I have thus far dealt with this dispute as one in which Great Britain
and Venezuela, the parties primarily concerned, were sole participants.
We have now, however, reached a stage in the affair which requires
a recital of other facts which led up to the active and positive
interference of our own Government in the controversy. In discussing
this branch of our topic it will be necessary not only to deal with
circumstances following those already narrated, but to retrace our
steps sufficiently to exhibit among other things the appeals and
representations made to the Government of the United States by
Venezuela, while she was still attempting to arrive at an adjustment
with Great Britain.
I have already referred to the first communication made to us by
Venezuela on the subject. This, it will be remembered, was in 1876,
when she sought to resume negotiations with Great Britain, after an
interruption of thirty-two years. I have also called attention to the
fact that coincident with this communication Venezuela presented to
Great Britain a willingness to relax her insistence upon her extreme
boundary claim, based upon alleged right, and suggested that a
conventional line might be fixed by mutual concession.
Venezuela’s first appeal to us for support and aid amounted to little
more than a vague and indefinite request for countenance and sympathy
in her efforts to settle her differences with her contestant, with
an expression of a desire that we would take cognizance of her new
steps in that direction. I do not find that any reply was made to this
communication.
Five years afterward, in 1881, the Venezuelan minister in Washington
presented to Mr. Evarts, then our Secretary of State, information he
had received that British vessels had made their appearance in the
mouth of the Orinoco River with materials to build a telegraph-line,
and had begun to erect poles for that purpose at Barima: and he
referred to the immense importance to his country of the Orinoco;
to the efforts of his government to adjust her difficulty with
Great Britain, and to the delays interposed; and finally expressed
his confident belief that the United States would not view with
indifference what was being done in a matter of such capital importance.
Mr. Evarts promptly replied, and informed the Venezuelan representative
that “in view of the deep interest which the Government of the United
States takes in all transactions tending to attempted encroachments
of foreign powers upon the territory of any of the republics of this
continent, this Government could not look with indifference to the
forcible acquisition of such territory by England, if the mission of
the vessels now at the mouth of the Orinoco should be found to be for
that end.”
Again, on the thirtieth day of November, 1881, our minister to
Venezuela reported to Mr. Blaine, who had succeeded Mr. Evarts as
Secretary of State, an interview with the President of Venezuela
at his request, in which the subject of the boundary dispute was
discussed. Our minister represented that the question was spoken of
by the President as being of essential importance and a source of
great anxiety to him, involving a large and fertile territory between
the Essequibo and Orinoco, and probably the control of the mouth
and a considerable portion of the latter river; and he alleged that
the policy of Great Britain, in the treatment of this question, had
been delay--the interval being utilized by gradually but steadily
extending her interest and authority into the disputed territory; and
“that, though the rights of Venezuela were clear and indisputable, he
questioned her ability, unaided by some friendly nation, to maintain
them.”
In July, 1882, Mr. Frelinghuysen, successor to Mr. Blaine, sent to
our representative at Venezuela a despatch to be communicated to the
government of the republic, in which he stated that, if Venezuela
desired it, the United States would propose to the Government of Great
Britain that the boundary question be submitted to the arbitrament of a
third power.
It will be remembered that a proposition for arbitration had been made
by Venezuela to Great Britain in February, 1881, and that Great Britain
had refused to accede to it.
In July, 1884, Mr. Frelinghuysen sent a confidential despatch to Mr.
Lowell, our minister to Great Britain, informing him that Guzman
Blanco, ex-President of Venezuela, who had recently been accredited as
a special envoy from his country to Great Britain, had called on him
relative to the objects of his mission, in respect of which he desired
to obtain the good offices of this Government, and that doubtless he
would seek to confer with Mr. Lowell in London. He further informed
Mr. Lowell that he had told the Venezuelan envoy that, “in view of our
interest in all that touches the independent life of the Republics of
the American Continent, the United States could not be indifferent to
anything that might impair their normal self-control”; that “the moral
position of the United States in these matters was well known through
the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine,” though formal action in the
direction of applying that doctrine to a speculative case affecting
Venezuela seemed to him to be inopportune, and therefore he could not
advise Venezuela to arouse a discussion of that point. He instructed
our minister to show proper consideration to the Venezuelan envoy, and
to “take proper occasion to let Lord Granville know that we are not
without concern as to whatever may affect the interest of a sister
Republic of the American Continent and its position in the family of
nations.”
