THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A CENTRAL AMERICAN FEDERATION
Strength of the Unionist Idea--Breakdown of the First
Federation--Attempts to Establish a New Union--Obstacles to the
Formation of such a Union at Present--Advantages which would be
Derived from Federation--The Attitude of the United States.
The ideal of uniting Central America under one government has been
one of the strongest forces which have influenced internal politics
and international relations in the Isthmus from the declaration of
independence down to the present day. Realizing that the five countries
can never be really independent of one another, and that the interests
of all would be best served by joining forces for their common ends,
the majority of their statesmen have always been, and are today,
perhaps more than ever, desirous of seeing them transformed from a
group of small, disorderly republics into one strong nation, able to
promote the interests of its people and to command respect from foreign
powers. Such a nation, with its five millions of inhabitants, its
fertile soil, and its great natural resources, would, they believe,
be able to assume a position of importance in the councils of Latin
America and to make great strides towards better government and towards
a more complete realization of economic opportunities at home. In the
last five years especially, increasing contact and occasional friction
with other powers have drawn the five states closer together than ever
before, for the problems created by the invasion of foreign financial
interests and by the intervention of foreign governments in their
internal affairs have made them realize more than ever the dangers to
which their divided condition and their quarrels among themselves
expose them. The pressure from outside has given rise to a stronger
sentiment of their common nationality and to a fuller realization of
the identity of their interests than could exist while they were still
almost shut off from intercourse with other countries.
There are many influences which make the relations between the five
countries closer than those which ordinarily exist between neighboring
independent states. Their administrative union during the three
centuries of Spanish rule and their entry together into the family
of nations not only created a strong sentimental tie between them,
but also gave rise to political problems common to them all, and
to political parties which regarded not individual states but the
Isthmus as a whole as their theater of activity. The factions which
arose during the years of the Federation kept up an international
organization after the dissolution of the central government, and
Conservatives in Guatemala, or Liberals in Salvador and Nicaragua,
interfered from time to time to promote the interests of their
parties in other countries throughout the nineteenth century. Even at
the present time, each state has too much interest in the internal
affairs of its neighbors to remain indifferent when revolutions or
other political changes occur. As a result of this situation, men
of the same way of thinking have been brought into closer relations
with one another, and have been made to feel, by their co-operation
for common political ends, that they were, in fact, citizens of one
Central American nation. This feeling has been strengthened by the
custom of exiling the leaders of the defeated party after revolutions,
which has encouraged travel from one country to another, and by the
fact that many of the prominent families of the Isthmus are related to
one another by intermarriage. The five republics, moreover, are all
confronted with the same economic problems, in developing their natural
resources, improving their agricultural methods, and securing capital
for the construction of railroads and other public works; and they have
much in common in their civilization, and especially in the customs
and ways of thought of the upper classes, despite the wide divergences
between them in racial and social conditions.
In 1821, when the authority of Spain was thrown off, it was supposed as
a matter of course that the provinces of what had been the Viceroyalty
of Guatemala would continue to be united under one government. The
Constituent Assembly which met after the dissolution of the short-lived
union with Mexico was therefore following the logical course laid down
for it by the history and the existing political organization of the
five countries, as well as by the ideas of the political theorists
among its members, when it adopted a constitution providing for a
federal republic. The stormy history of the government thus established
has already been sketched. The Federation fell to pieces partly
because of local jealousies and the conflicts of local interests,
and partly because of faults in its constitution and weaknesses in
its administration. The civil war which existed in almost all of the
states, and the strife between the different departments of the central
government itself, made it impossible for the latter to establish
a constitutional regime or permanently to exercise any real power.
The states, jealous of the control of their affairs from Guatemala,
respected the orders of the federal authorities only when it suited
their convenience to do so; and these authorities, in order to maintain
their position, were forced to intervene in the internal affairs of the
states to establish administrations subservient to their wishes. There
was thus a series of revolutions and counter revolutions, until within
a few years both the national and local governments had become mere
despotisms which depended for support solely upon the federal army. It
was impossible for a centralized military regime to exist very long in
a country where means of communication between the different sections
were so inadequate, and where the centrifugal forces were so strong
as they were in the turbulent, mutually jealous communities of the
Isthmus. The federal government had less and less real power after the
first term of President Morazán, and in 1840 it disappeared entirely
with the expulsion of its representatives from Central America.
