commerce or navigation through the said canal, which shall not be offered on the same terms to the citizens or subjects of the other.

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ART. VI. The contracting parties in this convention engage to invite every state with which either or both have friendly intercourse, to enter into stipulations with them, similar to those which they have entered into with each other, to the end that all other states may share in the honor and advantage of having contributed to a work of such general interest and importance as the canal herein contemplated. And the contracting parties likewise agree that each shall enter into treaty stipulations with such of the Central American States as they may deem advisable, for the purpose of more effectually carrying out the great design of this convention, namely, that of constructing and maintaining the said canal as a ship communication between the two oceans for the benefit of mankind, on equal terms to all, and of protecting the same.

"ART. VII. The Governments of the United States and Great Britain, having not only desired, in entering into this convention, to accomplish a particular object, but also to establish a general principle, they hereby agree to extend their protection, by treaty stipulations, to any other practicable communications, whether by canal or railway, across the isthmus which connects North and South America, and especially to the inter-oceanic communications, should the same prove to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, which are now proposed to be established, by the way of Tehuantepec or Panama."— 9 Stat. (U. S.) at Large, 995.

On the 29th of June, 1850, Sir Henry L. Bulwer gave notice to Mr. Clayton that he was instructed to insist, in ratifying the convention, on an explanatory declaration, that the engagements as to neutral territory did not apply to her Majesty's settlement at Honduras and its dependencies. On the 4th of July, 1850, John M. Clayton replied, that the United States also understood that those engagements did not apply to British Honduras and its dependencies; and with these mutual explanations, the convention was ratified, and the ratifications were exchanged.

The British settlement at Honduras and its dependencies consist of the town of Belize, on the coast of the Caribbean Sea, with a tract of almost barren and uninhabited country stretching inward, containing about fifty thousand square miles, and, as is alleged, of certain islands lying near by in that sea, named Ruatan, Bonacca, Utilla, Barbarat, Helena, and Morat, which territory and islands are marked, on all British maps, as colonies of Great Britain.

On the 17th of July, 1852, the British authorities at the Belize issued a proclamation announcing that the Queen had constituted those islands a distinct colony, by the name of the Bay of Islands.

On the 6th of January, 1853, the President of the United States sent to the Senate an answer to a previous call for information, and that answer contained the notes between the late Secretary of State and the late British minister, declaring the construction of the convention which I have mentioned.

The honorable Senator from Michigan thereupon said that paper disclosed a very extraordinary fact, to wit: that while on its face,

and as was understood by the Senate, the convention included British Honduras and its dependencies, it was without the knowledge or consent of the Senate explained by the negotiators at the ratification to exclude them; and that thus, in derogation of the rights of the Senate, the construction of the treaty was changed in a vital point; that in this transaction, the executive department of General Taylor's administration had committed a great error, unprecedented in diplomacy. And he protested that neither the Senate nor himself, in approving, understood the convention as it was thus shown to have been understood by the negotiators in ratifying it, and that if it had been so understood by the Senate, it would not have received a single vote; and in this protest he included the honorable Senator from Alabama, [Mr. KING] who at the time was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations; and he alleged that that gentleman had told him that he had supposed until that day, that the project of accepting the Queen of England's qualification of the construction of the treaty had been abandoned, and that the convention stood without such qualification on its original provisions.

The honorable Senator from Louisiana [Mr. Downs] said that he thought the whole object of the convention was to get the British out of Central America, and that it was only on assurances given by Mr. Clayton himself that this was the effect of the convention, that he and others, so far as he knew, had voted for it.

The honorable Senator from Ohio [Mr. CHASE] quoted from a geographical work the following description of Central America, and affirmed that he and the Senate understood that all the region thus described was included in the convention, viz:

"Central America is the long and comparatively narrow region between latitude 7 deg. and 22 deg. north, and longitude 78 deg. and 94 deg. west, connecting the continents of North and South America, and comprising, besides the Central American Confederation, Yucatan, parts of Mexico and New Granada, Poyais, the Mosquito coast, and British Honduras."

The honorable Senator from California [Mr. WELLER] declared that he was astonished to hear the Senator from Louisiana say that he was surprised at anything, however stupid, that might be done by the late Secretary of State, Mr. Clayton, and that he [Mr. WELLER] had never known Mr. Clayton to have any connection with any public affair in which he did not show himself excessively stupid, to say the least.

Mr. President, I shall endeavor to show that these censures are groundless, and unintentionally unjust.

First. Granting, but only for the sake of argument, that the facts stated are true, I shall show that the transaction is not unprecedented in diplomacy. The ninth article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, as signed by the negotiators, was struck out by the Senate, and another was substituted in its stead. The Congress of Mexico refused to ratify it, because it had thus been changed, as they said, in a vital part. The Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, by direction of the President, Mr. Polk, without the consent or knowledge of the Senate, signed and delivered a protocol, declaring that the suppression and substitution were not understood by the United States to diminish what had been stipulated before, and thereupon the treaty was ratified, and the ratifications were exchanged. I do not say here that that transaction was wrong, or that, whether wrong or right, it justified Mr. Clayton. All I do say is, that even if Mr. Clayton's misconduct has been such as is alleged, it is, nevertheless, not unprecedented in diplo

macy.