In July, 1885, the Venezuelan minister to the United States addressed
a communication to Secretary of State Bayard, setting forth the
correspondence which had already taken place between our Government and
that of Venezuela touching the boundary dispute, and referring to the
serious condition existing on account of the renewed aggressions of
Great Britain.
Mr. Bayard thereupon sent a despatch on the subject to Mr. Phelps,
our diplomatic representative to England, in which, after stating
that the Venezuelan Government had never definitely declared what
course she desired us to pursue, but, on the contrary, had expressed
a desire to be guided by our counsel, he said: “The good offices of
this Government have been tendered to Venezuela to suggest to Great
Britain the submission of the boundary dispute to arbitration; but when
shown that such action on our part would exclude us from acting as
arbitrator, Venezuela ceased to press the matter in that direction”;
and the next day after writing this despatch Mr. Bayard informed the
Venezuelan minister that the President of the United States could not
entertain a request to act as umpire in any dispute unless it should
come concurrently from both contestants.
In December, 1886, our minister to Venezuela addressed a despatch
to Mr. Bayard, in which he reported that matters looked very angry
and threatening in Venezuela on account of fresh aggressions on the
part of Great Britain in the disputed territory; and he expressed the
fear that an open rupture might occur between the two countries.
He inclosed a statement made by the Venezuelan Minister of Foreign
Affairs, containing a list of grievances, followed by this declaration:
“Venezuela, listening to the advice of the United States, has
endeavored several times to obtain that the difference should be
submitted to the award of a third power.... But such efforts have
proven fruitless, and the possibility of that result, the only one
prescribed by our constitution, being arrived at, becomes more and
more remote from day to day. Great Britain has been constant in her
clandestine advances upon the Venezuelan territory, not taking into
consideration either the rights or the complaints of this Republic.”
And he adds the following declaration: “Under such circumstances the
Government has but two courses left open: either to employ force in
order to recover places from which force has ejected the Republic,
since its amicable representations on the subject have failed to secure
redress, or to present a solemn protest to the Government of the United
States against so great an abuse, which is an evident declaration of
war--a provocative aggression.”
Thereupon, and on the twentieth day of December, 1886, a despatch was
sent by Mr. Bayard to Mr. Phelps, in which the secretary comments
on the fact that at no time theretofore had the good offices of our
Government been actually tendered to avert a rupture between Great
Britain and Venezuela, and that our inaction in this regard seemed
to be due to the reluctance of Venezuela to have the Government of
the United States take any steps having relation to the action of the
British Government which might, in appearance even, prejudice the
resort to our arbitration or mediation which Venezuela desired; but
that the intelligence now received warranted him in tendering the good
offices of the United States to promote an amicable settlement of the
difficulty between the two countries, and offering our arbitration if
acceptable to both countries--as he supposed the dispute turned upon
simple and readily ascertainable historical facts.
Additional complaints against Great Britain on account of further
trespasses on Venezuelan territory were contained in a note from the
Venezuelan minister to Mr. Bayard, dated January 4, 1887. I shall quote
only the following passage:
My Government has tried all possible means to induce that
of London to accept arbitration, as advised by the United
States; this, however, has resulted in nothing but fresh
attempts against the integrity of the territory by the colonial
authorities of Demerara. It remains to be seen how long my
Government will find it possible to exercise forbearance
transcending the limits of its positive official duty.
Pursuant to his instructions from Mr. Bayard, our minister to Great
Britain formally tendered to the English Government, on the eighth day
of February, 1887, the good offices of the United States to promote
an amicable settlement of the pending controversy, and offered our
arbitration, if acceptable to both parties.
A few days afterward Lord Salisbury, on behalf of Great Britain,
replied that the attitude which had been taken by the President of the
Venezuelan republic precluded her Majesty’s Government from submitting
the question at that time to the arbitration of any third power.
