State of the Union Addresses of Grover Cleveland
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Grover Cleveland >> State of the Union Addresses of Grover Cleveland
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12 This eBook was produced by James Linden.
The addresses are separated by three asterisks: ***
Dates of addresses by Grover Cleveland in this eBook:
December 8, 1885
December 6, 1886
December 6, 1887
December 3, 1888
***
State of the Union Address
Grover Cleveland
December 8, 1885
To the Congress of the United States:
Your assembling is clouded by a sense of public bereavement, caused by the
recent and sudden death of Thomas A. Hendricks, Vice-President of the
United States. His distinguished public services, his complete integrity
and devotion to every duty, and his personal virtues will find honorable
record in his country's history.
Ample and repeated proofs of the esteem and confidence in which he was held
by his fellow-countrymen were manifested by his election to offices of the
most important trust and highest dignity; and at length, full of years and
honors, he has been laid at rest amid universal sorrow and benediction.
The Constitution, which requires those chosen to legislate for the people
to annually meet in the discharge of their solemn trust, also requires the
President to give to Congress information of the state of the Union and
recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall deem necessary
and expedient. At the threshold of a compliance with these constitutional
directions it is well for us to bear in mind that our usefulness to the
people's interests will be promoted by a constant appreciation of the scope
and character of our respective duties as they relate to Federal
legislation. While the Executive may recommend such measures as he shall
deem expedient, the responsibility for legislative action must and should
rest upon those selected by the people to make their laws.
Contemplation of the grave and responsible functions assigned to the
respective branches of the Government under the Constitution will disclose
the partitions of power between our respective departments and their
necessary independence, and also the need for the exercise of all the power
intrusted to each in that spirit of comity and cooperation which is
essential to the proper fulfillment of the patriotic obligations which rest
upon us as faithful servants of the people.
The jealous watchfulness of our constituencies, great and small,
supplements their suffrages, and before the tribunal they establish every
public servant should be judged.
It is gratifying to announce that the relations of the United States with
all foreign powers continue to be friendly. Our position after nearly a
century of successful constitutional government, maintenance of good faith
in all our engagements, the avoidance of complications with other nations,
and our consistent and amicable attitude toward the strong and weak alike
furnish proof of a political disposition which renders professions of good
will unnecessary. There are no questions of difficulty pending with any
foreign government.
The Argentine Government has revived the long dormant question of the
Falkland Islands by claiming from the United States indemnity for their
loss, attributed to the action of the commander of the sloop of war
Lexington in breaking up a piratical colony on those islands in 1831, and
their subsequent occupation by Great Britain. In view of the ample
justification for the act of the Lexington and the derelict condition of
the islands before and after their alleged occupation by Argentine
colonists, this Government considers the claim as wholly groundless.
Question has arisen with the Government of Austria-Hungary touching the
representation of the United States at Vienna. Having under my
constitutional prerogative appointed an estimable citizen of unimpeached
probity and competence as minister at that court, the Government of
Austria-Hungary invited this Government to take cognizance of certain
exceptions, based upon allegations against the personal acceptability of
Mr. Keiley, the appointed envoy, asking that in view thereof the
appointment should be withdrawn. The reasons advanced were such as could
not be acquiesced in without violation of my oath of office and the
precepts of the Constitution, since they necessarily involved a limitation
in favor of a foreign government upon the right of selection by the
Executive and required such an application of a religious test as a
qualification for office under the United States as would have resulted in
the practical disfranchisement of a large class of our citizens and the
abandonment of a vital principle in our Government. The Austro-Hungarian
Government finally decided not to receive Mr. Keiley as the envoy of the
United States, and that gentleman has since resigned his commission,
leaving the post vacant. I have made no new nomination, and the interests
of this Government at Vienna are now in the care of the secretary of
legation, acting as charge' d'affaires ad interim.
