694 Presidential Addresses 



tioned Isthmus with the view that the free transit 

 from the one to the other sea might not be inter- 

 rupted or embarrassed. The treaty vested in the 

 United States a substantial property right carved 

 out of the rights of sovereignty and property which 

 New Granada then had and possessed over the said 

 territory. The name of New Granada has passed 

 away and its territory has been divided. Its suc- 

 cessor, the Government of Colombia, has ceased to 

 own any property in the Isthmus. A new republic, 

 that of Panama, which was at one time a sovereign 

 state, and at another time a mere department of the 

 successive confederations known as New Granada 

 and Colombia, has now succeeded to the rights 

 which first one and then the other formerly exer- 

 cised over the Isthmus. But as long as the Isthmus 

 endures, the mere geographical fact of its existence, 

 and the peculiar interest therein which is required 

 by our position, perpetuate the solemn contract 

 which binds the holders of the territory to respect 

 our right to freedom of transit across it, and binds 

 us in return to safeguard for the Isthmus and the 

 world the exercise of that inestimable privilege. 

 The true interpretation of the obligations upon 

 which the United States entered in this treaty of 

 1846 has been given repeatedly in the utterances 

 of Presidents and Secretaries of State. Secretary 

 Cass in 1858 officially stated the position of this 

 Government as follows: 



"The progress of events has rendered the inter- 

 oceanic route across the narrow portion of Central 