The fact that Lord Salisbury had declined our offer of mediation and
arbitration, was promptly conveyed to the government of Venezuela;
and thereupon, on the fourth day of May, 1887, her minister at
Washington addressed another note to our Secretary of State indicating
much depression on account of the failure of all efforts up to that
time made to induce Great Britain to agree to a settlement of the
controversy by arbitration, and expressing the utmost gratitude for the
steps taken by our Government in aid of those efforts. He also referred
to the desire his government once entertained that, in case arbitration
could be attained, the United States might be selected as arbitrator,
and to the fact that this desire had been relinquished because the
maintenance of impartiality essential in an arbitrator would “seriously
impair the efficiency of action which for the furtherance of the common
interests of America, and in obedience to the doctrine of the immortal
Monroe, should possess all the vitality that the alarming circumstances
demand”; and he begged the secretary to instruct our representative in
London “to insist, in the name of the United States Government, upon
the necessity of submitting the boundary question between Venezuela and
British Guiana to arbitration.”
I have heretofore refrained from stating in detail the quite numerous
instances of quarrel and collision that occurred in and near the
disputed territory, with increasing frequency, during this controversy.
One of these, however, I think should be here mentioned. It seems
that in 1883 two vessels belonging to English subjects were seized
and their crews taken into custody by Venezuelan officials in the
disputed region, for alleged violations of the laws of Venezuela within
her jurisdiction, and that English officials had assumed, without any
judicial determination and without any notice to Venezuela, to assess
damages against her on account of such seizure and arrests, in an
amount which, with interest, amounted in 1887 to about forty thousand
dollars. On the seventh day of October in that year, the governor
of Trinidad, an English island near the mouth of the Orinoco, in a
letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Venezuela, declared that
her Majesty’s Government could not permit such injuries to remain
unredressed, or their representations to be disregarded any longer,
and thereupon it was demanded that the money claimed, with interest,
be paid within seven days from the delivery of said letter. The letter
concluded as follows:
Failing compliance with the above demands Her Majesty’s
Government will be reluctantly compelled to instruct the
Commander of Her Majesty’s naval forces in the West Indies
to take such measures as he may deem necessary to obtain
that reparation which has been vainly sought for by friendly
means; and in case of so doing they will hold the Venezuelan
Government responsible for any consequences that may arise.
Venezuela did not fail to appreciate and frankly acknowledge that, in
her defenseless condition, there was no escape from the payment of the
sum which England, as a judge in its own cause, had decreed against
her. The President of the republic, however, in a prompt reply to the
governor’s note, characterized its terms as “offensive to the dignity
of the nation and to the equality which, according to the principles
of the rights of nations, all countries enjoy without any regard to
their strength or weakness.” Thereupon he sought the good offices of
our minister to Venezuela in an effort to procure a withdrawal of the
objectionable communication. This was attempted in a note sent by the
American minister to the governor of Trinidad, in which he said:
I hope your Excellency will permit me to suggest, as a mutual
friend of both parties, the suspension or withdrawal of your
note of the 7th instant, so that negotiations may at once
be opened for the immediate and final settlement of the
afore-mentioned claims without further resort to unpleasant
measures. From representations made to me, I am satisfied
that if the note of the 7th instant is withdrawn temporarily
even, Venezuela will do in the premises that which will prove
satisfactory to your Government.
A few days after this note was sent, a reply was received in which the
governor of Trinidad courteously expressed his thanks to our minister
for his good offices, and informed him that, as the Government of
Venezuela regarded his note of October 7 “as offensive, and appeared
desirous of at last settling this long-pending question in a friendly
spirit,” he promptly telegraphed to her Majesty’s Government asking
permission to withdraw that note and substitute a less forcible one for
it; and that he had just been informed by his home government in reply
that this arrangement could not be sanctioned.
Our minister reported this transaction to his home government at
Washington on the fourth day of November, 1887, and stated that the
money demanded by Great Britain had been paid by Venezuela under
protest.
Venezuela may have been altogether at fault in the transaction out
of which this demand arose; the amount which England exacted may not
have been unreasonable; and the method of its assessment, though not
the most considerate possible, has support in precedent; and even
the threat of a naval force may sometimes be justified in enforcing
unheeded demands. I have not adverted to this incident for the
purpose of inviting judgment on any of its phases, but only to call
attention to the fact that it was allowed to culminate with seemingly
studied accompaniments of ruthlessness and irritation, at a time when
a boundary question was pending between the two nations, when the
weaker contestant was importuning the stronger for arbitration, and
when a desire for reconciliation and peace in presence of strained
relations should have counseled considerateness and magnanimity--all
this in haughty disregard of the solicitous and expressed desire of
the Government of the United States to induce a peaceful adjustment
of the boundary dispute, and in curt denial of our request that
this especially disturbing incident should be relieved of its most
exasperating features.