Early in March last war broke out in Central America, caused by the attempt
of Guatemala to consolidate the several States into a single government. In
these contests between our neighboring States the United States forebore to
interfere actively, but lent the aid of their friendly offices in
deprecation of war and to promote peace and concord among the belligerents,
and by such counsel contributed importantly to the restoration of
tranquillity in that locality.
Emergencies growing out of civil war in the United States of Colombia
demanded of the Government at the beginning of this Administration the
employment of armed forces to fulfill its guaranties under the thirty-fifth
article of the treaty of 1846, in order to keep the transit open across the
Isthmus of Panama. Desirous of exercising only the powers expressly
reserved to us by the treaty, and mindful of the rights of Colombia, the
forces sent to the Isthmus were instructed to confine their action to
"positively and efficaciously" preventing the transit and its accessories
from being "interrupted or embarrassed."
The execution of this delicate and responsible task necessarily involved
police control where the local authority was temporarily powerless, but
always in aid of the sovereignty of Colombia.
The prompt and successful fulfillment of its duty by this Government was
highly appreciated by the Government of Colombia, and has been followed by
expressions of its satisfaction.
High praise is due to the officers and men engaged in this service. The
restoration of peace on the Isthmus by the reestablishment of the
constituted Government there being thus accomplished, the forces of the
United States were withdrawn.
Pending these occurrences a question of much importance was presented by
decrees of the Colombian Government proclaiming the closure of certain
ports then in the hands of insurgents and declaring vessels held by the
revolutionists to be piratical and liable to capture by any power. To
neither of these propositions could the United States assent. An effective
closure of ports not in the possession of the Government, but held by
hostile partisans, could not be recognized; neither could the vessels of
insurgents against the legitimate sovereignty be deemed hostes humani
generis within the precepts of international law, whatever might be the
definition and penalty of their acts under the municipal law of the State
against whose authority they were in revolt. The denial by this Government
of the Colombian propositions did not, however, imply the admission of a
belligerent status on the part of the insurgents.
The Colombian Government has expressed its willingness to negotiate
conventions for the adjustment by arbitration of claims by foreign citizens
arising out of the destruction of the city of Aspinwall by the
insurrectionary forces.
The interest of the United States in a practicable transit for ships across
the strip of land separating the Atlantic from the Pacific has been
repeatedly manifested during the last half century.
My immediate predecessor caused to be negotiated with Nicaragua a treaty
for the construction, by and at the sole cost of the United States, of a
canal through Nicaraguan territory, and laid it before the Senate. Pending
the action of that body thereon, I withdrew the treaty for reexamination.
Attentive consideration of its provisions leads me to withhold it from
resubmission to the Senate.
Maintaining, as I do, the tenets of a line of precedents from Washington's
day, which proscribe entangling alliances with foreign states, I do not
favor a policy of acquisition of new and distant territory or the
incorporation of remote interests with our own.
The laws of progress are vital and organic, and we must be conscious of
that irresistible tide of commercial expansion which, as the concomitant of
our active civilization, day by day is being urged onward by those
increasing facilities of production, transportation, and communication to
which steam and electricity have given birth; but our duty in the present
instructs us to address ourselves mainly to the development of the vast
resources of the great area committed to our charge and to the cultivation
of the arts of peace within our own borders, though jealously alert in
preventing the American hemisphere from being involved in the political
problems and complications of distant governments. Therefore I am unable to
recommend propositions involving. paramount privileges of ownership or
right outside of our own territory, when coupled with absolute and
unlimited engagements to defend the territorial integrity of the state
where such interests lie. While the general project of connecting the two
oceans by means of a canal is to be encouraged, I am of opinion that any
scheme to that end to be considered with favor should be free from the
features alluded to.
The Tehuantepec route is declared by engineers of the highest repute and by
competent scientists to afford an entirely practicable transit for vessels
and cargoes, by means of a ship railway, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The obvious advantages of such a route, if feasible, over others more
remote from the axial lines of traffic between Europe and the pacific, and
particularly between the Valley of the Mississippi and the western coast of
North and South America, are deserving of consideration.
