rated the natural right of the citizens of the United States to
the navigation of this river, claiming that the act of the congress of
Vienna in opening the Rhine and other rivers to all nations showed the
judgment of European jurists and statesmen that the inhabitants of a
country through which a navigable river passes have a natural right to
enjoy the navigation of that river to and into the sea, even though
passing through the territories of another power. This right does not
exclude the coequal right of the sovereign possessing the territory
through which the river debouches into the sea to make such regulations
relative to the police of the navigation as may be reasonably necessary;
but those regulations should be framed in a liberal spirit of comity,
and should not impose needless burdens upon the commerce which has the
right of transit. It has been found in practice more advantageous to
arrange these regulations by mutual agreement. The United States are
ready to make any reasonable arrangement as to the police of the St.
Lawrence which may be suggested by Great Britain.

If the claim made by Mr. Clay was just when the population of States
bordering on the shores of the Lakes was only 3,400,000, it now derives
greater force and equity from the increased population, wealth,
production, and tonnage of the States on the Canadian frontier. Since
Mr. Clay advanced his argument in behalf of our right the principle
for which he contended has been frequently, and by various nations,
recognized by law or by treaty, and has been extended to several other
great rivers. By the treaty concluded at Mayence in 1831 the Rhine was
declared free from the point where it is first navigable into the sea.
By the convention between Spain and Portugal concluded in 1835 the
navigation of the Douro throughout its whole extent was made free for
the subjects of both Crowns. In 1853 the Argentine Confederation by
treaty threw open the free navigation of the Parana and the Uruguay to
the merchant vessels of all nations. In 1856 the Crimean War was closed
by a treaty which provided for the free navigation of the Danube.
In 1858 Bolivia by treaty declared that it regarded the rivers Amazon
and La Plata, in accordance with fixed principles of national law, as
highways or channels opened by nature for the commerce of all nations.
In 1859 the Paraguay was made free by treaty, and in December, 1866,
the Emperor of Brazil by imperial decree declared