'913.] TOWER— TREATY OBLIGATIONS. 235 



We were not in a position at that time to think of undertaking 

 such a work ourselves, though our government was aUve to the 

 opportunity and wished to participate in the advantages that would 

 arise from a canal ; and Mr. Clay added : 



"If the work should ever be executed so as to admit of the passage of 

 sea-vessels from ocean to ocean, the benefit of it ought not to be exclusively 

 appropriated to any one nation, but should be extended to all parts of the 

 globe upon the payment of a just compensation or reasonable tolls." 



The progress of events and the growth of our importance as a 

 nation enlarged the interest of the people of the United States in the 

 passage through the isthmus, which was taken up in the House of 

 Representatives in compliance with a memorial from the merchants 

 of New York and Philadelphia in 1839. A resolution was adopted 

 by the House that the President should be requested : 



" To consider the expediency of opening or continuing negotiations with 

 the governments of other nations, and particularly with those the territorial 

 jurisdiction of which comprehends the Isthmus of Panama, for the purpose 

 of ascertaining the practicability of affecting a communication between the 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by the construction of a ship canal across the 

 isthmus, and of securing forever the free and equal right of navigating such 

 Canal to all nations." 



A treaty was entered into, seven years later, in 1846, between 

 the United States and the Republic of New Granada, which was the 

 first effective step taken by our government in the direction of the 

 actual transit across the isthmus and of our participation in its con- 

 struction and maintenance of way. This was a treaty of peace, 

 amity, navigation and commerce with New Granada, and was con- 

 tinued in operation by the Republic of Columbia into which that 

 state was subsequently transformed, and it is to this agreement, 

 entered into by us during the administration of President Polk, 

 through an immense amount of negotiation and correspondence that 

 has taken place since between ourselves and other governments, par- 

 ticularly those of the Central and South American republics as well 

 as Great Britain and France, that may be traced the origin of the 

 interests and claims under which the United States have constructed 

 the canal and are in control of the territory of the canal zone on 

 the isthmus to-dav. The treatv extended to the citizens of the 



