It is true that she does a greater wrong to herself; that she bars the way to her advancement and her glory; but that is her own business, and she has a right to judge for herself.
I have heard it said, and Paz Soldan uses the argument in his correspondence with Clay, that we are exclusive and jealous in this respect, and that we keep the navigation of our rivers to ourselves. This is not so. A Brazilian vessel, or the vessel of any foreign nation, passing through the formalities of the custom-house at New Orleans, may carry her cargo under her own flag to St. Louis, to Memphis, to Cincinnati, ports of delivery, discharge it there, and take in a return cargo for her own country. This is the case on the Hudson, the Potomac, the James, the Rappahannock, and I have no doubt that, whenever a town on navigable waters may desire to be made a port of delivery, the boon will be instantly granted by Congress, unless there be special reasons against it, and foreign vessels will be permitted to load and unload there.
This, too, is on waters belonging exclusively to us. Little, then, would we be disposed to follow the lead of Brazil, and undertake, contrary to right and the laws of nations, to interpose obstacles to foreign nations trading with each other, because the way of this trade was along rivers passing through our territories. Did Great Britain own a navigable tributary of the Mississippi, and were she to declare a port situated on this tributary free and open to the commerce of the world, we would not think of closing the Mississippi, and shutting out that trade. This matter has been discussed, and our ablest statesmen have allowed that we would have no right to do so. It is a bad rule that won't work both ways; what we demand we should always be ready to give, and what we are ready to give, we ought, if just and necessary, to demand.
It is a perfectly well-known and universally admitted fact that no nation holding the strait that connects two seas, has the right to block up that strait, and prevent the free passage of commerce. Turkey has no right to block up the Dardanelles. Did England own both sides of the straits of Gibraltar, she would have no right to shut up that strait. Denmark has no right to close the Belts; nor Denmark and Sweden together the Sound.
I have read with great interest, a memorial addressed to this Congress by the Commercial Convention that met at Memphis, in June 1853, through Lieut. Maury. Its arguments appear sound and just. I think it important that they should be read and considered as widely as possible, and I therefore quote its concluding pages. It is speaking of the Spanish American Republics of the Amazon.
"They have established the freedom of the seas upon their navigable tributaries of the Amazon. They have invited the world to come and use these waters—to settle upon their banks—to subdue the wilderness there, and replenish the solitary places—to make those lovely countries their homes, and to enjoy perfect freedom of trade for all time.
"Here is a boon to the world; therefore, neither Brazil nor any other nation has the right to oppose that world in the enjoyment of a common good, nor to throw herself in the way of civilization nor of human progress, nor to adopt any policy adverse to the rights of man.
"By these decrees, and the enlightened course of policy which dictated them, the riparian republics have removed the navigation of the Amazon from the condition of a diplomatic question with Brazil, and placed it in the category of a great international question, to be decided and settled, regulated and adjusted, not according to the selfish policy of any government, but according to the enlightened principles which sanctify, give strength to, and make binding the law of nations.
"These decrees have, to all intents and purposes, converted the navigable tributaries of the Amazonian republics into arms of the high seas. Bolivia not only gives all friendly nations the right to navigate these waters for the purposes of commerce, but she gives them the right to send there their men-of-war also. And all the republics offer homes to the immigrant. He is invited to come, and is promised a homestead in fee simple if he will come. The homestead bill has been enacted there upon a grand scale, for whoever will come is to be supplied gratis with land, seeds, and farming utensils. The Congress of Peru has voted half a million of dollars, to encourage settlement and cultivation upon the Amazon.
"This masterly, humane, and wise action, on the part of these republics, has changed, in the international eye of the law, the character of the Amazon, as it flows through the territory of Brazil, and has converted it from a river into a strait, connecting arms—free navigable arms—of the sea with the main ocean. And no nation, even though she own both shores of such a strait, can have the right to shut it up against the world as a common highway. Such is the doctrine of the international code.