A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 5, part 3: Franklin Pierce

by Unknown

It is the established policy of the United States to recognize all governments without question of their source or their organization, or of the means by which the governing persons attain their power, provided there be a government de facto accepted by the people of the country, and with reserve only of the time as to the recognition of revolutionary governments arising out of the subdivision of parent states with which we are in relations of amity. We do not go behind the fact of a foreign government exercising actual power to investigate questions of legitimacy; we do not inquire into the causes which may have led to a change of government. To us it is indifferent whether a successful revolution has been aided by foreign intervention or not; whether insurrection has overthrown existing government, and another has been established in its place according to preexisting forms or in a manner adopted for the occasion by those whom we may find in the actual possession of power. All these matters we leave to the people and public authorities of the particular country to determine; and their determination, whether it be by positive action or by ascertained acquiescence, is to us a sufficient warranty of the legitimacy of the new government.

During the sixty-seven years which have elapsed since the establishment of the existing Government of the United States, in all which time this Union has maintained undisturbed domestic tranquillity, we have had occasion to recognize governments de facto, founded either by domestic revolution or by military invasion from abroad, in many of the Governments of Europe.

It is the more imperatively necessary to apply this rule to the Spanish American Republics, in consideration of the frequent and not seldom anomalous changes of organization or administration which they undergo and the revolutionary nature of most of these changes, of which the recent series of revolutions in the Mexican Republic is an example, where five successive revolutionary governments have made their appearance in the course of a few months and been recognized successively, each as the political power of that country, by the United States.

When, therefore, some time since, a new minister from the Republic of Nicaragua presented himself, bearing the commission of President Rivas, he must and would have been received as such, unless he was found on inquiry subject to personal exception, but for the absence of satisfactory information upon the question whether President Rivas was in fact the head of an established Government of the Republic of Nicaragua, doubt as to which arose not only from the circumstances of his avowed association with armed emigrants recently from the United States, but that the proposed minister himself was of that class of persons, and not otherwise or previously a citizen of Nicaragua.

Another minister from the Republic of Nicaragua has now presented himself, and has been received as such, satisfactory evidence appearing that he represents the Government de facto and, so far as such exists, the Government de jure of that Republic.

That reception, while in accordance with the established policy of the United States, was likewise called for by the most imperative special exigencies, which require that this Government shall enter at once into diplomatic relations with that of Nicaragua. In the first place, a difference has occurred between the Government of President Rivas and the Nicaragua Transit Company, which involves the necessity of inquiry into rights of citizens of the United States, who allege that they have been aggrieved by the acts of the former and claim protection and redress at the hands of their Government. In the second place, the interoceanic communication by the way of Nicaragua is effectually interrupted, and the persons and property of unoffending private citizens of the United States in that country require the attention of their Government. Neither of these objects can receive due consideration without resumption of diplomatic intercourse with the Government of Nicaragua.

Further than this, the documents communicated show that while the interoceanic transit by the way of Nicaragua is cut off, disturbances at Panama have occurred to obstruct, temporarily at least, that by the way of New Granada, involving the sacrifice of the lives and property of citizens of the United States. A special commissioner has been dispatched to Panama to investigate the facts of this occurrence with a view particularly to the redress of parties aggrieved. But measures of another class will be demanded for the future security of interoceanic communication by this as by the other routes of the Isthmus.

It would be difficult to suggest a single object of interest, external or internal, more important to the United States than the maintenance of the communication, by land and sea, between the Atlantic and Pacific States and Territories of the Union It is a material element of the national integrity and sovereignty.

I have adopted such precautionary measures and have taken such action for the purpose of affording security to the several transit routes of Central America and to the persons and property of citizens of the United States connected with or using the same as are within my constitutional power and as existing circumstances have seemed to demand. Should these measures prove inadequate to the object, that fact will be communicated to Congress with such recommendations as the exigency of the case may indicate.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.