which states the willingness of the Panama people to fight the
Colombian troops and the refusal of Commander Hubbard to permit them
to use the railroad and therefore to get into a position where the
fight could take place. It thus clearly appears that the fact that
there was no bloodshed on the Isthmus was directly due—and only
due—to the prompt and firm enforcement by the United States of its
traditional policy. During the past forty years revolutions and
attempts at revolution have succeeded one another with monotonous
regularity on the Isthmus, and again and again United States sailors
and marines have been landed as they were landed in this instance
and under similar instructions to protect the transit. One of these
revolutions resulted in three years of warfare; and the aggregate of
bloodshed and misery caused by them has been incalculable. The fact
that in this last revolution not a life was lost, save that of the
man killed by the shells of the Colombian gunboat, and no property
destroyed, was due to the action which I have described. We, in
effect, policed the Isthmus in the interest of its inhabitants and
of our own national needs, and for the good of the entire civilized
world. Failure to act as the Administration acted would have meant
great waste of life, great suffering, great destruction of property;
all of which was avoided by the firmness and prudence with which
Commander Hubbard carried out his orders and prevented either party
from attacking the other. Our action was for the peace both of
Colombia and of Panama. It is earnestly to be hoped that there will be
no unwise conduct on our part which may encourage Colombia to embark
on a war which can not result in her regaining control of the Isthmus,
but which may cause much bloodshed and suffering.
I hesitate to refer to the injurious insinuations which have been
made of complicity by this government in the revolutionary movement
in Panama. They are as destitute of foundation as of propriety. The
only excuse for my mentioning them is the fear lest unthinking persons
might mistake for acquiescence the silence of mere self-respect.
I think proper to say, therefore, that no one connected with this
Government had any part in preparing, inciting, or encouraging
the late revolution on the Isthmus of Panama, and that save from
the reports of our military and naval officers, given above, no
one connected with this Government had any previous knowledge of
the revolution except such as was accessible to any person of
ordinary intelligence who read the newspapers and kept up a current
acquaintance with public affairs.
By the unanimous action of its people, without the firing of a
shot—with a unanimity hardly before recorded in any similar case—the
people of Panama declared themselves an independent republic. Their
recognition by this Government was based upon a state of facts in
no way dependent for its justification upon our action in ordinary
cases. I have not denied, nor do I wish to deny, either the validity
or the propriety of the general rule that a new state should not be
recognized as independent till it has shown its ability to maintain
its independence. This rule is derived from the principle of
non-intervention, and as a corollary of that principle has generally
been observed by the United States. But, like the principle from which
it is deduced, the rule is subject to exceptions; and there are in
my opinion clear and imperative reasons why a departure from it was
justified and even required in the present instance. These reasons
embrace, first, our treaty rights; second, our national interests and
safety; and, third, the interests of collective civilization.
I have already adverted to the treaty of 1846, by the thirty-fifth
article of which the United States secured the right to a free and
open transit across the Isthmus of Panama, and to that end agreed to
guarantee to New Granada her rights of sovereignty and property over
that territory. This article is sometimes discussed as if the latter
guarantee constituted its sole object and bound the United States to
protect the sovereignty of New Granada against domestic revolution.
Nothing, however, could be more erroneous than this supposition. That
our wise and patriotic ancestors, with all their dread of entangling
alliances, would have entered into a treaty with New Granada solely
or even primarily for the purpose of enabling that remnant of the
original Republic of Colombia, then resolved into the States of New
Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador, to continue from Bogota to rule
over the Isthmus of Panama, is a conception that would in itself be
incredible, even if the contrary did not clearly appear. It is true
that since the treaty was made the United States has again and again
been obliged forcibly to intervene for the preservation of order
and the maintenance of an open transit, and that this intervention
has usually operated to the advantage of the titular Government of
Colombia, but it is equally true that the United States in intervening
with or without Colombia’s consent, for the protection of the transit,
has disclaimed any duty to defend the Colombian Government against
domestic insurrection or against the erection of an independent
government on the Isthmus of Panama. The attacks against which the
United States engaged to protect New Granadian sovereignty were
those of foreign powers; but this engagement was only a means to the
accomplishment of a yet more important end. The great design of the
article was to assure the dedication of the Isthmus to the purposes of
free and unobstructed interoceanic transit, the consummation of which
would be found in an interoceanic canal. To the accomplishment of this
object the Government of the United States had for years directed its
diplomacy. It occupied a place in the instructions to our delegates to
the Panama Congress during the Administration of John Quincy Adams. It
formed the subject of a resolution of the Senate in 1835, and of the
House of Representatives in 1839. In 1846 its importance had become
still more apparent by reason of the Mexican war. If the treaty of
1846 did not in terms bind New Granada to grant reasonable concessions
for the construction of means of interoceanic communication, it was
only because it was not imagined that such concessions would ever
be withheld. As it was expressly agreed that the United States, in
consideration of its onerous guarantee of New Granadian sovereignty,
should possess the right of free and open transit on any modes of
communication that might be constructed, the obvious intent of the
treaty rendered it unnecessary, if not superfluous, in terms to
stipulate that permission for the construction of such modes of
communication should not be denied.