The disastrous failure of the federal republic convinced many of the
statesmen of the Isthmus that their countries would be better off
as separate states. This feeling was especially strong among the
Conservatives in Guatemala, who for more than thirty years were the
greatest obstacle to the restoration of the Union. The great families’
opposition to a political connection with the other states seems to
have arisen from the memory of the expense to which they had been
put in supporting the federal authorities before 1829, and of their
sufferings at the hands of the Liberals from Honduras and Salvador,
who overwhelmed and subjugated them in that year. Costa Rica, at the
other extreme of the Isthmus, had also withdrawn formally from the
Federation, inspired by motives much similar to those which actuated
Guatemala. Unlike the latter country, however, she was able because
of her isolated position to remain entirely aloof from the political
struggles elsewhere, and only on one or two occasions was forced to
take notice of the agitation to which the activities of the Unionist
party periodically gave rise.
Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras, on the other hand, refused to
accept the dissolution of the first union as a final settlement of the
relation of the states to one another. Many of the leaders in those
countries had taken part in the defeat of Morazán, but they had done
so from personal hostility to the federal president rather than from a
desire for the destruction of the federal government. The restoration
of the Union was championed by the Liberal party, but it was also
favored by many of the Conservatives, despite the influence exerted
upon the latter by their allies in Guatemala. There were a number of
factors which tended to draw the three central republics together.
With their _mestizo_ population, they resembled one another in their
economic and social conditions far more than they resembled Guatemala,
with its primitive Indian tribes, on the one hand, or white Costa Rica
on the other; and thus no one of them was influenced, as were those
countries, by a consciousness that its internal problems were entirely
different from those of its neighbors. Furthermore, their jealousy of
the superior power of Guatemala, and the alarm caused by Carrera’s
repeated interventions in their affairs during his dictatorship in that
country, greatly strengthened their desire to unite their forces for
purposes of mutual defense. Great Britain’s aggressions on the East
Coast of Nicaragua and Honduras had the same result after 1848. Between
1840 and the invasion of Nicaragua by Walker in 1854, hardly a year
passed without the meeting of a congress to discuss plans for forming
a union, at least between these three countries. As a rule these
congresses adjourned without achieving any definite result, finding
their work made hopeless by the intrigues of the separatist party in
Guatemala and by the mutual mistrust of the participating states, but
twice a federal government in which neither Guatemala nor Costa Rica
was represented was actually established. A third attempt to unite
the central republics was made forty years later, at the end of the
nineteenth century.
The history of these abortive unions affords an instructive
illustration of the influences which have kept the five states apart.
In 1842, delegates from Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua met at
Chinandega, in the last named republic, and adopted a treaty providing
not so much for a central government as for a confederation, in which
each state was left free to manage its own affairs, even to the extent
of carrying on diplomatic relations and making war. The only common
authority was a council, consisting of one delegate from each republic
and presided over by a Supreme Delegate, and a supreme court chosen by
the state legislatures. This government sent troops to aid Salvador
in a war between that country and Guatemala in 1844, and finally
succeeded in bringing the war to an end through the mediation of Frutos
Chamorro, the Supreme Delegate. The confederation came to an abrupt and
disastrous end in the same year, however, when Salvador and Honduras
attacked Nicaragua because the latter had granted asylum to political
exiles from these countries.[33]
In 1849, the central republics again signed a treaty of confederation
which provided for common action in foreign affairs and a union for
purposes of defense. Their action was inspired by the encroachment
of Great Britain on the territory of Nicaragua and Honduras on the
Mosquito Coast. The council of commissioners to which the management
of the affairs of the confederation was intrusted accomplished little;
but in 1852, in the face of renewed foreign complications, a diet met
at Tegucigalpa to make the union between the three countries closer and
to establish, if possible, a real federal government. The diet elected
a president, and adopted a constitution giving that official power, not
only to represent the three republics in their dealings with foreign
powers, but also to intervene by force in the internal affairs of the
states, when it was necessary to maintain order. Disapproving of this
provision, Salvador and Nicaragua refused to ratify the constitution,
and the diet dissolved.[34]
Although the Conservatives of the central republics had been less
hostile to the restoration of the federation than were the great
families of Guatemala, they took little interest in plans for a
union after these two failures. During their thirty years’ rule in
Nicaragua, therefore, that country did not enter into another attempt
to accomplish what was regarded as primarily the ideal of the opposite
party. With Salvador and Costa Rica, in fact, it opposed and defeated
the projects of Rufino Barrios in 1885. It was not until the accession
of President Zelaya that the Nicaraguan government again showed itself
ready to enter into projects for the restoration of the federation.
