UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES
 
 THE 
 
 INTER-OCEANIC CANAL 
 
 AND 
 
 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 
 
 "AT AN EPOCH WHICH WE MAY CALL NEAR, SINCE IT CONCERNS 
 THE LIFE OP A PEOPLE, THE ANGLO-AMERICANS WILL COVER ALL 
 THE IMMENSE TERRITORY COMPRISED BETWEEN THE POLAR ICE AND 
 THE TROPICS THEY WILL SPREAD FROM THE SHORES OF THE AT- 
 LANTIC OCEAN EVEN TO THE COASTS OF THE SOUTHERN SEA." 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
 182 FIFTH AVENUE.
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 1880 
 By G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
 
 TC 
 11*5 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 tO THE COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE OF THE INTER- 
 OCEANIC CANAL, AND THE HISTORY OF SOME OF 
 ^ V4 THE SCHEMES FOR BUILDING IT 17 
 
 THE AUTHOR AND THE ORIGIN OF THE MONROE 
 
 DOCTRINE 41 
 
 THE MONROE DOCTRINE 43 
 
 ! ' THE GENERAL FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED 
 ^ STATES 68 
 
 ^J COLONIZATION AND PROVINCIAL POSSESSIONS CON- 
 ^ SIDERED IN EELATION TO THE INTERESTS OF THE 
 
 UNITED STATES 90 
 
 THE UNITED STATES SHOULD CONTROL THE INTER- 
 OCEANIC CANAL. . 106 
 
 208103
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE appearance upon the Isthmus of Darien, at 
 the outset of the year 1880, of M. Ferdinand de 
 Lesseps, the renowned French engineer and diplo- 
 matist, to whom the nineteenth century owes the 
 inception and completion of the Suez Canal, has 
 startled the thinking people of this country into a 
 sudden but most desirable state of anxiety as to the 
 effects likely to be produced upon the interests, the 
 prestige, and the prosperity of the United States by 
 the opening, under other auspices than ours, of a 
 great waterway between the Atlantic and the Paci- 
 fic oceans. Though the question of opening such 
 a waterway has occupied the minds of American 
 statesmen and of American engineers at intervals, 
 ever since the foundation of the republic, and 
 though it has of late years acquired an unprece- 
 dented gravity and importance for the American
 
 Q THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 people, through the establishment of our vast em- 
 pire on the Pacific, and the immense development 
 of our internal railway system between the Great 
 Lakes and the Gulf, it has been so much obscured 
 by exciting domestic issues, now happily coming to 
 an end, that for Americans of the present genera- 
 tion it may be treated as a question almost abso- 
 lutely new. It cannot be intelligently considered 
 without quickening the enlightened patriotism of 
 the American people, by making it more than ever 
 apparent how vitally important it is to the pros- 
 perity of every State and every section of our be- 
 loved Union, that the primacy and predominance on 
 this continent of the united republic should be jeal- 
 ously guarded against invasion from any quarter, 
 no matter under what pretext or in what form at- 
 tempted. 
 
 In considering this question, as in considering all 
 questions which arise out of or affect the relations 
 between the United States and the powers of Eu- 
 rope, it must always be borne in mind that but little 
 more than fifty years have elapsed since the United 
 States took their place definitely in the system of 
 Christendom as a power to be "counted with," to 
 be considered, and to be respected. As we shall 
 hereafter see, it was not until the ministers of the 
 Holy Alliance, after the death at St. Helena of Na- 
 poleon I., had undertaken to consolidate throughout
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 7 
 
 the world the system of government by divine right, 
 that England, in her own interest quite as much as 
 in the interests of liberty, called upon the govern- 
 ment of the United States to proclaim the close on 
 this continent of the period of European colonial 
 experiments. The response of the American gov- 
 ernment to that call gave birth to what has 'ever 
 since been known as the Monroe doctrine ; and the 
 unyielding assertion of that doctrine against every 
 attempt to evade or to impair its force has ever 
 since, with reason, been regarded by American 
 statesmen of all shades of political opinion as es- 
 sential to the position, the prestige, and the pros- 
 perity of the United States. 
 
 It will be shown in the course of this treatise that 
 any attempt to construct an inter-oceanic canal be- 
 tween the Atlantic and the Pacific, under European 
 auspices and with European capital, must inevitably 
 lead to a very serious invasion of the position, to a 
 very serious assault upon the prestige, and to very 
 mischievous consequences to the prosperity of the 
 United States. Had any one or more of the inde- 
 pendent republics, called into existence by the dis- 
 ruption and destruction, during the first quarter of 
 this century, of the vast American empire of Spain, 
 acquired strength and stability enough to make 
 the construction possible of an inter-oceanic canal 
 through Spanish - American territory by Spanish-
 
 8 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 American citizens with Spanish- American funds, all 
 that it would be seemly or necessary for the govern- 
 ment of the United States to do in regard to such a 
 canal, doubtless, might be shown to be that it should 
 secure for the citizens and the commerce of the 
 United States the free and unrestricted use of the 
 facilities of such a canal, on at least equal terms 
 with the citizens and the commerce of all other na- 
 tions. But no one pretends that this is the case ; 
 and the conditions under which alone any canal en- 
 terprise either has been attempted, or is likely to 
 be attempted in our time by European capitalists in 
 Spanish America, involve the virtual surrender to 
 such capitalists, or to the governments of the coiin- 
 tries to which they may belong, of the independence 
 of the State or of the States through the territory of 
 which the canal projected is to be carried. In other 
 words, no canal enterprise in Spanish- American ter- 
 ritory can be planned, organized, and earned out by 
 European projectors and capitalists, without prac- 
 tically reopening on this continent that period of 
 European colonial experiments which the United 
 States, under President Monroe, distinctly and sol- 
 emnly declared to be closed forever. It is vital to 
 our greatness, and our honor as a nation, that this 
 declaration shall be maintained. We do not doubt 
 that it will be so maintained, at any cost, by the 
 people of the United States.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. Q 
 
 The idea of opening a waterway from the Atlantic, 
 the ocean of Europe, to the great Southern Sea, the 
 ocean of Asia, of "Ormus and of Ind," may be said 
 to be coeval with the earliest enterprises of Euro- 
 pean colonization in the New World. It was in 
 quest of such a waterway that Columbus sailed from 
 Palos in 1492 ; and Cortez planned the construction 
 of such a waterway during his visit to the Isthmus 
 of Tehuantepec, forty years afterward. The " Se- 
 cret of the Strait," 'was the goad which drove so 
 many seamen from all the lands of Europe west- 
 ward through all the earlier years of the sixteenth 
 century, till Magellan found an answer to it far to 
 the stormy south. 
 
 The idea of facilitating commercial intercourse 
 between Europe and the East by means of a canal 
 across the Isthmus of Suez, had occurred ages before 
 to the Greek rulers of Egypt, and the statement is 
 reasonably well authenticated that a small canal 
 was made across that isthmus about 600 years B.C., 
 and remained in use until about the year A.D. 800. 
 The history of that ancient work, however, is so ob- 
 scure that we are without any data for determining 
 with any accuracy how much the commerce of an- 
 tiquity may have been modified and benefited by 
 the first Suez Canal. It is certain, however, that 
 with the rise of the Turkish and the Saracenic 
 power it ceased to be available to Europe, and when,
 
 10 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL 
 
 in the fifteenth century, Venice and other States on 
 the Mediterranean were seeking to extend their com- 
 merce in all directions, the discovery of a route by 
 water to the Indies was made a matter of supreme 
 importance to them by the menacing growth of the 
 Ottoman Empire. By the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury too, learned and thoughtful men had reasoned 
 out the theory of the spherical form of the earth. 
 
 Luigi Pulci, the Florentine poet, as early as 1487, 
 wrote : 
 
 "Men shall descry another hemisphere, 
 
 " Since to one common center all things tend ; 
 
 " So Earth by curious mystery divine 
 
 " Well balanced hangs amid the starry spheres. 
 
 " At our antipodes are cities, states, 
 " And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. 
 " But see, the sun speeds on his western path 
 " To glad the nations with expected light." 
 
 Five years later, the discovery of a continent be- 
 yond the western ocean by Columbus startled the 
 world almost simultaneously with the discovery of 
 the Cape of Good Hope, by Yasco da Gama, and the 
 dreams of the poet became the facts of the geogra- 
 pher. 
 
 The last voyage of Columbus was undertaken ex- 
 pressly to find the strait into the Asian seas. After 
 much suffering he reached the coast of Honduras, 
 along which he sought in vain a passage to the East.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. H 
 
 It was an unsuccessful enterprise, but there is satis- 
 faction in the thought that in that last voyage, near 
 the sad close of his eventful life, he sailed along the 
 shores of the isthmus through which, pierced as 
 it surely will be by a ship canal, the commerce of 
 Europe with Asia will at last, and in part at least, be 
 interchanged. 
 
 The Spanish navigators after Columbus kept up 
 an active search for a shorter route to the Indies. 
 " This discovery of a strait into the Indian Ocean," 
 says Prescott, " was the burden of every order from 
 the government." The discovery of a new route to 
 India, "is the true key to the maritime movements 
 of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth 
 centuries." 
 
 One of the most important results of these Span- 
 ish explorations was the discovery of the Pacific 
 Ocean in 1513, by the unfortunate Balboa. Geo- 
 graphical researches soon satisfied the Spaniards 
 that no natural inter-oceanic water channel existed 
 in those regions in which they had so diligently 
 sought "the secret of the Strait." Their voyages, 
 and those made by contemporary Portuguese and 
 English navigators, gradually gave Europeans some 
 elementary knowledge of both the Eastern and 
 Western continents. It was then seen that al- 
 though all the regions of the earth which, on ac- 
 count of their wealth and population, afforded the
 
 12 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 best materials for commerce, lay within the North- 
 em Hemisphere, direct intercourse by water between 
 many of the richest of these countries was cut off by 
 the projection of South America and Africa far be- 
 yond the equator. The narrow isthmuses by which 
 these two continents were joined to their northern 
 neighbors soon suggested, however, the practicabil- 
 ity of piercing those obstructions by means of arti- 
 ficial water channels. 
 
 Even before the contemporaries of Columbus had 
 all passed away, the longing for the rich fruits of 
 Eastern commerce had distinctly presented to the 
 attention of mankind the problem of an American 
 inter-oceanic canal a problem which has, says Sum- 
 ner, " not only a practical value, but an historic 
 grandeur " a problem which, after the lapse of more 
 than three centuries, remains unsolved. 
 
 The Spaniards are entitled to the credit of having 
 at a very early day formed the project of uniting 
 the harbors on opposite sides of the American isth- 
 mus by means of a canal between the headwaters of 
 the streams flowing in opposite directions to the 
 Atlantic and Pacific. As early as 1528, Antonio 
 Galvao proposed to the Emperor Charles V. to open 
 a communication between the oceans by the Isthmus 
 of Panama. During the reign of Philip II., the 
 authorities even went so far as to make plans and 
 surveys for carrying an inter-oceanic canal scheme
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 13 
 
 into execution. But Spain was already growing 
 weak at the extremities of her colossal empire ; the 
 filibusters of England, France, and Holland swarmed 
 in the seas, and Philip forbade the execution of 
 the work. He wanted wisdom to perceive that the 
 control of such an important channel of commerce 
 would have given more strength and durable pros- 
 perity to his empire than all the wealth of his mines 
 of gold and silver. 
 
 The importance of the Isthmian region, in a com- 
 mercial point of view, attracted the attention of 
 William Patterson, the founder of the Bank of 
 England, and one of the most remarkable men of his 
 age, toward the end of the seventeenth century, and 
 a canal to be cut through it was one of the objects 
 of his great but ill-fated scheme of the Darien col- 
 ony. The tragic termination of this project is well 
 known. Lord Macaulay, in his History of England, 
 tells the story in his most graphic style ; but al- 
 though embellished with all the charms of the fas- 
 cinating rhetoric of this brilliant historian, the nar- 
 rative shows no adequate recognition of the wisdom 
 and statesmanship displayed in the conception of 
 this colony, and it is not too much to say, that but 
 for the purblind and jealous policy of King William 
 III., Great Britain might have secured through 
 Patterson, in the closing years of the seventeenth 
 century, a colonial possession of more importance
 
 14 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 than all the wide extended territory which she now 
 owns in North America. Had Patterson's scheme 
 been honestly supported, the British government 
 would have acquired firm possession of the Ameri- 
 can isthmus, and with that isthmus in her posses- 
 sion, she would, doubtless, long since have con- 
 structed an inter-oceanic canal, which might have 
 adjourned for long years to come the construction of 
 the canal of Suez. Never did a nation spurn a gift 
 so precious. The sanction of the British govern- 
 ment alone was wanting to insure success to a colo- 
 nial enterprise which carried with it all the blessings 
 of civilization, and the well-ordered material, moral, 
 and social development of Anglo-Saxon enlightenment 
 an enterprise which, commencing on the narrow 
 confines of the Isthmus of Darien, and spreading to 
 the neighboring lands of Central and South America, 
 might have resulted in a success more enduring than 
 that of the East India Company. Patterson looked 
 beyond the dominion of the isthmus. His large 
 ambition included the acquisition of Cuba as a part 
 of his comprehensive plan for British supremacy 
 on this hemisphere. His enlightened and sagacious 
 views deserve the consideration of the American peo- 
 ple, whose interest in the regions which attracted his 
 enterprising spirit is paramount now to that of any 
 other people. We have an intimation of the wide 
 scope of his entire plan in his own words, as follows :
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 15 
 
 "The addition of the port of Havana to those \ 
 ports and passes of the isthmus will render this de- 
 sign altogether complete. 
 
 ' ' Havana is capable of being defended with five 
 or six thousand seasoned men ashore, and the situ- 
 ation thereof upon one of the best and greatest isl- 
 ands, not only of America, but may be in the world, 
 as lying in the center between the Northern, and 
 Southern parts of America, and thereby making a 
 pass of the greatest consequence, and a natural 
 bridle to all that great inlet commonly called the 
 Gulf, and no small awe to the navigation of the 
 whole bay of Mexico." 
 
 The following passage from a letter written by 
 this remarkable man presents a further elucidation 
 of his views : 
 
 "But if neither Britain singly, nor the maritime 
 powers of Europe will treat for Darien, the period is 
 not very far distant when, instead of waiting for the 
 slow returns of trade, America will seize the pass of 
 Darien. Their next move will be to hold the Sand- 
 wich Islands. Stationed thus in the middle, on the 
 east and on the west sides of the New World, the 
 English- Americans will form the most potent and 
 singular empire that has appeared, because it will 
 consist, not in the dominion of a part of the land of 
 the globe, but in the dominion of the whole ocean. 
 They can make the tour of the Indian and Southern
 
 16 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 seas, collecting wealth by trade wherever they 
 pass. During European wars, they may have the 
 carrying trade of all. If blessed with letters and 
 arts, they will spread civilization over the Universe. 
 Then England, with all her liberties and glory, may 
 be known only as Egypt is now." 
 
 These are instructive, not to say prophetic words, 
 and may be read with profit by every American 
 citizen to-day.
 
 THE COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE OF THE INTER-OCEANIC 
 
 CANAL, AND THE HISTORY OF SOME OF 
 
 THE SCHEMES FOR BUILDING IT. 
 
 IT is foreign to the purposes of this treatise to give 
 a detailed history of the numerous schemes devised 
 during the past 350 years for the establishment of 
 inter-oceanic communication across the American 
 isthmus. 
 
 A chronological list of the most important of these 
 plans is given in an appendix, but a rapid review of 
 the subject here will show how often and how de- 
 servedly it has occupied public attention. 
 
 The writings of Humboldt were influential in di- 
 recting attention to this great work at the beginning 
 of the present century. His personal explorations 
 vividly impressed him with the benefit the com- 
 merce of all nations would derive from an inter- 
 oceanic canal; and also with the practicability of 
 
 the enterprise. 
 
 2 17
 
 18 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 In his work on "New Spain," the relative merits 
 of the Tehuantepec, Nicaragua, Panama, and Atrato 
 routes are carefully discussed, and although of 
 necessity he studied only in the light of such gen- 
 eral and unsatisfactory data as could be obtained by 
 an intelligent traveler, unaided in most cases by the 
 surveys of engineers, the elements of the problem 
 are presented with rare intelligence, and the fact 
 that those whose subsequent studies have been most 
 thorough, have the highest admiration for the ac- 
 curacy of his information and the soundness of his 
 conclusions, is a tribute to the sagacity with which 
 his comprehensive mind grasped the entire subject. 
 
 The power of Spain was already completely broken 
 at the time of Humboldt's visit to the isthmus, yet 
 the enlightened Charles III. had seriously revolved 
 the project of constructing a canal during his reign, 
 and Revillagigedo, his not less enlightened Mexican 
 Viceroy, had made explorations to that end. After 
 the American provinces had achieved their inde- 
 pendence, public interest in the inter-oceanic canal 
 problem at once revived. Bolivar cherished to the 
 last the hope of solving it in the interest of Colom- 
 bia. Upon the fall of the Spanish power, and the 
 separation of Guatemala from the ephemeral em- 
 pire of Iturbide in Mexico, the Nicaraguan scheme 
 was revived by Central America, united under a 
 federal government. The interstate jealousies of
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 19 
 
 the Central American Republic were strong enough, 
 however, to dissolve the union and to suspend all 
 such schemes. 
 