In the trial of causes before our courts, evidence is frequently
introduced to show the animus or intent of litigating parties.
Perhaps strict decorum hardly permits us to adopt the following
language, used by the Venezuelan minister when reporting to our
Secretary of State the anticipated arrival of a British war-steamer to
enforce the demand of Great Britain:
Such alarming news shows evidently that the Government of Her
Britannic Majesty, encouraged by the impunity on which it has
counted until now for the realization of its unjust designs
with regard to Venezuela, far from procuring a pacific and
satisfactory agreement on the different questions pending with
the latter, is especially eager to complicate in order to
render less possible every day that equitable solution which
has been so fully the endeavor of my people.
On the fifteenth day of February, 1888, the Venezuelan minister, in
communicating to our Government information he had received touching a
decree of the governor of Demerara denying the validity of a contract
entered into by the Government of Venezuela for the construction of a
railway between certain points in the territory claimed by Venezuela,
commented on the affair as follows:
England has at last declared emphatically that her rights are
without limit, and embrace whatever regions may be suggested
to her by her insatiate thirst for conquest. She even goes
so far as to deny the validity of railway grants comprised
within territory where not even the wildest dream of fancy
had ever conceived that the day would come when Venezuela’s
right thereto could be disputed. The fact is that until now
England has relied upon impunity. She beholds in us a weak and
unfriended nation, and seeks to make the Venezuelan coast and
territories the base of a conquest which, if circumstances are
not altered, will have no other bounds than the dictates of her
own will.
V
Mr. Bayard, in a despatch transmitting this to our minister to England,
says that our Government has heretofore acted upon the assumption that
the boundary controversy between Great Britain and Venezuela was one
based on historical facts, which without difficulty could be determined
according to evidence, but that the British pretension now stated gives
rise to grave disquietude, and creates the apprehension that their
territorial claim does not follow historical traditions or evidence,
but is apparently indefinite. He refers to the British Colonial Office
list of previous years, and calls attention to the wide detour to the
westward in the boundaries of British Guiana between the years 1877 and
1887, as shown in that record. He suggests that our minister “express
anew to Lord Salisbury the great gratification it would afford our
Government to see the Venezuelan dispute amicably and honorably settled
by arbitration or otherwise,” and adds: “If indeed it should appear
that there is no fixed limit to the British boundary claim, our good
disposition to aid in a settlement might not only be defeated, but be
obliged to give place to a feeling of grave concern.”
It was about this time that the Venezuelan minister, in a note
expressing his appreciation of our efforts to bring about a settlement
of the dispute, made the following statement:
Disastrous and fatal consequences would ensue for the
independence of South America if, under the pretext of a
question of boundaries, Great Britain should succeed in
consummating the usurpation of a third part of our territory,
and therewith a river so important as the Orinoco. Under the
pretext of a mere question of boundaries which began on the
banks of the Essequibo, we now find ourselves on the verge of
losing regions lying more than five degrees away from that
river.
On May 1, 1890, Mr. Blaine, Mr. Bayard’s successor as Secretary of
State, instructed Mr. Robert T. Lincoln, our minister to England, “to
use his good offices with Lord Salisbury to bring about the resumption
of diplomatic intercourse between Great Britain and Venezuela as a
preliminary step toward the settlement of the boundary dispute by
arbitration.” He also requested him “to propose to Lord Salisbury,
with a view to an accommodation, that an informal conference be had in
Washington or in London of representatives of the three powers.” The
secretary added: “In such conference the position of the United States
is one solely of impartial friendship toward both litigants.”
