3. The latent feeling in favor, of exclusive control was stirred into active life by the French canal at Panama, and the fear that it would give that nation the military control of Central America. In March 1880 President Hayes sent a special message to Congress enun ciating the policy of °an American canal under Amencan control," expanded later into the claim that the banks of the Nicaragua Canal would be a continuation of the United States shore line. As a result, Congress passed several reso lutions recommending the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. Garfield in his inaugu ral of 4 March 1881 spoke (though less strongly) in the saine strain; the project of a joint European neutralization of the Panama Canal was arousing much American feeling. J. G. Blaine (q.v.), then Secretary of State, opened the attempt at an outright repudiation of the treaty. In a circular to the European powers, 24 June 1881, he declared that the United States would in future allow no foreign interference in the control of any isthmian canal, whose neutrality we would ourselves guarantee; and that any European action toward sharing in such guaranty would be held equivalent to an alliance against the United States. Lord Granville, for Great Britain, re plied briefly that this matter was already settled by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, and his govern ment relied on its observance. Meantime and afterward, 19 and 29 Nov. 1881, Secretary Blaine sent two long arguments of his position to James Russell Lowell, then Minister to Eng land. He did not, however, allege that the treaty was null, or commit the country to an open repudiation of it, but complained of it as so contradictory of interpretation, and mutually vexatious, that it ought to be no longer binding under new circumstances. He also asserted that the joint control would be virtually exer cised by England, from her superior naval strength. In fact, however, the treaty provided not for a joint control, but a joint refraining from control, and prevention of any other power gaining control. Lord Granville replied by two dispatches of 7 and 14 Jan. 1882, traversing the logical and historical arguments adduced. Garfield's murder led shortly to Blaine's retirement, and F. T. Frelinghuysen's accession to his place. The outcome of further correspondence was, that England would not give up the treaty, and declared that the United States was stopped by its own acts from inter fering with it, and that the Monroe Doctrine was a mere assertion of force, having no stand ing in international law, and had the same Rlace in diplomatic argument as a list of the military or naval forces. Congress and the President (Arthur) were much dissatisfied with this re sult; and the latter proceeded to draw up a treaty with Nicaragua in flat defiance of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. It formed a perpetual alliance between the United States and Nica ragua, whose territorial integrity this country guaranteed; save that the United States was to build a canal and have exclusive control over it, and own in fee simple a strip on each side. The Senate shrunk from this direct repudiation, without stronger cause than yet existed, and refused, 32 to 23, to ratify the new treaty. Mr. Cleveland's accession put a stop to the agita tion for many years, as he disapproved of the new movement, preferring a union of the na tions in a common protection of what was for their common interest. So far from any at
tempt being made under his administrations to repudiate the treaty, on two important occa sions it was appealed to in protest against acts of Great Britain. The first revival of the feel ing of 1880-84 in practical form was in Presi dent McKinley's second annual message, De cember 1898, favoring a canal under American control; and few then doubted that it must be through Nicaragua. The acquisition of new ter ritory and the increase of the navy led many who had been opposed to the movement to change their minds, and favor a canal through which the United States at all times could pass its war vessels, and from which it could exclude its enemies. Others continued to argue that if the country were not superior in naval force it could not maintain that privilege against its enemies, and if it were, could enforce it against them in any event, and that an exclusive control only made the canal the instant mark of our enemies. But the dominant feeling was strongly against the treaty; congressional resolutions de dared it void; the press denounced it; and the sentiment was in favor of President Arthur's old scheme of acquiring a strip of land along the canal outright. The British feeling was by no means strong for the treaty, but it preferred a modification by decent diplomatic forms rather than a violent abrogation. To take the move ment out of the hands of newspapers and dema gogues, the American and British governments hastened to devise a new arrangement which should not throw aU old principles to the winds, and a treaty was negotiated by Secretary John Hay on our side and Sir Julian Pauncefote on the other, known as the first Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, signed 5 Feb. 1900, and sent to the Senate. The majority were astonished and in dignant, as the new treaty not only did not abolish the old, but proclaimed it in force and binding; adhered to its principles of neutraliz ing the canal, which were what the growing sentiment wished to reverse; and was in fact only the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in new and tighter form, in all the points which had become most obnoxious. The "Davis Amendments,p pro posed in committee, practically nullified the neutrality feature, but neither it nor the main treaty had been acted upon when the Senate adjourned in June. The period for ratification was extended to 5 March 1901; but the plat forms of both parties insisted on exclusive American control. The amendments added to it in the following session of Congress made it unacceptable to Great Britain, which refused to ratify it, and it expired by its own limitation. The two statesmen, however, drew up another, less satisfactory in some respects than the old, and which specifically abrogated the Clayton Bulwer Treaty, but succeeded in saving its general principles of neutralization (see HAY PAUNCEFOTE TREATY) ; and it was ratified 16 Dec. 1901. By the irony of fate, this question of the control of a Nicaragua canal, so burning for half a century, and menacing war more than once, seems to have been dealing with a con tingency never to happen, as the entire subject matter was set aside in favor of the Panama Canal (q.v.). Consult Travis, History of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty) in Vol. III of (Publications of the Michigan Political Science (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1900).