590 Chapter 22 From Isolation to Empire
As early as 1869 President Grant had come out
for an American-owned canal across the isthmus of
Panama, in spite of the fact that the United States had
agreed in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great
Britain (1850) that neither nation would “obtain or
maintain for itself any exclusive control” over an
inter-oceanic canal. In 1880, when the French engi-
neer Ferdinand de Lesseps organized a company to
build a canal across the isthmus, President Hayes
announced that the United States would not permit a
European power to control such a waterway. “The
policy of the country is a canal under American con-
trol,” he announced, another blithe disregard of the
Clayton-Bulwer agreement.
When Cleveland returned to power in 1893, the
possibility of trouble in Latin America seemed
remote, for he had always opposed imperialistic ven-
tures. Yet scarcely two years later the United States
was again on the verge of war in South America as a
result of a crisis in Venezuela, and before this issue
was settled Cleveland had made the most powerful
claim to American hegemony in the hemisphere ever
uttered. The tangled borderland between Venezuela
and British Guiana had long been in dispute,
Venezuela demanding more of the region than it was
entitled to and Great Britain making exaggerated
claims and imperiously refusing to submit the ques-
tion to arbitration. What made a crisis of the contro-
versy was the political situation in the United States.
With his party rapidly deserting him because of his
stand on the silver question, and with the election of
1896 approaching, President Cleveland desperately
needed a popular issue.
There was considerable latent anti-British feeling
in the United States. By taking the Venezuelan side in
the boundary dispute, Cleveland would be defending
a weak neighbor against a great power, a position cer-
tain to evoke a popular response. “Turn this Venezuela
question up or down, North, South, East or West, and
it is a winner” one Democrat advised the president.
Cleveland did not resist the temptation to inter-
vene. In July 1895 he ordered Secretary of State
Richard Olney to send a near ultimatum to the
British. By occupying the disputed territory, Olney
insisted, Great Britain was invading Venezuela and
violating the Monroe Doctrine. Quite gratuitously,
he went on to boast, “Today the United States is
practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is
law upon the subjects to which it confines its interpo-
sition.” Unless Great Britain responded promptly by
agreeing to arbitration, the president would call the
question to the attention of Congress.
The note threatened war, but the British ignored
it for months. They did not take the United States
seriously as a world power, and with reason, for the
American navy, although expanding, could not hope
to stand up against the British, who had fifty battle-
ships, twenty-five armored cruisers, and many
smaller vessels. When Lord Salisbury, the prime min-
ister and foreign secretary, finally replied, he rejected
outright the argument that the Monroe Doctrine
had any status under international law and refused to
arbitrate what he called the “exaggerated preten-
sions” of the Venezuelans.
If Olney’s note had been belligerent, this reply
was supercilious. Cleveland was furious. On
December 17, 1895, he asked Congress for authority
to appoint an American commission to determine the
correct line between British Guiana and Venezuela.
When that had been done, he added, the United
States should “resist by every means in its power” the
appropriation by Great Britain of any territory “we
have determined of right belongs to Venezuela.”
Congress responded at once, unanimously appropri-
ating $100,000 for the boundary commission.
Popular approval was almost universal.
In Great Britain government and people suddenly
awoke to the seriousness of the situation. No one
wanted a war with the United States over a remote
patch of tropical real estate. In Europe, Britain was con-
cerned about German economic competition and the
increased military power of that nation. In addition
Canada would be terribly vulnerable to American attack
in the event of war. The immense potential strength of
the United States could no longer be ignored. Why
make an enemy of a nation of 70 million, already the
richest industrial power in the world? To fight with the
United States, the British colonial secretary realized,
“would be an absurdity as well as a crime.”
Great Britain agreed to arbitrate the boundary.
The war scare subsided; soon Olney was talking about
“our inborn and instinctive English sympathies” and
offering “to stand side by side and shoulder to shoul-
der with England in... the defense of human rights.”
When the boundary tribunal awarded nearly all the
disputed region to Great Britain, whatever ill feeling
the surrender may have occasioned in that country
faded away. Instead of leading to war, the affair
marked the beginning of an era of Anglo-American
friendship. It had the unfortunate effect, however, of
adding to the long-held American conviction that the
nation could get what it wanted in international
affairs by threat and bluster—a dangerous illusion.The Cuban Revolution
On February 10, 1896, scarcely a week after
Venezuela and Great Britain had signed the treaty
ending their dispute, General Valeriano Weyler
arrived in Havana from Spain to take up his duties as