Long before the conclusion of the Hay-Herran treaty the course of
events had shown that a canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans must be built by the United States or not at all. Experience
had demonstrated that private enterprise was utterly inadequate for
the purpose; and a fixed policy, declared by the United States on
many memorable occasions, and supported by the practically unanimous
voice of American opinion, had rendered it morally impossible that
the work should be undertaken by European powers, either singly or
in combination. Such were the universally recognized conditions on
which the legislation of the Congress was based, and on which the late
negotiations with Colombia were begun and concluded. Nevertheless,
when the well-considered agreement was rejected by Colombia and the
revolution on the Isthmus ensued, one of Colombia’s first acts was to
invoke the intervention of the United States; nor does her invitation
appear to have been confined to this Government alone. By a telegram
from Mr. Beaupré, our minister at Bogota, of the 7th of November last,
we were informed that General Reyes would soon leave Panama invested
with full powers; that he had telegraphed the President of Mexico to
ask the Government of the United States and all countries represented
at the Pan-American Conference “to aid Colombia to preserve her
integrity”; and that he had requested that the Government of the
United States should meanwhile “preserve the neutrality and transit
of the Isthmus” and should “not recognize the new government.” In
another telegram from Mr. Beaupré, which was sent later in the day,
this Government was asked whether it would take action “to maintain
Colombian right and sovereignty on the Isthmus in accordance with
article 35 [of] the treaty of 1846” in case the Colombian Government
should be “entirely unable to suppress the secession movement there.”
Here was a direct solicitation to the United States to intervene for
the purpose of suppressing, contrary to the treaty of 1846 as this
Government has uniformly construed it, a new revolt against Colombia’s
authority brought about by her own refusal to permit the fulfilment of
the great design for which that treaty was made. It was under these
circumstances that the United States, instead of using its forces to
destroy those who sought to make the engagements of the treaty a
reality, recognized them as the proper custodians of the sovereignty
of the Isthmus.
This recognition was, in the second place, further justified by the
highest considerations of our national interests and safety. In all
the range of our international relations I do not hesitate to affirm
that there is nothing of greater or more pressing importance than
the construction of an interoceanic canal. Long acknowledged to be
essential to our commercial development, it has become, as the result
of the recent extension of our territorial dominion, more than ever
essential to our national self-defence. In transmitting to the Senate
the treaty of 1846, President Polk pointed out as the principal
reason for its ratification that the passage of the Isthmus, which it
was designed to secure, “would relieve us from a long and dangerous
navigation of more than 9,000 miles around Cape Horn, and render our
communication with our own possessions on the northwest coast of
America comparatively easy and speedy.” The events of the past five
years have given to this consideration an importance immeasurably
greater than it possessed in 1846. In the light of our present
situation, the establishment of easy and speedy communication by
sea between the Atlantic and the Pacific presents itself not simply
as something to be desired, but as an object to be positively and
promptly attained. Reasons of convenience have been superseded by
reasons of vital necessity, which do not admit of indefinite delays.
To such delays the rejection by Colombia of the Hay-Herran treaty
directly exposed us. As proof of this fact I need only refer to the
programme outlined in the report of the majority of the Panama Canal
Committee, read in the Colombian Senate on the 14th of October last.
In this report, which recommended that the discussion of a law to
authorize the government to enter upon new negotiations should be
indefinitely postponed, it is proposed that the consideration of
the subject should be deferred till October 31, 1904, when the next
Colombian Congress should have met in ordinary session. By that time,
as the report goes on to say, the extension of time granted to the New
Panama Canal Company by treaty in 1893 would have expired, and the
new Congress would be in a position to take up the question whether
the company had not, in spite of further extensions that had been
granted by legislative acts, forfeited all its property and rights.
