(THE VENEZUELAN* BOUNDARY CONTROVERSY.) 



103 



tenanceof the Monroe doctrine and are prepared to 

 uphold it at any cost. They desire the appointment 

 of a commission, nut to act as a hoard of arbitration 

 between one country and another, but to inform the 

 l"n i ted States on what liiK> they ought to stand 

 when they prepare to resist further English aggres- 

 on American soil. The action of the commis- 

 sion is to lie for our own information. 



I have given some attention to the Venezuelan 

 question: I have studied it during the past year 

 with a good deal of care; I have examined every 

 map and document, I think, that is accessible here, 

 and I think I know enough about it to say that 

 there is nothing in the ease that can not be consid- 

 ered within the period specified in my amendment, 

 and that if there are papers to be brought from 

 Madrid or from the Hague they can be brought 

 within that time and laid before the commission. 

 I think fixing the date will strengthen the hands of 

 the Executive, and will give notice to the world 

 that while we are proceeding deliberately and tem- 

 perately we are also proceeding with absolute firm- 

 ness : that we mean exactly what we say; that we 

 propose to sustain the President in the position 

 which he has taken, and that at a given time we 

 shall be prepared for action in defense of the line 

 reported as the true boundary by the commission. 

 We want nothing indefinite about the commission. 

 We want them to report as soon as possible, and 

 then we will sustain the Monroe doctrine with all 

 the strength of the Republic." 



Senator Voorhees, oi Indiana, spoke in favor of 

 immediate action on the bill. He spoke in part as 

 follow- : 



" The Senator from Ohio is a little more magnani- 

 mous, possibly, or more generous than I am this 

 morning. lie says lie has no idea that the great 

 power, England, would attempt to put forth an un- 

 just claim to territorial boundaries, or claim what 

 did not belong to her. There is not a degree of lati- 

 tude or longitude on the earth's surface on which 

 she has not attempted to do exactly that thing. 

 All around the globe she has been the oppressor of 

 weaker nations and weaker peoples, and the very 

 map which the Senator from Ohio held up from his 

 desk refuted what he said. The very map shows 

 that she has gradually been encroaching from one 

 line to another, hoping to be unseen in it until from 

 some 70,000 square miles, her original claim, she 

 has over 100.000 square miles. She has by silent 

 encroachment, and without any show of right or 

 pretense, gone on and on from her original claim of 

 the Sehomburgk line, until now she has absorbed be- 

 yond her original claim more territory than there is 

 in the great State which the Senator from Ohio in part 

 represents, and much more than there is in the State 

 which I in part represent. 



" Mr. President, I do not wish to talk on this sub- 

 ject any more than is necessary, but I do intend to 

 to go to the line of what I believe to be right. I have 

 no fear of war. I look upon war as a horror, as 

 other Christian men do. I hope ; but there will be 

 no war here. There is a hostage lying on this con- 

 tinent north of us. England will not fight on an 

 issue of this kind. She does not dare to. The com- 

 merce of the world is carried in English bottoms, 

 and I remember that in reading Mr. Canning only 

 last year he stated an instance where, in the War of 

 1812. insurance was paid for at the rate of lo guineas 

 for 100 of commerce to cross the Irish Channel. 

 And it was not six months after the War of 1812 

 broke out until armed privateers swarmed the ocean 

 and insurance shops were shut up in London. 

 They would not insure the commerce. 



" Xo. Mr. President, there will be an adjustment 

 and settlement, but it might as well be known now 

 on both sides of the ocean that England's great col- 



onizing career has to have some definite limits, some 

 boundaries." 



Mr. Allen, of Nebraska, who had objected to the 

 second reading of the bill on that day. in .-peaking 

 in answer to the question whether he would in>i-t 

 on the objection, said : 



Xow. there will arise a question which this com- 

 mittee ought to consider, and consider well. The 

 Constitution invests in Congress, not in the Presi- 

 dent, the power to declare war. The President is 

 not invested with any power to declare war or con- 

 clude peace. It is a power vested in Congress. 

 Are we to give the President power to appoint a 

 commission without any approval upon our part 

 after his selection of a commission to visit Vene- 

 zuela or the disputed territory, or to sit elsewhere 

 and acquire information upon this subject, and then 

 are we to be called upon to act upon the report of 

 that commission without ever having had the power 

 ourselves of inquiring into it by a joint committee 

 of Congress or a committee of either House ? It 

 occurs to me that that is a very important matter. 

 I do not believe the Constitution of this country 

 ever contemplated that the President of the United 

 States should have that power. I think that when 

 our fathers conferred upon us, through the Consti- 

 tution, the power to declare war and conclude peace, 

 they impliedly conferred upon us the sole power 

 and the sole means of ascertaining the circumstances 

 under which war should be declared and peace con- 

 cluded. 



" I am not prepared to say that the President of 

 the United States may choose men whom he may 

 see fit. regardless of the attitude of Congress, and 

 invest in them this high and delicate power. If the 

 President has power or is given power to appoint 

 this commission, one of the important things the 

 Committee on Foreign Relations must consider is, 

 whether the names of the commissioners should not 

 be sent to the Senate for its consideration and ap- 

 proval before they receive their commissions." 



Senator Hawley, of Connecticut, said: 



" Mr. President, I do not propose to discuss the 

 probabilities of war. I regret the rather warlike 

 tone of the distinguished Senator from Indiana. 

 He even ventured to point out the direction in 

 which England would find herself comparatively 

 weak, and to indicate those considerations which 

 would prevent her from declaring war or accepting 

 our declaration of war. It is not wise to assume 

 that either the great British nation or the great 

 American people will refuse to fight in any imagi- 

 nable contingency. People do not always fight when 

 they ought. They do not always fight upon the very 

 best of grounds. They are sometimes unjustifiable. 

 They are sometimes ill tempered. They sometimes 

 yield to an undue and oppressive ambition. I do 

 not discuss the question of war at all. 



" But what do we desire here f Information. 

 There is not a citizen in this chamber, or the other, 

 or in the United States, who would not be very glad, 

 indeed, to receive to-day the careful report of five 

 of our leading jurists or great legislators or diplo- 

 matists upon the merits of this question, its correct 

 history from the beginning, boundaries successively 

 established or claimed, and the correspondence that 

 ensued between the different countries. Xobody 

 knows what the facts are upon which we are ex- 

 pected to act. Great Britain herself does not know. 

 I judge by the map here issued by Venezuela, which 

 gives six different boundaries that may be found 

 upon British maps from time to time or in British 

 demands, each one creeping northwestward. Xow. 

 if that is not a case for a commission. I do not know 

 what can be. I desire this matter to be referred to 

 the committee because that is the dignified and de- 

 liberate and proper way." 



