Allan A. Burton to William H. Seward, October 3, 1866

Mr. Burton to Mr. Seward

Sir: Referring to my No. 275, I now have the honor to enclose the annexed papers relating to the supposed preparations on the isthmus for a revolt against the national authority, to which I then briefly alluded.

Independence has long been contemplated and favored by a considerable part of the isthmian people, and there was no greater reason for the late alarm in the national government than has existed at any time for several years past. It is almost certain that the cry was raised a month ago by certain ex-officials here from Panama, who have been driven from that State for their crimes, and who owe their lives to the asylum heretofore given them against a justly enraged populace by our consuls and naval officers, to deceive President Mosquera into sending troops to the isthmus under the direction of the instigators of the rumor, who would not be slow in finding a pretext to make war on the Present State government, the only one fit to be called a government which the State has had for years. I am much disposed to believe that the correspondence was begun with me without the knowledge of the president, in order that these exiles, the under-secretary for foreign affairs being one, might ascertain in advance what position the United States officers at the isthmus would assume in case a body of adventurers collected on the Pacific coast in the State of Cauca should invade Panama in aid of the movement to overthrow its government. The case treated of in my Nos. 190 and 197 had presented itself again. In my No. 199 it will be seen that I had the misfortune to fall into a mistake, according to the opinion of his honor the Attorney General, as given me in despatch from the department No. 134, as to the obligations of the United States under the 35th article of the treaty of 1846. The view I then took, and which has since been in effect sustained by the department in the concluding paragraph of despatch to me, No. 139, dated April 30th, 1866, (I have another of this number, dated August 5th, 1866,) is the one always entertained by this government, including President Mosquera, the real negotiator of the treaty on the part of this country, until 1862, when, as dictator, he adopted an interpretation better suited to the circumstances then surrounding him. The interpretation which had up to that time prevailed here imposed grave duties on us, and since being notified of the opinion of the Attorney General I have conceived it to be my duty, should a fit opportunity present itself, to seek a declaration from President Mosquera’s administration in accordance with the grounds taken by him in 1862 and the views of the Attorney General, above referred to, which, if successful, would avoid any doubt that might arise in future as to the duties intended to be imposed by the treaty. I considered the note initiating this correspondence concerning the alleged danger of an uprising on the isthmus an opportune occasion for the purpose, and ventured to call for the interpretation of the treaty in this respect by the present administration. The result has been that the Colombian government declares that it does not feel itself authorized by the treaty to require the aid of the United States for the suppression of an insurrection, rebellion, or other disturbance on the isthmus on the part of Colombian citizens, not even an invasion by another Colombian State, unless such movement be intended to detach the State of Panama from the Colombian Union and to annex it to a foreign power. This would seem to leave the isthmus free to declare itself independent of the United States of Colombia, without the fear of the forced intervention of the United States of America, provided such declaration be not accompanied by the end of annexation to a foreign power. If such purpose be not declared at the time and the isthmus should secure its independence, which is admissible under the construction just adopted by this government, it would appear too late to then invoke the help of the United States to subjugate it again to Colombian rule in case it should afterwards attempt to unite itself to another nation. Should this view of the Colombian government become known to the people of Panama, it is entirely safe to predict a revolutionary movement for independence at no very distant day, which, unless it shall be so indiscreetly conducted as to call for the interference of the United States, will very likely be made good.

I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

[Translation.]

INDEPENDENCE OF THE ISTHMUS.

The news of the legislative approval of the contract celebrated in London by the present President of the republic, with Mr. Cotterill, for the superintendence and management of our interoceanic way, by means of a stipulated pecuniary indemnity as the price of redemption and sale of the national remainder in that rich and most valuable enterprise, the Panama railroad, has produced a great sensation among its officers and employés.

As the Mosquera-Cotterill contract will soon begin to take effect—for it has already the force of legal sanction, the seal of written right—the American company, which looks upon it thus, and which sees passing from its hands the best speculation of its kind in both worlds, resorts to new means in order to retain the mercantile supremacy which it exercises over that bridge between the two seas, the precious link which unites two great hemispheres.