Whatever highway may be constructed across the barrier dividing the two
greatest maritime areas of the world must be for the world's benefit--a
trust for mankind, to be removed from the chance of domination by any
single power, nor become a point of invitation for hostilities or a prize
for warlike ambition. An engagement combining the construction, ownership,
and operation of such a work by this Government, with an offensive and
defensive alliance for its protection, with the foreign state whose
responsibilities and rights we would share is, in my judgment, inconsistent
with such dedication to universal and neutral use, and would, moreover,
entail measures for its realization beyond the scope of our national polity
or present means.
The lapse of years has abundantly confirmed the wisdom and foresight of
those earlier Administrations which, long before the conditions of maritime
intercourse were changed and enlarged by the progress of the age,
proclaimed the vital need of interoceanic transit across the American
Isthmus and consecrated it in advance to the common use of mankind by their
positive declarations and through the formal obligation of treaties. Toward
such realization the efforts of my Administration will be applied, ever
bearing in mind the principles on which it must rest, and which were
declared in no uncertain tones by Mr. Cass, who, while Secretary of State,
in 1858, announced that "what the United States want in Central America,
next to the happiness of its people, is the security and neutrality of the
interoceanic routes which lead through it."
The construction of three transcontinental lines of railway, all in
successful operation, wholly within our territory, and uniting the Atlantic
and the Pacific oceans, has been accompanied by results of a most
interesting and impressive nature, and has created new conditions, not in
the routes of commerce only, but in political geography, which powerfully
affect our relations toward and necessarily increase our interests in any
transisthmian route which may be opened and employed for the ends of peace
and traffic, or, in other contingencies, for uses inimical to both.
Transportation is a factor in the cost of commodities scarcely second to
that of their production, and weighs as heavily upon the consumer.
Our experience already has proven the great importance of having the
competition between land carriage and water carriage fully developed, each
acting as a protection to the public against the tendencies to monopoly
which are inherent in the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of
vast corporations.
These suggestions may serve to emphasize what I have already said on the
score of the necessity of a neutralization of any interoceanic transit; and
this can only be accomplished by making the uses of the route open to all
nations and subject to the ambitions and warlike necessities of none.
The drawings and report of a recent survey of the Nicaragua Canal route,
made by Chief Engineer Menocal, will be communicated for your information.
The claims of citizens of the United States for losses by reason of the
late military operations of Chile in Peru and Bolivia are the subject of
negotiation for a claims convention with Chile, providing for their
submission to arbitration.
The harmony of our relations with China is fully sustained.
In the application of the acts lately passed to execute the treaty of 1880,
restrictive of the immigration of Chinese laborers into the United States,
individual cases of hardship have occurred beyond the power of the
Executive to remedy, and calling for judicial determination.
The condition of the Chinese question in the Western States and Territories
is, despite this restrictive legislation, far from being satisfactory. The
recent outbreak in Wyoming Territory, where numbers of unoffending
Chinamen, indisputably within the protection of the treaties and the law,
were murdered by a mob, and the still more recent threatened outbreak of
the same character in Washington Territory, are fresh in the minds of all,
and there is apprehension lest the bitterness of feeling against the
Mongolian race on the Pacific Slope may find vent in similar lawless
demonstrations. All the power of this Government should be exerted to
maintain the amplest good faith toward China in the treatment of these men,
and the inflexible sternness of the law in bringing the wrongdoers to
justice should be insisted upon.
Every effort has been made by this Government to prevent these violent
outbreaks and to aid the representatives of China in their investigation of
these outrages; and it is but just to say that they are traceable to the
lawlessness of men not citizens of the United States engaged in competition
with Chinese laborers.
Race prejudice is the chief factor in originating these disturbances, and
it exists in a large part of our domain, jeopardizing our domestic peace
and the good relationship we strive to maintain with China.
