"
"But suppose," said Senator Clayton in reply, "that Great Britain and
other European powers would not have consented to our exclusive control
of a canal, in which they, as commercial nations, had as much, and more
interest, that we had?"
"Well, then," in the language of Senator Douglas, "if Nicaragua desired
to confer the privilege, as it appears she did, and we were willing to
accept, it was purely an American question with which England or any
other foreign power had no right to interfere, or claim to be consulted,
no more than we could claim to be consulted when the Holy Alliance
sought to establish the equilibrium of Europe. We were not consulted
then, and in matters purely continental we have no occasion to consult
them; and if England, or any other foreign power, should attempt to
interfere, the sympathies of the rest of the civilized world would be
with us."
The policy of England has always been an aggressive one. While for
nearly seventy years she has professed a friendship and national harmony
with the United States, she has not ceased to plant her colonies and
establish sentry boxes on every sea-girt island, that she could control,
within a short voyage of our coast; while she has Gibraltar to command
the entrance to the Mediterranean, a garrison at the Cape of Good Hope
to control the passage to the Indies, she also maintains on the Bahamas
and the Bermudas, in her well-equipped garrisons, vigilant sentinels
whose eyes are ever watching the western continent in obedience to the
royal behest; and in the magnificent island of Jamaica she has
established, and maintained at enormous expense, a fortified and
well-garrisoned naval station, which practically controls the Caribbean
sea, the Gulf of Mexico, Central America, and even the contemplated
canal itself; and yet not content with all this readiness and armament
for aggressive war, she creeps still nearer the coveted prize and on the
Bay Islands, almost in sight of the proposed canal, she plants her royal
banner, and holds the key as the mistress of the situation; so that in
case of war between the two countries she is well prepared for a quick
and vigorous blow at the life of this republic.
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