158 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



legal arguments. The merits of the case belonged to Great 

 Britain. There was no position which either Mr. Blaine or 

 Mr. Frelinghuysen had taken, which was not disproved by 

 admissions elsewhere made ; at every turn there appeared 

 to be an estoppel. 



The reason for this utter failure of American statesmen 

 to free the nation from a burdensome treaty is at once 

 clear. For twenty-five years after the conclusion of the 

 treaty the principles embodied therein had been accepted by 

 the United States as sound and wise. On such a basis other 

 treaties had been negotiated, authoritative endorsements had 

 been made, and the whole course and tenor of the nation's 

 thought and attitude toward the question had apparently 

 built an impregnable bulwark about the treaty itself, as it 

 had consecrated the principles for which it stood. Whenever 

 the Clayton-Bulwer treaty shall be attacked, another diplo- 

 matic victory will be given to British statesmen, and another 

 defeat scored at home. The treaty is not void, and cannot 

 be avoided upon purely legal ground. 



If the conviction which has apparently seized upon the 

 public mind that full American control of any Central Ameri- 

 can canal is necessary to the safety and welfare of the United 

 States, and must be a condition of any waterway to be con- 

 structed, and if this conviction persists, the time will soon 

 come when the United States will feel itself justified in 

 adopting the only rational plan for dissolving the obligations 

 of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. That plan is, boldly to pro- 

 claim its abrogation and take the consequences of a breach 

 of faith, whatever those consequences may prove to be. One 

 way short of so radical a procedure would be to offer to 

 Great Britain some manner of compensation for the relin- 

 quishment of her rights under the treaty. But the assumption 

 should not be made that the United States is so great a 

 sufferer under the provisions of that treaty. The subject 

 will, be discussed under the title "Neutralization of the 

 Canal." 



