great Britain’s persistent violation of the provision relating to her Mosquito Coast colony, and recorded the conclusion that if the treaty has now become inapplicable or injurious, the true remedy was “a direct and straightforward application to Great Britain for a reconsideration of the whole matter.”

Thus, in the slow process of time public opinion was prepared and the way cleared for the ending of a joint protectorate agreement with Great Britain by the substitution of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty for the convention negotiated fifty years before between Mr. Clayton and Sir Henry Bulwer. The time for action had now come. The French company was bankrupt, the commercial demand for a canal had become more pressing, and the voyage of theOregonfrom the Pacific coast around Cape Horn to take her place with the blockading squadron that encircled the harbor entrance at Santiago de Cuba brought vividly to the minds of the American people the vital need of a canal as a measure of national defense. Commissions were studying routes and making estimates of cost. There could no longer be any doubt that the two oceans were to be connected, and with all possible speed, by a navigable way. There was an obstacle—the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. If we built a Nicaragua canal, we must forego “any exclusive control,” and we must submit to the engagements of article V, that the United States and Great Britain jointly will “protect it from interruption, seizure, or unjust confiscation, and that they will guarantee the neutrality thereof.” We must observe the further stipulation of article VI, requiring us to join Great Britain in inviting other nations to enter into the arrangement for the construction, control, and guaranty of this American canal. If we chose to build at Panama, we were bound by article VIII to make a new treaty with Great Britain for a joint protectorate over that route.

Never for a day after President Cleveland’s Venezuela message would the American people have been in a mood to sanction any canal undertaking under these vexatious and impossible conditions. We were quite done with the idea of a joint protectorate over an isthmian canal. The resolve had been taken to build a canal, and the conclusion reached that it must be a canal of our own construction and under our exclusive control.

Most fortunately, we found the Government of Great Britain in an assenting mood. Indeed, the contrast between the rasping quality of Lord Salisbury’s notes declining arbitration of the Venezuela boundary dispute and the candid, placable tone of Lord Lansdowne’s correspondence in the negotiations that led to the superseding of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty silenced, if it did not shame, those half-hearted Americans who had denounced Mr. Cleveland’s memorable message of December 17 as “the crime of the century” and a menace to the friendly relations between ourselves and our kinsmen of England. Following President McKinley’s message of December, 1898, in which he pointed out that the prospective expansion of American commerce and influence in the Pacific called more imperatively than ever for the control of the projected canal by the United States, Lord Pauncefote was instructed to acquaint himself with our attitude. He was informed that we desired at once to enter upon the necessary pourparlers, with a view to such modifications of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty as would remove all obstacles to our construction of the canal, which it was evident would not be undertaken by private capital. To this her Majesty’s Government assented, and a draft of the proposed convention was handed to Lord Pauncefote by Secretary Hay on January 11, 1899. This convention her Majesty’s Government, after due consideration, “accepted unconditionally as a signal proof,” said Lord Lansdowne, “of their friendly disposition and of their desire not to impede the execution of a project declared to be of National importance to the people of the United States.”

This was the first form of the Hay-Pauncefote convention, signed at Washington in February, 1900. Consideration by the Senate followed, but it was not ratified until December 20 of that year, and then with three amendments which proved to be unacceptable to Great Britain. As to the first of these amendments, declaring the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty to be “hereby superseded,” Lord Lansdowne, in his memorandum of August 3, 1901, objected that no attempt had been made to ascertain the views of his Government upon the entire abrogation of the former treaty, which dealt with several matters for which no provision had been made in the new instrument; and with rather startling frankness he pointed out that if the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty were wholly abrogated, “both Powers would, except in the vicinity of the canal, recover entire freedom of action in Central America, a change which might be of substantial importance.” That was enough to make the Senate open its eyes, for it was not exactly the purpose of our Government to confer upon Great Britain entire freedom of action in Central America.

The statesmanship and the diplomacy of John Hay found a way to reconcile these divergences and bring the negotiations to a successful end. He submitted a new draft of the treaty, providing by a separate article that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty should be superseded, a method of accomplishing that important object more acceptable to Great Britain than procedure by Senate amendment. Lord Lansdowne’s comment upon this article of the draft was that “the purpose to abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer convention is not, I think, inadmissible if it can be shown that sufficient provision is made in the new treaty for such portions of the convention as ought, in the interests of this country, to remain in force.” The victory for American control and for the Monroe Doctrine was won. From that point the negotiations proceeded smoothly. Lord Lansdowne suggested the article, accepted by Secretary Hay, providing that the general principle of the treaty should not be affected by any change of sovereignty over the territory traversed by the canal. The question of our right to take measures for the defense of the canal presented no great difficulty.

To the first of the rules for the neutralization of the canal, as it appeared in Mr. Hay’s draft, Lord Lansdowne suggested an amendment which served to bring into the clear light of day both our purpose to secure exclusively American control over the canal, and Great Britain’s willingness to consent thereto. After the words “the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations,” his lordship proposed to add, “which shall agree to observe these rules,” and further on the words “so agreeing” after the clause declaring that there should be “no discrimination against any nation,” and so forth. To this, Mr. Hay informed him, there would be opposition “because of the strong objection to inviting other Powers to become contract parties to a treaty affecting the canal”; and he suggested as a substitute for Lord Lansdowne’s amendment “the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these rules,” and instead of “any nations so agreeing” the words “any such nation.” The difference was vital, for all connotation of inviting formal agreements with other nations disappeared. Lord Lansdowne at once accepted this form of the amendment, which he wrote “seemed to us equally efficacious for the purpose which we had in view, namely, to insure that Great Britain should not be placed in a less advantageous position than other Powers, while they stopped short of conferring upon other nations a contractual right to the use of the canal.”

The minds of the two governments had now met. The amendments proposed on each site, with the modifications noted, were agreed upon. The treaty was reduced to final form, engrossed for signature, and on November 19, 1901, Lord Pauncefote had the honor to inform the Marquis of Lansdowne that on the preceding day he had visited the State Department and had “signed the new treaty for the construction of an interoceanic canal.” The Senate ratified the treaty on December 16 following.

Venezuela had opened the way for Panama. The hand withdrawn from broad areas east of the Orinoco had relinquished its lawful rights under the canal partnership, and in both cases at our instance. In the one, Lord Salisbury’s noble British contempt of our demands and our doctrineforced us into an unaccustomed attitude of firmness. In the other, the Marquis of Lansdowne’s open-minded, amicable, and statesmanlike disposition favored our interest, and left us free to give to the commerce of the world a channel of communication that had been the dream of centuries. We had expressly set up the principle of the Monroe Doctrine as the warrant of our interference for the protection of Venezuela, and Great Britain gave heed by submitting to impartial examination titles she had insisted upon enforcing as though they were beyond dispute. Ill-judged concessions contrary to the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, made in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, we recalled by a substitute agreement with Great Britain which left us with a free hand for the construction and control of the canal as an exclusively American work. The vitality, the continuing and constant applicability, of the Monroe Doctrine at every stage of our National existence, as Mr. Cleveland put it, could hardly be more conclusively demonstrated than by the record of the American Government’s part in bringing about the agreement to arbitrate the Venezuela boundary dispute, and in replacing the outworn Clayton-Bulwer convention by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty.

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