The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1880-04-23
TIE MONROE DOCTRINE.
Report Of the Committee On Foreign
Relations.


Representative Cox's report from the Com
mittee on Foreign Affairs relative to the Inter
oceanic canal and Monroe doctrine, lately sub
mittcd to the House of Representatives, quotes
ut length from the Presidents message upon
the subject (of March g. 1880, and severely
arraisns the policy of Clayton in seeking to in
duce Great Britain to abandon her own nm
founded claim upon the territory of an indie
pendent Spanish-American state, and inviting
her to share with the duty and priv
lleSe peculiarly our own OF protecting an inter
oceanic communication OF infinite interest
and concern to this country. Having blundered
thus a. the outset, the report says, he went into
the most complicated and ill-arranged series OF
transactions, the final outcome OF which was
the treaty with Great Britain Of April 49, 1850,
known as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.
The report continues Fortunately for the
country, the Clayton-Bulwer treaty had scarcely
come into operation before its fundamental
provisions were violated by Great Britain by the
nring upon the American steamer Prometheus
Nov. II, 1850, while she was going out Of the
port Of San Juan de Nicaragua, by the English
brig Of war Express, then lying in the port to
enforce British dominion over that part Of
Nicaragua Other similar infringenlents fol-
lowed, the most conspicuous of these being the
deliberate establishment by Great Britain, on
the 18th of July, 1852, Of q "new colony" in
Central America, OF the coast OF Honduras
under the name Of the Colony of the Ebay
islands, by and on account of which Mr.. Cass
in the Senate III January 1883, declared the
treaty to have been virtually nulliied by Great
Britain.
The report then details the negotiations and
controversies between this Government and
Great Britain growing out Of these occurrences
and the Intellectual efforts to negotiate q new
treaty, coming down to 1860, and continues
The outbreak, soon after this, of our unhappy
domestic troubles and great civil war diverted
public attention from Central American ques-
TONS and the ill-advised Clayton-Bulwer treaty
was gradually suffered on both sides
it has but recently been evoked
by persons disposed to controvert the
policy and purposes of the United States with
regard to any protectorate of life and property
over any part of the Central American states on
the isthmus The circumstances In which this
treaty was originally negotiated have been pro-
foundry modified by the lapse of thirty years.
and it appears to your committee to be entirely
clear that, as an obstacle and possible
peril in the way Of complete and pacific
assertion Of the sound, necessary, and Wig
orous American policy laid down in the
Presidents message OF March 3, 1880,
this treaty should now be finally and formally
abrogated. 1t has been shown to have led only
to great misunderstanding and controversies
with the power with which we were unwisely led
TO make 1t. 1t has always been equally inoper-
alive either to guarantee the independence of
Central American states or to advance the gem
eral interests of commerce. So long az it has
even formal shadow of existence it cannot but
tend to cloud and obscure the perfectly simple
just and equitable policy of the United States
in regard to interoceanic transit. Your COM
mittee, therefore. recommend the passage of
the following resolution:
" ResolUed BY the Senate and House of Rep
resentatives assembled, That the President of
the United States be and he is hereby respect
fully requested if the same in his opinion shall
not be incompatible with public interest, to take
immediate steps for the formal and final abro-
cation of the convention of April 10, 1850, be-
tween the United States of America and her
Canal Treaty. or 'Clayton-Bulwer Treaty."