In response to this instruction Mr. Lincoln had an interview with
Lord Salisbury. On this occasion his Lordship said that her Majesty’s
Government had not for some time been keen in attempts to settle the
dispute, in view of their feeling of uncertainty as to the stability
of the present Venezuelan Government and the frequency of revolutions
in that quarter; but that he would take pleasure in considering our
suggestion after consulting the Colonial Office, to which it would
first have to be referred. Mr. Lincoln, in giving his impressions
derived from the interview, says that “while Lord Salisbury did
not intimate what would probably be the nature of his reply, there
was certainly nothing unfavorable in his manner of receiving the
suggestion”; and he follows this with these significant words: “If the
matter had been entirely new and dissociated with its previous history,
I should have felt from his tone that the idea of arbitration in some
form, to put an end to the boundary dispute, was quite agreeable to
him.”
On the 26th of May, 1890, Lord Salisbury addressed a note to Mr.
Lincoln, in which his Lordship stated that her Majesty’s Government was
at that moment in communication with the Venezuelan minister in Paris,
who had been authorized to express the desire of his Government for the
renewal of diplomatic relations, and to discuss the conditions on which
it might be effected; that the terms on which her Majesty’s Government
considered that a settlement of the question in issue between the
two countries might be made, had been communicated to Venezuela’s
representative; that his reply was still awaited, and that the British
Government “would wish to have the opportunity of examining that
reply, and ascertaining what prospect it would afford of an adjustment
of existing differences, before considering the expediency of having
recourse to the good offices of a third party.”
No mention was made, in this communication, nor at any time thereafter,
so far as I can discover, of Mr. Blaine’s proposal of a conference
among representatives of the three nations interested in an adjustment.
Lord Salisbury, in a despatch to the English representative at
Washington, dated November 11, 1891, stated that our minister to
England had, in conversation with him, renewed, on the part of our
Government, the expression of a hope that the Government of Great
Britain would refer the boundary dispute to arbitration; that his
Lordship had expressed his willingness to submit to arbitration all the
questions which seemed to his government to be fairly capable of being
treated as questions of controversy; that the principal obstacle was
the rupture of diplomatic relations caused by Venezuela’s act; and that
before the Government of Great Britain could renew negotiations they
must be satisfied that those relations were about to be resumed with a
prospect of their continuance.
While our Government was endeavoring to influence Great Britain in the
direction of fair and just arbitration, and receiving for our pains
only barren assurances and procrastinating excuses, the appeals of
Venezuela for help, stimulated by allegations of constantly increasing
English pretensions, were incessantly ringing in our ears.
Without mentioning a number of these appeals, and passing over a period
of more than two years, I shall next refer to a representation made
by the Venezuelan minister at Washington on March 31, 1894, to Mr.
Gresham, who was then our Secretary of State. In this communication
the course of the controversy and the alleged unauthorized acts
of England from the beginning to that date were rehearsed with
circumstantial particularity. The conduct of Great Britain in refusing
arbitration was again reprobated, and pointed reference was made to
a principle which had been asserted by the United States, “that the
nations of the American continent, after having acquired the liberty
and independence which they enjoy and maintain, were not subject to
colonization by any European power.” The minister further declared that
“Venezuela has been ready to adhere to the conciliatory counsel of the
United States that a conference, consisting of its own Representative
and those of the two parties, should meet at Washington or London
for the purpose of preparing an honorable reëstablishment of harmony
between the litigants,” and that “Great Britain has disregarded the
equitable proposition of the United States.”
On July 13, 1894, Mr. Gresham sent a despatch to Mr. Bayard, formerly
Secretary of State, but then ambassador to England, inclosing the
communication of the Venezuelan minister, calling particular attention
to its contents, and at the same time briefly discussing the boundary
dispute. In this despatch Mr. Gresham said:
The recourse to arbitration first proposed in 1881, having been
supported by your predecessors, was in turn advocated by you,
in a spirit of friendly regard for the two nations involved.
In the meantime successive advances of British settlers in the
region admittedly in dispute were followed by similar advances
of British Colonial administration, contesting and supplanting
Venezuelan claims to exercise authority therein.
He adds: “Toward the end of 1887, the British territorial claim, which
had, as it would seem, been silently increased by some twenty-three
thousand square miles between 1885 and 1886, took another comprehensive
sweep westward to embrace” a certain rich mining district. “Since
then,” the secretary further states, “repeated efforts have been made
by Venezuela as a directly interested party, and by the United States
as the impartial friend of both countries, to bring about a resumption
of diplomatic relations, which had been suspended in consequence of the
dispute now under consideration.”