In 1895, the representatives of the three central republics, meeting
at Amapala, drew up a treaty establishing a diet, composed of one
member from each country, to which was intrusted the conduct of their
relations with one another and with other nations. This body was to
elaborate a definite plan for a closer, permanent union.[35] The
federation assumed the name “Greater Republic of Central America,”
and at once took steps to enter into diplomatic relations with the
powers.[36] During the next two years a constitution was drawn up, and
in the autumn of 1898 an executive council, with far broader powers
than the old diet, was installed in Amapala. It had scarcely assembled,
however, when the party opposed to the union in Salvador overthrew
the government of that state, and declared the federation at an end.
The council called upon the presidents of Nicaragua and Honduras
to send troops to uphold its authority, but neither executive was
willing to make war upon the new government of Salvador. The union was
consequently dissolved.[37]
The failure of the federations created by the treaties of 1842, 1849,
and 1895 did not indicate that a real union of the five countries
would be impracticable, because a real union was not attempted.
The political leaders who were in control in Salvador, Honduras,
and Nicaragua theoretically favored the establishment of a central
government, but they were loath to surrender to it any real power
or to confer upon it any right of control over themselves. They
insisted upon keeping the management of the state armies, finances,
and administrative machinery in their own hands, and they therefore
conferred upon the federal officials only an indefinite authority,
backed by no military force, which they respected and supported only
so long and in so far as it suited their own interests to do so.
The unions thus established were not nations, but mere leagues of
independent states. Each came to an inglorious end as soon as the rapid
changes of Central American politics brought to the front in one of the
states an administration which was not in sympathy with the men who
controlled the central government.
The apparent impossibility of restoring the federation by the voluntary
action of the five republics convinced many of the strongest advocates
of a union that their ideal could be realized only by the use of force.
It was this belief which led Rufino Barrios, the first great Liberal
president of Guatemala, to embark on the disastrous adventure which
caused his death. Soon after his accession to power, Barrios endeavored
to persuade the presidents of the other republics to agree to some form
of federation. The latter declined to enter into any definite treaty,
although negotiations upon the subject were carried on intermittently
for several years. The United States, when invited to participate in
these efforts, declined to interfere, although warmly approving the
plan for a union.[38] The equivocal attitude of his neighbors, and
their refusal either to agree to or to reject his proposals, finally
convinced Barrios that the people of the Isthmus favored his plans,
but that the governments would consent only if they were compelled
to. On February 28, 1885, therefore, he announced that he had assumed
command of the military forces of the Central American Federation, and
invited the other states to recognize the new government, and to send
delegates to a constituent assembly which was to meet in Guatemala City
in May of the same year. Honduras expressed approval of his action and
placed troops at his disposal, but all of the other countries of the
Isthmus at once began to raise armies to defend their independence.
President Zaldívar of Salvador, upon whose aid Barrios had confidently
counted, yielded to the popular demand for resistance to the aggression
of that republic’s traditional enemy, and sent an army which defeated
the forces of Guatemala at Chalchuapa, on April 2, 1885. The death of
Barrios in this battle disheartened his followers, and put an end to a
war which could not have failed to have involved every section of the
Isthmus if it had continued.
An ambition to place himself at the head of a restored Central American
nation has influenced more than one Central American president in his
dealings with the neighboring countries. Few have actually gone so far
as Barrios did, but the same idea which inspired the Guatemalan leader
has often influenced powerful rulers to intervene openly or covertly in
the internal affairs of the other states, and has thus frequently been
a cause of revolutions and international wars. The most recent attempt
to unite the five countries by force was made in 1907. In that year
President Zelaya of Nicaragua overthrew the government of President
Bonilla in Honduras, and set up a new one, under Miguel Dávila, which
was practically controlled by himself. He then proceeded to attack
Salvador, inspired by the idea of establishing a Central American
union,--an idea which, as he said, was at the time being advocated
with enthusiasm by the press of Central America, the United States,
and Mexico.[39] The war which followed was brought to an end by the
mediation of President Roosevelt and President Porfirio Díaz.