 On the 8th of February, 1825, during the closing 
 month of Mr. Monroe's administration, Mr. Canaz, 
 who then represented the Central American Repub- 
 lic at Washington, addressed a note to the Depart- 
 ment of State, proposing the co-operation of that 
 republic with the United States in promoting the 
 opening of a canal through the province of Nicara- 
 gua ; and proposing also, that by means of a treaty 
 the advantages of the canal should be perpetually 
 secured to the two nations. The note remained un- 
 noticed until after the beginning of the administra- 
 tion of John Quincy Adams, when on the 18th of 
 April, 1825, Mr. Clay, his Secretary of State, replied 
 to it, but without taking any direct notice of the 
 important proposition for a treaty which it con- 
 tained. Mr. Clay instructed Mr. Williams, then 
 our Minister in Central America, to investigate the 
 Nicaragua route with the greatest care, and to in- 
 form the government of the result of his inquiries. 
 
 Mr. Williams seems to have taken a deep interest 
 in the subject. Through his influence, on the 16th 
 of June, 1826, a contract was entered into with the 
 Central American government, on behalf of Aaron H. 
 Palmer of New York, for the construction of a canal 
 through Nicaragua, with a capacity for "vessels of
 
 20 THE INTER-OCEANIG CANAL. 
 
 the largest burden possible." Mr. Palmer does not 
 appear to have had any reliable information as to the 
 cost of the work, although he had as his associate so 
 judicious a practical engineer as De Witt Clinton, 
 and was assisted by the Marquis Aycinena, a Guate- 
 malan exile of ability. 
 
 It was proposed to raise a capital of only $5,000,- 
 000, for the prosecution of the entire work. The 
 scheme failed, owing to the inability of the company 
 which Mr. Palmer represented to raise the amount 
 required. 
 
 The American company having failed in the ful- 
 fillment of its contract, negotiations were opened 
 by Central America with Holland, which came to a 
 favorable conclusion under the direct patronage of 
 the king in 1830 ; but the commencement of the un- 
 dertaking by the Dutch company was prevented by 
 the political disturbances which resulted in the in- 
 dependence of Belgium ; and, upon the failure of 
 the Dutch company to carry out the agreement to 
 construct the canal, the people of Central America 
 turned again for aid to the United States, as their 
 natural ally in the work. Mr. Savage, consul of the 
 United States at Guatemala, wrote to the Depart- 
 ment of State, on the 3d of December, 1830 : "Every 
 one seems tacitly to look forward to the United 
 States for the completion of this grand project. 
 They say that the United States, identified in her
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 21 
 
 institutions with this government, is the only power 
 that ought to have the preference" 
 
 The Mcaraguan inter-oceanic canal was one of the 
 first subjects which engaged the attention of Jack- 
 son's administration. 
 
 On the 20th of July, 1831, Mr. Livingston, Secre- 
 tary of State, addressed the following instructions 
 to Mr. Jeffers, American Charge in Central America : 
 
 "... You will endeavor to procure for the 
 citizens of the United States, or for the government 
 itself, if Congress should deem the measure consti- 
 tutional and proper, the right 'of subscribing to the 
 stock ; and you will in either case procure and trans- 
 mit such plans, estimates, and other information 
 relative to the projected work as may enable us to 
 judge of its feasibility and importance. The depth 
 of water, safety from storms, capacity, and other 
 facilities of the projected ports at the two extremi- 
 ties, are particularly important to be known, as well 
 as the intended length, breadth, and depth of the 
 canal itself, and the time calculated for constructing 
 it," 
 
 Mr. Jeffers resigned without going to his post, but 
 this extract is exceedingly interesting as showing 
 the views entertained on this subject by the ad- 
 ministration of General Jackson, and the readiness 
 of that administration even to make the government 
 a partner in the enterprise.
 
 22 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 On the 3d of March, 1835, the Senate of the 
 United States adopted the following resolution : 
 
 "JZesolved, That the President of the United 
 States be respectfully requested to consider the ex- 
 pediency of opening negotiations with the govern- 
 ments of other nations, and particularly with the 
 governments of Central America and New Granada, 
 for the purpose of effectually protecting, by suitable 
 treaty stipulations with them, such individuals or 
 companies as may undertake to open a communica- 
 tion between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, by 
 construction of a ship canal across the isthmus 
 which connects North and South America, and of 
 securing forever, by such stipulations, the free and 
 equal right of navigating such canal, to all such 
 nations, on the payment of such reasonable tolls as 
 may be established to compensate the capitalists 
 who may engage in such undertaking, to complete 
 the work." 
 
 In accordance with this resolution, President Jack- 
 son appointed Mr. Charles Biddle, of Philadelphia, a 
 special agent of the government. He was instructed 
 to proceed immediately to Port San Juan, to ascend 
 the river San Juan to the Lake of Nicaragua, and 
 thence by the contemplated route of communica- 
 tion by canal or railroad to the Pacific Ocean. After 
 having examined the route, he was to repair to the 
 capital of Central America, and procure all the docu-
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 23 
 
 ments to be had, relating to the subject. Mr. Biddle 
 was also instructed to make inquiries in regard to 
 the Panama route, but this branch of the subject 
 was subordinate to the main purpose of his mission. 
 
 Mr. Biddle, disobeying his instructions, sailed to 
 Panama, alleging that he could not obtain convey- 
 ance to San Juan, and from Panama proceeded to 
 Bogota, where he opened negotiations with New 
 Granada for a macadamized road across the Isthmus 
 of Panama. 
 
 Having succeeded in obtaining a grant for this 
 purpose, in which he seems to have had a large 
 personal interest, he returned to the United States. 
 His course did not meet the approval of the govern- 
 ment, and his project proved a failure. 
 
 The first actual survey of a canal route across the 
 State of Nicaragua seems to have been that begun 
 in 1837 by Lieut. John Baily, R.M., who was em- 
 ployed for this purpose by the Federal Government 
 of Central America, a short time previous to its dis- 
 solution. Mr. Baily was an officer of the British 
 Royal Marines, who had resided for thirty years in 
 Nicaragua. He was fully competent to the under- 
 taking, and in the two years devoted to the survey 
 he accomplished much that has permanent value. 
 General Morazan undertook to raise a loan in Europe 
 upon the faith of Mr. Baily' s surveys, but his de- 
 sign was frustrated by the overthrow of the Federal
 
 24 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 Government, the flight of Morazan into Costa Rica, 
 and his execution there. 
 
 The subject still continued to engage attention in 
 the United States, and in 1839, the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, on the memorial of a number of leading 
 merchants of Philadelphia and New York, adopted 
 a resolution requesting the President to consider the 
 expediency of negotiating with other nations "for 
 the purpose of ascertaining the practicability of ef- 
 fecting a communication between the Atlantic and 
 Pacific oceans, by the construction of a ship canal 
 across the isthmus, and of securing forever, by suita- 
 ble treaty stipulations, the free and equal right of 
 navigating such canal to all nations." It does not 
 appear that any governmental action followed this 
 resolution. 
 
 The Nicaragua route did not, for several years 
 after this period, receive much consideration, owing 
 chiefly to the disturbed political condition of the 
 severed States which had formerly constituted the 
 Central American Republic. In 1844, M. Castellon, 
 of Nicaragua, visited France for the purpose of in- 
 teresting the government of Louis Philippe in the 
 subject, but he found the Prime Minister, M. 'Gfui- 
 zot, committed to the Panama route, which Garella 
 was then engaged in examining. Louis Napoleon 
 was then imprisoned at Ham, for his attempt to 
 revolutionize the government of France, and the
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 25 
 
 authorities, willing to find employment for this 
 troublesome prisoner, permitted him to have an 
 interview with Castellon. So far as appears, no 
 definite arrangements were made for his release, 
 although he pledged himself to undertake the work 
 if permitted to go to America. 
 
 Nicaragua showed her willingness to place him at 
 the head of the enterprise, by granting a charter, 
 in 1846, to the " Canal Napoleon de Nicaragua." 
 Soon after Napoleon's subsequent escape from 
 prison, he published in London a pamphlet entitled 
 " Canal de Nicaragua," with an appeal to capitalists 
 on behalf of the enterprise. It has never been 
 known in this country how far toward success the 
 canal scheme of Prince Louis Napoleon had been 
 pushed, when the revolution of February, 1848, called 
 him away from the work to overthrow a republic 
 and to found the Second Empire. It may be well 
 now to say that the necessary funds were assured, 
 that the arrangements for commencing the work 
 were in progress, and that the English operations 
 in Central America which roused the indignation of 
 this country, and eventually led to the too cele- 
 brated Clay ton - Bulwer negotiations, were under- 
 taken in connection with the development of the 
 Napoleonic scheme. 
 
 The acquisition of California by the American 
 government, and the discovery of gold there soon
 
 26 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 afterward, gave a greater prominence than ever be- 
 fore to the subject of inter-oceanic communication. 
 The necessity for immediate means of transit for 
 the large emigration to California rendered imper- 
 ative the adoption of temporary expedients for the 
 transit of the isthmus, and led to the opening of an 
 overland route by the Isthmus of Panama, and to 
 another across the Isthmus of Nicaragua, by the San 
 Juan River and the lake in part, and by land from 
 the lake to the Pacific. 
 
 Surveys and explorations were immediately com- 
 menced upon both routes. In this connection, the 
 labors of Frederick M. Kelley deserve to be men- 
 tioned with the highest praise. He devoted his for- 
 tune and his time to the investigation of the problem 
 of the discovery of a practicable canal route. It is 
 not within the scope of this work to give a detailed 
 account of the causes which rendered the labors of 
 Kelley and his contemporaries futile. So far as the 
 Isthmus of Panama is concerned, the explorations 
 and surveys resulted in the construction of the Pa- 
 nama Railroad, which was commenced in 1850, at a 
 cost of $7,500,000, by a company chartered by the 
 State of New York, and protected by treaty stipu- 
 lations between the Colombian and American gov- 
 ernments. 
 
 The construction of this railroad was a memorable 
 achievement of human energy, and has made famous
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 27 
 
 the names of our countrymen, Aspinwall, Stephens, 
 and Totten, by whose perseverance and zeal the en- 
 terprise was carried to a successful conclusion. 
 
 Even after the suspension of the projects of Louis 
 Napoleon, the prospects of the Nicaragua inter-oce- 
 anic canal seemed good. The work was taken in 
 hand by the Browns of New York, and on the 27th 
 August, 1849, a contract for constructing a canal was 
 entered into by a New York company, called the 
 American Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company. 
 O. W. Childs, a distinguished engineer of Philadel- 
 phia, employed by the company to make a thorough 
 survey of the route, began the work in August, 1850. 
 His survey, the most careful and scientific made to 
 that date, was, at the request of the company, re- 
 ferred, by Mr. Conrad, Secretary of War, to Colonel 
 J. J. Abert and Major W. Turnbull, of the United 
 States Topographical Engineers, who pronounced 
 the plan practicable, and expressed the opinion that 
 no other route is so well supplied with water as that 
 through Nicaragua. 
 
 The plans submitted by Childs did not, however, 
 meet the approval of capitalists, chiefly because the 
 size of the canal proposed by him was not deemed 
 sufficient for the wants of commerce. The failure of 
 the American Atlantic and Pacific Canal Company 
 to undertake the construction of a canal, was really 
 due to the fact that a subordinate, company, formed
 
 28 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 by it, and known as the Accessory Transit Company, 
 found the business of carrying passengers and treas- 
 ure across the isthmus so profitable, that it was in- 
 terested in postponing the construction of the canal. 
 The project was finally ruined by the Walker expe- 
 dition, and the consequent prejudice and animosity 
 which that ill-fated adventurer stirred up in Nica- 
 ragua against the American people. 
 
 The events of 1861, in the United States, put an 
 end to all attempts on the part of American citizens 
 to construct the Nicaragua inter-oceanic canal. 
 
 Three years before that time, however, Louis Na- 
 poleon, become Emperor of the French, had given 
 the world a signal illustration of the tenacity with 
 which he clung to his favorite idea of utilizing the 
 canal project to re-establish French influence in the 
 New World. Under his protection, and with direct 
 encouragement from him, M. Felix Belly, an engi- 
 neer of ability, and a man full of energy and enthu- 
 siasm, organized, in 1858, a company to construct a 
 canal by way of the San Juan. He obtained con- 
 tracts both from Costa Rica and from Nicaragua, 
 and, accompanied by a number of workmen and 
 assistants, came out in person to superintend the en- 
 terprise. He laid the foundations of a city to be 
 called Feliciana, near Fort San Carlos, and pro- 
 ceeded for some time with tWe work, when all his 
 enterprises were brought to a sudden termination by
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 29 
 
 the failure of his chief financial associate to supply 
 him with the promised funds. M. Belly returned to 
 France, where he has never since ceased to labor for 
 the consummation of the schemes with which he had 
 united his fortunes and his name so disastrously, 
 and he made his appearance at the Paris Congress of 
 1879 as full of confidence andr hope as ever. 
 
 Ten years afterward, the energetic assistance of 
 the Emperor Napoleon, exasperated at the collapse 
 of his plans in Mexico, enabled the illustrious econ- 
 omist and statesman, M. Michel Chevalier, to revive 
 the French project of a Mcaraguan canal. M. Che- 
 valier obtained, in conjunction with Don Tomas 
 Ayon, of Nicaragua, a working contract for the con- 
 struction of the canal, and arrangements were mak- 
 ing at Paris to put the contract into execution, when 
 they were suddenly suspended by the outbreak of 
 the great Franco-German war. M. Chevalier has 
 since died, but the imperial French tradition surviv- 
 ing him has been once more taken up, and with still 
 greater energy, as we see, at the end of another dec- 
 ade, by Lieut. Bonaparte Wyse and the Viscount 
 Ferdinand de Lesseps, who have simply changed 
 the venue of the French schemes from Costa 
 Bica and Nicaragua to the United States of Colom- 
 bia. 
 
 This preliminary historical sketch is confined, it 
 will be seen, chiefly to Mcaraguan projects, and this
 
 30 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 because these projects have chiefly engaged pub- 
 lic attention during the last twenty years. More 
 or less attention has always continued to be given, 
 however, to the Tehuantepec, Panama, and Darien 
 routes, all of which have at various times been 
 strongly advocated. So far as our own country is 
 concerned, the Nicaragua route has always been re- 
 garded with the most favor, both upon the ground 
 of its practicability and for political reasons. 
 
 At the close of the civil war, the National Gov- 
 ernment again turned its attention to the inter- 
 oceanic canal, as a subject which deserved imme- 
 diate consideration. On the 19th of March, 1866, 
 the Senate of the United States adopted the follow- 
 ing resolution : 
 
 "Resolved, That the Secretary of the Navy fur- 
 nish, through a report of the Superintendent of the 
 Naval Observatory, the summit levels and distances 
 by survey of the various proposed lines for inter- 
 oceanic canals and railroads between the waters of 
 the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans ; as, also their rela- 
 tive merits as practicable lines for the construction 
 of a ship canal, and especially as relates to Hon- 
 duras, Tehuantepec, Nicaragua, Panama, and Atra- 
 to lines ; and also whether, in the opinion of the 
 Superintendent, the Isthmus of Darien has been 
 satisfactorily explored ; and if so, furnish in detail, 
 charts, plans, lines of levels, and all information
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 31 
 
 connected therewith, and upon what authority they 
 are based." 
 
 In response to this resolution, Rear- Admiral Davis, 
 on the llth day of July, 1866, submitted a report 
 containing a summary of the explorations and sur- 
 veys which had been made prior to that time. This 
 report, while making a clear presentation of the 
 work which had already been done in the explora- 
 tion of the isthmus, and incidentally illustrating the 
 importance of an inter-oceanic canal, at the same 
 time set forth the insufficiency of the data as yet 
 obtained on the subject. Upon this point, Admiral 
 Davis remarks : 
 
 "There does not exist in the libraries of the world 
 the means of determining, even approximately, the 
 most practicable route for a ship canal across the 
 isthmus." 
 
 This report produced very important results ; and 
 the necessity was shown for further explorations 
 and surveys, in order to determine the general feasi- 
 bility of the work, and the selection of a route 
 which, while presenting engineering difficulties ca- 
 pable of being overcome at the expense of a reason- 
 able amount of capital, would serve sufficiently well 
 the interests of commerce. 
 
 During the first term of President Grant's admin- 
 istration, the American government began a series 
 of thorough and well-directed explorations, which
 
 32 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 have furnished more trustworthy information on 
 this subject than had been obtained by the labors 
 of all previous explorers during the preceding three 
 hundred and fifty years. 
 
 It is unnecessary to examine the reports of these 
 surveys in detail. They embrace the surveys of the 
 Tehuantepec route by Captain R "VV. Shufeldt, of the 
 Nicaragua route by Commander E. P. Lull and Civil 
 Engineer A. G. Menocal, of the Atrato-Nipipi route 
 by Lieutenant Collins and Commander Selfridge, 
 and of the Panama route by the Navy Department. 
 These surveys were all carefully and thoroughly 
 examined by a commission appointed by President 
 Grant, consisting of Brigadier-General Andrew A. 
 Humphries, C. P. Patterson, Superintendent of the 
 Coast Survey, and Rear- Admiral Ammen. 
 