This despatch concludes as follows:
The President is inspired by a desire for a peaceable and
honorable adjustment of the existing difficulties between an
American state and a powerful transatlantic nation, and would
be glad to see the reëstablishment of such diplomatic relations
between them as would promote that end. I can discover but
two equitable solutions to the present controversy. One is the
arbitral determination of the rights of the disputants as the
respective successors to the historical rights of Holland and
Spain over the region in question. The other is to create a
new boundary-line in accordance with the dictates of mutual
expediency and consideration. The two Governments having so far
been unable to agree on a conventional line, the consistent
and conspicuous advocacy by the United States and England of
the principle of arbitration, and their recourse thereto in
settlement of important questions arising between them, makes
such a mode of adjustment especially appropriate in the present
instance; and this Government will gladly do what it can to
further a determination in that sense.
In another despatch to Mr. Bayard, dated December 1, 1894, Mr. Gresham
says:
I cannot believe Her Majesty’s Government will maintain that
the validity of their claim to territory long in dispute
between the two countries shall be conceded as a condition
precedent to the arbitration of the question whether Venezuela
is entitled to other territory, which until a recent period was
never in doubt. Our interest in the question has repeatedly
been shown by our friendly efforts to further a settlement
alike honorable to both countries, and the President is pleased
to know that Venezuela will soon renew her efforts to bring
about such an adjustment.
Two days afterward, on December 3, 1894, the President’s annual message
was sent to the Congress, containing the following reference to the
controversy:
The boundary of British Guiana still remains in dispute
between Great Britain and Venezuela. Believing that its early
settlement on some just basis alike honorable to both parties
is in the line of our established policy to remove from this
hemisphere all causes of difference with powers beyond the
sea, I shall renew the efforts heretofore made to bring about
a restoration of diplomatic relations between the disputants
and to induce a reference to arbitration--a resort which Great
Britain so conspicuously favors in principle and respects in
practice, and which is earnestly sought by her weaker adversary.
On the twenty-second day of February, 1895, a joint resolution was
passed by the Congress, earnestly recommending to both parties in
interest the President’s suggestion “that Great Britain and Venezuela
refer their dispute as to boundaries to friendly arbitration.”
A despatch dated February 23, 1895, from Great Britain’s Foreign
Office to the English ambassador at Washington, stated that on the
twenty-fifth day of January, 1895, our ambassador, Mr. Bayard, had, in
an official interview, referred to the boundary controversy, and said
“that his Government would gladly lend their good offices to bring
about a settlement by means of an arbitration.” The despatch further
stated that Mr. Bayard had thereupon been informed that her Majesty’s
Government had expressed their willingness to submit the question,
within certain limits, to arbitration, but could not agree to the
more extensive reference on which the Venezuelan Government insisted;
that Mr. Bayard called again on the twentieth day of February, when a
memorandum was read to him concerning the situation and a map shown him
of the territory in dispute; that at the same time he was informed that
the Venezuelans had recently made an aggression upon the territory of
English occupation, and, according to report, ill-treated some of the
colonial police stationed there, and that it was the boundary defined
by the Schomburgk line which had thus been violated in a marked manner
by the Venezuelans.
This despatch concludes as follows:
On Mr. Bayard’s observing that the United States Government
was anxious to do anything in their power to facilitate a
settlement of the difficulty by arbitration, I reminded his
Excellency that although Her Majesty’s Government were ready
to go to arbitration as to a certain portion of the territory
which I had pointed out to him, they could not consent to any
departure from the Schomburgk line.
It now became plainly apparent that a new stage had been reached in the
progress of our intervention, and that the ominous happenings embraced
within a few months had hastened the day when we were challenged to
take our exact bearings, lest we should miss the course of honor
and national duty. The more direct tone that had been given to our
despatches concerning the dispute, our more insistent and emphatic
suggestion of arbitration, the serious reference to the subject
in the President’s message, the significant resolution passed by
Congress earnestly recommending arbitration, all portended a growth of
conviction on the part of our Government concerning this controversy,
which gave birth to pronounced disappointment and anxiety when Great
Britain, concurrently with these apprising incidents, repeated in
direct and positive terms her refusal to submit to arbitration except
on condition that a portion of the disputed territory which Venezuela
had always claimed to be hers should at the outset be irrevocably
conceded to England.