Thus the idea of the independence of the isthmus of Panama, which is now being fostered in that State, has its seat and origin in a combination of interests between the railroad and the local rulers; the first on account of the near approaching loss of its prodigous gains, and the second because, with the march of time and by the square of justice, they see their political power dying—a frightful apparition to men who live and have lived on the offices as the mistletoe on the sap of the plant.

Passing to another power, as will pass, the management of the road for a long period, the business men who hold its fat income in their hands, well knowing the high importance of the road as a point of communication between the most flourishing centres of wealth, seeing the constant and increasing range of its profits, and considering its future without the competition of any other intermarine way, will not consent to abandon the working of that fruitful mine without exhausting the gold of their coffers in keeping up a political movement which shall end in emancipating the isthmus, and by this means secure the ownership of this route.

In order to show that these ideas are not exaggerated we took the precaution to lay up the views put forth fifteen years ago by a private French writer, A. Haussman, in his work entitled “The Isthmus of Panama and California.” He says: “Panama, now in ruins, will see the regeneration and new prosperity which she expects. Let a railroad across the isthmus but triumph over the Nicaragua canal and a simply good common road be constructed between Chagres and Panama, and the future of this city is sure. A point of union between the two Americas, a weak barrier between the two oceans, it is one of those places marked by Providence as a point for the uniting of all nations—a country predestined, which, like the isthmus of Suez, has been created to unite peoples by peace and commerce; a privileged strip of land which serves as a highway for the immense caravans of distinct races of the globe, and which will much diminish the distance between the United States and China.

“The American people is of all others that which best comprehends the immense advantages of the isthmus of Panama, and which also looks with envy on this country, so favorable to its commerce, this route from eastern to western America trying at the same time to conceal its ambitious views and pretending to invoke the neutrality of the territory over which the Nicaragua canal is to pass. It is not necessary to know much of the most avaricious race in the universe, as well as the immense ambition and pride with which the Americans have been inflated by the acquisition of Oregon and their victories in Mexico, in order to imagine how long they will permit to remain in foreign hands a country so indispensable to their power and for their political and commercial development.”

As the observance of the symptoms reveals to the physician the nature of the disease and its greater or less intensity, so also, and by a logical deduction, it is made to appear that the separation of that State from the others of the Colombian Union—a separation advocated by the permanent organ of North American interests, “The Star and Herald,” on hearing of the approbation of the Mosquera-Cotterill contract—is the first of a political and commercial alliance between the railroad company and the official clique that now oppresses the Panama people.

Said company, which sees a positive and inevitable danger in the London convention, and the government of that State, which knows well what it is and the elements which oppose its stability and conspire to bring about its destruction, believes it sees its anchor of salvation in independence, even though after the birth of its nationality, attenuated and covered in rags, it will have to throw itself into the arms of the Yankees.

This question is much more grave than at first may appear, regarding it as an incipient idea, and we have therefore believed it necessary to bestow some reflections on it. In the interior of the republic it is considered as a mathematical absurdity, because a part cannot overcome the whole; but this is because the advantageous topographical situation of that celebrated neck is forgotten, and the support of a powerful company and the decisive influence of the North American government is not taken into account.

It is not now for the first time that that end has been sought, and emancipation inscribed on the political banners in the domestic contests of the isthmus. Sixteen years ago the governor of Panama, Señor José de Obaldia, discovered a clandestine plot, headed by a military chief and the editor of the paper published in English, the Panama Echo, and on legal investigation a conspiracy to pronounce against the authority of New Granada, towards the end of September, 1850, was fully proved.

Twelve years afterwards, when the republic from one end to the other was one sad encampment, the political clique which then headed the government of Panama, (the same as now, with few exceptions,) availing itself of an ambiguous and double policy adapted to the changes of the strife which it was precipitating it into, invoked also the fallacy of independence. Fortunately, the events of 1862 changed the face of things in favor of the Union, and a new order of things laid low what had been agreed on in the tumultuous clubs in some districts, in which it was wished to proclaim “a Hanseatic republic, which should flourish under the shades of the most powerful flags of the earth.”

The idea, then, of these men, who, aside from personal interests, have no care for the honor and dignity of their country, is to make the separation of the State a wall of infamy to protect their selfish ends, and to sustain the perpetual domination which they desire over that vital part of Colombia. But that idea, like every other principle which is available as an aim according to the hand that may hold it, and if in the past it had no result, by reason of the feebleness of the hand which seized it, now that the political and mercantile interests are combined it may shoot up from the germ into full development.