At the Washington Conference, which met a few months later, the
delegates of Honduras, supported by those of Nicaragua, formally
proposed that a treaty of union be signed, and stated that the
presidents of those countries were ready to lay down their offices
if that were necessary to make the execution of the treaty possible.
This motion nearly caused the disruption of the conference, for
the delegates from Guatemala opposed it, and those from Costa Rica
objected even to its being discussed. The representatives from
Salvador, who were at first inclined to favor the plan, voted against
it as inopportune after receiving instructions to do so from their
government, and the matter was finally dropped. The arguments advanced
by the advocates and the opponents of this project give a good idea
of Central American opinion in regard to the establishment of a
union. Señor Fiallos, one of the delegates from Honduras, emphasized
the necessity for a federation to put an end to the wars between the
states. These, he said, were only civil wars which had crossed the
national boundaries, for there were no real antipathies or conflicting
interests between the various countries. He dwelt upon the expense of
keeping up five separate governments and armies,--an expense which
prevented the use of the national revenues for the development of
the country. The majority of the committee appointed to consider the
matter, on the other hand, admitted that the Union was the greatest
and noblest aspiration of Central American patriotism, but affirmed
that it could not be brought about until the economic, moral,
political, and material conditions of the five republics had been
harmonized. It recommended for the present the discussion of measures
which might prepare the way for the Union, such as the improvement
of communications, the encouragement of the coasting trade, the
establishment of uniform fiscal systems and customs duties, the holding
of annual Central American conferences, and the creation of a court of
compulsory arbitration.[40]
There seems little probability that a stable and enduring federal
government could be established in Central America at the present
time. Even a union brought about by the voluntary action of the five
countries would almost inevitably fall to pieces sooner or later,
however patriotic the spirit which presided at its formation. The
centrifugal forces would be no stronger, perhaps, than they were in the
North American states before 1787, but they would be fatal because it
would be impossible to provide political machinery for settling them.
The establishment of a constitutional and orderly administration for
the five states together would be as difficult as it has been for each
state alone, for the mere fact of union could effect little change in
political methods or political morality, and none in the capacity of
the people for self-government. The nature of the economic and social
conditions in the four northern countries makes it inevitable that any
administration under which they were united, if at all centralized,
should be a regime of force, similar to that which already prevails
in each country. Real elections could no more be held throughout the
entire Isthmus than they can be held in any one state today, and in
the absence of elections there would be no means of changing the
authorities of the federation except by revolution or by a compromise,
not between three or four political groups, as in Nicaragua or Honduras
today, but between a large number, few of which could be represented
in the new government. The unfriendly feeling between different
sections, which is still strong among both the upper classes and the
common people, and the inevitable jealousy of the small states towards
the larger ones would sooner or later cause dissatisfaction with
the working of the federal system, and quarrels over such questions
as the distribution of offices and the expenditure of money on
internal improvements. These difficulties would be intensified by the
differences in civilization, and consequently in political requirements
and in points of view between the more and the less advanced republics.
It is hard to see how these conflicting interests could be reconciled
by a government whose officials and subjects have as yet never learned
the value of compromise, or the necessity of respecting the will of the
majority and the rights of the minority.
The obstacles to the formation of a permanent union by the voluntary
action of the five states would be still greater in the case of one
brought about by force. An able leader, supported by the unionist party
in each of the countries, might impose a federal government on the
entire Isthmus for a time, but he would meet with immense difficulties
in upholding his authority against hostile political groups because
of the difficulty of sending troops and supplies from one section to
another. While it endured, his regime could only be a personal one.
The dissatisfied elements might be held in check temporarily, but they
would tear the Union to pieces with the more fury when the ruler who
had founded it was forced by his death or by a defeat at the hands of
his enemies to relinquish his hold upon the supreme power.
