ould give the nation
complete control. Great Britain, however, could scarcely be expected to
regard a treaty as defunct from old age at thirty years, especially as
she also possessed a developing Pacific coast. Moreover, if the treaty
was to British advantage, at least the 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, which was just then under consideration, a
provision for reciprocity of trade with American countries. This meeting
was not a complete success, since Congress gave him only half of what
he wanted by providing for reciprocity but making it general instead of
purely American. Nevertheless one permanent and solid result was secured
in the establishment of the Bureau of American Republics at Washi