The admitted right of a government to prevent the influx of elements
hostile to its internal peace and security may not be questioned, even
where there is no treaty stipulation on the subject. That the exclusion of
Chinese labor is demanded in other countries where like conditions prevail
is strongly evidenced in the Dominion of Canada, where Chinese immigration
is now regulated by laws more exclusive than our own. If existing laws are
inadequate to compass the end in view, I shall be prepared to give earnest
consideration to any further remedial measures, within the treaty limits,
which the wisdom of Congress may devise.
The independent State of the Kongo has been organized as a government under
the sovereignty of His Majesty the King of the Belgians, who assumes its
chief magistracy in his personal character only, without making the new
State a dependency of Belgium. It is fortunate that a benighted region,
owing all it has of quickening civilization to the beneficence and
philanthropic spirit of this monarch, should have the advantage and
security of his benevolent supervision.
The action taken by this Government last year in being the first to
recognize the flag of the International Association of the Kongo has been
followed by formal recognition of the new nationality which succeeds to its
sovereign powers.
A conference of delegates of the principal commercial nations was held at
Berlin last winter to discuss methods whereby the Kongo basin might be kept
open to the world's trade. Delegates attended on behalf of the United
States on the understanding that their part should be merely deliberative,
without imparting to the results any binding character so far as the United
States were concerned. This reserve was due to the indisposition of this
Government to share in any disposal by an international congress of
jurisdictional questions in remote foreign territories. The results of the
conference were embodied in a formal act of the nature of an international
convention, which laid down certain obligations purporting to be binding on
the signatories, subject to ratification within one year. Notwithstanding
the reservation under which the delegates of the United States attended,
their signatures were attached to the general act in the same manner as
those of the plenipotentiaries of other governments, thus making the United
States appear, without reserve or qualification, as signatories to a joint
international engagement imposing on the signers the conservation of the
territorial integrity of distant regions where we have no established
interests or control.
This Government does not, however, regard its reservation of liberty of
action in the premises as at all impaired; and holding that an engagement
to share in the obligation of enforcing neutrality in the remote valley of
the Kongo would be an alliance whose responsibilities we are not in a
position to assume, I abstain from asking the sanction of the Senate to
that general act.
The correspondence will be laid before you, and the instructive and
interesting report of the agent sent by this Government to the Kongo
country and his recommendations for the establishment of commercial
agencies on the African coast are also submitted for your consideration.
The commission appointed by my predecessor last winter to visit the Central
and South American countries and report on the methods of enlarging the
commercial relations of the United States therewith has submitted reports,
which will be laid before you.
No opportunity has been omitted to testify the friendliness of this
Government toward Korea, whose entrance into the family of treaty powers
the United States were the first to recognize. I regard with favor the
application made by the Korean Government to be allowed to employ American
officers as military instructors, to which the assent of Congress becomes
necessary, and I am happy to say this request has the concurrent sanction
of China and Japan.
The arrest and imprisonment of Julio R. Santos, a citizen of the United
States, by the authorities of Ecuador gave rise to a contention with that
Government, in which his right to be released or to have a speedy and
impartial trial on announced charges and with all guaranties of defense
stipulated by treaty was insisted upon by us. After an elaborate
correspondence and repeated and earnest representations on our part Mr.
Santos was, after an alleged trial and conviction, eventually included in a
general decree of amnesty and pardoned by the Ecuadorian Executive and
released, leaving the question of his American citizenship denied by the
Ecuadorian Government, but insisted upon by our own.
The amount adjudged by the late French and American Claims Commission to be
due from the United States to French claimants on account of injuries
suffered by them during the War of Secession, having been appropriated by
the last Congress, has been duly paid to the French Government.
The act of February 25, 1885, provided for a preliminary search of the
records of French prize courts for evidence bearing on the claims of
American citizens against France for spoliations committed prior to 1801.
The duty has been performed, and the report of the agent will be laid
before you.
