United States up to 1850, and that is the only period we are now discussing, was uniform and unvaried, and that it was based on the dominant principle that the Canal, whenever and wheresoever constructed, should be open to all nations on equal terms.
Now about the year 1850 the question of a canal had become a matter of more urgent importance for the United States. They had then just come into possession of the great territories which form to-day the States on their Western coast, and it was essential to have some means of communication between East and West if the Central Government located in the Eastern States was to hold its own. Oregon, Washington, and Idaho had been definitely acquired in 1846; California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona had become part of the United States dominions under the Mexican cession of 1847. But there were no railways and no means of transporting commerce by land save by road; and to make the matter still more pressing, the discovery of gold in California in 1848 had caused a rush of passengers and of trade to that State, which demanded some better means of communication than the slow progress of the coach or the long journey round Cape Horn. It is true that this want was afterwards supplied by the making of railways, but it was not till 1869 that the first line was made across the continent, so that in 1850 the importance of a sea route was not diminished by any anticipation of an immediate railway communication. But in the position in which they then stood, the United States could do little to make any sea communication without the assistance and assent of Great Britain. That Power had special interests as the largest carrier and the greatest trader in the world, and her aim was then, as it is now, to secure the passage of her vessels through any canal that might be constructed on the
