[Footnote 11: Correspondence relative to the imprisonment, etc., of James
H. West in the island of Cuba.]
WASHINGTON, _March 14, 1854_.
_To the Senate of the United States_:
In transmitting to the Senate the report of the Secretary of
State, together with the documents therein referred to, being the
correspondence called for by the resolution of that body of the 9th of
January last, I deem it proper to state briefly the reasons which have
deterred me from sending to the Senate for ratification the proposed
convention between the United States of America and the United Mexican
States, concluded by the respective plenipotentiaries of the two
Governments on the 21st day of March, 1853, on the subject of a transit
way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Without adverting to the want of authority on the part of the American
minister to conclude any such convention, or to the action of this
Government in relation to the rights of certain of its citizens under
the grant for a like object originally made to Josè Garay, the
objections to it upon its face are numerous, and should, in my judgment,
be regarded as conclusive.
Prominent among these objections is the fact that the convention binds
us to a foreign Government, to guarantee the contract of a private
company with that Government for the construction of the contemplated
transit way, "to protect the persons engaged and property employed in
the construction of the said work from the commencement thereof to
its completion against all confiscation, spoliation, or violence of
whatsoever nature," and to guarantee the entire security of the capital
invested therein during the continuance of the contract. Such is the
substance of the second and third articles.
Hence it will be perceived that the obligations which this Government is
asked to assume are not to terminate in a few years, or even with the
present generation.
And again: "If the regulations which may be prescribed concerning the
traffic on said transit way shall be clearly contrary to the spirit and
intention of this convention," even then this Government is not to be at
liberty to withdraw its "protection and guaranty" without first giving
one year's notice to the Mexican Government.
When the fact is duly considered that the responsibility of this
Government is thus pledged for a long series of years to the interests
of a private company established for purposes of internal improvement,
in a foreign country, and that country peculiarly subject to civil wars
and other public vicissitudes, it will be seen how comprehensive and
embarrassing would be those engagements to the Government of the United
States.
Not less important than this objection is the consideration that the
United States can not agree to the terms of this convention without
disregarding the provisions of the eighth article of the convention
which this Government entered into with Great Britain on April 19, 1850,
which expressly includes any interoceanic communication whatever by the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec. However inconvenient may be the conditions of
that convention, still they exist, and the obligations of good faith
rest alike upon the United States and Great Britain.
Without enlarging upon these and other questionable features of the
proposed convention which will suggest themselves to your minds, I will
only add that after the most careful consideration I have deemed it my
duty not to ask for its ratification by the Senate.