I regret to say that the restrictions upon the importation of our pork into
France continue, notwithstanding the abundant demonstration of the absence
of sanitary danger in its use; but I entertain strong hopes that with a
better understanding of the matter this vexatious prohibition will be
removed. It would be pleasing to be able to say as much with respect to
Germany, Austria, and other countries, where such food products are
absolutely excluded, without present prospect of reasonable change.
The interpretation of our existing treaties of naturalization by Germany
during the past year has attracted attention by reason of an apparent
tendency on the part of the Imperial Government to extend the scope of the
residential restrictions to which returning naturalized citizens of German
origin are asserted to be liable under the laws of the Empire. The
temperate and just attitude taken by this Government with regard to this
class of questions will doubtless lead to a satisfactory understanding.
The dispute of Germany and Spain relative to the domination of the Caroline
Islands has attracted the attention of this Government by reason of
extensive interests of American citizens having grown up in those parts
during the past thirty years, and because the question of ownership
involves jurisdiction of matters affecting the status of our citizens under
civil and criminal law. While standing wholly aloof from the proprietary
issues raised between powers to both of which the United States are
friendly, this Government expects that nothing in the present contention
shall unfavorably affect our citizens carrying on a peaceful commerce or
there domiciled, and has so informed the Governments of Spain and Germany.
The marked good will between the United States and Great Britain has been
maintained during the past year.
The termination of the fishing clauses of the treaty of Washington, in
pursuance of the joint resolution of March 3, 1883, must have resulted in
the abrupt cessation on the 1st of July of this year, in the midst of their
ventures, of the operations of citizens of the United States engaged in
fishing in British American waters but for a diplomatic understanding
reached with Her Majesty's Government in June last, whereby assurance was
obtained that no interruption of those operations should take place during
the current fishing season.
In the interest of good neighborhood and of the commercial intercourse of
adjacent communities, the question of the North American fisheries is one
of much importance. Following out the intimation given by me when the
extensory arrangement above described was negotiated, I recommend that the
Congress provide for the appointment of a commission in which the
Governments of the United States and Great Britain shall be respectively
represented, charged with the consideration and settlement, upon a just,
equitable, and honorable basis, of the entire question of the fishing
rights of the two Governments and their respective citizens on the coasts
of the United States and British North America. The fishing interests being
intimately related to other general questions dependent upon contiguity and
intercourse, consideration thereof in all their equities might also
properly come within the purview of such a commission, and the fullest
latitude of expression on both sides should be permitted.
The correspondence in relation to the fishing rights will be submitted. The
arctic exploring steamer Alert, which was generously given by Her Majesty's
Government to aid in the relief of the Greely expedition, was, after the
successful attainment of that humane purpose, returned to Great Britain, in
pursuance of the authority conferred by the act of March 3, 1885.
The inadequacy of the existing engagements for extradition between the
United States and Great Britain has been long apparent. The tenth article
of the treaty of 1842, one of the earliest compacts in this regard entered
into by us, stipulated for surrender in respect of a limited number of
offenses. Other crimes no less inimical to the social welfare should be
embraced and the procedure of extradition brought in harmony with present
international practice. Negotiations with Her Majesty's Government for an
enlarged treaty of extradition have been pending since 1870, and I
entertain strong hopes that a satisfactory result may be soon attained.
The frontier line between Alaska and British Columbia, as defined by the
treaty of cession with Russia, follows the demarcation assigned in a prior
treaty between Great Britain and Russia. Modern exploration discloses that
this ancient boundary is impracticable as a geographical fact. In the
unsettled condition of that region the question has lacked importance, but
the discovery of mineral wealth in the territory the line is supposed to
traverse admonishes that the time has come when an accurate knowledge of
the boundary is needful to avert jurisdictional complications. I recommend,
therefore, that provision be made for a preliminary reconnoissance by
officers of the United States, to the end of acquiring more precise
information on the subject. I have invited Her Majesty's Government to
consider with us the adoption of a more convenient line, to be established
by meridian observations or by known geographical features without the
necessity of an expensive survey of the whole.
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