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afford to have an enemy’s base so near us”, said he. “It is a 
national necessity that we should have the British posses- 
sions.” 
In the debate on the Johnson-Clarendon convention, in the 
executive session of the Senate, on April 13, 1869, there was 
dimly outlined the policy of closely associating the question of 
Canadian independence with the question of settlement of 
claims. Senator Sumner, who made a vigorous and famous 
speech in opposition to the treaty, desired the peaceful acquisi- 
tion of Canada — the first step toward which was the with- 
drawal of England from this hemisphere.®"^ He believed that 
the not remote withdrawal of all English flags from the west- 
ern hemisphere was a logical development of the Monroe 
Doctrine and the doctrine of mianifest destiny. Cobden had 
written him twenty years before that Canada and the United 
States must become one for all purposes of intercommunica- 
tion.®^ He believed that the time for the fulfilment of that 
prophecy was at hand — that the British possessions could be 
peacefully annexed “by the voluntary act of England and with 
the cordial consent of the colonists”.®" It was with the ex- 
pectation of carrying out his plans, in shaping the destiny of 
a hemisphere by annexing the “whole zone from Newfound- 
land to Vancouver”, that he secured the appointment of his 
friend Motley as minister to England and endeavored to usurp 
the functions of the Department of State. 
After the rejection of the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty by a 
vote of 54 to 1, senators such as Schurz preferred to leave the 
question of claims open in order to give England a fair chance 
for a quiet consideration, but at the same time gradually to 
familiarize her with the idea that the decided wish of the 
American people was to settle all claims by the annexation of 
the North American provinces.®® Many far-sighted statesmen 
E. L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, IV, 409, et seq.; Sumner 
to Motley, June 15, 1869. Goldwin Smith in a speech at Ithaca, N.Y., May 19, 1869, 
said Sumner’s speech had rendered renewal of negotiations almost impossible. While 
endeavoring to calm the international waters which had been so much stirred by oratory, 
he stated that the tale of the British “empire” would soon he told — that England would 
soon cease to I'ule Canada, and that she even thought of returning Gibraltar to Spain. 
Sumner, Works, XII, “Prophetic Voices”. 
On September 22, 1869, Sumner in a speech which he delivered in Massachusetts, 
picturing the destiny of the United States to cover the continent from the Arctic to the 
Gulf, said that the future voluntary union of Canada with the United States was an 
appointed destiny ; but, believing that government should stand on the consent of the 
governed, he opposed the cession of British colonies except with the peaceful consent 
of the people of the territories conveyed. 
C. F. Adams, Treaty of Washington (Appendix “C”, Schurz to Fish, June, 1869). 