The last encouragement to this plan has been published without disguise in the Star and Herald of Panama, and the correspondent in that city of the Commercial, of Lima, asserted it as a thing certain in the latter part of July last. That journal, which, as we have said, is the organ of “Yankeeism,” defends the project, basing it on the ground that the true interests of the State are unheeded by the government of the Union, and that it is necessary to look to the indisputable rights of that section of Colombia which is supposed to be the victim of unmerited wrongs. Although that country is helpless to make war, its exceptional situation places it in a position to segregate itself as desired by its evil-disposed inhabitants, and to resist the measures of the general government for reducing it to obedience.

There are, then, three chief reasons uniting in this disloyal act so prejudicial to the nation against which it is aimed, as well as to that which it is thought of attempting to create: the necessity of the United States to keep under the control of their citizens the keys of Panama, in order to maintain the transit free from ultramarine influence; the supreme desire of the American company to not lose that work, acquired by so much gold and arduous labor, without securing the future profits of the enterprise; and the fears of the present rulers in that State that there may be a political change, or their inordinate love for the public places to which they cling as the molusk to his shell.

Such a peril, more or less near, must be stifled, and we believe this should be accomplished by the presence of a national garrison, which will give security to the general commerce of the world, and especially to that of the United States of Colombia, which garrison ought to be paid for the security it will afford to the road, and for the inhabitants of that privileged region and those passing over it, according to the agreement with the Panama Railroad Company, and which would extinguish, without delay, the spark which is perceived, before the emancipating conflagration shall darken the heavens of the isthmus with its livid hues.

By an abuse to which the administration of 1864–5, consented in an evil hour, the service which ought to be rendered by the national soldiery is performed in Panama by the forces which, since the 9th of March of last year, receive a salary from that State for its own defence; but such corruption must be brought to an end in the prudence which distinguished the proceedings of the great general now in charge of the executive power, as well as to avoid a repetition of a scandal like that of the memorable 15th of April, and more especially to save the humiliations which are felt at seeing our soil constantly profaned by the tramp of foreign soldiers, without even the courtesy of asking permission of the proper authority. Up to this time we have not been able to find any doctrine of international law which authorizes the like uncivil proceeding; neither has the nation granted it in its public treaties, for which reason they cannot be characterized as offences.

True it is that the relations of the great republic of the north and ours are kept up in the best harmony, in the most desirable cordiality; but it is also true that so soon as the cabinet at Washington discovers that the Panama railroad is to pass to English speculators, American diplomacy will show itself disdainful, tyrannical, and perhaps hostile to Colombia,

Thus, seeing in the vague horizon of the future the complications which are being prepared by the movement towards independence, which is already initiated, and the risk which threatens the nation of losing the jewel which for North Americans represents a value of at least one hundred millions of dollars, we energetically call the attention of the government to this most vital affair. Before the revolution shall commence, the federal soldiers should march to the support of the national sovereignty over a soil of so much present care, of such future benefit to the loyal sons of regenerated Colombia. It is necessary that the government for once display its authority before its own citizens and strangers, if only to prepare for the fulfilment of this contract, which it is attempted to render illusory by such unworthy means.

Correction.

In the editorial of the El Tiempo, number 455, entitled “Independence of the Isthmus,” it is said, “the Mosquera-Cotterill contract will very soon begin to take effect, because it already has the force of legal sanction.” This is a grave mistake, for it is not true that the contract has legal force.

The Great General Mosquera celebrated in London on the 6th of February last, with Mr. Henry Cotterill, a contract for the sale of the remainder in the Panama railroad; and as it could not be carried out without the approval of congress, the President of the Union gave an account of the matter to that body in his message of the 22d of May last. In that message, General Mosquera, the President, did not request a confirmation of the contract, only as a basis for proposals for better bids in Europe and America, he to be authorized to close the contract finally with Mr. Cotterill, in case better offers should not be made. But the congress took no action in the matter, and it cannot be said, therefore, that Mr. Cotterill has acquired any right to the remainder in the Panama railroad.

We regret that El Tiempo, a journal of so much reputation, should have committed this mistake, which must injure its good name unless speedily corrected.