"
In the first place the "Monroe Doctrine" was the accepted policy of this
government as to all foreign intervention from 1823 to 1850, and with
some of the leading minds of the country it has never ceased to be the
paramount creed in the national catechism. During these twenty-seven
years the project of building an inter-oceanic canal had been
considerably agitated, in Congress and out, and had enlisted to some
extent the sympathies of foreign powers who desired a shorter passage to
the Pacific Ocean, the East Indies, and the markets of Cathay, than the
stormy ones around the southern capes of either hemisphere.
This agitation finally culminated in diplomatic correspondence between
the representatives of Great Britain and the United States relative to
the construction of such a means of communication and the rights of the
two nations to the same, resulting in the treaty. In April, 1850, the
Senate of the United States, by a very large vote, ratified and
confirmed this treaty, notwithstanding it was vigorously opposed by such
men as Stephen A. Douglas and Lewis Cass, then in the zenith of their
fame.
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