Northern Ohio journal. [volume] (Painesville, Ohio) 1872-1896, 1880-04-24
Report Of the House Committee on the
Monroe Doctrine.
WASHINGTON. ApriI II6.

WASHINGTON, April ID.
Representative Cox's report from the Com
mittee on Foreign Affairs relative to the Inter
Oceanic Canal and Monroe doctrine, quotes at
length from the Presidents Message upon the
subject (of March Sth, 1880, and severely ar
raigns the policy of Clayton in seeking to in
duce Great Britain to abandon her own un-
founded claims upon the territory of an indie
pendent Spanish American State and inviting
her to share with us the duty and privilege pc
cu1iarly our own of protecting an inter-oceanic
communication of infinite interest and concern
to this country. Having blundered thus at the
outset, the report says, he went into the most
complicated and ill-arranged series of transac-
tions, the final outcome of which was the
treaty with Great Britain of April 10, 1850,
known as the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.
The report continues: Fortunately for
scarcely come into operation before its funda-
mental provisions were violated by Great
Britain by the firing upon the American
steamer Promethus, November q, 1850, while
Nicaragua, by the English brig of war Ex-
press, then lying in that port to enforce a
British dominion over that part of Mica
ragua.' Other similar infringements followed,
crate establishment by Great Britain, on the
18th of July, 1852 of new colony in Central
America, Off the coast of Honduras, under the
name of the Colony of the Bay Islands, by and
on account of which Mr. Cass, in the Senate in
January, 1853, declared the treaty to have been
virtually nullifed 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 new
treaty coming down to 1850, and continues :
The outbreak soon after this of our unhappy
domestic troubles and the great civil war di-
verted public attention from Central American
questions, and the ill-advised Clayton-Bulwer
treaty was gradually suffered on both sides to
lapse into an oblivion from which it has but
recently been evoked by persons disposed to
controvert the policy and purposes of the Uni
ted States with regard to any protectorate of
Life and property over any part of the Central
American States on the Isthmus. The cir
cumstances in which this treaty was origi-
nally negotiated have been profoundly modi-
fled by the lapse of thirty years, and it appears
to your committee to be entirely clear that, as
an obstacle and possible periled way of COM
sary, and vigorous American policy laid
down in the Presidents message of March
Sth, 1880, this treaty should now be finally
and formally abrogated. 1t has been
shown to have led only to great misunderstood
ings and controversies with the power with
which we were unwisely led to make it. 1t
has always been equally imperative either to
guarantee the independence of the Central
American States or to advance the general in
terests of commerce. So long as it has even a
to cloud and obscure the perfectly simple, just
and equitable policy of the United States in
regard to Inter-oceanic transit. Your COM
mittee therefore recommend the passage of the
following joint resolution:
Resotued. By the Senate and House of Repre-
sentatlves 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 imcompatible with public Interest. to
take immediate steps for the formal and final
sbrogation of the conyention of April 49,, 1850,
Britanic Majesty commonly called the Ship
Canal treaty or !" Clayton-Bulwer treaty"