162 



CONGRESS. (THE VENEZUELAN BOUNDARY CONTROVERSY.) 



The resolution was introduced in the Senate for 

 concurrence Dec. 19. Mr. Morgan, of Alabama, 

 spoke on the motion of Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, to re- 

 fer it to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, saying 

 that while he would prefer that the bill should be 

 so referred, he should object to any reference unless 

 the Senate should agree to take no holiday recess 

 until the committee" should make its report. He 

 said further, in part : 



" But, Mr. President, I do not wish to have, if I 

 ' can avoid it, and I do not think the country would 

 like to see, any possible controversy or division of 

 opinion between a high commission organized by 

 Congress and the President upon any question pre- 

 sented in his message. Suppose that after this dec- 

 laration and after this careful examination by Mr. 

 Olney into the title of Venezuela, which he affirms 

 upon the evidence now in reach, the high commis- 

 sion should find that Mr. Olney was mistaken in 

 some of his conclusions, or that, after all, in their 

 opinion or in the opinion of a majority of the com- 

 mission, there was such doubt about the title of 

 Venezuela that we could not afford to treat it as a 

 subject that might possibly result in hostile col- 

 lision with Great Britain, the President, if he did 

 not concur in their report, might be antagonized by 

 this commission, and the Congress of the United 

 States having organized it, would, as a matter of 

 course, have a right to their report, and would be 

 guided, to a degree at least, in their action by its 

 recommendations. 



" We might find ourselves in a state of serious 

 embarrassment in regard to the question of enfor- 

 cing this American doctrine if we are guided by the 

 report of a high commission, which, in its resultant 

 effects, might uproot the doctrine itself, or might 

 expose it to another half century or century of de- 

 bate and discussion. I should like to avoid the pos- 

 sibility of such a result as that, and I would prefer 

 that the Congress of the United States in this case, 

 as it has in all other cases where we have had to 

 conduct belligerent operations against foreign gov- 

 ernments, should take upon itself, in connection 

 with the President of the United States, the solution 

 of this question in an authentic form, and not leave 

 its action to depend, in any degree, upon the judg- 

 ment of a commission, who may not be wiser or 

 better informed, after all, than the Congress itself 

 or the President. It is the faithful research of the 

 commission rather than its recommendations that 

 we shall need, and that the President requests us to 

 provide for. 



"I should dislike very much to be now compelled, 

 after the firm advance we have made upon this oc- 

 casion, to reverse our action so far as to leave this 

 question in the hands of a commission to be or- 

 ganized by Congress for final decision. I prefer to 

 leave it where the Constitution leaves it, in the 

 hands of the President of the United States and 

 upon his executive responsibility." 



Senator Sherman, of Ohio, spoke in support of his 

 motion to refer and in favor of proceeding with de- 

 liberation. In the course of his speech he said, in 

 part: 



" The controversy between Venezuela and Great 

 Britain will not be settled in a day or in months. 

 In my judgment it will be settled peaceably by the 

 action of those two powers. Great Britain has too 

 great a stake in the history of the world to attempt 

 under the circumstances an act of injustice to a 

 small country like Venezuela. The public senti- 

 ment of that country will be aroused against it. 



" But the assertion of our right to prevent Euro- 

 pean powers from seizing any part of the American 

 continents, from treating America as an Africa, to 

 be conquered and divided among the various na- 

 tions of Europe, can not be questioned. Under the 



circumstances I do not expect that war will arise. 

 I do not contemplate or wish to contemplate the 

 possibility of such an event. I have seen enough 

 of war in my time to dread its progress and its con- 

 sequences. I do not wish in the slightest degree to 

 say a word which would even indicate that a war is 

 likely to ensue about this small matter ; but at the 

 same time I think the President of the United 

 States is right, under the circumstances, in announ- 

 cing what we understand to be our duty as the most 

 powerful of American nations, and in saying to the 

 countries of Europe : ' These two continents arc al- 

 ready occupied by Christian nations of Europe, and 

 we, with our sixty-odd millions of people, are will- 

 ing to say that the rights of those nations shall not 

 be trampled upon by force and violence by Euro- 

 pean powers.' 



" As a matter of course, it is proper to say that 

 we could not interfere in any agreement made be- 

 tween Venezuela and Great Britain as to the bound- 

 ary between British Guiana and Venezuela. I have 

 a map here which shows better than any I have 

 seen before the rapid encroachments made by Great 

 Britain upon what is considered to be the territory 

 of Venezuela. It shows that, beginning with a lit- 

 tle colony derived from the Dutch, Great Britain 

 added to it a large region of country lying to the 

 west of it, and then gradually by encroachments has 

 finally reached up almost to the Orinoco river. 

 This is a serious controversy. Great Britain has 

 taken ground that she will not even submit to arbi- 

 tration as to anything on the south side of a par- 

 ticular line. Now, I think that the British people, 

 when they understand this matter, when they see 

 that it is attracting the attention of the civilized 

 world, will not press their contention, especially 

 when they remember that the Monroe doctrine was 

 perhaps not so much the doctrine of Monroe as it 

 was the doctrine of Canning, of England, then 

 Prime Minister, which was agreed to by the United 

 States and Great Britain, and that the power to pre- 

 vent encroachment by European powers upon Amer- 

 ican territory or upon American states was asserted 

 not only by the United States, but by the co-opera- 

 tion and consent of England." 



Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts, spoke in favor 

 of referring with instructions to the committee 

 to report without delay, and offered an amend- 

 ment adding the following sentence to the resolu- 

 tion : 



" And said commission shall report with the least 

 possible delay, not later than April 1, 1896." 

 In the course of his speech Mr. Lodge said : 

 " Mr. President, for my own part I do not desire 

 to put the slightest opposition in the way of the 

 Executive or of the Senator who no doubt has rep- 

 resented the wishes of the Executive upon this 

 floor. I cordially agree with the President's mes- 

 sage. It is the right, the sound, the American posi- 

 tion for the United States to take. But that which 

 is of the utmost importance is that we should show 

 to the world that we are united, without distinction 

 of party or section, in support of the policy which 

 the message outlines. We should be able to say, as 

 Webster said in the House of Representatives, that 

 our politics stop at the water's edge, and that when 

 we come to dealing with a foreign question we deal 

 with it simply as Americans. 



" It has been freely charged in the English news- 

 papers published in London, and also in that small 

 part of the British press which is published in the 

 city of New York, that this is a matter of polities : 

 that it is being used by the President for election- 

 eering purposes, and that it has been used by the 

 Republicans with that view. That is the most'mis- 

 taken view ever uttered. The American people, 

 without distinction of party, believe in the main- 



