Difficulties Between Mexico and Guatemala: Official Documents. Various Authors

Sir: In my instructions of the 1st instant and today, I have so clearly amplified the spirit of good-will which animates this government toward that of Mexico, that I am sure no room for doubt can remain as to the sincerity of our friendship. Believing that this friendship and the frankness which has always distinguished the policy of this country toward its neighbors warrant the tender of amicable counsel when occasion therefor shall appear, and deeming such counsel due to our recognized impartiality, and to the position of the United States as the founder and, in some sense, the guarantor and guardian of republican principles on the American continent, it seems proper now to instruct you touching a point upon which we feel some natural concern. I refer to the question of boundaries and territorial jurisdiction pending between Mexico and Guatemala.

In the time of the Empire the forces of Iturbide overran a large part of the territory of what now constitutes Central America, which had then recently thrown off the Spanish domination. The changing fortunes of war resulted in the withdrawal of Mexican forces from most of that region, except the important provinces of Soconusco and Chiapas, which remained under their control. Since that time the boundaries between the two countries have never been adjusted upon a satisfactory basis. Mexico, become a republic, did not forego claims based on the imperial policy of conquest and absorption, while Guatemala, resisting further progress of Mexican arms, and disputing step by step the conquest already made, has never been able to come to a decision with her more powerful neighbor concerning the relative extension of their jurisdiction in the disputed strip of territory lying between the Gulf of Tehuantepec and the peninsula of Yucatan.

Under these circumstances the Government of Guatemala has made a formal application to the President of the United States to lend his good offices toward the restoration of a better state of feeling between the two republics. This application is made in frank and conciliatory terms, as to the natural protector of the rights and national integrity of the republican forms of government existing so near our shores, and to which we are bound by so many ties of history and of material interest.

This government can do no less than give friendly and considerate heed to the representations of Guatemala, even as it would be glad to do were the appeal made by Mexico in the interest of justice and a better understanding.

The events, fresh in the memory of the living generation of Mexicans, when the moral and material support of the United States, although then engaged in a desperate domestic struggle, was freely lent to avert the danger with which a foreign empire threatened the national life of the Mexican Republic, afford a gratifying proof of the purity of motives and benevolence of disposition with which the United States regard all that concerns the welfare and existence of its sister republics of the continent.

It is alleged, on behalf of Guatemala, that diplomatic efforts to come to a better understanding with Mexico have proved unavailing; that under a partial and preliminary accord, looking to the ascertainment of the limits in dispute, the Guatemalan surveying parties sent out to study the land, with a view to proposing a basis of definitive settlement, have been imprisoned by the Mexican authorities; that Guatemalan agents for the taking of a census of the inhabitants of the territory in question have been dealt with in like summary manner; and, in fine, that the Government of Mexico has, slowly but steadily, encroached upon the bordering country heretofore held by Guatemala, substituting the local authorities of Mexico for those already in possession, and so widening the area in contention.

It is not the present province of the Government of the United States to express an opinion as to the extent of either the Guatemalan or the Mexican claim to this region.

It is not a self-constituted arbitrator of the destinies of either country, or of both, in this matter.

It is simply the impartial friend of both, ready to tender frank and earnest counsel touching anything which may menace the peace and prosperity of its neighbors. It is, above all, anxious to do any and everything which will tend to make stronger the natural union of the republics of the continent in the face of the tendencies of other and distant forms of government to influence the internal affairs of Spanish America.

It is especially anxious, in the pursuance of this great policy, to see the Central American Republics more securely united than they have been in the past, in protection of their common interests, which interests are, in their outward relations, identical in principle with those of Mexico and of the United States. It feels that everything which may lessen the good will and harmony so much to be desired between the Spanish Republics of the Isthmus must in the end disastrously affect their mutual well-being.

The responsibility for the maintenance of this common attitude of united strength is, in the President's conception, shared by all, and rests no less upon the strong States than upon the weak.

Without, therefore, in any way, prejudging the contention between Mexico and Guatemala, but acting as the unbiased counselor of both, the President deems it is his duty to set before the Government of Mexico his conviction of the danger which would ensue to the principles which Mexico has so signally and successfully defended in the past should disrespect be shown to the boundaries which separate her from her weaker neighbors, or should the authority of force be resorted to in the establishment of rights over territory which they claim, without the conceded justification of her just title thereto. And especially would the President regard as an unfriendly act toward the cherished plan of upbuilding strong republican governments in Spanish America, if

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