The President of Mexico accepts the invitation. I am, &c,
[Inclosure in No.
375.—Translation.]
Señor Mariscal to
Mr. Morgan.
Department for Foreign Relations,
Mexico, March 23, 1882.
Mr. Minister: I have the honor to reply to your
excellency’s note of the 15th December last past, in which, referring to
our interview of the same day, and to the important dispatch which, on
the 29th of November, had been addressed to you from Washington, by the
honorable Secretary of State, of which document you were pleased to
furnish me a copy, inviting, in the name of the Government of the United
States of America, the President of the United States of Mexico to send
two commissioners to a general congress of all the independent nations
of North and South America, to meet in Washington on the 24th November,
1882, with the view of examining and discussing the methods by which war
may be avoided between the nations of America; said commissioners to be
instructed and to be clothed with necessary powers to fulfill the trust
confided to them.
The object which your excellency’s goyernment has in view by this
invitation deserves the most sincere approbation and applause of the
government to which it is addressed.
[Page 386]
To avoid the evils of war which the Hon. Mr. Blaine, in few words, so
eloquently describes is, no doubt, a most noble aspiration and of the
greatest importance (trans-eendencia”) to the progress, moral and
material, of the peoples, and which involves the grandest results to
humanity., So interesting a project, which is its own recommendation to
all the nations of the globe, acquires a double importance when
it.relatee to populations, such as are those of the new world, united
either by ties of consanguinity or by a community of political
institutions, or at least by this peculiar position which they all hold
towards the nations of the Old World. It is certain that no American
government can or at least should feel less impressively than that of
your excellency, the dangers and horrors of war, above all if the
contest should arise between people of the same kindred (pueblos
hermanos); and it is equally certain that no chief of a government on
the continent discovered by Columbus, could be less sensible than the
President of the United States of America to the necessity of putting an
end to these fratricidal strifes. The whole difficulty, if one presents
itself, is in the practical method by which an end as justly applauded
as it is universally aspired for may be brought about.
The attitude which the Washington Government has assumed in this
humanitarian enterprise is entitled to the eulogy of the entire world
and to the most favorable considerations of the nations interested
therein. Your excellency’s government deserves particular encomiums for
its respect for the right, in not distinguishing between the weak and
the strong, when it protests that it does not pretend either to dictate
or compel in this question, but only shows the good will and
disinterested solicitude of a friend. While protesting against the use
of force for the purpose of promoting ite absolute proscription between
the American nations, the one which amongst them undertakes so generous
a propaganda is the least interested, because her great resources make
war less terrible to her. It certainly cannot be alleged that she has
used her position as the principal power in the New World to impose
authoritatively the methods of settling disputes between her neighbors,
except by appealing, as she has done, to an amicable judgment to the end
of arriving at a free agreement, the only fountain of obligations and
rights for sovereign entities.
Since 1853 this government has been pledged to this excellent design, in
consequence of a recommendation to the President by the Senate, to the
effect that he should, on all occasions in which it should be possible,
to insert in treaties an article by which it should be agreed to submit
the difficulties which might arise between the contracting parties to
the decision of arbitrators chosen by a common accord; and even anterior
to that date—that is to say in 1848—there was inserted, within prudent
limits, a similar clause in the treaty of peace concluded in that year
between our two nations.
It is not, therefore, surprising that the United States should now submit
generally the same idea to all the American states, nor that Mexico
should be willing to adopt it. The Mexican Government, which found
itself, with regret, unable to accept the invitation of Colombia to take
part, through its representatives, in a congress which was to have
assembled at Panama with the object of entering into a treaty similar to
the one which Colombia had made with Chili, by which she would be
compromised for all time to submit to arbitration every question which
might arise between the contracting governments; this government which
admires and applauds the tendencies of such an agreement, did not then
consider itself prepared, from consideration of the just and legitimate
interests which it is called upon to defend (to accept said
proposition), to-day has the satisfaction to observe that in the
prospect of an American Peace Congress, suggested by your excellency’s
government, the serious difficulties which prevented it from
participating in the one projected by Colombia have been done away
with.
To-day it is seen that in the (proposed) congress all the nations of
America, without excluding any of them either because of their peculiar
form of government, or from the superior elements of power which they
may possess, are to be admitted, and that all should contract the same
obligations upon the footing of perfect equality, circumstances which
give to the actual present project a practical importance which was
wanting in the other to this republic.
On the other hand, although the project of the United States does not
prescribe the measures necessary to be taken to avoid war nor propose
the draft of a definite convention, it consequently leaves the parties
in interest complete liberty to discuss and stipulate upon these points,
and to designate, in case arbitration should be adopted, cases which are
to be submitted to it, and those cases in which its application is to be
reputed impossible.
Moreover, the assembling of the commissioners being fixed for a date in
which the questions now pending (to those who may be interested, which
thing should be respected) will have had their solution or will have
disappeared completely.
For these reasons the Mexican Government does not, at this time, feel the
inconveniences which heretofore embarrassed it, and deems it compatible
with the national interests to send its representatives to an assembly
which will discuss what measures may be taken to secure peace on the
American continent.
[Page 387]
In consequence of which the president of this republic accepts with
pleasure the invitation which, through your excellency, the President of
the United States of America has tendered him to send two
representatives to the International American Congress which is to meet
in Washington on the 24th November next.
Reiterating, &c.,