Secondly. I shall attempt to show that the memories of the conplaining senators are at fault, and that neither the whole nor the chief object of the convention was as they now suppose they then understood, to get the British out of Central America. The preamble declares its object to be to "set forth and fix the views and intentions of the two nations with reference to any means of communication by ship canal which may be constructed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, by way of the river San Juan de Nicaragua, and either or both the lakes of Nicaragua or Managua." This preamble, and the quotations from the convention before made, show that the United States had a very different object from that described by the senators, unless we are to suppose that the United States had really in view a partial, narrow, and selfish object; while they held out to the other contracting party, and to the world, that they had in view a different, broad, comprehensive, and beneficent one; which of course is not to be admitted.

Thirdly. I think the memories of the honorable senators are at fault again, and that they did not, when approving the convention, understand it to include all Central America as they have now described Central America. The region about the isthmus which divides North and South America is but thinly settled by Europeans and their descendants, and therefore, as yet, very imper

fectly known in Europe and in the United States, and there is an ever-recurring confusion of names, as is apt to happen in such cases. The name Central America, employed in the convention, has a double sense, a geographical one and a political one, and these are widely different. America is divided, geographically, into North America, South America, and Central America. Central America, geographically, is Middle America, viz: that part of this great continent which lies between and connects North America and South America together. The name is applied in this sense in the description quoted by the Senator from Ohio, and so geographical Central America does include not only Honduras and the British coast, with the five Central American States, but also the departments of Darien and Panama, and Paraguay, in New Granada, and the whole or parts of six of the states of the United States of Mexico.

Other geographers apply the name still more broadly, and embrace all the regions extending from latitude 7 deg. north to latitude 26 deg. north.

Mr. CHASE. If the senator will allow me, I will state that I read from a work of authority. That English work describes Central America as lying between two parallels of latitude. It did not assert that all the region between those two parallels belonged to Central America, but named specifically those districts or territories which constituted the country so designated. And I said that we had a right to believe, when the treaty was before us, that the term "Central America," used as it is used, included all over which either of the contracting parties claimed, or might claim, any jurisdiction. Of course I did not assert, or mean to assert, that Great Britain intended simply to exclude herself from that portion of country over which she had no jurisdiction, and I am sure the Senator from New York does not mean to represent me as making such a statement.

Mr. SEWARD. I will read from the printed speech of the honorable Senator from Ohio, to show the use he made of the authority which he quoted. The Senate will then judge whether he has corrected me or himself. That Senator said:

"Now, for the purpose of showing what the British authorities at that time conceived to be included within the limits of Central America, I wish to read an extract from a work which I have before me. It is Johnson's Gazetteer, published in London in 1851, a work of very high authority. Its description of Central America is in these words:

"Central America is the long and comparatively narrow region between latitude

7 deg. and 22 deg. north, and longitude 78 deg. and 94 deg. west, connecting the continents of North and South America, and comprising, besides the Central American Confederation, Yucatan, parts of Mexico and New Granada, Poyais, the Mosquito coast, and British Honduras.'

"That is the description which an eminent British authority furnishes to us of Central America. That is the description which we had a right to believe was intended by this treaty when it was presented to the Senate."

This is geographical Central America. But it is laid down on other maps, and described by other geographers, as extending from the 7th to the 26th parallel of north latitude. That would embrace not only the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, but also the capital of Mexico, the states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas, and even a part of Texas, in our own republic.

On the other hand, the name of Central America has a political sense, and means five states on the isthmus lying between New Granada on the south, and Mexico on the north, which, under the names of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, confederated themselves when they became independent of Spain, and established a republic called the federal republic of Central America. In the convulsions of that region, that union has been dissolved; but the name acquired by it still hangs around those states, and they, and they alone, are the states described, politically, in books, geographies, and otherwise, as the states of Central America.

Now, did the negotiators use the name of Central America in its geographical sense, or did they use it in its political sense? Certainly in its political sense.

For, 1st. If they used it in its geographical sense, then it may as well be insisted that the convention embraces all between 7 deg. and 26 deg. of north latitude, as that it embraces all between 7 deg. and 22 deg. of north latitude, and this would be to make it embrace a part of the United States, which would be absurd.

2d. The geographical Central America, whether broad or narrow, embraces the regions which contain the three celebrated passes from ocean to ocean, viz: Panama, Nicaragua, and Tehuantepec; and if that be the sense in which the name Central America is used in the convention, then the stipulations are already made between the two nations for the construction and maintenance of canals or railway passages across all these routes. But the convention, on the contrary, expressly confines its care to the Nicaragua route, and postpones to a future day the making of

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