During a period of more than fourteen years our Government, assuming
the character of a mutual and disinterested friend of both countries,
had, with varying assiduity, tendered its good offices to bring about
a pacific and amicable settlement of this boundary controversy, only
to be repelled with more or less civility by Great Britain. We had
seen her pretensions in the disputed regions widen and extend in
such manner and upon such pretexts as seemed to constitute an actual
or threatened violation of a doctrine which our nation long ago
established, declaring that the American continents are not to be
considered subjects for future colonization by any European power; and
despite all this we had, nevertheless, hoped, during all these years,
that arrangement and accommodation between the principal parties would
justify us in keeping an invocation of that doctrine in the background
of the discussion. Notwithstanding, however, all our efforts to avoid
it, we could not be unmindful of the conditions which the progress of
events had created, and whose meaning and whose exigencies inexorably
confronted us. England had finally and unmistakably declared that all
the territory embraced within the Schomburgk line was indisputably
hers. Venezuela presented a claim to territory within the same
limits, which could not be said to lack strong support. England
had absolutely refused to permit Venezuela’s claim to be tested by
arbitration; and Venezuela was utterly powerless to resist by force
England’s self-pronounced decree of ownership. If this decree was not
justified by the facts, and it should be enforced against the protest
and insistence of Venezuela and should result in the possession and
colonization of Venezuelan territory by Great Britain, it seemed quite
plain that the American doctrine which denies to European powers the
colonization of any part of the American continent would be violated.
If the ultimatum of Great Britain as to her claim of territory had
appeared to us so thoroughly supported upon the facts as to admit of
small doubt, we might have escaped the responsibility of insisting
on an observance of the Monroe Doctrine in the premises, on our own
account, and have still remained the disinterested friend of both
countries, merely contenting ourselves with benevolent attempts to
reconcile the disputants. We were, however, far from discovering
such satisfactory support in the evidence within our reach. On the
contrary, we believed that the effects of our acquiescence in Great
Britain’s pretensions would amount to a failure to uphold and maintain
a principle universally accepted by our Government and our people
as vitally essential to our national integrity and welfare. The
arbitration, for which Venezuela pleaded, would have adjudged the exact
condition of the rival claims, would have forever silenced Venezuela’s
complaints, and would have displaced by conclusive sentence our
unwelcome doubts and suspicions; but this Great Britain had refused to
Venezuela, and thus far had also denied to us.
Recreancy to a principle so fundamentally American as the Monroe
Doctrine, on the part of those charged with the administration of our
Government, was of course out of the question. Inasmuch, therefore,
as all our efforts to avoid its assertion had miscarried, there
was nothing left for us to do consistently with national honor but
to take the place of Venezuela in the controversy, so far as that
was necessary, in vindication of our American doctrine. Our mild
and amiable proffers of good offices, and the hopes we indulged
that at last they might be the means of securing to a weak sister
republic peace and justice, and to ourselves immunity from sterner
interposition, were not suited to the new emergency. In the advanced
condition of the dispute, sympathy with Venezuela and solicitude for
her distressed condition could no longer constitute the motive power of
our conduct, but these were to give way to the duty and obligation of
protecting our own national rights.
Mr. Gresham, who since the fourth day of March, 1893, had been our
Secretary of State, died in the latter days of May, 1895. His love
of justice, his sympathy with every cause that deserved sympathy, his
fearless and disinterested patriotism, and his rare mental endowments,
combined to make him a noble American and an able advocate of his
country’s honor. To such a man every phase of the Venezuelan boundary
dispute strongly appealed; and he had been conscientiously diligent
in acquainting himself with its history and in considering the
contingencies that might arise in its future development. Though his
death was most lamentable, I have always considered it a providential
circumstance that the Government then had among its Cabinet officers an
exceptionally strong and able man, in every way especially qualified
to fill the vacant place, and thoroughly familiar with the pending
controversy--which seemed every day to bring us closer to momentous
duty and responsibility.
Mr. Olney was appointed Secretary of State early in June, 1895; and
promptly thereafter, at the suggestion of the President, he began, with
characteristic energy and vigor, to make preparation for the decisive
step which it seemed should no longer be delayed.
