The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1

by Various

Art. 9. Treaty to be ratified by both governments and ratifications exchanged at Washington within six months."

This treaty bears date April 19, 1850, and is still in force in all its provisions.

Is there anything in the terms, conditions, or effect of this treaty, which in any way tends to militate or conflict with the declarations of the "Monroe Doctrine?"

To answer this question satisfactorily, and give a careful analysis of the treaty, in all its details, would take more time and space than I am at liberty to use; but I may be pardoned if I trespass a little and give a few reasons why I am come to the conclusion that the effect of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty is to abrogate and annul to a great extent the cardinal principle of the "Monroe Doctrine."

In the first place the "Monroe Doctrine" was the accepted policy of this government as to all foreign intervention from 1823 to 1850, and with some of the leading minds of the country it has never ceased to be the paramount creed in the national catechism. During these twenty-seven years the project of building an inter-oceanic canal had been considerably agitated, in Congress and out, and had enlisted to some extent the sympathies of foreign powers who desired a shorter passage to the Pacific Ocean, the East Indies, and the markets of Cathay, than the stormy ones around the southern capes of either hemisphere.

This agitation finally culminated in diplomatic correspondence between the representatives of Great Britain and the United States relative to the construction of such a means of communication and the rights of the two nations to the same, resulting in the treaty. In April, 1850, the Senate of the United States, by a very large vote, ratified and confirmed this treaty, notwithstanding it was vigorously opposed by such men as Stephen A. Douglas and Lewis Cass, then in the zenith of their fame.

It appears in the Congressional record of 1850, and subsequently, that the treaty was ratified without a very clear understanding of its meaning; and it was even hinted, in rather plain language, that the representative of Great Britain had been too sharp, too diplomatic for his American brother, and had overreached him. It further appeared that the honorable Senate was sadly deficient in knowledge of geography, and national boundaries; for it is matter of record, that many Senators voted for the ratification under the impression that British Honduras was included in the territory of Guatamala, and that the British settlements were in that republic; while, as a fact, Balize or British Honduras was on the easterly side of the Isthmus, never had been a part of that republic, and the British settlements were, and always had been, in Yucatan. They further understood the treaty to say, that neither government should occupy, fortify, or colonize Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Central America; but it is a fact, that at the very date of the treaty, at the date of the ratification, and since, Great Britain occupied and colonized the Mosquito coast, or that part which joins British Honduras on the northerly side of South Honduras; and Mr. Douglas, in 1857, in a debate in Congress upon a "resolution of inquiry as to the present status of the treaty," said: "I voted against the treaty, Mr. President, for the reason that I am unwilling to enter into any stipulations with any European power, that we would not do on this continent whatever we might think it our duty to do, whenever a case should arise. I voted against it because by clause 1 of that treaty we are debarred from doing what it might be our duty to do; but as it has been entered into, I desire to see it enforced. I am not yet aware that that clause of the treaty has been carried into effect. I have yet to learn that the British Government have withdrawn their protectorate from the Mosquito Coast; I have yet to learn that they have abandoned the possession of that territory which they held under the Mosquito King."

From the day that treaty was ratified to the present, it has been a fertile source of discord and misunderstanding between the two governments; and from 1850 to 1858 its provisions were thrice made the basis of a proposal to arbitrate as to their meaning: their modification and abrogation have been alike contingently considered, and their imperfect and vexatious character have been repeatedly recognized on both sides. Even the present administration is laboring with the difficulty, and seeking some honorable way to free the treaty from its embarrassing features, or entirely abrogate it. President Buchanan, in 1858, characterized and denounced the treaty as "one which had been fraught with misunderstanding and mischief from the beginning;" and the leading statesmen of the country have felt that it was entirely inadequate to reconcile the opposite views of Great Britain and the United States towards Central America.

The Honorable James G. Blaine, late Secretary of State under the lamented Garfield, in his diplomatic correspondence with Lord Granville, in 1881, in summing up his review of the negotiations concerning this treaty, says: "It was frankly admitted on both sides that the engagements of the treaty were misunderstandingly entered into, improperly comprehended, contradictorily interpreted, and mutually vexatious."