 The result of the labors of this commission is stated 
 in the report of the 7th of February, 1876, submitted 
 to the President, from which we quote the following 
 passage : 
 " To the President of the United States: 
 
 "The commission appointed by you to consider 
 the subject of communication by canal between the 
 waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, across, 
 over, or near the isthmus connecting North and South 
 America, have the honor, after a long, careful, and 
 minute study of the several surveys of the various 
 routes across the continent, unanimously to report :
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 33 
 
 "1. That the route known as the 'Nicaragua 
 route,' beginning on the Atlantic side at or near 
 Greytown ; running by canal to the San Juan River, 
 thence following its left bank to the mouth of the 
 San Carlos River, at which point navigation of the 
 San Juan River begins, and by the aid of three short 
 canals of an aggregate length of 3'5 miles reaches 
 Lake Nicaragua ; from thence across the lake and 
 through the valleys of the Rio del Medio and the 
 Rio Grande, to what is known as the port of Brito, 
 on the Pacific coast, possesses, both for the construc- 
 tion and maintenance of a canal, greater advantages, 
 and offers fewer difficulties from engineering, com- 
 mercial, and economic points of view, than any one 
 of the other routes shown to be practicable by sur- 
 veys sufficiently in detail to enable a judgment to be 
 formed of their relative merits, as will be briefly pre- 
 sented in the appended memorandum." 
 
 The decision of this commission of experienced' 
 engineers must be accepted as entitled to great con- 
 sideration with respect to the comparative merits of 
 the several routes which were the subject of their 
 examination. But the assumption, if advanced, that 
 these are the only routes across the isthmus, is clear- 
 ly untenable. The history of the subject shows that 
 no thorough and exhaustive exploration from end to 
 end of the mountain range which presents the bar- 
 rier to the transit of the isthmus has yet been made.
 
 34 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 Reports made from time to time by adventurous ex- 
 plorers warrant the opinion that this great engineer- 
 ing problem cannot be deemed to have received its 
 final and complete solution until further scientific 
 search has been made upon other lines of crossing 
 than those so far examined. 
 
 A civil engineer, evidently of ability, in a recent 
 letter to the Alta (San Francisco), Calfform'an, 
 makes the following suggestions toward further ex- 
 plorations : 
 
 " The solution of this question, 'Where can a prac- 
 ticable route for a ship canal through the Isthmus 
 of Panama be found, upon which it can be built at a 
 reasonable cost and in a few years of time ? ' is a 
 question of orology, geology, topography, the chem- 
 istry of rocks and their relations, the metals in their 
 relations to the mountain chains, and as the cause of 
 local topography everywhere in metal-bearing coun- 
 tries, as is this isthmus region. 
 
 "The orologic system of the isthmus, from Porto 
 Bello to Port David, on the Pacific, as shown by the 
 maps and by all of the numerous surveys of that re- 
 gion, is this: That the course of all the mountains 
 is about west north-west. Witness the San Bias 
 Mountains, from Porto Bello to its junction with the 
 Andes. Also, that the Panama Mountains follow 
 the same course, and Self ridge's map, accompanying 
 his report of 1871 or 1872, shows by the delineated
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 35 
 
 river drainage that from Point Petillo, near Panama, 
 eastward to the Andes, the mountain is missing 
 submerged. 
 
 "Now, mining experience declares that a low 
 valley is all but universally, indeed we may with 
 safety say universally and everywhere, found be- 
 tween the easterly and westerly chains, and hence a 
 route will doubtless be found by ascending the Rio 
 Juan de Bias to six to twelve miles north of Panama 
 or thereabouts ; a route through sedimentary rocks 
 should be found at a low elevation, through to 
 the Chagres and to the Atlantic. 
 
 " Southwest of Panama, a route should be looked 
 for from Chami Bay through to the Rio Indios, on 
 the Verajua shore, through a low east-and-west val- 
 ley, between the Panama Mountains on the north 
 and the Chami Mountains on the south. 
 
 "Another route, lying between the Chami Mount- 
 ains on the north and the Chiriqui Mountains on the 
 south, is to be looked for through the east-and-west 
 valley extending from the Gulf of Parita, on the 
 Pacific, through to the Rio Belem of Columbus. 
 
 " And a fourth route, which, if found, as I believe 
 it can be, will probably be better than either of the 
 others, is from Chiriqui Lagoon, in the Caribbean 
 Sea, through to the Pacific, directly through the 
 mountains to the east of the volcano of Chiriqui. 
 
 "Hitherto, exploration has been conducted to the
 
 36 . THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 west of the volcano, but science points to that local- 
 ity (east of the volcano) as the place to find an 
 opening. 
 
 " Wheelwright, in his report upon this locality to 
 the Royal Geographical Society, published by them 
 in 1844, page 10, says, ' I was assured by several per- 
 sons that a deep gorge had been discovered in the 
 Untim Mountains,' etc., which seems to confirm this 
 deduction. 
 
 "This Chiriqui Lagoon route has the farther ad- 
 vantages that it is outside of the one hundred mile 
 limit, within which the Panama Railroad has con- 
 trol, viz., to secure certain defined pecuniary com- 
 pensation, whereon a ship canal might be built. 
 The distance between ports on the Atlantic and 
 Pacific coasts of the United States is 150 miles 
 shorter. It possesses unsurpassed harbors on both 
 coasts, fine healthful climate, good soil, abundance 
 of pure water, and coal in unlimited supply, for the 
 steamers which must necessarily be employed in the 
 carrying trade of the future." 
 
 That the canal problem should have been regarded 
 as satisfactorily solved, rival routes determined upon, 
 the requisite plans for the work elaborated, costly 
 preparations made, and in more than one instance 
 the undertaking actually begun, with the exploration 
 of the isthmus as yet so incomplete is truly surpris- 
 ing.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 37 
 
 The latest step of importance in the history of the 
 projects for an American inter-oceanic canal is the 
 call issued for a conference on the subject at Paris in 
 May, 1879, under the nominal auspices of the Geo- 
 graphical Society of Paris ; in reality at the instance 
 of the French company known as the " Commission 
 Internationale d' Exploration." The professed ob- 
 ject of this conference was the discussion of the best 
 route for the inter-oceanic canal. 
 
 The American government unofficially authorized 
 two eminent officers of the navy to attend the con- 
 ference as delegates, in order that it might be in- 
 formed of the results of the explorations made by 
 the United States. 
 
 The true character of the Paris Conference of 1879 
 and the motives of its originators are described by 
 the editor of the North American Review in an in- 
 troductory note to an article by Mr. Menocal in the 
 number of that periodical for September, 1879, as 
 follows : 
 
 " It was rumored in Paris during the late Canal 
 Congress, that the concession for the Darien canal, 
 which was held by a little company of which Gen- 
 eral Turr is president, was divided into 100 shares of 
 500 francs each, and seemed to be understood that 
 a company of 400,000,000 francs' capital would be 
 formed to purchase the concession from the Turr 
 company, and would pay the stockholders of this
 
 38 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 association 25,000,000 francs for their privileges. 
 Thus each share of 500 francs would become worth 
 250,000 francs. 
 
 " With the fall of Sedan and the fortunes of the 
 Second Empire, a large number of the most promi- 
 nent Bonapartists lost their means of subsistence, 
 and found themselves in a condition bordering on 
 beggary. There were few men of private resources 
 among them. Some had been placemen or stock 
 speculators, while others had been the recipients of 
 constant and liberal gifts from the emperor's privy 
 purse. These gentlemen soon began to look to M . 
 de Lesseps, a connection of the Empress Eugenie, 
 for help and guidance. He alone, of this helpless 
 and hungry crowd, could command the credit and 
 confidence of capitalists. To pierce the isthmus of 
 Central America had been the cherished wish of 
 Louis Napoleon, and this project was not long in 
 recurring to his dejected followers. Thus the scheme 
 was revived and matured under the sponsorship and 
 direction of M. de Lesseps, the executive duties of 
 the undertaking devolving upon Lieutenant Bona- 
 parte "Wyse, whose sister is married to General 
 Turr. 
 
 "A careful examination of the names of the 
 French delegates to the Canal Congress shows how 
 entirely it was packed with subservient friends of 
 the fallen dynasty; nor is it well to overlook the
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 39 
 
 fact that the shares of the Tiirr Company were 
 largely held by them. These people once went to 
 Mexico to seek their fortunes in a Franco-Mexican 
 Empire. It seems passing strange that the conspic- 
 uous defeat of those plans, which embraced the de- 
 struction of the American Union, should have failed 
 to teach them some degree of caution before affect- 
 ing to despise the views of the American envoys from 
 Washington, or attempting to tamper with American 
 interests in America." 
 
 Comment upon the motives which inspired the 
 proceedings of the convention is foreign to the pur- 
 pose of this paper, except with respect to their po- 
 litical significance. In this aspect, however, the 
 scheme which received the sanction of this conven- 
 tion demands the grave consideration of the Ameri- 
 can people. It is plain that the originators of the 
 Wyse-Lesseps canal project rely largely for the 
 success of the enterprise upon the belief that it will, 
 when completed, extend the power and influence of 
 the Latin race in general, and promote the interests 
 of France in particular. The failure of France to 
 maintain a footing in Mexico is to be compensated 
 for by the construction of an inter-oceanic canal upon 
 neighboring territory and under French auspices. 
 French capital is to levy tribute upon the commerce 
 of the globe, establishing upon the American Isth- 
 mus a Latin stronghold, to the effectual obstruction
 
 40 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 of the extension of Anglo-Saxon dominion and in- 
 fluence. 
 
 That M. de Lesseps can count upon the cordial 
 support not only of his own government, but also of 
 other European powers, can be doubted by no one 
 familiar with European policy where European in- 
 terests are involved. A failure to see the main 
 chance and to grasp it, is not among the defects of 
 monarchical institutions.
 
 THE AUTHOR AND THE ORIGIN OP THE MONROE 
 DOCTRINE. 
 
 THE authorship and origin of the Monroe doc- 
 trine have at various times been subjects of discus- 
 sion. Simmer says that Canning was its inventor, 
 promoter, and champion, and the same claim sub- 
 stantially has been made on behalf of Jefferson, 
 John Quincy Adams, and Monroe. It is unques- 
 tionably true that the suggestions made in the sum- 
 mer of 1823, by Canning to Mr. Rush, then Ameri- 
 can Minister at London, when reported by him to 
 the Department of State at Washington, were the 
 means of calling the attention of Mr. Monroe and 
 his cabinet to the subject. One of the questions 
 which Mr. Canning asked Mr. Rush was, "Were the 
 great political and commercial interests, which hung 
 upon the destinies of the new continent, to be can- 
 vassed and adjusted in Europe without the co-opera- 
 tion, or even the knowledge of the United States ?" 
 
 This question of Canning's contains the germ of 
 
 the Monroe doctrine. When Mr. Rush's dispatches 
 
 41
 
 42 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 on the subject were received at Washington, the 
 President sent copies to Jefferson and Madison, and 
 consulted them on the subject. They both favored 
 the policy of acting in conjunction with England in 
 opposition to the designs of the Holy Alliance of in- 
 terfering in this hemisphere to restore to Spain her 
 revolted colonies. When the matter of determining 
 what political form the action of our country should 
 take came up, it was Mr. Adams's business, as the 
 member of the cabinet who had charge of the man- 
 agement of our foreign affairs, to determine upon 
 what principles our official declarations on the sub- 
 ject should be founded. Mr. Calhoun, who was also 
 a member of Monroe's cabinet, says that Adams 
 was the author of the declarations which are now 
 known as those of the President who indorsed them. 
 Mr. Calhoun is sustained by the fact that in those 
 days, as is now the case, the Secretary of State was 
 accustomed to write the portions of the messages 
 relative to foreign affairs, and in this case the draft 
 made by Mr. Adams in that capacity was adopted 
 without change.
 
 THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 
 
 THE attempts to carry into effect the Lesseps- 
 Wyse scheme for constructing an inter-oceanic canal 
 under French auspices, bring the question home to 
 Americans, and make it necessary for us to con- 
 sider practically whether that scheme can be car- 
 ried out consistently with the Monroe doctrine, 
 which, as laid down in President Monroe's annual 
 message of December 2d, 1823, consists of two propo- 
 sitions : 
 
 First. In speaking of the controversy as to the 
 North-western boundary, and the proposed arrange- 
 ments with Great Britain and Russia, the message 
 uses the following language : 
 
 "In the discussions to which this interest has 
 given rise, and in the arrangements in which they 
 may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper 
 for asserting as a principle in which the rights and 
 interests of the United States are involved, that the 
 American continents, by the free and independent 
 
 43
 
 44 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 condition which they have assumed and maintained, 
 are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for 
 future colonization by any European power." 
 
 In order to properly interpret this passage, the 
 political condition of the continents referred to at 
 the time it was written must be considered. There 
 did not then exist upon either of them any territory 
 outside of the limits of the United States which was 
 not claimed by some European power. The protest 
 was directed against the occupation of any terri- 
 tory upon either continent, upon the pretense that 
 it was unoccupied, and this without any reference 
 to whether the territory involved was or was not 
 claimed by the United States. Mr. Monroe spoke 
 not for his own country merely, nor even chiefly ; 
 but for every other American republic. He asserted 
 an abstract principle. It was a broad declaration to 
 the effect that territorial questions touching these 
 continents were henceforth to be managed by the 
 "free and independent" states already established 
 upon them. It was the announcement of a princi- 
 ple of foreign policy of peculiar significance, and it 
 should be recognized as a permanent and controlling 
 tenet governing our relations with foreign powers. 
 It means that no European power can be permitted 
 to gain a foothold upon the American continents, 
 either by direct colonization, political intrigue, or 
 the not less dangerous agency of gigantic foreign
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 45 
 
 corporations, more powerful than the states upon 
 whose territory they are fixed. 
 
 Second. In another part of the same message, Mr. 
 Monroe, in speaking of the condition of the people 
 of Spain and Portugal, and of their efforts to im- 
 prove their condition, efforts frustrated by the inter- 
 ference of the Holy Alliance, says : 
 
 "In the wars of the European powers, in matters 
 relating to themselves, we have never taken any 
 part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. 
 It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously 
 menaced, that we resent injuries, or make prepara- 
 tions for our defense. With the movements in this 
 hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately 
 connected, and by causes which must be obvious to 
 all enlightened and impartial observers. The politi- 
 cal system of the allied powers is essentially dif- 
 ferent in this respect from that of America. This 
 difference proceeds from that which exists in their 
 respective governments. And to the defense of our 
 own, which has been achieved by the loss of so 
 much blood and treasure, and matured by the wis- 
 dom of our most enlightened citizens, and under 
 which we have enjoyed an unexampled felicity, the 
 whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to 
 candor and to the amicable relations existing be- 
 tween the United States and those powers to declare, 
 that we should consider any attempt on their part to
 
 46 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 extend their system to any portion of this hemi- 
 sphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With 
 existing colonies or dependencies of any European 
 power we have not interfered, and shall not inter- 
 fere. But with the governments who have declared 
 their independence and maintained it, and whose 
 independence we have, on great considerations and 
 on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view 
 any interposition, for the purpose of oppressing 
 them, or controlling in any other manner their des- 
 tiny, by any European power, in any other light 
 than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposi- 
 tion toward the United States. In the war between 
 those new governments and Spain, we declared our 
 neutrality at the time of their recognition ; and to 
 this we have adhered, and we shall continue to ad- 
 here, provided no change shall occur which, in the 
 judgment of the competent authorities of this gov- 
 ernment, shall make a corresponding change on the 
 part of the United States indispensable to their secu- 
 rity." 
 
 Speaking of the intervention of the Holy Alliance 
 in the internal affairs of Spain, Mr. Monroe says : 
 
 " To what extent such interposition maybe car- 
 ried, on the same principle, is a question in which all 
 independent powers whose governments differ from 
 theirs are interested, and even those most remote, 
 and surely none more so than the United States.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 47 
 
 "Our policy in regard to Europe, which was 
 adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so 
 long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless 
 remains the same ; which is, not to interfere in the 
 internal concerns of any of its powers ; to consider 
 the government de facto as the legitimate govern- 
 ment for us ; to cultivate friendly relations with it ; 
 and to preserve these relations by a frank, firm, 
 and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just 
 claims of every power, submitting to injuries from 
 none. But, in regard to these continents, circum- 
 stances are eminently and conspicuously different. 
 It is impossible that the allied powers should extend 
 this political system to any portion of either continent 
 without endangering our peace and happiness ; nor 
 can we believe that our Southern brethren, if left to 
 themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It 
 is equally impossible, therefore, that we should be- 
 hold such interposition in any form with indiffer- 
 ence. If we look to the comparative strength and 
 resources of Spain and these new governments, and 
 their distance from each other, it must be obvious 
 that she can never subdue them. It is still the true 
 policy of the United States to leave the parties to 
 themselves, in the hope that other powers will pur- 
 sue the same course." 
 