The difficulties in the way of uniting the five republics would not be
insuperable if the ruling classes were genuinely ready to co-operate in
realizing the national ideal, but the men who enjoy the high offices
and the control of the revenues of the state governments show a decided
reluctance to giving up any of their power for the common good. The
local political groups and the influential families would necessarily
be reduced to a position of far less importance if the union were
accomplished; and the realization of this fact makes many of those
who are most enthusiastic in their advocacy of a Central American
Federation slow to take any definite steps towards its realization. It
is not difficult for the state authorities to frustrate the endeavors
of the Unionist party, because the common people and even the majority
of the upper classes show little real interest in the measures which
are from time to time proposed for actually bringing the five republics
together. Educated and patriotic people, at least in the four northern
countries, express themselves in favor of union, but they nevertheless
bring little influence to bear on their governments to support projects
aiming to bring nearer the time when a Central American nation can
be established. The international conferences provided for by the
Washington Conventions of 1907, to take a recent example, met regularly
for several years to discuss the common interests of the five republics
and to formulate plans for bringing them closer together, but they were
finally suppressed because the state authorities had failed, apparently
from pure indifference, to carry out any of their excellent and for the
most part perfectly practical recommendations. The realization of the
national ideal will not be possible until this indifference disappears
and a broader patriotism takes the place of the jealousy and mistrust
which influences the relations of the states to one another at the
present time.
Moreover, a permanent union will be all but impossible until a change
has taken place in the political conditions of the Isthmus. No central
government could long endure unless it commanded the active support
of a strong party in every one of the states, and such a party could
hardly exist on the basis of cliques, resting largely on local feeling
and personal and family ties, such as those which today dominate the
political affairs of the five republics. An administration set up under
present conditions could only maintain itself by playing off against
one another the rival factions in the states, thus bringing about a
situation similar to that which caused unbroken turmoil during the
life of the first federation. To secure a solid basis for the creation
of a Central American nation, the control of politics must be taken
out of the hands of the factions as they are at present organized,
through an increased participation in the government by the people at
large. The spread of popular education and the introduction of foreign
ideas throughout the Isthmus makes such a change by no means a distant
probability. When it takes place, questions of personal and purely
local interests, which are now so prominent in affairs of state, will
be relegated to the background, and one of the forces which operates
most strongly to keep the states apart will thus be removed.
The relations between the five republics would be closer if the means
of intercommunication were better. Although each country possesses
railroads and cart roads, which give the majority a comparatively
adequate internal transportation system, they are connected with one
another only by the roughest of mule paths. Very little commerce passes
over these, and journeys overland from one capital to another are beset
by many difficulties. Travelers from one country to another, in fact,
almost invariably prefer to make use of the expensive and not very
comfortable steamers which run at rare and irregular intervals between
the ports of the West Coast. This lack of transportation facilities not
only tends to isolate the five republics from one another, but also
makes much more difficult the problem of establishing a government able
to exercise an effective military control over all of them. The gradual
improvement of interstate communications will overcome this difficulty,
and will also make possible a far greater interchange of products.
The strong unionist sentiment which exists in the four northern
countries is not shared by the people of Costa Rica, who regard the
idea of throwing in their lot with that of the other republics with an
aversion which makes their participation in the re-establishment of the
federation very doubtful. The Costa Ricans, having successfully held
aloof from the disorders in other parts of the Isthmus, have little
desire to accept any plan which might involve them in the quarrels of
their neighbors. They are loath to exchange their free institutions
for the military government which prevails around them, or to give up
their position as an independent nation to become an unimportant part
of a country in which a majority of the inhabitants, and therefore
presumably of the voters, would be backward _mestizos_ or uncivilized
Indians. Rather inclined to be self-centered and self-satisfied,
they show little sympathy with the nationalist aspirations of their
neighbors, and they are perfectly contented, for the present at least,
to continue their peaceful development in their own way.
The free people of Costa Rica could hardly be expected to submit to
such a government as social conditions have made inevitable in some of
the republics. The differences in the internal situation of the five
countries are really the most discouraging obstacle to the realization
of the dream of Central American Union. Guatemala, for instance, with
forty per cent of the inhabitants of the Isthmus, must under any fair
plan of organization have a preponderant influence in the councils of
the federation. Her wealth and her dense Indian population, which is
more pliable in the hands of the officials than are the _ladinos_ of
the other countries, would give those who controlled her administrative
machinery a dangerous power when dissensions arose within the
federation. It is unthinkable that elections there should be anything
but a farce for generations to come, for the Indians, untouched for the
most part by the changes which are improving the position of the common
people in other parts of the Isthmus, must for a period impossible to
calculate remain under the political control of the upper classes. For
the smaller and weaker countries, therefore, the union would present
many very serious dangers. Human ingenuity could hardly devise a form
of government able to maintain itself against disaffected factions, and
to cope with the conditions existing in the less advanced parts of the
Isthmus, which would at the same time be acceptable to the people of
the more enlightened sections.
