Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, With the Annual Message of the President, December 5, 1881

No. 338.
Mr. Blaine to Mr. Lowell.

Department of State,
Washington, November 19, 1881.

No. 270.]

Sir: In pursuance of the premises laid down in my circular note of June 24 of this year, touching the determination of this government with respect to the guarantee of neutrality for the Interoceanic canal at Panama, it becomes my duty to call your attention to the convention of April 19, 1850, between Great Britain and the United States, commonly known as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.

According to the articles of that convention, the high contracting parties, in referring to an Interoceanic canal, through Nicaragua, agreed—

That neither the one nor the other will ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control over said ship canal, and that neither will ever erect or maintain any fortifications commanding the same or in the vicinity thereof.

In a concluding paragraph the high contracting parties agreed—

To extend their protection by treaty stipulations to any other practicable communications, whether by canal or railway across the isthmus * * *, which are now proposed to be established by way of Tehuantepec or Panama.

This convention was made more than thirty years ago, under exceptional and extraordinary conditions which have long since ceased to exist—conditions which at best were temporary in their nature and which can never be reproduced. The remarkable development of the United States on the Pacific coast since that time has created new duties for this government, and devolved new responsibilities upon it, the full and complete discharge of which requires, in the judgment of the President, some essential modifications in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. The interests of Her Majesty’s Government involved in this question, in so far as they may be properly judged by the observation of a friendly power, are so inconsiderable in comparison with those of the United States that the President hopes a readjustment of the terms of the treaty may be reached in a spirit of amity and concord.

The respect due to Her Majesty’s Government demands that the objections to the perpetuity of the convention of 1850, as it now exists, should be stated with directness and with entire frankness; and among the most salient and palpable of these is the fact that the operation of the treaty practically concedes to Great Britain the control of whatever canal may be constructed. The insular position of the home government, with its extended colonial possessions, requires the British Empire to maintain a vast naval establishment, which in our continental solidity we do not need, and in time of peace shall never create. If the United States binds itself not to fortify on land, it concedes that Great Britain, in the possible case of a struggle for the control of the canal, shall at the outset have an advantage which would prove decisive, and which could not be reversed, except by the expenditure of treasure and force. The presumptive intention of the treaty was to place the two powers on a plane of perfect equality with respect to the canal, but in practice, as I have indicated, this would prove utterly delusive, and would instead surrender it, if not in form, yet in effect, to the control of Great Britain.

The treaty binds the United States not to use its military force in any precautionary measure, while it leaves the naval power of Great Britian perfectly free and unrestrained—ready at any moment of need to seize both ends of the canal and render its military occupation on land a matter entirely within the discretion of Her Majesty’s Government. The military power of the United States, as shown by the recent civil war, is without limit, and in any conflict on the American continent altogether irresistible. The Clayton-Bulwer treaty commands this government not to use a single regiment of troops to protect its interests in connection with the Interoceanic canal, but to surrender the transit to the guardianship and control of the British navy. If no American soldier is to be quartered on the isthmus to protect the rights of his country in the Interoceanic canal, surely, by the fair logic of neutrality, no war vessel of Great Britian should be permitted to appear in the waters that control either entrance to the canal.

A more comprehensive objection to the treaty is urged by this government. Its provisions embody a misconception of the relative positions of Great Britian and the United States with respect to the interests of each government in questions pertaining to this continent. The Government of the United States has no occasion to disavow an aggressive disposition. Its entire policy establishes its pacific character, and among its chief aims is to cultivate the most friendly and intimate relations with its neighbors, both independent and colonial. At the same time, this government, with respect to European States, will not consent to perpetuate any treaty that impeaches our rightful and long-established claim to priority on the American continent.

The United States seeks only to use for the defense of its own interests the same forecast and prevision which Her Majesty’s Government so energetically employs in defense of the interests of the British Empire. To guard her Eastern possessions, to secure the most rapid transit for troops and munitions of war, and to prevent any other nation from having equal facilities in the same direction, Great Britain holds and fortifies all the strategic points that control the route to India. At Gibraltar, at Malta, at Cyprus, her fortifications give her the mastery of the Mediterranean. She holds a controlling interest in the Suez canal, and by her fortifications at Aden and on the island of Perim she excludes all other powers from the waters of the Red Sea and renders it mare clausum. It would, in the judgment of the President, be no more unreasonable for the United States to demand a share in these fortifications, or to demand their absolute neutralization, than for England to make the same demand in perpetuity from the United States with respect to the transit across the American continent. The possessions which Great Britian thus carefully guards in the East are not of more importance to her than is the Pacific slope, with its present development and assured growth, to the Government of the United States.

