US Presidency
1882

* Sent under the same date, mutatis mutandis, to the United States ministers in the Argentine Republic, Bolivia, Brazil, Central America, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay, Peru, and Venezuela; also directly to the minister of foreign relations of Ecuador, in which country the United States had no diplomatic representative. For some years past a growing disposition has been manifested by certain States of Central and South America to refer disputes affecting grave questions of international relationship and boundaries to arbitration rather than to the sword. It has been on several such occasions a source of profound satisfaction to the Government of the United States to see that this country is in a large measure looked to by all the American powers as their friend and mediator. The just and impartial counsel of the President in such cases has never been withheld, and his efforts have been rewarded by the prevention of sanguinary strife or angry contentions between peoples whom we regard as brethren.