The realization of this difficulty has led many Central American
leaders to advocate a confederation, in which each state should
be left free to manage its own affairs, rather than a centralized
federal government. As we have seen, however, unions of this kind have
several times been attempted, and have in every case been a failure.
The states which were parties to them showed little respect for the
central authorities, and refused to allow the latter to exercise any
real power. On several occasions, war broke out between the very
states which were parties to the confederation. No Central American
Union, while present political conditions continue, can be permanent
or beneficial unless the government is given real power, not only to
represent the Union in international relations, but also to maintain
order and enforce the law throughout its territory. If the individual
states retained the control of their military forces, or if they were
under administrations which were not in harmony with the national
authorities, the federation could only expect a short and stormy
life. To establish a decentralized administration would be to invite
disaffection and revolution, for each local government would become
almost inevitably a center of intrigues against the _status quo_. It
is only necessary to recall the history of the first Central American
Federation to appreciate the dangers which a half-way measure of union
would involve.
The union of the five republics under a central government strong
enough to maintain order and make itself respected would in many ways
greatly improve their position. One nation of five million inhabitants,
with a rich territory 172,000 square miles in area, would be in a far
better position to deal with the rest of the world commercially and
diplomatically than five petty states whose quarrels make them one
another’s worst enemies. If the peoples of the Isthmus were able to
present a united front, instead of intriguing with foreign governments
against one another’s tranquillity or forcing those governments to
intervene in Central American affairs by inciting revolutions or
engaging in wars against neighboring states, one of the most serious
dangers which today threatens their independence would be done away
with. Other countries would of course rather deal with one central
authority than with five petty ones. The United States especially,
which cannot remain indifferent to the disorders arising from the
dissensions and the rival ambitions of Central American rulers, because
of its immense interests in the Caribbean Sea and the obligations which
it assumed in connection with the Washington conventions of 1907, could
not but welcome any change which promised to make for peace.
The suppression of the present governments, with their heavy
expenditures, would effect an economy which would be of the greatest
importance to countries suffering from so many financial difficulties
as do those of Central America. In the first place, the cost of
maintaining five separate presidents, with their suites, cabinets, and
diplomatic corps, which is one of the heavy burdens upon the national
treasury today, could be eliminated, and many other unnecessary
officials could be dispensed with. Military expenditures could also
be cut down, for the armies of the several states are maintained in
part at least for use against one another. With the money thus saved,
the improvement of means of communication and the development of
natural resources could be undertaken on a larger scale than ever
before, and could moreover be carried on without encountering many
of the obstacles which interstate jealousy now puts in the way. Much
more progress than is possible at present could be made in such
matters as public instruction, sanitation, and the encouragement of
agriculture; and problems like the development of markets for Central
American exports and the protection of the national resources against
excessive exploitation by foreign capitalists could be dealt with more
effectively by united action. To obtain these benefits, however, there
must be a central government able to preserve order and to make its
authority respected in all parts of the Isthmus, for one which could
not fulfill these requirements would be worse than none at all.
Projects for the federation of the Central American republics have
always aroused a friendly interest in the United States, where there
has been a hope that the Union would promote the stability and the
political and economic progress of the Isthmus. As early as 1859,
President Buchanan secretly offered to support Juan Rafael Mora, who
had just been exiled from Costa Rica, in an attempt to make himself
president of a restored Central American Union, promising to aid
him by sending two warships as an evidence of moral support. Mora
refused, however, on the ground that such a Union, even if it could
be established, would in the end be harmful to the best interests of
Costa Rica, which would be involved by it in the civil wars of the
other countries.[41] Some years later, Secretary Blaine expressed the
sympathy of the State Department with Barrios’ projects for uniting
the five countries, although he declined to intervene or to express
approval of the use of force in accomplishing them.[42] In 1907, before
and after the Washington Conference, there was a considerable amount of
discussion of the question in the United States both by officials and
by the press.