The States and Territories appurtenant to the Pacific Ocean and dependent upon it for commercial outlet, and hence directly interested in the canal, comprise an area of nearly eight hundred thousand square miles—larger in extent than the German Empire and the four Latin countries of Europe combined. This vast region is but fairly beginning its prosperous development. Six thousand miles of railway are already constructed within its limits, and it is a moderate calculation to say that within the current decade the number of miles will, at least, be doubled. In the near future the money value of its surplus for export will be as large as that of British India, and perhaps larger. Nor must it be forgotten that India is but a distant colony of Great Britain, while the region on the Pacific is an integral portion of our National Union, and is of the very form and body of our State. The inhabitants of India are alien from England in race, language, and religion. The citizens of California, Oregon, and Nevada, with the adjacent Territories, are of our own blood and kindred—bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.

Great Britain appreciates the advantage and perhaps the necessity of maintaining at the cost of large military and naval establishments the interior and nearest route to India, while any nation with hostile intent is compelled to take the longer route and travel many thousand additional miles through dangerous seas. It is hardly conceivable that the same great power which considers herself justified in taking these precautions for the safety of a remote colony on another continent should object to the United States adopting similar but far less demonstrative measures for the protection of the distant shores of her own domain, for the drawing together of the extremes of the Union in still closer bonds of interest and sympathy, and for holding in the quiet determination of an honorable self-defense the absolute control of the great water-way which shall unite the two oceans, and which the United States will always insist upon treating as part of her coast-line.

If a hostile movement should at any time be made against the Pacific coast, threatening danger to its people and destruction to its property, the Government of the United States would feel that it had been unfaithful to its duty and neglectful toward its own citizens if it permitted itself to be bound by a treaty which gave the same right through the canal to a war-ship bent on an errand of destruction that is reserved to its own Navy sailing for the defense of our coast and the protection of the lives of our people. And as England insists by the might of her power that her enemies in war shall strike her Indian possessions only by doubling the Gape of Good Hope, so the Government of the United States will equally insist that the interior, more speedy, and safer route of the canal shall be reserved for ourselves, while our enemies, if we shall ever be so unfortunate as to have any, shall be remanded to the voyage around Cape Horn.

A consideration of controlling influence in this question is the well-settled conviction on the part of this government that only by the United States exercising supervision can the Isthmus canals be definitely and at all times secured against the interference and obstruction incident to war. A mere agreement of neutrality on paper between the great powers of Europe might prove ineffectual to preserve the canal in time of hostilities. The first sound of a cannon in a general European war would, in all probability, annul the treaty of neutrality, and the strategic position of the canal, commanding both oceans might be held by the first naval power that could seize it. If this should be done, the United States would suffer such grave inconvenience and loss in her domestic commerce as would enforce the duty of a defensive and protective war on her part, for the mere purpose of gaining that control which, in advance, she insists is due to her position and demanded by her necessities.

I am not arguing or assuming that a general war, or any war at all, is imminent in Europe. But it must not be forgotten that within the past twenty-five years all the great powers of Europe have been engaged in war—most of them more than once. In only a single instance in the past hundred years has the United States exchanged a hostile shot with any European power. It is in the highest degree improbable that for a hundred years to come even that experience will be repeated.

It consequently becomes evident that the one conclusive mode of preserving any Isthmus canal from the possible distraction and destruction of war is to place it under the control of that government least likely to be engaged in war, and able in any and in every event to enforce the guardianship which she will assume. For self-protection to her own interest, therefore, the United States in the first instance asserts her right to control the Isthmus transit; and, secondly, she offers by such control that absolute neutralization of the canal as respects European powers which can in no other way be certainly attained and lastingly assured.

Another consideration forcibly suggests the necessity of modifying the convention under discussion. At the time it was concluded Great Britain and the United States were the only nations prominent in the commerce of Central and South America. Since that time other leading nations have greatly enlarged their commercial connections with that country, and are to-day contending for suppremacy in the trade of those shores; within the past four years, indeed, the number of French and German vessels landing on the two coasts of Central America far exceeds the number of British vessels.

While, therefore, Great Britain and the United States may agree to do nothing, and according to the present convention each remain bound to the other in common helplessness a third power, or a fourth, or a combination of many, may step in and give direction to the project which the Clayton-Bulwer treaty assumed to be under the sole control of the two English-speaking nations. Indeed, so far as the canal scheme now projected at Panama finds a national sponsor or patron, it is in the Republic of France, and the non-intervention enjoined upon this country by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, if applied to that canal, would paralize the arm of the United States in any attempt to assert the plain rights and privileges which this government acquired through a solemn treaty with the Republic of Colombia, anterior to the Clayton-Bulwer convention. The modification of the treaty of 1850, now sought, is not only to free the United States from unequal and inequitable obligations to Great Britain, but also to empower this government to treat with all other nations seeking a foothold on the Isthmus, on the same basis of impartial justice and independence.

One of the motives that originally induced this government to assent to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, not distinctly expressed in the instrument, but inferable from every line of it, was the expected aid of British capital in the construction of the Nicaraguan Canal. That expectation has not been realized, and the changed condition of this country since 1850 has diminished, if it has not entirely removed from consideration, any advantage to be derived from that source.

Whenever, in the judgment of the United States Government, the times shall be auspicious and the conditions favorable for the construction of the Nicaraguan Canal, no aid will be needed outside of the resources of our own government and people; and while foreign capital will always be welcomed and never repelled, it cannot henceforth enter as an essential factor in the determination of this problem.

