The Path of Empire. A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power
by Carl Russell Fish
European power in American affairs and should not be bound by any self-denying ordinance, and
actually it reversed the principle against the United States. An explanatory note accompanying the treaty
recognized that this provision did not apply to Belize and her dependencies, and Great Britain promptly
denied that it applied to any rights she already possessed in Central America, including the Mosquito
protectorate and certain Bay Islands which were claimed by Great Britain as dependencies of Belize and
by Honduras as a part of her territory.
In vain did Webster, who succeeded Clayton, seek an agreement. His term of office passed, and the
controversy fell into the hands of Lord Palmerston, the jingoistic spirit who began at this time to
dominate British foreign policy, and of James Buchanan, who, known to us as a spineless seeker after
peace where there was no peace, was at this time riding into national leadership on a wave of
expansionist enthusiasm. Buchanan and Palmerston mutually shook the stage thunder of verbal
extravagance, but probably neither intended war. Poker was at this time the national American game, and
bluff was a highly developed art. The American player won a partial victory. In 1856 Great Britain
agreed to withdraw her protectorate over the Mosquitoes, to acknowledge the supremacy of Honduras
over the Bay Islands, and to accept a reasonable interpretation of the Belize boundary. Though this
convention was never ratified, Great Britain carried out its terms, and in 1860 Buchanan announced
himself satisfied.
The dreams of 1850, however, were not satisfied. A railroad was completed across Panama in 1855, but
no canal was constructed until years after the great transcontinental railroads had bound California to the
East by bonds which required no foreign sanction. Yet the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty remained an
entangling alliance, destined to give lovers of peace and amity many more uncomfortable hours.
During the Civil War other causes of irritation arose between the United States and Great Britain. The
proclamation of neutrality, by which the British Government recognized the Confederacy as a
belligerent, seemed to the North an unfriendly act. Early in the war occurred the Trent affair, which
added to the growing resentment.* It was held to be a violation of professed neutrality that Confederate
commerce destroyers were permitted to be built and fitted out in British yards. The subsequent transfer of
hundreds of thousands of tons of American shipping to British registry, owing to the depredations of
these raiders, still further incensed the American people. It was in the midst of these strained relations
that the Fenian Brotherhood in the United States attempted the invasion of Canada.
* See Stephenson, "Abraham Lincoln and the Union," in "The Chronicles of America."
America laid claims against Great Britain, based not merely on the actual destruction of merchantmen by
the Alabama, the Florida, and other Confederate vessels built in British yards, but also on such indirect
losses as insurance, cost of pursuit, and commercial profits. The American Minister, Charles Francis
Adams, had proposed the arbitration of these claims, but the British Ministry, declined to arbitrate
matters involving the honor of the country. Adams's successor, Reverdy Johnson, succeeded in arranging
a convention in 1868 excluding from consideration all claims for indirect damages, but this arrangement
was unfavorably reported from the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Senate. It was then that Charles
Sumner, Chairman of the Committee, gave utterance to his astounding demands upon Great Britain. The
direct claims of the United States, he contended, were no adequate compensation for its losses; the
indirect claims must also be made good, particularly those based on the loss of the American merchant
marine by transfer to the British flag. The direct or "individual" American losses amounted to
$15,000,000. "But this leaves without recognition the vaster damage to commerce driven from the ocean,
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