 In this portion of the message, the non-interven- 
 tion policy laid down in Washington's Farewell Ad-
 
 48 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 dress is reaffirmed so far as the affairs of Europe are 
 concerned, bnt it is distinctly asserted that as to 
 this hemisphere that policy does not apply. 
 
 The message contemplates positive and affirmative 
 resistance to any action tending to give European 
 powers any increase of territory or of influence in 
 the New World. The language used with reference 
 to this subject is very comprehensive. It declares 
 that we must consider any attempt upon the part 
 of European powers to extend their system to any 
 part of this hemisphere, as "dangerous to our peace 
 and safety." But it does not stop there. It de- 
 clares that this government cannot permit any inter- 
 ference of the powers of Europe for the purpose of 
 oppressing any of the states of these continents, 
 "or controlling in any other manner their des- 
 tiny" Plainly the language of this message meant 
 that we thereby assumed the protectorate of the 
 republics upon the Western continents. It em- 
 phatically prohibits any interference by European 
 powers calculated to control their destiny in any 
 manner whatever. It means that American affairs 
 must be controlled by Americans, and that we, as 
 the leading American power, will see to the enforce- 
 ment of this doctrine. 
 
 It has been alleged, even in this country, that the 
 Monroe doctrine never had any binding force. In 
 a discussion which arose in 1855-1856 in relation to
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 49 
 
 its applicability to Central American affairs, par- 
 ticular efforts were made, chiefly by Whig states- 
 men and writers, to limit its extent. One writer, in 
 particular, in the North American Review, argued 
 that this doctrine was practically nothing more than 
 a ~brutum fulmen, that it ' ' was intended to meet 
 a particular contingency of events, and therefore 
 passed away with the occasion which called it 
 forth." It is true that this doctrine has never re- 
 ceived by formal declaration the express sanction 
 of the legislative branch of the government. As 
 Mr. Seward well observed, in the debate upon the 
 subject in the United States Senate, in 1855, this 
 was largely owing to the fact that it is an abstract 
 principle, with respect to which no occasion of prac- 
 tical exigency had then arisen calling for Congres- 
 sional legislation. 
 
 The mere fact, however, that the Monroe doctrine 
 has never received the formal indorsement of Con- 
 gress, has neither diminished its moral effect, nor 
 impaired its practical efficacy whenever the oppor- 
 tunity for its assertion has occurred. 
 
 The French invasion of Mexico presented a con- 
 spicuous instance of its application. The presence 
 of General Sheridan on our south-western frontier, 
 with seventy thousand men, a part of the great 
 army placed in the field by the order of Congress 
 for the national defense, effectually dispensed with 
 4
 
 50 THE INTER-OUEANIC CANAL. 
 
 the necessity of specific legislation to secure the 
 withdrawal of the French forces. 
 
 The Monroe doctrine, in short, is simply the ex- 
 tension to all the political communities of the New 
 World of the declaration made by our ancestors 
 for the British colonies in 1776, that they were, 
 "and of right ought to be free and independent 
 states." Hence its firm and profound hold on the 
 popular heart and will of this country. 
 
 The vast moral influence resulting from the mere 
 enunciation of principles of public policy by the 
 American Executive, is well illustrated by the ex- 
 tent to which Washington's Farewell Address has 
 shaped the foreign and domestic policy of this re- 
 public. In very many important particulars that 
 document has been as efficacious as if it had been 
 embodied in our statutes. 
 
 It woiild be absurd to argue that that paper is 
 entitled to no consideration, because it was never 
 formally approved by a resolution of Congress. 
 Such, however, is the only objection of any real 
 weight which has ever been made against the Mon- 
 roe doctrine. 
 
 In order to understand the full weight and import 
 of this principle, it is proper to refer to the manner 
 in which it was received in Europe at the time it 
 was promulgated. N"ever did any American state 
 paper, except the Declaration of Independence, ex-
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 51 
 
 cite greater interest there. "It was," says Simmer, 
 "upon all tongues; the press was full of it; the 
 securities of Spanish America rose in the market ; 
 the agents of Spanish America were happy." Mr. 
 Brougham said in his place in Parliament, " An 
 event has recently happened than which none has 
 ever dispersed greater joy, exultation, and gratitude 
 over all the free men of Europe ; that event, which 
 is decisive on the subject, is the language held with 
 respect to Spanish America in the message of the 
 President of the United States." 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh seems to have understood 
 the full scope and true meaning of the language 
 used by President Monroe. Speaking in reference 
 to it, he said: "That wise government, in grave but 
 determined language, and with the reasonable but 
 deliberate tone that becomes true courage, proclaims 
 the principles of her policy, and makes known the 
 cases in which the care of her own safety will com- 
 pel her to take up arms for the defense of other 
 States. I have already observed its coincidence 
 with the declarations of England, which indeed is 
 perfect, if allowance be made for the deeper, or at 
 least more immediate interest in the independence 
 of South America which near neighborhood gives 
 the United States. This coincidence of the two 
 great English commonwealths (for so I delight to 
 call them, and I heartily pray that they may be for-
 
 62 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 ever united in the cause of justice and liberty) can- 
 not be contemplated without the utmost pleasure by 
 every enlightened citizen of the earth." 
 
 The boldness of President Monroe in assuming the 
 ground he did was worthy of all admiration. Well- 
 founded rumors were then current as to the designs 
 of the great powers of continental Europe. The 
 brief reports of the discussions of the subject in Mr. 
 Monroe's cabinet, which have come down to ils, 
 show that this government had grave fears of Euro- 
 pean intervention in American affairs in a manner 
 exceedingly dangerous to our national safety. Thus 
 John Quincy Adams in his diary mentions as among 
 the probable schemes of the Holy Alliance, the seiz- 
 ure of California, Peru, and Chili, by Russia; of 
 Mexico by France, and of Cuba by England. It 
 was thought to be well established that France had 
 been intriguing for the establishment of monarchies 
 in Mexico, and in Buenos Ayres, under princes of 
 the house of Bourbon. 
 
 Mr. Adams had apparently very full and trust- 
 worthy information as to certain designs of the great 
 powers threatening to our country. Thus he learned 
 from a letter from Mr. Gallatin that the French Min- 
 ister of Foreign Affairs, M. Hyde de Neuville, had 
 said to him in the hearing of ten or twelve persons 
 that if we did not yield to the claim of France under 
 the eighth article of the Louisiana Convention, she
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 53 
 
 ought to go and take the country back, and that she 
 had a strong party there. Such things show the 
 gravity of the situation at that time and the dangers 
 then at our own doors. 
 
 The apprehensions of our statesmen were not lim- 
 ited to the prospects of foreign intervention alone. 
 They included also the perils of European coloniza- 
 tion upon the American continents. And this con- 
 stitutes the other branch of this subject as it is 
 treated in the celebrated message of President Mon- 
 roe. Mr. Webster thus forcibly states the founda- 
 tion upon which this principle of the Monroe doc- 
 trine rests : 
 
 ' ' Great and practical inconveniences it was feared 
 might be apprehended from the establishment of 
 new colonies in America, having a European origin 
 and a European connection. Attempts of that kind, 
 it was obvious, might possibly be made amidst the 
 changes that were taking place in Mexico, as well as 
 in the more southern states. Mexico bounds us on 
 a vast line from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific 
 Ocean. There are many reasons why it is not to be 
 desired by us that an establishment under the pro- 
 tection of a different power should occupy any por- 
 tion of that space" 
 
 There is abundant contemporary testimony to the 
 enthusiasm with which the announcement of the 
 Monroe doctrine was received among our people.
 
 54 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 They felt its evident and lasting applicability to 
 American affairs ; and that this profound conviction 
 of our people was not a mere evanescent feeling, born 
 of the circumstances of the hour, is shown by the 
 unanimity with which the reassertion of the princi- 
 ple is now demanded throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land. To this manly declaration of 
 rights Americans of all shades of political opinion 
 have always subscribed. In the debate on the Pa- 
 nama mission, in the House of Representatives, Mr. 
 Webster, in speaking of the popular approbation of 
 the Monroe doctrine, said : 
 
 "It met with the entire concurrence and the hearty 
 approbation of the country. The tone in which it 
 was uttered found a corresponding response in the 
 breasts of the free people of the United States. The 
 people saw, and they rejoiced to see, that, on a fit oc- 
 casion, our weight had been thrown into the right 
 scale, and that, without departing from our duty, we 
 had done something useful and something effectual 
 for the cause of civil liberty. 
 
 "One general glow of exultation, one universal 
 feeling of the gratified love of liberty, one conscious 
 and proud perception of the consideration which the 
 country possessed, and of the respect and honor 
 which belonged to it, pervades all her sons." 
 
 John Quincy Adams, who at least assisted at the 
 council board at which the doctrine was originally
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 55 
 
 considered and put into shape, if he did not himself 
 formulate it, by no means understood it to be limited 
 to the condition of affairs which existed in 1823. 
 Writing to Mr. Gallatin on the 20th of March, 1827, 
 Mr. Adams remarks : 
 
 "As the assertion of this principle is an attitude 
 which the American hemisphere must assume, it is 
 one wliichno European Tias tlie right to question; 
 and if the inference drawn from it of danger to ex- 
 isting colonies has any foundation, it can only be on 
 the contingency of a war, which we shall by all 
 means avoid." 
 
 Mr. Jefferson, on the 24th of October, 1823, wrote 
 to Mr. Monroe : 
 
 " Our first and fundamental maxim should be, 
 never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe ; 
 our second, never to suffer Europe to meddle with 
 cis-atlantic affairs." He thus goes even further than 
 Mr. Monroe in his opposition to European interfer- 
 ence in American concerns. In the same letter, 
 speaking of the proposed policy, he says : 
 
 " Its object is to introduce and establish the Amer- 
 ican system of keeping out of our land all foreign 
 powers, or never permitting those of Europe to in- 
 termeddle with the affairs of our nations. It is to 
 maintain our own principle, not to depart from it." 
 
 These views contemplate the exercise of a practical 
 protectorate over all the Spanish-American States.
 
 56 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson argues in decided opposition to "the 
 transfer to any power by conquest, cession, or acqui- 
 sition in any other way, of any of the Spanish- 
 American States." 
 
 Mr. Webster regarded the message of 1823 not 
 only as of vast importance to the nation, but also as 
 embodying principles of public policy of permanent 
 applicability. In a speech in Congress on this sub- 
 ject, he said : 
 
 " The country has, in my judgment, a very high 
 honor connected with that occurrence, which we may 
 maintain or which we may sacrifice. I look up6n it 
 as part of its treasures of reputation, and, for one, I 
 
 intend to guard it 
 
 Sir, I look on the message of December, 1823, as 
 forming a bright page in our history. I will help 
 neither to erase it nor to tear it out ; nor shall it be, 
 by any act of mine, blurred or blotted. It did honor 
 to the sagacity of the government, and I will not 
 diminish that honor. It elevated the hopes and 
 gratified the patriotism of the people. Over those 
 hopes I will not bring a mildew, nor will I put that 
 gratified patriotism to shame." 
 
 Mr. W. H. Trescot, whose contributions to the 
 history of American diplomacy constitute so valu- 
 able a part of the literature of our country, refers 
 to the Monroe doctrine in terms which indicate that 
 he regards it not as a mere expression of opinion
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 57 
 
 upon a temporary occasion, but as the promulgation 
 of a principle for our enduring guidance in our na- 
 tional foreign policy. In his history of the diplo- 
 macy of the administrations of Washington and 
 Adams, he says, speaking of the first generation of 
 statesmen produced by our country : 
 
 "With rare courage and temper and wisdom, 
 they had laid broad the foundations of a great 
 country, and with singular good fortune, had been 
 permitted to perfect the government which they had 
 initiated. For more than a quarter of a century, the 
 men who framed the Constitution were allowed to 
 administer it ; and having thus formed it in infancy, 
 and moulded its youth, they retired one after an- 
 other from the scenes of their great achievements, 
 leaving to a new generation the responsibility of its 
 mature manhood. But, as if to consecrate with the 
 grace of their final benediction its foremost step, it 
 was granted to Mr. Monroe, the last of the vener- 
 able company, to inaugurate, by Ms famous decla- 
 ration, the mgorous commencement of our national 
 life. From the date of that declaration, our foreign 
 policy, if it has not taken a higher tone, has at least 
 expressed itself in a more systematic development." 
 
 It may, however, well be questioned whether the 
 interests of the present administration, under the 
 peculiar circumstances of an existing emergency 
 calling for the most energetic expression of our tra-
 
 68 THE WTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 ditional policy, is not open to just criticism. Mak- 
 ing every allowance for the fact that the inception 
 of action of the character suggested is ordinarily 
 secret, and that the administration has appreciated 
 and is preparing to act upon the emergency, yet it is 
 no less true that several months have passed away 
 since the necessity for action became manifest, and 
 preparation has not culminated in fruition. 
 
 There are requirements of national importance 
 which do not admit of an hour's delay. This is 
 one of them. Affairs have advanced during the last 
 six months on the Isthmus of Darien to a stage 
 where negotiation and diplomacy are wholly inap- 
 propriate and cannot possibly avail. While the 
 necessity has always existed for our control of the 
 thoroughfare to our western coasts, events have now 
 made that necessity instant and imperious. It can 
 be trifled with no longer. 
 
 The Monroe doctrine was reaffirmed by Mr. Polk 
 in his message to Congress of December 2d, 1845. 
 He says : 
 
 "In the existing circumstances of the world the 
 present is deemed a proper occasion to reiterate and 
 reaffirm the principle avowed by Mr. Monroe, and 
 to state my cordial concurrence in its wisdom and 
 sound policy. Existing rights of every nation should 
 be respected ; but it is due alike to our safety and 
 our interests that the efficient protection of our laws
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 59 
 
 should be extended over our whole territorial limits ; 
 and it should be distinctly announced to the world 
 as our settled policy, that no future European col- 
 ony or dominion shall, with our consent, be planted 
 or established on any part of the North American 
 continent." 
 
 A great canal corporation, controlled in Europe, 
 and under European laws, would inevitably exercise 
 dominion in Central America, if established there. 
 
 Mr. Cass, a statesman whose accurate and exten- 
 sive knowledge of the history and spirit of the for- 
 eign policy of this country should entitle his opin- 
 ions to great weight, in a debate in the Senate of 
 the United States on the 28th of January, 1856, used 
 the following language in regard to the extent and 
 applicability of the Monroe doctrine : 
 
 "It is inexplicable, sir, that any one could sup- 
 pose that these declarations had reference only to 
 the peculiar position of the Spanish colonies. The 
 first had, but the second was addressed to all na- 
 tions, and was intended to operate during all time. 
 It was the annunciation of a new line of policy. On 
 what was it founded ? On the situation of our 
 country, and of the various states of this continent, 
 which demanded a system, as Mr. Jefferson said, 
 'separate and apart from that of Europe.' " 
 
 Mr. Buchanan, in his "History of the Origin and 
 Nature of the Monroe Doctrine," says :
 
 60 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 " It soon became a canon of faith for the Ameri- 
 can people, and they placed it side by side with 
 their hostility to the imprisonment of American sea- 
 men, and to the search of American vessels on the 
 high seas." 
 
 Although the doctrine in question is hostile to the 
 extension of European influence upon this conti- 
 nent, it has been constantly recognized by Euro- 
 pean writers as a weighty protest against all inter- 
 ference by foreign powers upon the American conti- 
 nent. 
 
 Sir Edward Creasy, in his work on "Internation- 
 al Law," while denying the validity of the Monroe 
 doctrine, admits that there are strong proofs of its 
 prevalence in the United States, and that the United 
 States "has at times assumed the position of the ex- 
 clusively leading power of the New World." 
 
 Commander Pirn, E. IN"., in his " Gate of the Pa- 
 cific," refers to the doctrine as designed to secure 
 for the United States ' ' the sole and exclusive right 
 to the commerce of the New World." This writer 
 perhaps gives us credit for more sagacity in our for- 
 eign policy than we are entitled to. The wisdom of 
 our people has not been conspicuously shown of late 
 years in the development of American commerce. 
 
 A writer in the London Quarterly Review for 
 January, 1862, said, "President Pierce, when he 
 came into office, avowed his adherence to what is
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 61 
 
 called the Monroe doctrine, which in effect amounts 
 to this, that no European power has the right to 
 interfere with any part of the continent of America 
 south of the frontier of Canada, Indeed, we are 
 not sure that it even excludes Canada." 
 
 In the same year, a writer in the London Times, 
 referring to the French invasion of Mexico, said : 
 
 ' ' It would be vain to deny that the feeling of the 
 merchants of London is, that on the whole, so far as 
 the affair has proceeded, the Emperor Napoleon has 
 done a great service, both politically and commer- 
 cially, to the world ; politically in confirming the 
 previous action of Spain in extinguishing the Mon- 
 roe doctrine, and commercially in restoring the inter- 
 course of nations with a territory, which, from its 
 geographical position and mineral wealth, can claim 
 a general and almost exceptional importance." 
 
