dispute which had been dragging on for more than half a century between
Great Britain and Venezuela, reached what the President called "an acute
stage," and made necessary a statement of the position of the United
States under the Monroe Doctrine. Great Britain was therefore informed
"that the established policy of the United States is against a forcible
increase of any territory of a European power" in the New World, and
"that the United States is bound to protest against the enlargement of
the area of British Guiana against the will of Venezuela"; and she was
invited to submit her claims to arbitration. Her answer was that the
Monroe Doctrine was "inapplicable to the state of things in which we
live at the present day" and a refusal to submit her claims to
arbitration. The President then asked and received authority to appoint
a commission to examine the boundary and report. "When such report is
made and accepted," said Cleveland, "it will in my opinion be the duty
of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful
aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great
Britain of any lands, or the exercise of any governmental jurisdiction,
over any territory which after investigation we have determined of right
belongs to Venezuela." For a time the excitement this message aroused in
Great Britain and our own country was extreme. But it soon subsided, and
on February 2, 1897, a treaty of arbitration was signed at Washington
between Great Britain and Venezuela.

%564. The Election of 1896%.--By that time the presidential election
was over. When in the spring the time came to choose delegates to the
party nominating conventions, the drift of public sentiment was so
strong against the administration, that it seemed certain that the
Republicans would "sweep the country." Little interest, therefore, was
taken by the Democrats, while the Republicans were most concerned in the
question whether Mr. McKinley or Mr. Reed should be their presidential
candidate. But as delegates were chosen by the Democrats in the Western
and Southern States, it became certain that the issue was to be the free
and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to 1.

The Republican convention met in June, nominated William McKinley and
Garret A Hobart, and declared the party "opposed to the free coinage of
silver except by international agreement," whereupon thirty-four
delegates representing the silv