“When that time arrives,” the report significantly declares, “the
Republic, without any impediment, will be able to contract, and will
be in more clear, more definite, and more advantageous possession,
both legally and materially.” The naked meaning of this report is that
Colombia proposed to wait until, by the enforcement of a forfeiture
repugnant to the ideas of justice which obtain in every civilized
nation, the property and rights of the New Panama Canal Company could
be confiscated.
Such is the scheme to which it was proposed that the United States
should be invited to become a party. The construction of the canal
was to be relegated to the indefinite future, while Colombia was,
by reason of her own delay, to be placed in the “more advantageous”
position of claiming not merely the compensation to be paid by the
United States for the privilege of completing the canal, but also
the forty millions authorized by the act of 1902 to be paid for the
property of the New Panama Canal Company. That the attempt to carry
out this scheme would have brought Colombia into conflict with the
Government of France can not be doubted; nor could the United States
have counted upon immunity from the consequences of the attempt,
even apart from the indefinite delays to which the construction of
the canal was to be subjected. On the first appearance of danger to
Colombia, this Government would have been summoned to interpose, in
order to give effect to the guarantees of the treaty of 1846; and all
this in support of a plan which, while characterized in its first
stage by the wanton disregard of our own highest interests, was fitly
to end in further injury to the citizens of a friendly nation, whose
enormous losses in their generous efforts to pierce the Isthmus have
become a matter of history.
In the third place, I confidently maintain that the recognition of the
Republic of Panama was an act justified by the interests of collective
civilization. If ever a government could be said to have received a
mandate from civilization to effect an object the accomplishment of
which was demanded in the interest of mankind, the United States
holds that position with regard to the interoceanic canal. Since
our purpose to build the canal was definitely announced, there have
come from all quarters assurances of approval and encouragement, in
which even Colombia herself at one time participated; and to general
assurances were added specific acts and declarations. In order that
no obstacle might stand in our way, Great Britain renounced important
rights under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty and agreed to its abrogation,
receiving in return nothing but our honorable pledge to build the
canal and protect it as an open highway. It was in view of this
pledge, and of the proposed enactment by the Congress of the United
States of legislation to give it immediate effect, that the second
Pan-American Conference, at the City of Mexico, on January 22, 1902,
adopted the following resolution:
The Republics assembled at the International Conference of Mexico
applaud the purpose of the United States Government to construct an
interoceanic canal, and acknowledge that this work will not only
be worthy of the greatness of the American people, but also in the
highest sense a work of civilization, and to the greatest degree
beneficial to the development of commerce between the American
States and the other countries of the world.
Among those who signed this resolution on behalf of their respective
governments was General Reyes, the delegate of Colombia. Little
could it have been foreseen that two years later the Colombian
Government, led astray by false allurements of selfish advantage, and
forgetful alike of its international obligations and of the duties
and responsibilities of sovereignty, would thwart the efforts of the
United States to enter upon and complete a work which the nations
of America, re-echoing the sentiment of the nations of Europe, had
pronounced to be not only “worthy of the greatness of the American
people,” but also “in the highest sense a work of civilization.”
That our position as the mandatary of civilization has been by no
means misconceived is shown by the promptitude with which the powers
have, one after another, followed our lead in recognizing Panama as an
independent State. Our action in recognizing the new republic has been
followed by like recognition on the part of France, Germany, Denmark,
Russia, Sweden, and Norway, Nicaragua, Peru, China, Cuba, Great
Britain, Italy, Costa Rica, Japan, and Austria-Hungary.
In view of the manifold considerations of treaty right and obligation,
of national interest and safety, and of collective civilization,
by which our Government was constrained to act, I am at a loss to
comprehend the attitude of those who can discern in the recognition
of the Republic of Panama only a general approval of the principle of
“revolution” by which a given government is overturned or one portion
of a country separated from another. Only the amplest justification
can warrant a revolutionary movement of either kind. But there is
no fixed rule which can be applied to all such movements. Each case
must be judged on its own merits. There have been many revolutionary
movements, many movements for the dismemberment of countries, which
were evil, tried by any standard. But in my opinion no disinterested
and fair-minded observer acquainted with the circumstances can fail
to feel that Panama had the amplest justification for separation
from Colombia under the conditions existing, and, moreover, that its
action was in the highest degree beneficial to the interests of the
entire civilized world by securing the immediate opportunity for
the building of the interoceanic canal. It would be well for those
who are pessimistic as to our action in peacefully recognizing the
Republic of Panama, while we lawfully protected the transit from
invasion and disturbance, to recall what has been done in Cuba, where
we intervened even by force on general grounds of national interest
and duty. When we interfered it was freely prophesied that we intended
to keep Cuba and administer it for our own interests. The result has
demonstrated in singularly conclusive fashion the falsity of these
prophecies. Cuba is now an independent republic. We governed it in its
own interests for a few years, till it was able to stand alone, and
then started it upon its career of self-government and independence,
granting it all necessary aid. We have received from Cuba a grant of
two naval stations, so situated that they in no possible way menace
the liberty of the island, and yet serve as important defences for
the Cuban people, as well as for our own people, against possible
foreign attack. The people of Cuba have been immeasurably benefited
by our interference in their behalf, and our own gain has been great.