 If we turn to the diplomatic history of the United 
 States, we find the Monroe doctrine unequivocally rec- 
 ognized in the instructions issued to the ministers of 
 the United States whenever the occasion demanded. 
 
 Mr. Clay, as Secretary of State under Mr. Adams, 
 in his instructions to Mr. Poinsett, the delegate to 
 the Panama Congress, dated May 25, 1825, used the 
 following language with reference to one branch of 
 the Monroe doctrine : 
 
 "The countries in which any such new establish- 
 ments might be attempted are now open to the en-
 
 Q2 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 terprise and commerce of all Americans, and the 
 justice and propriety cannot be recognized of arbi- 
 trarily limiting and circumscribing that enterprise 
 and commerce by the act of voluntarily planting a 
 new colony, without the consent of America, under 
 the auspices of foreign powers belonging to another 
 and a distant continent. Europe would be indig- 
 nant at an attempt to plant a colony on any part of 
 her shores ; and her justice must perceive, in the 
 rule contended for, only perfect reciprocity." 
 
 Mr. Cass, when Secretary of State under Mr. Bu- 
 chanan, instructed Mr. Lamar, our minister at that 
 time to Central America, in the following terms, 
 with reference to this subject : 
 
 "But the establishment of a political protectorate 
 by any one of the powers of Europe over any of 
 the independent states of this continent, or, in other 
 words, the introduction of a scheme of policy which 
 would carry with it a right to interfere in their con- 
 cerns, is a measure to which the United States have 
 long since avowed their opposition, and which, 
 should the attempt be made, they will resist by all 
 the means in their power. 
 
 "The reasons for the attitude they have assumed 
 have been promulgated, and are everywhere well 
 known. There is no need upon this occasion to re- 
 capitulate them. They are founded upon the polit- 
 ical circumstances of the American continent, which
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 63 
 
 has interests of its own, and ought to have a policy 
 of its own disconnected from many of the questions 
 which are continually presenting themselves in Eu- 
 rope concerning the balance of power, and other sub- 
 jects of controversy arising out of the condition of 
 its states, and which often find their solution or 
 their postponement in war." 
 
 On the 31st of December, 1855, Mr. Cass said in 
 the Senate, that he had always been in favor of 
 asserting and maintaining the Monroe doctrine, and 
 that Congress had never indorsed it only because 
 it was thought unnecessary to assert an abstraction. 
 He furthermore said on the same occasion, that it 
 was our duty to maintain " the continental rights 
 of our position." 
 
 The joint proposition, in 1852, of Great Britain 
 and France to enter into a tripartite convention with 
 the United States to guarantee in perpetuity to 
 Spain the possession of Cuba, afforded Mr. Everett, 
 then Secretary of State, an opportunity to assert 
 the principles of the Monroe doctrine, of which he 
 promptly availed himself. 
 
 His language' is guarded and moderate, but none 
 the less forcible on that account. He says, in de- 
 clining to enter into the proposed convention, that it 
 "would be of no value unless it were lasting; ac- 
 cordingly its terms express a perpetuity of purpose 
 and obligation."
 
 64 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 Mr. Everett then expresses doubts as to whether 
 it would be competent for the treaty-making powers 
 to enter into such an agreement. Referring to the 
 fact that in 1803 the United States purchased Loui- 
 siana of France, and in 1819 Florida of Spain, he 
 observes that 
 
 " The United States would, by the proposed con- 
 vention, disable themselves from making an acquisi- 
 tion which might take place without any disturb- 
 ance of existing foreign relations, and in the natural 
 order of things ; " and, calling attention to the great 
 law of American growth and progress, to the pro- 
 tection of which the Monroe doctrine is so essential, 
 he adds : 
 
 "It would seem impossible for anyone who re- 
 flects upon the events glanced at in this note, to 
 mistake the law of American growth and progress, 
 or think that it can ultimately be arrested by a 
 convention like that proposed. In the judgment 
 of the President, it would be as easy to throw a 
 dam from Cape Florida to Cuba to stop the flow of 
 the Gulf Stream, as to attempt by a compact like 
 this to fix the fortunes of Cuba for all coming 
 time." 
 
 The prophetic language of the Abbe Gregoire, 
 writing in Paris in 1808, anticipates these views. 
 "The American Continent, asylum of liberty," he 
 writes, "is moving toward an order of things which
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 05 
 
 will be common to the Antilles, and the course of 
 which all the powers combined cannot arrest." 
 
 M. Michel Chevalier, who contracted in 1868, as 
 we have shown, with Nicaragua, for the construc- 
 tion of a French ship canal, urges in his work on 
 Mexico, published in 1864, the importance of the 
 establishment of the empire of Maximilian as a 
 means of effectually correcting the "American view 
 of the force of the Monroe doctrine." And Sir Ed- 
 ward Creasy, already referred to, says, in speaking 
 of the French occupation of Mexico : 
 
 ''The United States (occupied by their own civil 
 war, which was then raging) did not actually send 
 troops to oppose the French in Mexico, but they 
 steadily refused to recognize Maximilian, or any 
 government, except a republican government, in 
 Mexico ; and the language of their statesmen exhib- 
 ited the fullest development of the Monroe doctrine. 
 In a circular addressed by the American minister, 
 Mr. Seward, to the legations of the United States, 
 he said that 'In the President's judgment the eman- 
 cipation of the American continent from the control 
 of Europe has been the principal feature of the last 
 half century.' 
 
 "In April, 1864, the Chamber of Representatives 
 at Washington voted unanimously a declaration 
 that ' It is not fitting for the people of the United 
 States to recognize a monarchical government erected
 
 66 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 on the ruins of a republican government in America 
 under the auspices of any European power what- 
 ever.' " 
 
 That the incorporation by Great Britain, in 1867, 
 of all her North American possessions as one great 
 province the Dominion of Canada was clearly in 
 derogation of the spirit of the Monroe doctrine, 
 must be conceded. The establishment of the Do- 
 minion of Canada was intended to strengthen the 
 hold of a European power upon territory so sit- 
 uated geographically that its acquisition by this 
 country has been regarded by eminent British states- 
 men as only a question of time. The event did not 
 pass unnoticed in this country, but was the occasion 
 of an extreme and pointed indorsement of the Mon- 
 roe doctrine by the popular branch of Congress. 
 
 A resolution was unanimously adopted by the 
 House of Representatives, declaring the uneasiness 
 of the United States in the contemplation of " such 
 a vast conglomeration of American states established 
 on the monarchical principle such a proceeding be- 
 ing in contravention of the traditionary and con- 
 stantly declared principles of the United States, 
 and endangering their most important interest." 
 
 Mr. Seward, in 1856, predicted that Canada would 
 belong to us within fifty years ; and in making the 
 subsequent acquisition of Alaska, this far-seeing 
 statesman, then Secretary of State, looked forward
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 67 
 
 to the consummation of a plan of territorial acqui- 
 sition which embraced the continent. 
 
 No ! the message of December 3, 1823, was by no 
 means a mere high-sounding state paper ! It put an 
 end to projects very dangerous to the safety of the 
 United States. It created in America a lasting sen- 
 timent of opposition to foreign intrusion upon the 
 affairs of the western continents. It made emphatic 
 proclamation to Europe that she would never more 
 be permitted to aggrandize herself at the expense of 
 this hemisphere. The grave consequences which 
 followed the simple promulgation of our foreign 
 policy, as outlined by the declaration of President 
 Monroe, were not the empty reverberations of a bru- 
 tumfulmen. In the language of Mr. Cass : 
 
 " This great cis-atlantic principle does not derive 
 its strength from its origin, or its author ; it rests 
 upon a surer foundation, upon the cordial concur- 
 rence of the American people, and is destined to be 
 a broad line upon the chart of their policy.''
 
 THE GENERAL FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 THE foreign policy of the United States was in its 
 earliest stages largely shaped by the dread of foreign 
 interference. 
 
 A conservative and neutral policy was undoubt- 
 edly the part of wisdom. There were, however, 
 many influences which tended to draw us into dan- 
 gerous foreign connections. There was a party in 
 the country which, at the close of the war of inde- 
 pendence, sought the establishment of a monarchy 
 under the sovereignty of Washington, and plans 
 were afoot for offering the crown to Prince Henry of 
 Prussia, even after the adoption of the Constitution 
 of 1789. 
 
 The wealth and intelligence of its members gave 
 this faction greater strength than its mere numerical 
 numbers indicated, and it was long feared that it 
 might invite foreign interference for the accomplish- 
 ment of its purpose.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 69 
 
 The weakness of the executive branch of the na- 
 tional government, not only under the Confedera- 
 tion but even under the Constitution, with respect 
 to the administration of foreign affairs, was pecul- 
 iarly felt. The power of declaring war was vested 
 in Congress alone, and the treaty-making power in 
 the President and Senate jointly ; and the govern- 
 ment found it difficult to act in the conduct of its 
 foreign affairs with the promptness and vigor of 
 powers whose executives were not so restricted. 
 The inconveniences of these constitutional provisions 
 are now less felt than at a time when the open hos- 
 tility and secret intrigues of foreign powers were a 
 source of constant apprehension to us. 
 
 Our weakness in this respect was made evident 
 during the commotions produced by the French 
 Revolution, and especially during the difficulties 
 which grew out of the war between England and 
 France. The condition of our country at that pe- 
 riod is graphically described by Wharton : 
 
 "To draw the American people from their neu- 
 trality, first by coaxing, then by bullying, had been 
 the object of each of the belligerent powers. Provo- 
 cations to war, as well as solicitations for alliance, 
 had been given on both sides, and as alliance with 
 both, or war with both seemed impracticable, the 
 question was which to choose. Of all questions by 
 which a country can be agitated, that as to which
 
 70 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 of two foreign alliances is to be accepted is the 
 most demoralizing; and to the worst type of this 
 dangerous disease the temperament of the American 
 people rendered them susceptible." * 
 
 The efforts of French emissaries to force upon us 
 an alliance with France form a familiar and humil- 
 iating chapter in the history of the country. 
 
 M. Genet, the first minister of the French Repub- 
 lic to the United States, on landing at Charleston, 
 S. C., in April, 1793, forthwith opened a correspond- 
 ence with American citizens, urging a determined 
 opposition to the policy of Washington's adminis- 
 tration. This purpose he vigorously pursued in the 
 face of the proclamation of neutrality, and by direct 
 appeals to the passions of the populace ; privateers 
 were fitted out at Charleston, to cruise against ves- 
 sels of nations at peace with the United States ; hos- 
 tile expeditions were projected against Florida and 
 Louisiana, the provinces of Spain. Insulting and 
 domineering as was the course pursued by Genet, a 
 large party in the country was actually willing to 
 see the nation thus humiliated to promote the in- 
 terests of a foreign power. 
 
 On the other hand, there was a party scarcely less 
 submissive to English interests. It was composed 
 chiefly of those whose latent loyalty to England had 
 survived the war which separated the colonies from 
 
 * Wharton's American State Trials, p. 7.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIG CANAL. 71 
 
 the mother country, and who had never lost their 
 fondness for the land which in childhood they had 
 been taught to regard as their home. These rival 
 foreign attachments produced very disastrous con- 
 sequences. To use the language of a foreigner, 
 quoted by Tucker in his "Life of Jefferson," "the 
 year 1800 found many French and many English, 
 but few Americans." * 
 
 So utterly wanting in national pride and spirit 
 were our countrymen thought to be, that in 1791 the 
 Spanish governor of New Orleans made a proposi- 
 tion to Judge Innis, a leading citizen of Ohio, look- 
 ing to the secession of the western territory from the 
 Union, the inducement to this step being the free 
 navigation of the Mississippi. 
 
 Under such circumstances the Farewell Address of 
 Washington was issued, and the foreign policy of 
 the United States dates from its promulgation. Its 
 wisdom and its applicability to the internal condi- 
 tion and foreign relations of the country, at the 
 time, justifies the following extract from its states- 
 manlike and philosophical expositions of our duty 
 as a people. 
 
 "A passionate attachment of one nation for an- 
 other produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the 
 favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imag- 
 inary common interest in cases where no real com- 
 
 * 2 Tucker's Life of Jefferson, p. 19.
 
 72 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 mon interest exists, and infusing into one the enmi- 
 ties of the other, betrays the former into a participa- 
 tion in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without 
 adequate inducement or justification. ... It 
 gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, 
 who devote themselves to the favorite nation, facility 
 to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own coun- 
 try, without odium, sometimes even with popular- 
 ity. . . . 
 
 "An attachment of a small or weak toward a 
 great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be 
 the satellite of the latter." 
 
 It was the language of devoted and exalted pat- 
 riotism addressed to a people whose zealous party 
 complications in the strife of France and England 
 had suppressed, almost destroyed, the sentiment of 
 attachment to their own country. Equally applica- 
 ble to the relations then existing between the United 
 States .and European powers are these words, in 
 which the elementary principles of our foreign pol- 
 icy are declared : 
 
 " Europe has a set of primary interests, which 
 to us have no or a very remote relation. , . . 
 Hence, therefore, it must be unwise for us to impli- 
 cate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicis- 
 situdes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations 
 of her friendships or enmities. . . . Why quit 
 our own to stand upon foreign ground? . . .
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 73 
 
 Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence 
 . . . the jealousy of a free people ought to be 
 constantly awake. . . ." 
 
 Such language, however, addressed to a people en- 
 grossed in the consideration of exciting domestic 
 questions, was an argument against the adoption of 
 a policy looking to the increase of the power and in- 
 fluence of the nation by prudent and well-consid- 
 ered diplomatic measures. Sound as are the doc- 
 trines laid down, a strict adherence to the letter 
 rather than the spirit of the advice has unquestion- 
 ably done much to render our foreign policy halting 
 and timid, and whenever questions affecting our 
 external relations have arisen, the influence of the 
 strict construction of the language of the Farewell 
 Address has been felt. When the question of the 
 indorsement of the Monroe doctrine was under con- 
 sideration in Congress, in 1856, Mr. Cass, with his 
 usual astuteness, pointed to the real considerations 
 which restrained our statesmen from the formal 
 sanction of a declaration so necessary to the protec- 
 tion of our national interests. "It was," said Mr. 
 Cass, " some undefined apprehension that if we 
 spoke the words we must adhere to them, and that 
 if we adhered to them they would be words of terri- 
 ble import to our country." 
 
 As is w^ell observed by Mr. Trescot, the chief feat- 
 ure of the foreign policy of the United States, dur-
 
 74 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 ing the early history of the nation, was its nega- 
 tive character ; its aim was to prevent rather than to 
 accomplish. The truth of this assertion is well illus- 
 trated by the history of our diplomacy during the 
 European wars which followed the French Revolu- 
 tion. The hesitating and inconsistent spirit of our 
 diplomacy may be illustrated by leading incidents 
 throughout its entire history. 
 
 1. In May, 1818, an accredited emissary from the 
 Ionian Islands called upon Mr. Rush, then the 
 American Minister at the Court of St. James, to ask 
 if the Constitution of the United States prohibited 
 the acquisition of foreign territory. Mr. Rush re- 
 plied in the negative. He was asked if it would 
 accord with our policy to assume a protectorate 
 over the Ionian Islands, and informed that such a 
 protectorate would be promptly accepted. Mr. 
 Rush summarily declined to consider the proposi- 
 tion, on the ground that its acceptance would involve 
 our entrance upon the arena of European politics. 
 This was a reply strictly in accordance with our true 
 policy of non-interference. 
 
 A refusal, in 1823, to accept the proffered annexa- 
 tion of Central America, rests on wholly different 
 grounds, and is an instance of the singular timidity 
 of our foreign policy. It is thus referred to by Mr. 
 Everett : 
 
 "When this interesting region, a country more
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 75 
 
 than twice as large as Great Britain, and possessing 
 resources not inferior to any country in the world, 
 declared its independence of Spain, and formed, 
 with its five infant republics, a federal government, 
 it resolved, by the unanimous vote of its representa- 
 tives to seek admission into the American Union, 
 and sent an embassy of eight of its most re- 
 spectable citizens to Washington to effect that ob- 
 ject." This was a case for interference. Had this 
 offer been accepted, it would have solved, once for 
 all, the problem of the control of the inter-oceanic 
 canal. 
 
 It would have placed the United States in that 
 commanding position in regard to the commerce of 
 the world to which the sagacity of Patterson, one 
 hundred and twenty years before, had pointed, and 
 given us control of what he aptly described as the 
 " door of the seas." 
 
 The treaty by which Louisiana was acquired in 
 1803 forms a notable exception to the general timid 
 conservatism which characterized the conduct of our 
 diplomacy during its early history, and by estab- 
 lishing the constitutional power of the national gov- 
 ernment to acquire foreign territory, it gave a wider 
 scope to the exercise of American diplomacy and 
 statesmanship, and set up a standing precedent for 
 judicious territorial expansion. 
 
 The Louisiana precedent was followed in 1819 by
 
 76 THE INTER-OCEANIC VANAL. 
 
 the treaty with Spain for the cession of Florida to 
 the United States. 
 
 That transaction, although not very creditable to 
 the statesmanship of Monroe and his cabinet, cannot 
 upon the whole be condemned as unwise or inexpe- 
 dient. The measure was severely criticised at the 
 time in Congress, by Mr. Clay, who said we had 
 bought for a high price a possession which must in- 
 evitably have fallen into our lap, and that nothing 
 would have been lost by waiting a little longer. He 
 called attention to the fact that, under the articles by 
 which the boundaries were fixed between Louisiana 
 and Mexico, Texas had been sacrificed in addition 
 to the $30,000,000 needlessly, as he claimed, paid for 
 Florida. In the same debate, Mr. Clay raised the 
 question as to the constitutional power of the treaty- 
 making branch of the government to cede territory 
 belonging to the nation. In the same connection, re- 
 ferring to the proposition which had been made by 
 Russia to mediate in the settlement of our troubles 
 with Spain, Mr. Clay used the following language in 
 relation to the position we ought to assume with 
 reference to foreign powers : 
 
 "It was to invite further interposition. It might 
 in the process of time create in the bosom of our 
 country a Russian faction, a British faction, a French 
 faction. Every nation ought to be jealous of this 
 species of interference, whatever was its form of
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 77 
 
 government. But of all forms of government, the 
 united testimony of all history admonished a repub- 
 lic to be most guarded against it. From the mo- 
 ment Philip intermeddled with the affairs of Greece, 
 the liberty of Greece was doomed to inevitable de- 
 struction." 
 
 Great as was the influence which Thomas Jefferson 
 had in moulding our political institutions, and in 
 determining the spirit of their administration, he 
 was equally influential in shaping for many years 
 our foreign policy. The weight of his administra- 
 tive authority, except in the case of Louisiana, was 
 thrown in favor of a cautious and timorous course 
 with reference to all external relations of the coun- 
 try. 
 
 The following paragraph from his notes on Vir- 
 ginia seems to contain the principle upon which he 
 both advised and conducted the administration of 
 our foreign affairs. 
 
 "You ask me," he writes, "what I think of the 
 expediency of encouraging our States to become 
 commercial. "Were I to indulge my own theory, I 
 wish them to practice neither commerce nor naviga- 
 tion ; but to stand with regard to Europe precisely 
 on the footing of China." 
 
 This surprising doctrine of foreign policy was no 
 mere theory with Jefferson, but was by him and his 
 personal followers carried into practice. They re-
 
 78 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 fused to strengthen the navy, and failed to place the 
 army upon the footing dictated by the commonest 
 prudence in the then condition of the country. The 
 disastrous embargo was its direct and immediate con- 
 sequence a measure which illustrates how little the 
 statesmen of that day knew of the proper manage- 
 ment of our relations with foreign powers. The 
 time came when Jefferson himself, repenting of this 
 undignified and unpatriotic policy, became a staunch 
 champion of the Monroe doctrine. 
 
 The nominal object of the embargo was to force 
 England and France to revoke the orders in council 
 and the Berlin and Milan decrees. It utterly failed 
 to accomplish the purpose intended. It greatly ben- 
 efited England. It excited no gratitude on the part 
 of France. It swept from the ocean ten thousand 
 American vessels engaged in a profitable carrying 
 trade, and ruined, almost instantaneously, our valu- 
 able and widely extended commerce. 
 
 The evils designed to be remedied by this measure, 
 which thus ruined our commerce and destroyed our 
 shipping, were comparatively trifling. Of our ten 
 thousand vessels not more than an average of one 
 hundred and fifty were annually captured, and of 
 these one-third were released. Sound policy dic- 
 tated the increase of our army and navy, the 
 strengthening of our fortifications, and a temporiz- 
 ing course no longer than the preparation of our re-
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 79 
 
 sources for the offensive demanded. Had we pur- 
 sued this policy, it is certain that both France and 
 England would ultimately have indemnified us in 
 preference to seeing us resort to hostilities. By the 
 embargo, on the other hand, we not only cut off our 
 valuable commerce with England herself, but trans- 
 ferred to her our valuable trade with China, the In- 
 dies, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. 
 More than this, the commerce of the seas, which we 
 so recklessly resigned, England took possession of 
 at once, anticipating in this way a more than ample 
 indemnity for the expenses of the war which we 
 subsequently declared against her. The declaration 
 of war in 1812 was but a consequence of the policy 
 which passed the embargo act. The conduct of the 
 war, although in many particulars creditable to the 
 bravery and patriotism of the people, upon the 
 whole reflects shame upon the government, which 
 being recklessly engaged without an army, navy, 
 fortifications, officers, or credit in hostilities with 
 a great power, ignominiously suffered the national 
 capital to be captured, imposed a burdensome pub- 
 lic debt upon the republic, and found itself forced 
 to end the war without the enforcement of a single 
 concession from its adversary, or the settlement of 
 a single contested point. Jefferson, who after his 
 term as President expired, continued to direct the 
 policy of his party, is largely responsible for the
 
 80 TUB INTER-OCEANIC CANAL, 
 
 disastrous consequences of the embargo and the 
 war. His prejudices against England and his pas- 
 sions as a partisan misled his judgment. When free 
 from the influence of such feelings, he was capable 
 of taking enlarged and liberal views of our foreign 
 policy, as is shown by the following facts : 
 
 1. Jefferson is entitled to the credit of having pre- 
 pared the way for our territorial expansion, by the 
 precedent which he established in the purchase of 
 Louisiana. 
 
 2. He was the first of our statesmen to comprehend 
 the vast importance to American interests of the 
 inter-oceanic canal. In 1787-1789, while he acted as 
 our diplomatic representative at Paris, he carried on 
 a correspondence with Mr. Carmichael, the Ameri- 
 can charge at Madrid, urging him to obtain as much 
 information as possible in regard to the surveys 
 made by the Spanish government, for a canal across 
 the Central American isthmus. In a letter to Mr. 
 Carmichael, dated Paris, May 27th, 1788, Mr. Jeffer- 
 son says in reference to the matter, "This report is 
 to me a Vast desideratum for reasons political and 
 philosophical." 
 
 3. If not the author of the Monroe doctrine, he is 
 entitled to the credit of having had an important 
 share in putting it into shape by his advice to Mr. 
 Monroe, contained in his letter to him dated Monti- 
 cello, October 24th, 1823.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 81 
 
 4. He favored the acquisition of Cuba by the 
 United States. On the 3d of June, 1823, he wrote to 
 President Monroe in reference to that island, saying, 
 "Certainly her addition to our confederacy is ex- 
 actly what is wanting to round our power as a nation 
 to the point of its utmost interest." He afterward 
 wrote to the same person that the " annexation of 
 Cuba would fill up the measure of our political well- 
 being." 
 
 The immediate result of Mr. Monroe's consulta- 
 tions with Mr. Jefferson was the promulgation of 
 the Monroe doctrine, which terminated an inglorious 
 epoch of the history of the country. Mr. Wharton,, 
 in his introduction to the "American State Trials," 
 refers with just pride to the Monroe declaration in 
 the following terms : 
 
 "At last the United States, which fifty years ago 
 could hardly keep its central territory from being 
 carried away under its very eyes, announced to- 
 Europe that it would consider any foreign interfer- 
 ence in the affairs of the American continent as a 
 cause of war ; and Europe listened and acquiesced." 
 
 The Clayton-Bulwer treaty again brought the con- 
 sistency of our diplomacy into question. Six days 
 after the signing of the treaty which secured to us; 
 California, and gave us command of the Pacific coast 
 of North America, England seized on the territory 
 at the mouth of the San Juan for the purpose of se- 
 C
 
 82 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 curing the control of the transit route across the 
 Central American isthmus, in connection with the 
 canal projects of Prince Louis Napoleon, then under 
 consideration in London. The seizure was a clear 
 infringement of the Monroe doctrine, and should 
 have been resisted emphatically. It really led only 
 to the negotiation of the so-called Clayton-Bulwer 
 treaty, or, more properly speaking, Convention of 
 1850. This convention contains the following re- 
 markable concession : 
 
 " The governments of the United States and Great 
 Britain hereby declare that neither the one nor the 
 other will obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive 
 control over said ship canal ; agreeing that neither 
 will ever erect or maintain any fortifications com- 
 manding the same, or in the vicinity thereof, or oc- 
 cupy, or fortify, or colonize, or assume, or exercise 
 any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mos- 
 quito coast, or any part of Central America ; nor will 
 either make use of any protection which either af- 
 fords, 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 coloniz- 
 ing Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito coast, or 
 any part of Central America, or of assuming or ex- 
 ercising dominion over the same ; . . ." 
 
 This convention was ratified through the influence
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 83 
 
 of the administration, notwithstanding the strong 
 protest of many influential senators. A senator so 
 conservative as Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts, sub- 
 sequently in the Senate openly advocated its abro- 
 gation. This may not be required, the convention 
 having in fact abrogated itself. But we must pro- 
 tect our own interests at all hazards, and whether 
 that can be done without the formal revocation of 
 the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, as proposed by Vice- 
 President Wilson, is a question which the future 
 must decide. 
 
 It should be our policy, not to prevent the con- 
 struction of a canal at Panama or elsewhere, but to 
 secure the control of any such canal beyond perad- 
 venture. We do not seek to drive foreign enter- 
 prise and capital from this continent, but to provide 
 against their being used to make subject American 
 interests to foreign domination. It is not necessary 
 for us probably to seize upon the territory to be 
 pierced by the canal, but it is necessary for us to 
 establish ourselves on such vantage ground as shall 
 secure our safety against local revolutions, broken 
 treaties, foreign interventions, and all the complica- 
 tions sure to spring from the relations of a vast 
 corporation to a weak and unstable government. 
 
 We must plant our flag firmly and permanently 
 on either side of the isthmus. Whether the enter- 
 prise of M. de Lesseps fails or succeeds, such action
 
 84 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 on our part is absolutely necessary to protect the 
 canal if a canal be constructed by us, and to domi- 
 nate it if constructed by foreigners. We have suf- 
 fered matters to drift too long and to our grave 
 detriment. Our neglect confronts us with the alter- 
 native of a foreign war in the near future, or of 
 the immediate occupation of commanding naval 
 positions on either Isthmian sea. The Monroe doc- 
 trine embodies the only true foreign policy which 
 this government has ever had. It is founded on the 
 highest principles of justice and of self-preservation. 
 To these considerations all others must bow. 
 
 Passing over our foreign relations between 1850 and 
 1861, we come to the momentous period of the civil 
 war, an event which found Mr. Seward in charge of 
 our foreign office. This was a circumstance of fortu- 
 nate significance for the welfare of a country which 
 has never adopted the wise policy of preparing men 
 for diplomatic careers by special training. 
 
 It was the patriotic and instructive insight of this 
 eminent statesman which enabled him to perform 
 the duties of Secretary of State during the most try- 
 ing period in the entire history of our foreign rela- 
 tions, with a success which earned for him a high 
 and enduring fame. 
 
 The firmness, persistence, and complete success 
 with which he enforced the Monroe doctrine against 
 the French invaders of Mexico affords the most con-
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 86 
 
 spicuous proof of this. The negotiation of a treaty 
 for the purchase of the island of St. Thomas as a 
 naval station followed the termination of the civil 
 war. It was the conviction of Mr. Seward that the 
 naval and commercial interests of the nation de- 
 manded the acquisition of insular possessions in all 
 quarters of the globe. The Senate, unfortunately, 
 was not prepared to accept his enlightened and saga- 
 cious views, and the treaty was rejected. With the 
 treaty for the purchase of Alaska, Mr. Seward was 
 more fortunate. Yet, popular as that measure was, 
 its full import was not generally understood at the 
 time of the purchase. The Secretary of State had 
 acted with reference to very remote results. The 
 immediate benefits of the annexation of Alaska, 
 great as they were, were to him but of little con- 
 sequence compared with the fact that the treaty 
 looked to the extension of our dominion over the 
 whole of North America. 
 
 This expansive idea was not a new one to Mr. 
 Seward. As early as 1856, in a debate in ' the 
 Senate of the United States, he said : 
 
 "We are the center of one system, an American 
 one ; Great Britain is the center of another, an Euro- 
 pean one. Almost in spite of ourselves, we are stead- 
 ily extending and increasing our control over these 
 continents. Notwithstanding her tenacity, she is 
 constantly losing her dominion here. This is within
 
 86 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 the order of nature. It was for three hundred years 
 the business of European nations to colonize, dis- 
 cipline, and educate American nations. It is now 
 the business of those nations to govern themselves. 
 The decline of European power here practically be- 
 gan with the fall of Canada out of the control in 
 1763. It has steadily continued, until now only 
 some relics possessing little vitality remain. With- 
 out any war on our part, Great Britain will wisely 
 withdraw and disappear from this hemisphere with- 
 in a quarter of a century, or at least within half 
 a century." 
 
 The germ of the Alaska treaty is to be found in 
 these remarks. Its import is clearly indicated in 
 the speech of Mr. Seward at Sitka, in 1869, on his re- 
 turn from his voyage around the world. Referring 
 to the resources of the Pacific coast, he said : 
 
 "The entire region of Oregon, Washington Terri- 
 tory, British Columbia, and Alaska, seems thus des- 
 tined to become a ship-yard for the supply of all 
 nations. I do not forget on this occasion that Brit- 
 ish Columbia belongs within a foreign jurisdiction. 
 That circumstance does not materially affect my cal- 
 culations. British Columbia, by whomsoever pos- 
 sessed, must be governed in conformity with the 
 interests of her people, and of society upon the 
 American continent. If that territory shall be so 
 governed, there will be no ground of complaint any-
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 87 
 
 where. If it shall be governed so as to conflict with 
 the interests of the inhabitants of that territory, we 
 all can easily foresee what will happen in that case." 
 The crowning glory, however, of Mr. Se ward's 
 diplomatic career was his negotiation of the treaty 
 of Darien, the sixth article of which embodied pro- 
 visions securing to the United States absolute control 
 of the proposed inter-oceanic canal at the Darien 
 crossing. It is true this treaty was rejected by Co- 
 lombia through French and English influences. It 
 nevertheless established a precedent which must be 
 followed wherever and within whatever jurisdiction 
 the canal may be finally built. 
 The article in question provided that : 
 "As soon as the canal, together with its depend- 
 encies and appurtenances, shall be constructed, the 
 inspection, possession, direction, and government of 
 it will belong to the United States of America, and 
 it will be exercised by that government ; that of 
 the United States of Colombia having the power, 
 after the exchange of this convention, of keeping a 
 permanent commission of agents, with the right to 
 inspect the respective operations, to ascertain the 
 tonnage of vessels, to examine the accounts, and to 
 report thereupon to the government of the United 
 States of Colombia, but not to interfere in the super- 
 vision, government, management, direction, and ad- 
 ministration of the canal."
 
 88 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 The entire document is worthy of careful study 
 on account of the thoroughly American spirit which 
 pervades it. It is a grand practical commentary on 
 the Monroe doctrine. No administration in any 
 future convention with the local authorities of the 
 isthnms will ever venture to depart from the princi- 
 ples embodied in the Darien treaty, nor must any 
 European government hereafter be permitted to dis- 
 regard, in spirit or in fact, this distinct declaration 
 of our policy. 
 
 Mr. Seward had the sagacity to perceive that any 
 corporation strong enough to build a canal on the 
 isthmus, would virtually own the weak and dis- 
 tracted republic of Colombia, which would soon be- 
 come a mere province of the nation granting the 
 charter to such a corporation. We are now brought 
 face to face with these anticipated dangers. 
 
 A French corporation, organized for the construc- 
 tion of this great work, and now on the ground in 
 active prosecution of the requisite preliminary de- 
 tails, will soon govern the United States of Colombia 
 from the banks of the Seine. The time has come for 
 the authorities at Washington to announce that the 
 control of any canal to be built at Darien, Nicara- 
 gua, or elsewhere, by whomsoever built, and what- 
 ever the nationality of its corporators, belongs, and 
 must belong, exclusively to the United States of 
 America.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 89 
 
 Such an announcement would fitly mark the 
 beginning of a new era in our foreign policy, in 
 which, without departing from the precepts of 
 Washington with regard to alliances, our power 
 shall make itself felt so effectually as to protect 
 those vast continental interests, which it is our 
 privilege and our duty to supervise. In this matter 
 we have both right and tradition, reason and expe- 
 diency with us. We are assuming no new ground. 
 The principles applicable to the case are traditional. 
 The proposed canal will be a main artery of our 
 colossal coastwise trade. Its route runs within the 
 prospective bounds of our republic ; we are bound 
 by the teachings of experience, and by all our po- 
 litical and commercial interests, to take efficient 
 means now, at the outset, to secure it. The sen- 
 timents of the American people on the subject ad- 
 mit of no question. The emergency is here at our 
 doors. It calls for prompt and energetic action. 
 We should prepare for all contingencies at once by 
 greatly strengthening our navy, and by establish- 
 ing naval stations at commanding positions upon 
 the Caribbean and the Pacific sides of the isth- 
 mus. These are measures demanded not only by 
 the urgency of the inter-oceanic canal question, but 
 by common sense and a rational regard to our po- 
 litical and commercial interests everywhere.
 
