Mr. Gresham to Mr. Baker.
Washington, August 15, 1893.
Sir: I have received your Nos. 44 and 47, of the 14th and 17th ultimo, respectively. They relate to the political disturbances in Nicaragua in consequence of the imprisonment of President Machado and the minister for foreign affairs at Leon, and report the circumstances under which General Zavala was proclaimed Dictator.
In reply I desire to state that the shifting course of present events in Nicaragua precludes any positive instructions looking to the recognition of any one party as the dominant Government of the Republic. The long established rule of the United States is to maintain relations with the power having control of the public machinery of government with the assent of the people, and administering the functions of the state.
Your present dispatches and the later telegraphic reports published in the press do not indicate such a stable retention of public power as to warrant formal action by the United States in recognition of a government in Nicaragua as being titular and effective. In such case the minister should remain in intercourse with the authorities in control of the seat of Government, looking to them for the protection of the interests of American citizens.
To avert embarrassments in dealing with evenly-balanced factions, alternating in power or succeeding thereto in the changes of civil contest, the minister’s tact should be exercised to confine his relations with the ascendant authority to questions affecting the public interests of the United States and the security of American life and property in Nicaragua, thus giving to his intercourse a provisional and de facto character, without sympathetic leaning to either side, and without prejudice to the fullest liberty on the part of the United States to declare formal recognition of the government which shall eventually establish itself on a firm basis and effectively administer the affairs of the state and insure orderly respect ibr its acts by the people of the nation.
I am, etc.,