US Presidency
1854

We supposed we had accomplished that object by the convention of April 19, 1850, which would never have been signed nor ratified on the part of the United States but for the conviction that in virtue of its provisions neither Great Britain nor the United States was thereafter to exercise any territorial sovereignty in fact or in name in any part of Central America, however or whensoever acquired, either before or afterwards. The essential object of the convention the neutralization of the Isthmus -would, of course, become a nullity if either Great Britain or the United States were to continue to hold exclusively islands or mainland of the Isthmus, and more especially if, under any claim of protectorship of Indians, either Government were to remain forever sovereign in fact of the Atlantic shores of the three States of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras. I have already communicated to the two Houses of Congress full information of the protracted and hitherto fruitless efforts which the United States have made to arrange this international question with Great Britain.