 COLONIZATION AND PROVINCIAL POSSESSIONS CONSID- 
 ERED IN RELATION TO THE INTERESTS 
 OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 VENICE, Carthage, Greece, and Home all owed 
 their political greatness largely to their colonies. 
 The colonial system was a favorite method for the 
 defense of military conquests and the extension of 
 the limits of commerce. Among the Greeks, colo- 
 nies were often established by those who wished to 
 escape the tyranny of factions at home. Rome in 
 her colonial system founded that wise policy, by 
 which her territorial jurisdiction and her pre-emi- 
 nence were maintained. Her colonies were the out- 
 posts of her conquests, and the disseminators of 
 her language and laws to the remotest regions of 
 the empire. Unquestionably, all the great Euro- 
 pean powers have owed much of their strength and 
 wealth to their colonial and provincial acquisitions. 
 
 90
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 91 
 
 To sustain this assertion by examples would be 
 merely to give a list of great sovereignties from 
 the beginning of history down to the days of the 
 world- wide empire of that dominion, "which has 
 dotted over the surface of the globe with her pos- 
 sessions and military posts ; whose morning drum- 
 beat, following the sun and keeping company with 
 the hours, circles the earth with one continuous 
 and unbroken strain of the martial airs of Eng- 
 land." The history of British colonization is fa- 
 miliar. Great Britain's colonies cover one-sixth of 
 land surface of the globe, and include nearly an 
 equal portion of its population. Of the territory 
 of the world available for colonization, about eighty 
 per cent, now belongs to the Anglo-Saxon race. 
 The relative importance of the colonial interests 
 of the various nations of the globe is shown by 
 the following table : 
 
 Powers. Colonial Area, Sq. Miles. Colonial Population. 
 
 Great Britain 8,015,028 204,535,000 
 
 France 247,642 4,019,500 
 
 Spain 120,703 8,584,000 
 
 Portugal 690,451 3,618,000 
 
 HoUand 681,436 24,110,000 
 
 Denmark 34,140 47,500 
 
 Sweden 8 2,900 
 
 The colonies of Great Britain have not only ex-
 
 92 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 tended the blessings of English laws and English 
 liberty throughout the globe, but have also largely 
 contributed to the wealth of the mother country, 
 and it is chiefly due to the magnificent contributions 
 of these dependencies that England has advanced 
 from an insignificant kingdom in the days of Jier 
 Norman sovereigns, to the commanding position she 
 holds among the nations. Her numerous possessions 
 have had an important influence upon her internal 
 economy. They have opened an outlet for her sur- 
 plus population, fostered and enlarged her com- 
 merce, and maintained the stability of her govern- 
 ment. It is not to be contended that a similar 
 policy is or ever will be wise or appropriate for the 
 United States, nor that any general schemes of con- 
 quest or annexation should be encouraged by our 
 people. But we have reached a stage in our national 
 growth which may render it expedient to strengthen 
 ourselves by judicious acquisitions of external de- 
 pendencies, and we should seek expansion only as 
 an incident to, and in furtherance of, strength and 
 self -protection. At the opening of the present cen- 
 tury, it was earnestly debated in the Senate of the 
 United States whether, it would be safe to acquire 
 territory on the west bank of the Mississippi River. 
 It was then contended that such an extension of our 
 territory would be dangerous, and that it would be 
 wise to make the Alleghanies the barrier beyond
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 93 
 
 which we ought not to pass. At a later day more 
 liberal views prevailed, and it was thought we might 
 safely venture to establish one tier of States west of 
 the Mississippi. The expedient was then resorted 
 to of establishing an Indian Territory in perpetuity 
 all along our western border, for the express pur- 
 pose of preventing the establishment of any new 
 States in that direction ! The extension of our do- 
 minion to the shores of the Pacific was then thought 
 to be entirely improbable. Jefferson, in a letter to 
 Mr. Astor, written in 1813, in reference to the settle- 
 ment on the Columbia River in Oregon, calls it the 
 "germ of a great, free, and independent empire on 
 that side of our continent ; and even so late as in 
 1848, Daniel Webster himself thought it impractica- 
 ble to govern the States upon the Pacific from this 
 side of the continent. In a speech in Faneuil Hall, 
 on the 7th of November of that year, he said, " and 
 now let me ask if there be any sensible man in the 
 whole United States who will say for a moment that 
 when fifty or a hundred thousand persons of this 
 description, Americans mainly, but all Anglo-Sax- 
 ons, shall find themselves on the shores of the Pa- 
 cific Ocean, they will long consent to be under the 
 rules of the American Congress, or British Parlia- 
 ment. They will raise the standard for themselves, 
 and they ought to do it." Two years afterward 
 Mr. Webster admitted that his apprehensions had
 
 94 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 not been realized.* The truth is that the telegraph 
 and the steam engine have silently revolutionized 
 the conditions of political power throughout the 
 world. 
 
 The acquisition of California and Oregon, and 
 their admission into the Union, greatly enlarged the 
 views of our statesmen, and Mr. Everett, Secretary 
 of State in 1852, in his letter on the tripartite 
 treaty, took the ground that we would not relin- 
 quish the privilege of taking possession of any por- 
 tion wJiatever of this continent. Speaking with 
 special reference to Central America, Vice-President 
 Wilson said in the Senate, in 1856, " I have no sym- 
 pathy with the policy that would extend the bound- 
 aries of the republic by lawless violence, but I have 
 faith in democratic institutions. I believe that 
 wherever the jurisdiction of this country extends 
 on this continent, the interests of humanity will be 
 ultimately promoted by it. Agreeing with the doc- 
 trine laid down by Mr. Everett in his admirable let- 
 ter upon the tripartite treaty, I would never bind 
 ourselves by any treaty that we would not annex, if 
 we and the people who live in the country desire it, 
 any portion of this continent. For myself I can 
 never vote to admit a foot of territory into this 
 Union where the great doctrine of the Declaration 
 
 * Jefferson's Writings, Vol. VI., p. 55; Boston Daily Advertiser, Nov. 
 9th, 1848; Webster's Works, Vol. II., p. 526.
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 95 
 
 of Independence, that all men are created free, is 
 denied; but wherever freedom and free institutions 
 can follow tJie American flag, I am ready to annex 
 that portion of the continent, if it can be accom- 
 plished honorably, peacefully, and in harmony with 
 the people who are to come to us." Such were the 
 views entertained by so conservative a senator as 
 Mr. Wilson prior to the civil war. That event did 
 not check the advance of public sentiment, but on 
 the contrary, accelerated it. In 1861, Mr. Lincoln en- 
 tered into an agreement on the part of the United 
 States with an American citizen owning a part of 
 the Isthmus of Panama, for the colonization there 
 of the recently emancipated slaves, and Congress 
 placed at his disposal an appropriation of six hun- 
 dred thousand dollars to carry the agreement into 
 effect. It is understood that this contract is a sub- 
 sisting obligation, and can be made use of whenever 
 the freedmen choose to claim its performance by the 
 government. The war had scarcely closed when the 
 nation was found willing to sanction the purchase of 
 Alaska. As this is the first instance in which we 
 have acquired territory divided by an intervening 
 foreign state from our previous possessions, the pre- 
 cedent is one of importance as indicating that in 
 future our annexations are not to be restricted to 
 contiguous territory, nor prevented by dissimilarity 
 of race and language, if otherwise desirable. The
 
 96 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 treaty for the purchase of Alaska was ratified by the 
 Senate while Mr. Sumner was chairman of the com- 
 mittee on foreign relations. It is well known that he 
 zealously advocated its ratification. His familiarity 
 with European politics, his thorough knowledge of 
 ancient and modern history, his love of broad states- 
 manship, gave him rare qualifications as a wise 
 adviser in regard to this new measure of national 
 policy. He had, moreover, studied with special 
 care the problem of our territorial expansion, and in 
 the last years of his life, as a consequence of his 
 thoughtful consideration of the subject, the ultimate 
 absorption of the entire continent of North America 
 by our republic, was regarded by him as not at all 
 improbable. In advocating the ratification of the 
 Alaska treaty, he said, "The present treaty is a 
 visible step in the occupation of the whole North 
 American continent. As such it will be recognized 
 by the world, and accepted by the American people. 
 But the treaty involves something more. By it we 
 dismiss one more monarch from this continent. One 
 by one they have retired ; first France ; then Spain 
 then France again ; and now Russia ; all giving way 
 to that absorbing unity declared in the national 
 motto, E Pluribus Unum." Let no one suppose 
 that Mr. Sumner was carried away by mere ora- 
 torical fervor. He followed the footsteps of John 
 Adams, who, writing in London on the 1st of Janu-
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 97 
 
 ary, 1787, predicted that our republic would spread 
 over the "northern part of that whole quarter of 
 the globe." Thus, says Sunnier, "even at that early 
 day was the destiny of the republic manifest." The 
 prophecy was a sound philosophical deduction from 
 the history of the growth of empires. As a general 
 rule the acquisition of territory has been the normal 
 rule of national development, and the sign of na- 
 tional health and vigor. Such acquisitions must be 
 regarded as the law of the being of a nation like 
 ours. Mr. Sumner, in his speech on the Alaska treaty, 
 very properly laid stress upon the measure as one 
 that would extend our dominion. Referring to the 
 fact that "few are so cold or philosophical as to re- 
 gard with insensibility the widening of the bounds 
 of country," he recites with pride the history of our 
 territorial acquisitions, beginning with the purchase 
 of Louisiana in 1803, and traces to its natural and 
 beneficent source the universal desire of nations 
 for territorial expansion, in the following para- 
 graph : 
 
 "The passion for acquisition, which is so strong in 
 the individual, is not less strong in the community. 
 A nation seeks an outlying territory as an indi- 
 vidual seeks an outlying farm. The passion shows 
 itself constantly. France, passing into Africa, has 
 annexed Algeria. Spain set her face in the same di- 
 rection, but without the same success. There are 
 7
 
 98 TEE INTEE-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 two great powers with which annexation has become 
 a habit. One is Russia, which from the time of Peter 
 the Great has been moving her flag forward in every 
 direction, so that on every side her limits have been 
 extended. Even now the report comes that she is 
 lifting her southern landmarks in Asia, so as to carry 
 her boundary to India. The other annexationist is 
 Great Britain, which from time to time adds another 
 province to her Indian dominion. If our country 
 has occasionally added to her dominion, she has 
 only yielded to the universal passion, although I do 
 not forget that the late Theodore Parker was accus- 
 tomed to say that above all people the Anglo-Saxons 
 were remarkable for greed of land. It was land, 
 not gold, that aroused the Anglo-Saxon phlegm. I 
 doubt, however, if the passion be stronger with us 
 than with others, except perhaps that in a commu- 
 nity where all participate in government, the na- 
 tional sentiments are more active. It is common to 
 the human family. There are few anywhere who 
 could hear of a considerable accession of territory 
 obtained peacefully and honestly, without a pride 
 of country, even if at certain moments the judgment 
 hesitated. With an increased size on the map, there 
 is an increased consciousness of strength, and the 
 heart of the citizen throbs anew as he traces the ex- 
 tending line." The predictions of our leading states- 
 men thus clearly point to the annexation of territory
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 99 
 
 in the future. It is not too soon to consider the policy 
 which shall direct those acquisitions. British states- 
 men themselves admit that the absorption of British 
 America by the United States is but a question of 
 time. Mr. Bright, in a speech delivered on the 18th 
 of December, 1862, said : 
 
 "I have a far other and far brighter vision be- 
 fore my gaze. It may be but a vision, but I will 
 cherish it. I see one vast confederation stretching 
 from the frozen north in unbroken line to the glow- 
 ing south, and from the wild billows of the Atlantic 
 westward to the calmer waters of the Pacific main : 
 a,nd I see one people, and one law, and one language, 
 and one faith, and over all that wide continent the 
 home of freedom and a refuge for the oppressed of 
 every race and of every clime." 
 
 Turning to Mexico, we find her greatest his- 
 torian virtually admitting that his country is des- 
 tined to disappear from the map, except as a sub- 
 ordinate part of the great republic of the north. 
 Alaman says, "Mexico will be without doubt a 
 land of prosperity from its natural advantages, but it 
 will not be so for the races which now inhabit it." 
 In 1823 Mr. Jefferson said, in regard to Cuba, "Her 
 addition to our confederacy is exactly what is want- 
 ing to round out our power as a nation to the point 
 of its utmost interest," a sentiment which has since 
 been concurred in by many of- our statesmen. The
 
 100 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 treaty for the purchase of the island of St. Thomas 
 was hastily rejected on narrow and unwise grounds ; 
 and that for the acquisition of Santo Domingo, so 
 creditable to the diplomacy of Grant's administra- 
 tion, was defeated by the animosity of a faction, and 
 not for sound reasons of public policy. So far then 
 as insular or isthmian possessions are concerned, we 
 are not restrained from acquiring them either by 
 precedents, or the precepts of our wisest statesmen. 
 There are many localities which would be valuable 
 to us, either as naval stations or for commercial rea- 
 sons, and they will doubtless become our dependen- 
 cies, especially when our long-depressed shipping 
 interests shall have been revived by proper congres- 
 sional legislation. As to Central America, the plain- 
 est principles of sound national policy dictate that 
 the region which contains the gate of the Pacific 
 should be a dependency of our republic, whose vital 
 interests, present and prospective, are so intimately 
 concerned with the construction and control of an 
 inter-oceanic canal. Aside from other grave public 
 considerations, the fact that the canal will be the 
 connecting link in our immense coastwise trade from 
 Maine to Alaska, imposes upon us at least the neces- 
 sity for its military and naval control. The smallest 
 beginnings in the right direction may result in a 
 most splendid consummation. Lord Mahon, in his 
 history of England, forcibly says that the story of
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 101 
 
 the establishment of the British Indian Empire sur- 
 passes in marvelousness " the prodigies wrought by 
 spells or talismans, by the lamp of Aladdin, or 
 the seals of Solomon." These magnificent results 
 sprang from a feeble trading establishment, which 
 under the wise care of the mother country grew into 
 empire. Mr. Wood, in his recent work on the 
 British colonies, says: "In Hong-Kong we find a 
 small barren island, which at the time of its cession 
 to Britain was inhabited only by a few handfuls of 
 fishermen, now crowded with tens of thousands of 
 Chinese, who have crossed from the mainland be- 
 cause they knew that under British rule they would 
 be free from oppressive taxation, would be governed 
 by just laws, and would be able to carry on a thriv- 
 ing and profitable trade. And so in the once uninhab- 
 ited island of Singapore, we see a motley popula- 
 tion attracted from China, the Malay Peninsula, and 
 India, by a similar cause." The mere establishment 
 of naval stations upon the isthmus would be the sure 
 forerunner of such a colony. Protection under the 
 American flag would open up to our enterprising 
 citizens a country rivaling the wealth of the East. 
 The riotous and ungarnered luxuriance of that won- 
 derful and almost unknown land, under the guiding 
 hand of civilized husbandry and Anglo-Saxon en- 
 terprise, would contribute its lavish quota of wealth, 
 not to us only, but to the world. It would at once
 
 102 TEE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 give us new and commanding commercial relations 
 with South America and Russia, with China, Japan, 
 and the islands of the Pacific. Our trade would 
 increase with the extension of our authority, and 
 ultimately become the chief source of our national 
 wealth and prosperity. Why should we not have 
 our naval stations in every sea, and harbors of our 
 own 1 Why not have our own Hong-Kongs and 
 Singapores? Did any sound maxim of national 
 policy require us to reject proffered protectorates 
 over such valuable possessions as the Samoan Isl- 
 ands and Santo Domingo ? There are weighty rea- 
 sons in the social condition of the United States 
 which render it expedient that a more liberal policy 
 of territorial expansion should obtain. Free schools 
 and popular education have introduced peculiar and 
 difficult social problems. A large class of persons 
 with educated tastes and habits, which their financial 
 circumstances do not allow them to gratify, born to 
 social and political aspirations they cannot hope to 
 realize, owing to excessive competition, may hope to 
 find their opportunities in colonial enterprise. The 
 effects of this condition of things appear in the 
 numbers who crowd the learned professions ; in the 
 throngs who are always pressing for admission into 
 the civil service of the nation, and in the fact that 
 every department of intellectual work is overcrowd- 
 ed. The same trouble felt in England is thus re-
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 103 
 
 ferred to by Earl Stanhope, in his history of the 
 reign of Queen Anne. "At present there are few 
 things more distressing to any one who desires to 
 see genera] prosperity and content prevail, than to 
 find start np, whenever any opening in any career is 
 made known, not one or two, but ten or twenty can- 
 didates. Every one of these twenty may be in every 
 case perfectly well qualified to fill the place that he 
 seeks, yet only one can be chosen. What is then 
 to become of the nineteen?" The acquisition of 
 insular, transmarine, South American and Central 
 American possessions would have a beneficial influ- 
 ence upon our national politics, by enlarging and 
 liberalizing the views of our statesmen, and by tran- 
 quilizing our domestic affairs with external sub- 
 jects of consideration. The policy above indicated 
 concerns itself only with such peaceful acquisitions 
 as would inevitably result from the promulgation of 
 the fact of our willingness to admit within our juris- 
 diction such petty and distracted commonwealths 
 as might voluntarily seek peace and security under 
 our flag. The admission of a great foreign power 
 upon soil contiguous to our own presents the ques- 
 tion whether the paramount demands of national 
 protection do not require the forestalling of such oc- 
 cupation by occupation. The law of private self- 
 preservation, which would forbid a man to suffer 
 his neighbor to found a powder mill next door to
 
 104 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 his house, extends to national affairs. Some occult 
 reason, perhaps beyond explanation, has made it 
 evident that the mixed races of Central America are 
 incapable of successful self-government. The fair- 
 est regions of the globe have, since the discovery of 
 this continent, been practically closed to the legiti- 
 mate exercise of commercial privileges and the arts 
 of peace. It is a fact that the Latin races have 
 never been prosperous colonists nor practical repub- 
 licans. These petty states, as republics, have be- 
 lied the name, by constant internal strife marked 
 by cruelty and bloodshed. Now, under the name of 
 republics, they have been hot-beds of license, and 
 now, under the rule of dictators, strongholds of 
 tyranny. Throughout their entire history, these 
 states have offered premiums for the establishment 
 of monarchies upon this continent. They are stand- 
 ing menaces to our own safety. When it is consid- 
 ered that under a strong but constitutional govern- 
 ment, these states, which contain within their bor- 
 ders the very gardens of the earth, might be opened 
 to the peaceful commerce and industries of the 
 world, that the happiness and prosperity of their 
 own inhabitants might be secured when it is con- 
 sidered that from the gloom of semi-barbarism they 
 might be ushered into the sunlight of civilization, it 
 requires no subtle casuistry to justify their redemp- 
 tion from themselves if need be. If to all this we
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIG CANAL. 1Q5 
 
 add the paramount demands of our own self -protec- 
 tion, and the prophecies of the fathers of our re- 
 public become to us not only predictions, but com- 
 mands.
 