More recently, the intervention of the United States in the
international affairs of the Isthmus, and even in the internal affairs
of some of the republics, has made its attitude towards the question
of re-establishing the Union more important than ever before.[43]
Many of the leading statesmen of the Isthmus believe today that the
establishment of a strong and permanent federal government can only
be brought about through active aid from Washington. On the other
hand, it has been vehemently asserted that the establishment of what
is virtually an American protectorate over Nicaragua has made it
impossible that the other countries should join in any union with her
until the policy of the United States is reversed, since they would
subject themselves by doing so to the same foreign domination. Whether
this view is entirely justified may well be doubted. In the first
place, no permanent political connection between the United States and
Nicaragua has been established, or is likely to be established. The
government of the North American Republic has indeed intervened in
Nicaragua to prevent revolutions, but it seems probable that it would
be forced to do as much in any other Central American state where
similar conditions existed. The arrangements with the North American
bankers, which have aroused so much opposition in Central America, are
primarily of a financial character. It would be idle to deny that they
constitute infringements of Nicaragua’s sovereignty, but they can be
brought to an end at any time when the Republic is ready to repay the
money which its government has borrowed and to buy back the national
property which has been sold. It is ridiculous to suppose that either
the United States or the bankers have any ulterior political purposes,
or that their aim has been other than the improvement of the economic
situation of Nicaragua. The treaty providing for American control
of the canal route and for a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca has
caused bitter controversies, but it is difficult to see how it can
have a permanent adverse influence on the question of the Union. The
United States has no interest in Central America more important than
that of aiding the five republics to become strong, prosperous, and
well-governed commonwealths, and it is therefore impossible to suppose
that it will be hostile to any movement which promises to improve their
situation.
The unionist idea is one which should command the sympathy of everyone
interested in the future welfare of the people of the Isthmus. As we
have seen, a stable federation, established upon an equitable basis,
and accepted by all of the five republics, could not but greatly
improve their situation, making them less exposed to aggression and
interference from outside, and encouraging their internal economic
and social development. The establishment of such a federation seems
impracticable at present, and an attempt to unite the five countries,
whether by force or by the voluntary action of their governments, would
probably result in more harm than good. But the time when a strong
and progressive Central American nation can be founded seems to be
drawing steadily though slowly nearer, and the forces which are now
at work, changing the internal and the international situation of
the five republics, may bring about the consummation which so many of
their statesmen desire, sooner than now seems possible. Every friend
of the Central American countries must hope that this will be so, in
order that the dangers to which they are now exposed through their own
divisions and weaknesses and through the inability of some of them to
afford protection to the life and property of foreigners may be averted.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] See Bancroft, _History of Central America_, Vol. III, p. 188ff.,
and A. Gómez Carillo, _Compendio de la Historia de la América Central_,
pp. 219, 304-305.
[34] Bancroft, III, p. 209; Gómez C., pp. 306-307; J. D. Gámez,
_Historia de Nicaragua_, p. 575.
[35] For the text of this treaty, see U. S. Foreign Relations, 1896, p.
390.
[36] President Cleveland recognized the Greater Republic on Dec. 24,
1896. Ibid, p. 369.
[37] Ibid., 1898, p. 172; Gómez, C. _op. cit._ p. 310.
[38] See U. S. Foreign Relations for 1881 and following years.
[39] See his annual message to the Nicaraguan Congress, Dec. 1, 1907.
[40] U. S. Foreign Relations, 1907, II, pp. 669, 721.
[41] Manuel Argüello Mora, the Costa Rican president’s nephew and
constant companion, gives an account of this interview, at which he was
present, in his “_Recuerdos é Impresiones_,” p. 66.
[42] See U. S. Foreign Relations for 1881 and the years immediately
following, under Guatemala.
[43] According to press dispatches dated August 31, 1917, the five
Central American governments are planning to hold a congress in the
near future to renew the conventions adopted at Washington in 1907,
and to discuss plans for a closer union between the states. It is said
that all of the other republics have accepted the invitation of the
government of Honduras to send delegates for this purpose.