The seriousness of the business we had in hand was fully understood,
and the difficulty or impossibility of retracing the step we
contemplated was thoroughly appreciated. The absolute necessity of
certainty concerning the facts which should underlie our action was, of
course, perfectly apparent. Whatever our beliefs or convictions might
be, as derived from the examination we had thus far given the case, and
however strongly we might be persuaded that Great Britain’s pretensions
could not be conceded consistently with our maintenance of the Monroe
Doctrine, it would, nevertheless, have been manifestly improper and
heedless on our part to find conclusively against Great Britain, before
soliciting her again and in new circumstances to give us an opportunity
to judge of the merits of her claims through the submission of them to
arbitration.
It was determined, therefore, that a communication should be prepared
for presentation to the British Government through our ambassador
to England, detailing the progress and incidents of the controversy
as we apprehended them, giving a thorough exposition of the origin
of the Monroe Doctrine, and the reasons on which it was based,
demonstrating our interest in the controversy because of its relation
to that doctrine, and from our new standpoint and on our own account
requesting Great Britain to join Venezuela in submitting to arbitration
their contested claims to the entire territory in dispute.
This was accordingly done; and a despatch to this effect, dated July
20, 1895, was sent by Mr. Olney to her Majesty’s Government through Mr.
Bayard, our ambassador.
The Monroe Doctrine may be abandoned; we may forfeit it by taking our
lot with nations that expand by following un-American ways; we may
outgrow it, as we seem to be outgrowing other things we once valued;
or it may forever stand as a guaranty of protection and safety in our
enjoyment of free institutions; but in no event will this American
principle ever be better defined, better defended, or more bravely
asserted than was done by Mr. Olney in this despatch.
After referring to the various incidents of the controversy, and
stating the conditions then existing, it was declared:
The accuracy of the foregoing analysis of the existing status
cannot, it is believed, be challenged. It shows that status to
be such, that those charged with the interests of the United
States are now forced to determine exactly what those interests
are and what course of action they require. It compels them
to decide to what extent, if any, the United States may and
should intervene in a controversy between, and primarily
concerning, only Great Britain and Venezuela, and to decide
how far it is bound to see that the integrity of Venezuelan
territory is not impaired by the pretensions of its powerful
antagonist.
After an exhaustive explanation and vindication of the Monroe Doctrine,
and after asserting that aggressions by Great Britain on Venezuelan
soil would fall within its purview, the despatch proceeded as follows:
While Venezuela charges such usurpation, Great Britain denies
it; and the United States, until the merits are authoritatively
ascertained, can take sides with neither. But while this
is so,--while the United States may not, under existing
circumstances at least, take upon itself to say which of the
two parties is right and which is wrong,--it is certainly
within its right to demand that the truth be ascertained.
Being entitled to resent and resist any sequestration of
Venezuelan soil by Great Britain, it is necessarily entitled to
know whether such sequestration has occurred or is now going
on.... It being clear, therefore, that the United States may
legitimately insist upon the merits of the boundary question
being determined, it is equally clear that there is but one
feasible mode of determining them, viz., peaceful arbitration.
The demand of Great Britain that her right to a portion of the disputed
territory should be acknowledged as a condition of her consent to
arbitration as to the remainder, was thus characterized:
It is not perceived how such an attitude can be defended, nor
how it is reconcilable with that love of justice and fair
play so eminently characteristic of the English race. It in
effect deprives Venezuela of her free agency and puts her under
virtual duress. Territory acquired by reason of it will be as
much wrested from her by the strong hand as if occupied by
British troops or covered by British fleets.
The despatch, after directing the presentation to Lord Salisbury of the
views it contained, concluded as follows:
They call for a definite decision upon the point whether Great
Britain will consent or decline to submit the Venezuelan
boundary question in its entirety to impartial arbitration. It
is the earnest hope of the President that the conclusion will
be on the side of arbitration, and that Great Britain will
add one more to the conspicuous precedents she has already
furnished in favor of that wise and just mode of settling
international disputes. If he is to be disappointed in that
hope, however,--a result not to be anticipated, and in his
judgment calculated to greatly embarrass the future relations
between this country and Great Britain,--it is his wish to be
made acquainted with the fact at such early date as will enable
him to lay the whole subject before Congress in his next annual
message.