 THE UNITED STATES SHOULD CONTROL THE INTER- 
 OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 THE consideration of foreign affairs has been, with 
 our public men, a matter of secondary importance 
 for a long time past, as compared with domestic 
 questions. Public sentiment, however, in the United 
 States under the guidance of enlightened statesman- 
 ship, in which our most conservative statesmen have 
 participated, anticipates the final absorption of the 
 North American continent within the bounds of the 
 United States. 
 
 This sentiment, as Sumner remarks, had its origin 
 in opposition to kingly dominion in the New World. 
 Our revolutionary ancestors were, he says, " Roman 
 in character, and turned to Roman lessons. With 
 a cynical austerity the early Cato said that kings 
 w6re 'carnivorous animals,' and at his instance the 
 Roman Senate decreed that no king should be al- 
 lowed within the gates of the city. A kindred sen- 
 timent, with less austerity of form, has been received 
 from our fathers ; but our city can be nothing less 
 
 106
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 1Q7 
 
 than the North American continent, with its gates 
 on all the surrounding seas" 
 
 And in the same spirit of enlightened patriotism 
 Webster, in a vivid portrayal of the destiny of our 
 country, had previously used Homer's beautiful de- 
 scription of the border of the shield of Achilles : 
 
 " Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned 
 With his last hand, and poured the ocean round ; 
 In living silver seemed the waves to roll, 
 And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole." 
 
 But while the aspirations and hopes alike of our 
 people and our statesmen point to this wide ultimate 
 extension of American dominion, it is not strange 
 that European powers should contemplate with ap- 
 prehension every step toward such an ascendancy. 
 France, and particularly the Imperial party in 
 France, has for the last twenty years been active in 
 plans and efforts to check the territorial expansion 
 of the United States. She has assumed the direction 
 of this aggressive work, as being the leading Latin 
 power. 
 
 The avowed purpose of the French invasion of 
 Mexico during the late civil war was to curb Anglo- 
 Saxon progress beyond the borders of Texas ; and it 
 was openly declared in the famous letter of Louis 
 Napoleon to General Forey, that his object in 
 founding an empire in Mexico was the establishment
 
 108 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 of the power of the Latin race on this continent, as 
 a counterpoise to the Anglo-Saxon dominion. The 
 French newspapers of that period may be profitably 
 studied for the light they throw on the designs of 
 France in this quarter of the globe. An exultant 
 article published in the " France " in 1864, upon the 
 successful establishment of the empire in Mexico, 
 thus concludes : 
 
 " Lastly, French interests must there find guaran- 
 tees and particular advantages, which cannot fail to 
 excite attention. There has been created on the 
 other side of the Atlantic, by the victories of our 
 soldiers, an empire which owes its existence to us ; 
 which the bonds of the most cordial friendship, and 
 of the most legitimate gratitude must unite us to ; 
 which will give fresh strength to the straightforward 
 influences of our policy in the New World, and open 
 the unexplored treasures of its vast territory to 
 French commerce and industry." 
 
 Such are still the sentiments of French statesmen 
 and of the leaders of French thought. Is the "pol- 
 icy in the New World," which failed under the guid- 
 ing hand of Louis Napoleon, to be made a splendid 
 success under de Lesseps ? The inter-oceanic canal 
 project of M. de Lesseps although in its inception 
 urged as a great international and "fraternal" en- 
 terprisehas been from the first thoroughly French, 
 and designed for the promotion of French interests
 
 TEE INTEE-OCEANIC CANAL. 109 
 
 alone. The canal is to be built under a French 
 charter, and by a preponderance of French capital. 
 The concession from Colombia is owned by a French 
 company. The amount of capital required to build 
 the canal is so great, relatively to the financial re- 
 sources of Colombia, that the corporation owning it 
 would be much greater than the state itself. French 
 troops must sooner or later protect it. It will be 
 administered by French officials, who will schedule 
 and impose tolls upon the commerce passing through 
 it. More than two-thirds of that commerce at the 
 outset must be the commerce of the United States of 
 America. All the numerous and important litigated 
 questions as to maritime and national and interna- 
 tional rights and liabilities, concerning the transit of 
 passengers and freight, must be adjudicated either 
 at Bogota, virtually under French influence, or at 
 Paris itself. 
 
 A correspondent of the New York World, report- 
 ing a recent interview at Panama with M. de Les- 
 seps, gives us his plans and expectations in this re- 
 spect. In his own words, 
 
 "M. de Lesseps says that all questions regarding 
 the canal, its tonnage, and management, with whom- 
 soever they may arise, will be decided by the French 
 courts, as in the case of Suez. The local Colombian 
 courts will not give the company guarantee enough 
 of justice, while the French courts are worthy of all
 
 HO THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 confidence. In important matters, then, they will 
 have arbitration in matters in which the Colombian 
 government may be concerned. All this is to be 
 decided by the articles of association. But one 
 thing is sure every question about the management 
 of the canal must be brought up in France, not in 
 Colombia. Both M. de Lesseps and (which is the 
 same thing) M. Bionne, the general superintendent, 
 and really the 'man behind the throne,' who is a 
 clever lawyer, insist on this point. 
 
 "I asked particularly whether he did not think 
 that this proposed recourse to the French courts, on 
 matters which in the regular way should be adjudi- 
 cated in the local courts, was not an infringement of 
 the sovereignty of the Republic of Colombia. M. de 
 Lesseps cannot see any derogation of the perfect 
 independence of that republic in what he proposes 
 to do. The local courts do not give guarantees 
 enough, and the regulation of jurisdiction is to be 
 fixed by an arrangement with the Colombian au- 
 thorities." 
 
 If, in addition to these commercial and economical 
 considerations, we take into account the political 
 consequences of the construction of the canal under 
 foreign auspices, the argument for the permanent 
 and effectual neutralization of the project by our 
 own government becomes irresistible. Treaty nego- 
 tiations will not answer. The occupation of com-
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. HI 
 
 manding naval and military positions upon the 
 isthmus alone will accomplish the purpose. Colom- 
 bia is destined to become a French province. A 
 transatlantic foreign power, established as a neigh- 
 bor, will control the most important channel of our 
 immense coastwise trade. A foreign nation will at 
 any time be able, if hostile, to close that channel to 
 us in case of war with any great power. In time of 
 peace we could doubtless secure favorable conditions 
 for the passage of our shipping, but war would place 
 us at the mercy of the great foreign corporation 
 virtually owning the United States of Colombia. 
 
 M. de Lesseps, commenting on the Burnside reso- 
 lution, said, "he had always been of the opinion 
 that the canal should be independent of the control 
 of any and every foreign government." Whatever 
 countenance our government may have given to this 
 idea in the ill-advised Clayton-Bulwer convention, 
 the Darien treaty, a subsequent and far more de- 
 liberate and well-considered instrument, more truly 
 formulates the purpose of the American people. It 
 is true that, induced by French and English influ- 
 ences, the United States of Colombia declined to con- 
 summate that treaty. It, notwithstanding, embodies 
 the principles to which the United States will hence- 
 forth adhere. The Senate of the United States was 
 influenced solely by the supposition that the canal 
 was about to be built by an American corporation,
 
 112 TEE INTEE-OCEANIG CANAL. 
 
 when it ratified in 1850 the Clayton-Bulwer conven- 
 tion. Our interest in the canal is of such an excep- 
 tional character as compared with the interest of 
 
 v any other nation, or of all other nations, that this 
 circumstance must necessarily control our action. 
 Opening to us as it does new facilities for trade be- 
 tween our eastern and western coast, over the entire 
 line from Maine to Alaska, and placing within easy 
 reach the western coast of South America, the 
 shores of Asia, and the islands of the Pacific, we 
 must possess over it a control beyond the power 
 of stipulations to give, or of their violation to de- 
 stroy. Its joint supervision with us by any foreign 
 power or combination of powers, or even its guaran- 
 teed neutrality, would leave these vast interests be- 
 yond our own grasp and at the mercy of the uncer- 
 tain events of European politics. Our acquiescence 
 in the stipulations of a convention to guarantee the 
 neutrality of the Mississippi, would not be more ab- 
 surd or weak than was our acceptance of the Clayton- 
 Bulwer convention. Louis Napoleon, in his letter to 
 General Forey, said, "It is not the interest of France 
 
 i that America should grasp the whole Gulf of Mex- 
 ico, rule thence the Antilles as well as South Amer- 
 ica, and be the sole dispenser of the products of 
 the New World." Could words more clearly sug- 
 gest at once our policy and our danger ? The efforts 
 in which our government is now engaged, through its
 
 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. H3 
 
 consular and diplomatic agents, to extend our com- 
 merce have given it a new impetus. With the at- 
 tractions of a vast commercial prosperity in the near 
 future beckoning us on, we cannot look with indif- 
 ference upon the attempts of a great power to gain 
 control of the only water communications between 
 our Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The Bulletin du 
 Canal Inter oceanique, the official organ of M. de 
 Lesseps, portrays in glowing terms the rich commer- 
 cial rewards of this future monument to French 
 enterprise. In a strain more inspiring still to the 
 imagination of the patriotic Frenchman it prophesies 
 a great increase of the " prestige " of France, " one of 
 the best conditions of its commercial growth." Its 
 martial and commercial enthusiasm intimately blend- 
 ing, it points to the fact that "England gives proof 
 of this, and her constant efforts on all sides to main- 
 tain her prestige, even at the expense of painful and 
 costly wars, tell us plainly enough the value she 
 attaches to it she whose policy is, above all things, 
 commercial." Here are no traces of that fraternal, 
 disinterested spirit by which the distinguished engi- 
 neer of the Suez Canal would persuade us he is 
 actuated in his so-called "international enterprise." 
 French prestige is the golden fleece which lures the 
 modern Jason to the setting sun, albeit through 
 "painful and costly wars." Let us at once admire 
 his patriotic zeal, do justice to his genius, and be- 
 8
 
 114 THE INTER-OCEANIC CANAL. 
 
 ware of the "painful and costly wars." In 1523 
 Charles V. enjoined Cortez to search thoroughly for 
 the " strait into the Indian Ocean." How thoroughly 
 the great explorer appreciated the importance of the 
 undertaking is shown in his reply. Referring to 
 the anticipated discovery, he says : 
 
 "It would render the King of Spain master of 
 so many kingdoms that he might consider himself 
 Lord of the World."
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 A chronological list of the efforts to secure inter- 
 oceanic transits across the isthmus or the conti- 
 nent of Central America. 
 
 1528. Antonio Galvao proposed a scheme to Charles V. ftn " 
 opening up a route between the two oceans. 
 
 1534. Instructions of Charles V. to Cortez to seek such a 
 route. 
 
 1551. Gomara, author of the "History of the Indies," pro- 
 posed three routes, including Nicaragua. 
 
 1567. Antonelli sent by Philip II. to explore Nicaragua. 
 
 1701. Patterson's "Four Passes " published. 
 
 1745. Proposals of citizens of Oaxaca for opening the Te- 
 huantepec route. 
 
 1774. The Tehuantepec route explored by Cramer. 
 
 1780. The English attempt to seize the Nicaragua route for 
 
 England. Nelson serving in the expedition. 
 
 1781. Exploration of the San Juan River (Nicaragua) by 
 
 Galisteo. 
 
 1797. Miranda's proposals to William Pitt. 
 1804. Humboldt's nine routes proposed. 
 1814. A decree of the Spanish Cortes passed for opening p. 
 
 canal across Tehuantepec. 
 
 115
 
 116 APPENDIX. 
 
 1824. Exploration of Tehuantepec by Orbegozo. 
 
 1825. Grant by the Government of New Granada to Baron 
 
 de Thierry for a canal at Panama. 
 1827. Surveys made under Bolivar. 
 1830. A company formed in Holland to open the Nicaragua 
 
 route. 
 
 1836. Mission of Col. Biddle to Central America. 
 1838. Baily's survey of Nicaragua. 
 
 1842. Garay's survey of Tehuantepec. 
 
 1843. Garella's survey of the Panama route. 
 
 1845. Proposals made to Louis Napoleon by Nicaragua to 
 
 open a canal. 
 
 1849. Dr. Cullen's explorations. 
 1849. A canal charter to the American, Atlantic and Pacific 
 
 Canal Company of New York, granted by Nicaragua. 
 1851. Col. Childs's survey of the Nicaragua route. 
 
 1853. Survey of the Atrato route for Mr. Kelley. 
 
 1854. Survey of the Honduras route by Squier. 
 
 1855. Panama Eailroad. 
 
 1858. Trau twine's survey of the Honduras route. 
 
 1858. M. Belly obtained a grant from Nicaragua for canal. 
 
 1858. Survey of the Atrato route by Lieut. Craven, et al. 
 
 1861. Bourdial's expedition. 
 
 1864. Captain Pirn's expedition. 
 
 1865. Remy de Puydt's expedition. 
 
 1866. Sacharma and Flachat's expeditions. 
 
 1868-9. The Ayon-Chevalier contract with Nicaragua. 
 1870-3. Reports by Selfridge Darien route. 
 1872. Report by Captain Shufeldt on the Tehuantepec 
 route.
 
 APPENDIX. H7 
 
 1872-3. Report by Lull on the Nicaragua route from Grey- 
 town to Brito. 
 
 1872-3. A canal contract granted by Costa Rica to Henry 
 Meiggs of Peru. 
 
 1875. Re-survey of the Selfridge route by Lieut. Collins. 
 
 1875. Reconnoissance of the Panama route by Com. E. P. 
 Lull. 
 
 1876-7. The French reconnoissance under the direction of 
 Lieut. Bonaparte Wyse. 
 
 1879. The Paris conference under M. de Lesseps. 
 
 List of proposed routes for canals and roads across 
 the Central American isthmus, as given in the 
 report of Admiral Dams to Congress in 1866. 
 
 CANALS. 
 
 1 1. Tehuantepec, by the Coatzacoalcos 
 
 and Chicapa. 
 II 2. Honduras. 
 
 3. R, San Carlos, G. de Nicoya. 
 
 4. R. Nino, Tempisque, G. de Nicoya. 
 
 5. R. Sapoa B. Salinas. 
 
 6. San Juan del Sur. 
 
 7. Brito. 
 
 8. R. Tamarinda. 
 
 9. P. Realejo. 
 10. B. Fonseca. 
 
 TTJ p,, (11. Gorgona, Panama. 
 
 R. Chagres. -j 12 Tr M dad) Caymito. 
 
 IV.. Panama { 13. Navy Bay, R. Chagres, R, Bonito, 
 
 R. Bernardo. 
 
 14. San Bias, R. Chepo. 
 
 15. B. Caledonia, G. San Miguel. 
 
 16. Rs. Arguia, Paya, Tuyra, G. San 
 
 V.. .Darion-l ( 17. R. Na g pTpi, Cupica. 
 
 Rio Atrato. \ 18. R. Truando, Kelly's I. 
 
 . R. Tuyra, G. Uraba or R. Atrato. 
 
 in...
 
 118 APPENDIX. 
 
 ROADS. 
 
 I. Coatzacoalcos, Tehuantepec. 
 II. B. Honduras to G. of Fonseca. 
 III. R. San Juan, Nicaragua, Managua, G. of Fonseca. 
 IV. Port Liraon to Caldera, Costa Rica. 
 V. Chiriqui inlet to Golfo Dulce. 
 VI. Aspinwall, Panama (railroad finished). 
 VIL-Gorgon B., Realejo. ) N - 
 
 VIII. Gorgon B., San Juan del Sur. f
 
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