The South American Question.
If it was not shrewdly surmised before it is now known that had President Garfield lived he intended to make his administration brilliant at home and abroad—a view confirmed by the policy conceived by Secretary Blaine and sanctioned, it must be presumed, by President Garfield. This policy looked to closer commercial and political relations with all of the Republics on this Hemisphere, as developed in the following quotations from a correspondence, the publication of which lacks completeness because of delays in transmitting all of it to Congress.
Ex-Secretary Blaine on the 3d of January sent the following letter to President Arthur:
“The suggestion of a congress of all the American nations to assemble in the city of Washington for the purpose of agreeing on such a basis of arbitration for international troubles as would remove all possibility of war in the Western hemisphere was warmly approved by your predecessor. The assassination of July 2 prevented his issuing the invitations to the American States. After your accession to the Presidency I acquainted you with the project and submitted to you a draft for such an invitation. You received the suggestion with the most appreciative consideration, and after carefully examining the form of the invitation directed that it be sent. It was accordingly dispatched in November to the independent governments of America North and South, including all, from the Empire of Brazil to the smallest republic. In a communication addressed by the present Secretary of State on January 9, to Mr. Trescot and recently sent to the Senate I was greatly surprised to find a proposition looking to the annulment of these invitations, and I was still more surprised when I read the reasons assigned. If I correctly apprehend the meaning of his words it is that we might offend some European powers if we should hold in the United States a congress of the “selected nationalities” of America.
“This is certainly a new position for the United States to assume, and one which I earnestly beg you will not permit this government to occupy. The European powers assemble in congress whenever an object seems to them of sufficient importance to justify it. I have never heard of their consulting the government of the United States in regard to the propriety of their so assembling, nor have I ever known of their inviting an American representative to be present. Nor would there, in my judgment, be any good reason for their so doing. Two Presidents of the United States in the year 1881 adjudged it to be expedient that the American powers should meet in congress for the sole purpose of agreeing upon some basis for arbitration of differences that may arise between them and for the prevention, as far as possible, of war in the future. If that movement is now to be arrested for fear that it may give offense in Europe, the voluntary humiliation of this government could not be more complete, unless we should press the European governments for the privilege of holding the congress. I cannot conceive how the United States could be placed in a less enviable position than would be secured by sending in November a cordial invitation to all the American governments to meet in Washington for the sole purpose of concerting measures of peace and in January recalling the invitation for fear that it might create “jealousy and ill will” on the part of monarchical governments in Europe. It would be difficult to devise a more effective mode for making enemies of the American Government and it would certainly not add to our prestige in the European world. Nor can I see, Mr. President, how European governments should feel “jealousy and ill will” towards the United States because of an effort on our own part to assure lasting peace between the nations of America, unless, indeed, it be to the interest of European power that American nations should at intervals fall into war and bring reproach on republican government. But from that very circumstance I see an additional and powerful motive for the American Governments to be at peace among themselves.
“The United States is indeed at peace with all the world, as Mr. Frelinghuysen well says, but there are and have been serious troubles between other American nations. Peru, Chili and Bolivia have been for more than two years engaged in a desperate conflict. It was the fortunate intervention of the United States last spring that averted war between Chili and the Argentine Republic. Guatemala is at this moment asking the United States to interpose its good offices with Mexico to keep off war. These important facts were all communicated in your late message to Congress. It is the existence or the menace of these wars that influenced President Garfield, and as I supposed influenced yourself, to desire a friendly conference of all the nations of America to devise methods of permanent peace and consequent prosperity for all. Shall the United States now turn back, hold aloof and refuse to exert its great moral power for the advantage of its weaker neighbors?
If you have not formally and finally recalled the invitations to the Peace Congress, Mr. President, I beg you to consider well the effect of so doing. The invitation was not mine. It was yours. I performed only the part of the Secretary—to advise and to draft. You spoke in the name of the United States to each of the independent nations of America. To revoke that invitation for any cause would be embarrassing; to revoke it for the avowed fear of “jealousy and ill will” on the part of European powers would appeal as little to American pride as to American hospitality. Those you have invited may decline, and having now cause to doubt their welcome will, perhaps, do so. This would break up the congress, but it would not touch our dignity.
“Beyond the philanthropic and Christian ends to be obtained by an American conference devoted to peace and good will among men, we might well hope for material advantages, as the result of a better understanding and closer friendship with the nation of America. At present the condition of trade between the United States and its American neighbors is unsatisfactory to us, and even deplorable. According to the official statistics of our own Treasury Department, the balance against us in that trade last year was $120,000,000—a sum greater than the yearly product of all the gold and silver mines in the United States. This vast balance was paid by us in foreign exchange, and a very large proportion of it went to England, where shipments of cotton, provisions and breadstuffs supplied the money. If anything should change or check the balance in our favor in European trade our commercial exchanges with Spanish America would drain us of our reserve of gold at a rate exceeding $100,000,000 per annum, and would probably precipitate a suspension of specie payment in this country. Such a result at home might be worse than a little jealousy and ill-will abroad. I do not say, Mr. President, that the holding of a peace congress will necessarily change the currents of trade, but it will bring us into kindly relations with all the American nations; it will promote the reign of peace and law and order; it will increase production and consumption and will stimulate the demand for articles which American manufacturers can furnish with profit. It will at all events be a friendly and auspicious beginning in the direction of American influence and American trade in a large field which we have hitherto greatly neglected and which has been practically monopolized by our commercial rivals in Europe.
As Mr. Frelinghuysen’s dispatch, foreshadowing the abandonment of the peace congress, has been made public, I deem it a matter of propriety and justice to give this letter to the press.
Jas. G. Blaine.
The above well presents the Blaine view of the proposition to have a Congress of the Republics of America at Washington, and under the patronage of this government, with a view to settle all difficulties by arbitration, to promote trade, and it is presumed to form alliances ready to suit a new and advanced application of the Monroe doctrine.
The following is the letter proposing a conference of North and South American Republics sent to the U. S. Ministers in Central and South America:
Sir: The attitude of the United States with respect to the question of general peace on the American Continent is well known through its persistent efforts for years past to avert the evils of warfare, or, these efforts failing, to bring positive conflicts to an end through pacific counsels or the advocacy of impartial arbitration. This attitude has been consistently maintained, and always with such fairness as to leave no room for imputing to our Government any motive except the humane and disinterested one of saving the kindred States of the American Continent from the burdens of war. The position of the United States, as the leading power of the new world, might well give to its Government a claim to authoritative utterance for the purpose of quieting discord among its neighbors, with all of whom the most friendly relations exist. Nevertheless the good offices of this Government are not, and have not at any time, been tendered with a show of dictation or compulsion, but only as exhibiting the solicitous good will of a common friend.
THE CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICAN STATES.
For some years past a growing disposition has been manifested by certain States of Central and South America to refer disputes affecting grave questions of international relationship and boundaries to arbitration rather than to the sword. It has been on several occasions a source of profound satisfaction to the Government of the United States to see that this country is in a large measure looked to by all the American powers as their friend and mediator. The just and impartial counsel of the President in such cases, has never been withheld, and his efforts have been rewarded by the prevention of sanguinary strife or angry contentions between peoples whom we regard as brethren. The existence of this growing tendency convinces the President that the time is ripe for a proposal that shall enlist the good will and active co-operation of all the States of the Western Hemisphere both North and South, in the interest of humanity and for the common weal of nations.
He conceives that none of the Governments of America can be less alive than our own to the dangers and horrors of a state of war, and especially of war between kinsmen. He is sure that none of the chiefs of Government on the Continent can be less sensitive than he is to the sacred duty of making every endeavor to do away with the chances of fratricidal strife, and he looks with hopeful confidence to such active assistance from them as will serve to show the broadness of our common humanity, the strength of the ties which bind us all together as a great and harmonious system of American Commonwealths.
A GENERAL CONGRESS PROPOSED.
Impressed by these views, the President extends to all the independent countries of North and South America an earnest invitation to participate in a general Congress, to be held in the city of Washington, on the 22d of November, 1882, for the purpose of considering and discussing the methods of preventing war between the nations of America. He desires that the attention of the Congress shall be strictly confined to this one great object; and its sole aim shall be to seek a way of permanently averting the horrors of a cruel and bloody contest between countries oftenest of one blood and speech, or the even worse calamity of internal commotion and civil strife; that it shall regard the burdensome and far-reaching consequences of such a struggle, the legacies of exhausted finances, of oppressive debt, of onerous taxation, of ruined cities, of paralyzed industries, of devastated fields, of ruthless conscriptions, of the slaughter of men, of the grief of the widow and orphan, of embittered resentments that long survive those who provoked them and heavily afflict the innocent generations that come after.
THE MISSION OF THE CONGRESS.
The President is especially desirous to have it understood that in putting forth this invitation the United States does not assume the position of counseling or attempting, through the voice of the Congress, to counsel any determinate solution of existing questions which may now divide any of the countries. Such questions cannot properly come before the Congress. Its mission is higher. It is to provide for the interests of all in the future, not to settle the individual differences of the present. For this reason especially the President has indicated a day for the assembling of the Congress so far in the future as to leave good ground for the hope that by the time named the present situation on the South Pacific coast will be happily terminated, and that those engaged in the contest may take peaceable part in the discussion and solution of the general question affecting in an equal degree the well-being of all.
It seems also desirable to disclaim in advance any purpose on the part of the United States to prejudge the issues to be presented to the Congress. It is far from the intent of this Government to appear before the Congress as in any sense the protector of its neighbors or the predestined and necessary arbitrator of their disputes. The United States will enter into the deliberations of the Congress on the same footing as other powers represented, and with the loyal determination to approach any proposed solution, not merely in its own interest, or with a view to asserting its own power, but as a single member among many co-ordinate and co-equal States. So far as the influence of this Government may be potential, it will be exerted in the direction of conciliating whatever conflicting interests of blood, or government, or historical tradition that may necessarily come together in response to a call embracing such vast and diverse elements.
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE MINISTERS.
You will present these views to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica, enlarging, if need be, in such terms as will readily occur to you upon the great mission which it is within the power of the proposed Congress to accomplish in the interest of humanity, and the firm purpose of the United States of America to maintain a position of the most absolute and impartial friendship toward all. You will, therefore, in the name of the President of the United States, tender to his Excellency, the President of ——, a formal invitation to send two commissioners to the Congress, provided with such powers and instructions on behalf of their Government as will enable them to consider the questions brought before that body within the limit of submission contemplated by this invitation.
The United States, as well as the other powers, will in like manner be represented by two commissioners, so that equality and impartiality will be amply secured in the proceedings of the Congress.
In delivering this invitation through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, you will read this despatch to him and leave with him a copy, intimating that an answer is desired by this Government as promptly as the just consideration of so important a proposition will permit.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
James G. Blaine.