The twelfth article of the treaty negotiated by Mr. Hise in effect
guarantees the perfect independence of the State of Nicaragua and her
sovereignty over her alleged limits from the Caribbean Sea to the
Pacific Ocean, pledging the naval and military power of the United
States to support it. This treaty authorizes the chartering of a
corporation by this Government to cut a canal outside of the limits of
the United States, and gives to us the exclusive right to fortify and
command it. I have not approved it, nor have I now submitted it for
ratification; not merely because of the facts already mentioned, but
because on the 31st day of December last Señor Edwardo Carcache, on
being accredited to this Government as chargé d'affaires from the State
of Nicaragua, in a note to the Secretary of State, a translation of
which is herewith sent, declared that he was "only empowered to exchange
ratifications of the treaty concluded with Mr. Squier, and that the
special convention concluded at Guatemala by Mr. Hise, the chargé
d'affaires of the United States, and Señor Selva, the commissioner of
Nicaragua, had been, as was publicly and universally known, disapproved
by his Government."

We have no precedent in our history to justify such a treaty as that
negotiated by Mr. Hise since the guaranties we gave to France of her
American possessions. The treaty negotiated with New Granada on the 12th
day of December, 1846, did not guarantee the sovereignty of New Granada
on the whole of her territory, but only over "the single Province of the
Isthmus of Panama," immediately adjoining the line of the railroad, the
neutrality of which was deemed necessary by the President and Senate to
the construction and security of the work.

The thirty-fifth article of the treaty with Nicaragua, negotiated by Mr.
Squier, which is submitted for your advice in regard to its