United States had accepted it. Great Britain, therefore, refused
to admit that the treaty was not in full force. Blaine then urged
the building of an American canal across the Isthmus of
Nicaragua, in defiance of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty--a plan which
received the support of even President Arthur, under whom a
treaty for the purpose was negotiated with the Republic of
Nicaragua. Before this treaty was ratified by the Senate,
however, Grover Cleveland, who had just become President,
withdrew it. He believed in the older policy, and refused his
sanction to the new treaty on the ground that such a canal "must
be for the world's benefit, a trust for mankind, to be removed
from the chance of domination by any single power."

The crowning glory of Blaine's system, as he planned it, was the
cooperation of the American republics for common purposes. He did
not share Seward's dream that they would become incorporated
States of the Union, but he went back to Henry Clay and the
Panama Congress of 1826 for his ideal. During his first term of
office he invited the republics to send representatives to
Washington to discuss arbitration, but his successor in office
feared that such a meeting of "a partial group of our friends"
might offend Europe, which indeed was not improbably part of
Blaine's intention. On resuming office, Blaine finally arranged
the meeting of a Pan-American Congress in the United States.
Chosen to preside, he presented an elaborate program, including a
plan for arbitrating disputes; commercial reciprocity; the
establishment of uniform weights and measures, of international
copyright, trade-marks and patents, and, of common coinage;
improvement of communications; and other subjects. At the same
time he exerted himself to secure in the McKinley Tariff Bill,