It is earnestly hoped by the President that the considerations now presented will have due weight and influence with Her Majesty’s Government, and that the modifications of the treaty desired by the United States will be conceded in the same friendly spirit in which they are asked. The following is a summary of the changes necessary to meet the views of this government:

• First. Every part of the treaty which forbids the United States fortifying the canal and holding the political control of it in conjunction with the country in which it is located to be canceled.
• Second. Every part of the treaty in which Great Britain and the United States agree to make no acquisition of territory in Central America to remain in full force. As an original proposition this government would not admit that Great Britain and the United States should be put on the same basis, even negatively, with respect to territorial acquisitions on the American Continent, and would be unwilling to establish such a precedent without full explanation. But the treaty contains that provision with respect to Central America, and if the United States should seek its annulment it might give rise to erroneous and mischievous apprehensions among a people with whom this government desires to be on the most friendly terms. The United States has taken special occasion to assure the Spanish American Republics to the south of us that we do not intend and do not desire to cross their borders or in any way disturb their territorial integrity, and we shall not willingly incur the risk of a misunderstanding by annulling the clauses in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty which forbid such a step with respect to Central America. The acquisition of military and naval stations necessary for the protection of the canal and voluntarily ceded to the United States by the Central American States is not to be regarded as a violation of the provision contained in the foregoing.
• Third. The United States will not object to maintaining the clause looking to the establishment of a free port at each end of whatever canal may be constructed, if England desires it to be retained.
• Fourth. The clause in which the two governments agreed to make treaty stipulations for a joint protectorate of whatever railway or canal might be constructed at Tehuantepec or Panama has never been perfected. No treaty stipulations for the proposed end have been suggested by either party, although citizens of the United States long since constructed a railway at Panama and are now engaged in the same work at Tehuantepec. It is a fair presumption, in the judgment of the President, that this provision should be regarded as obsolete by the non-action and common consent of the two governments.
• Fifth. The clause defining the distance from either end of the canal where, in time of war, captures might be made by either belligerent on the high seas was left incomplete and the distance was never determined. In the judgment of the President, speaking in the interest of peaceful commerce, this distance should be made as liberal as possible, and might, with advantage, as a question relating to the high seas and common to all nations, be a matter of stipulation between the great powers of the world.

In assuming as a necessity the political control of whatever canal or canals may be constructed across the Isthmus, the United States will act in entire harmony with the governments within whose territory the canals should be located. Between the United States and the other American republics there can be no hostility, no jealousy, no rivalry, no distrust. This government entertains no design in connection with this project for its own advantage which is not also for the equal or greater advantage of the country to be directly and immediately affected, nor does the United States seek any exclusive or narrow commercial advantage. It frankly agrees, and will by public proclamation declare at the proper time in conjunction with the republic on whose soil the canal may be located, that the same rights and privileges, the same tolls and obligations for the use of the canal shall apply with absolute impartiality to the merchant marine of every nation on the globe. And equally, in time of peace, the harmless use of the canal shall be freely granted to the war vessels of other nations. In time of war, aside from the defensive use to be made of it by the country in which it is constructed and by the United States, the canal shall be impartially closed against the war vessels of all belligerents. It is the desire and the determination of the United States that the canal shall be used only for the development and increase of peaceful commerce among all the nations, and shall not be considered a strategic point in warfare which may tempt the aggressions of belligerents, or be seized under the compulsions of military necessity by any of the great powers that may have contests in which the United States has no stake, and will take no part.

If it be asked why the United States objects to the assent of European governments to the terms of neutrality for the operation of the canal, my answer is that the right to assent implies the right to dissent, and thus the whole question would be thrown open for contention as an international issue. It is the fixed purpose of the United States to confine it strictly and solely as an American question, to be dealt with and decided by the American governments.

In presenting the views contained herein to Lord Granville, you will take occasion to say that the Government of the United States seeks this particular time for the discussion as most opportune and auspicious. At no period since the peace of 1783 have the relations between the British and American Governments been so cordial and friendly as now. And I am sure Her Majesty’s Government will find in the views now suggested, and the propositions now submitted, additional evidence of the desire of this government to remove all possible grounds of controversy between two nations, which have so many interests in common, and so many reasons for honorable and lasting peace.

You will at the earliest opportunity acquaint Lord Granville with the purpose of the United States touching the Clayton-Bulwer treaty and, in your own way, you will impress him fully with the views of your government. I refrain from directing that a copy of this instruction be left with his lordship, because, in reviewing the case, I have necessarily been compelled, in drawing illustrations from British policy, to indulge somewhat freely in the argumentum ad hominem. This course of reasoning, in an instruction to our own minister, is altogether legitimate and pertinent, and yet might seem discourteous if addressed directly to the British Government. You may deem it expedient to make this explanation to Lord Granville, and if afterwards he shall desire a copy of this instruction, you will, of course, furnish it.

I am, &c.,

JAMES G. BLAINE.