So will it be with Panama. The people of the Isthmus, and as I firmly
believe of the adjacent parts of Central and South America, will be
greatly benefited by the building of the canal and the guarantee of
peace and order along its line; and hand in hand with the benefit
to them will go the benefit to us and to mankind. By our prompt and
decisive action, not only have our interests and those of the world
at large been conserved, but we have forestalled complications which
were likely to be fruitful in loss to ourselves, and in bloodshed and
suffering to the people of the Isthmus.
Instead of using our forces, as we were invited by Colombia to do, for
the twofold purpose of defeating our own rights and interests and the
interests of the civilized world, and of compelling the submission of
the people of the Isthmus to those whom they regarded as oppressors,
we shall, as in duty bound, keep the transit open and prevent its
invasion. Meanwhile, the only question now before us is that of the
ratification of the treaty. For it is to be remembered that a failure
to ratify the treaty will not undo what has been done, will not
restore Panama to Colombia, and will not alter our obligation to keep
the transit open across the Isthmus, and to prevent any outside power
from menacing this transit.
It seems to have been assumed in certain quarters that the proposition
that the obligations of article 35 of the treaty of 1846 are to
be considered as adhering to and following the sovereignty of the
Isthmus, so long as that sovereignty is not absorbed by the United
States, rests upon some novel theory. No assumption could be further
from the fact. It is by no means true that a state in declaring its
independence rids itself of all the treaty obligations entered into
by the parent government. It is a mere coincidence that this question
was once raised in a case involving the obligations of Colombia as an
independent state under a treaty which Spain had made with the United
States many years before Spanish-American independence. In that case
Mr. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, in an instruction to Mr.
Anderson, our minister to Colombia, of May 27, 1823, said:
By a treaty between the United States and Spain concluded at a time
when Colombia was a part of the Spanish dominions ... the principle
that free ships make free goods was expressly recognized and
established. It is asserted that by her declaration of independence
Colombia has been entirely released from all the obligations by
which, as a part of the Spanish nation, she was bound to other
nations. This principle is not tenable. To all the engagements of
Spain with other nations, affecting their rights and interests,
Colombia, so far as she was affected by them, remains bound in
honor and in justice. The stipulation now referred to is of that
character.
The principle thus asserted by Mr. Adams was afterward sustained by
an international commission in respect to the precise stipulation to
which he referred; and a similar position was taken by the United
States with regard to the binding obligation upon the independent
State of Texas of commercial stipulations embodied in prior treaties
between the United States and Mexico when Texas formed a part of
the latter country. But in the present case it is unnecessary to go
so far. Even if it be admitted that prior treaties of a political
and commercial complexion generally do not bind a new state formed
by separation, it is undeniable that stipulations having a local
application to the territory embraced in the new state continue in
force and are binding upon the new sovereign. Thus it is on all
hands conceded that treaties relating to boundaries and to rights of
navigation continue in force without regard to changes in government
or in sovereignty. This principle obviously applies to that part of
the treaty of 1846 which relates to the Isthmus of Panama.
In conclusion let me repeat that the question actually before this
Government is not that of the recognition of Panama as an independent
republic. That is already an accomplished fact. The question, and the
only question, is whether or not we shall build an Isthmian Canal.
I transmit herewith copies of the latest notes from the minister of
the Republic of Panama to this Government, and of certain notes which
have passed between the special envoy of the Republic of Colombia and
this Government.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
WHITE HOUSE,
_January 4, 1904_
EXTRACTS FROM THE MESSAGES OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT AS GOVERNOR OF THE
STATE OF NEW YORK
MESSAGE OF THE GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK TO THE LEGISLATURE, JANUARY 2, 1899
STATE OF NEW YORK, EXECUTIVE CHAMBER,
ALBANY, _January 2, 1899_
_To the Legislature_: