The United States and Latin America

by John Holladay Latané

This dispatch of Mr. Blaine is remarkable for several reasons, but chiefly for the fact that it completely ignores the existence of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, there being no allusion to that celebrated convention either open or implied. Aside from this there are three points to be noted. In the first place Mr. Blaine calls attention to the rights and duties devolving upon the United States from the treaty with Colombia of 1846, and states that in the judgment of the President the guarantee there given by the United States requires no reënforcement, or accession, or assent from any other power; that the United States in more than one instance had been called upon to vindicate the neutrality thus guaranteed; and that there was no contingency, then foreseen or apprehended, in which such vindication would not be within the power of the nation.

In the second place, Mr. Blaine declared with emphasis that during any war to which the United States of America or the United States of Colombia might be a party, the passage of armed vessels of a hostile nation through the canal of Panama would be no more admissible than would the passage of the armed forces of a hostile nation over the railway lines joining the Atlantic and Pacific shores of the United States, or of Colombia. This declaration was in direct opposition to the second article of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. Mr. Blaine then proceeded to expatiate upon the remarkable development of our Pacific slope and the importance of the canal in facilitating communication between our Atlantic and Pacific states, alluding to the canal in this connection, in the very apt phrase of President Hayes, as forming a part of the coast-line of the United States. It does not appear to have occurred to Mr. Blaine that the same arguments applied with equal force to Great Britain's American possessions to the north of us, which likewise extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and were likewise entering upon a period of unusual development.

The third point to be noted in the dispatch is the statement that the United States would object to any concerted action of the European powers for the purpose of guaranteeing the canal or determining its status.[170] This declaration was supposed to be nothing more than a reaffirmation of the Monroe Doctrine.

A copy of this document was left by Mr. Lowell at the British foreign office on the 12th of July, 1881. No formal notice of the dispatch was taken by the British government until November, when Lord Granville replied that, as Mr. Blaine had made the statement that the government of the United States had no intention of initiating any discussion upon this subject, he did not propose to enter into a detailed argument in reply to Mr. Blaine's observations. He wished, however, merely to point out that the position of Great Britain and the United States with reference to the canal, irrespective of the magnitude of the commercial relations of the former power, was determined by a convention signed between them at Washington on the 19th of April, 1850, commonly known as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and her majesty's government relied with confidence upon the observance of all the engagements of that treaty.[171]

Before this reply reached Washington, Mr. Blaine had again taken up the question of the canal in a special dispatch of November 19, 1881. In this dispatch he addressed himself specifically to a consideration of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and urged upon the consideration of the British government modifications of such a radical character as to amount to a complete abrogation of the treaty. The grounds of objection to the treaty were stated in full. In the first place it was declared that the treaty had been made more than thirty years before under exceptional and extraordinary conditions, which were at least temporary in their nature and had long since ceased to exist. The remarkable development of the United States on the Pacific coast since that time had created new duties and responsibilities for the American government which required, in the judgment of the President, some essential modifications in the treaty. The objections to the perpetuity of the treaty were then stated in full. First and foremost was the objection that the treaty by forbidding the military fortification of the proposed canal practically conceded its control to Great Britain by reason of her naval superiority. The military power of the United States in any conflict on the American continent was irresistible, yet the United States was restrained from using this power for the protection of the canal, while no restrictions could be placed upon the natural advantages that England enjoyed in this regard as a great naval power. A more serious objection to the treaty, however, was urged in the statement that it embodied a misconception of the relative positions of Great Britain and the United States with respect to interests on this continent. The United States would not consent to perpetuate any treaty that impeached "our right and long-established claim to priority on the American continent."

In the third place, at the time the convention was agreed upon, Great Britain and the United States were the only nations prominent in the commerce of Central and South America. Since that time other nations not bound by the prohibitions of that treaty had become interested in Central America, and the republic of France had become sponsor for a new canal scheme. Yet by the treaty with England the United States was prevented from asserting its rights and the privileges acquired through treaty with Colombia anterior to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.

In the fourth place, the treaty had been made with the implied understanding that British capital would be available for the construction of a canal. That expectation had never been realized, and the United States was now able to construct a canal without aid from outside resources.

In conclusion, Mr. Blaine proposed several modifications of the treaty which would leave the United States free to fortify the canal and to hold political control of it in conjunction with the country in which it might be located.[172]

A few days after the dispatch was written, Lord Granville's answer to Mr. Blaine's first dispatch reached Washington, and on the 29th of November, Mr. Blaine wrote a second dispatch equally voluminous with the one of November 19. In this he reviewed the discussions which had taken place between 1850 and 1860 in regard to the treaty with a view to showing that it had never been satisfactory to the United States and had been the cause of serious misunderstanding. He failed, however, to make mention of the settlement of 1860 and the declaration of President Buchanan that the United States was satisfied with that adjustment.

The full reply of the British government to Mr. Blaine's arguments was given in two dispatches dated respectively January 7 and 14, 1882. Lord Granville took exception to certain conclusions which Mr. Blaine had sought to establish by analogy with the conduct of Great Britain in regard to the Suez canal. His lordship fully concurred in what Mr. Blaine had said as to the unexampled development of the United States on the Pacific coast, but reminded him that the development of her majesty's possessions to the north of the United States, while less rapid, had been, nevertheless, on a scale that bore some relation even to that of the Pacific states. In the view of her majesty's government, the changes desired by the United States would not improve the situation as regarded the canal, while the declaration that the United States would always treat the waterway connecting the two oceans "as part of her coast-line" threatened the independence of the territory lying between that waterway and the United States.