And State Papers 755 



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 in- 

 struction to Mr. Anderson, our minister to Colom- 

 bia, 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 declara- 

 tion of independence Colombia has been entirely re- 

 leased from all the obligations by which, as a part 

 of the Spanish nation, she was bound to other na- 

 tions. This principle is not tenable. To all the 

 engagements of Spain with other nations, affecting 

 their rights and interests, Colombia, so far as she 



