These documents relate to questions of the highest importance and interest to the people of the United States.

The narrow isthmus which connects the continents of North and South America, by the facilities it affords for easy transit between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, rendered the countries of Central America an object of special consideration to all maritime nations, which has been greatly augmented in modern times by the operation of changes in commercial relations, especially those produced by the general use of steam as a motive power by land and sea.  To us, on account of its geographical position and of our political interest as an American State of primary magnitude, that isthmus is of peculiar importance, just as the Isthmus of Suez is, for corresponding reasons, to the maritime powers of Europe.  But above all, the importance to the United States of securing free transit across the American isthmus has rendered it of paramount interest to us since the settlement of the Territories of Oregon and Washington and the accession of California to the Union.

Impelled by these considerations, the United States took steps at an early day to assure suitable means of commercial transit by canal railway, or otherwise across this isthmus.

We concluded, in the first place, a treaty of peace, amity, navigation, and commerce with the Republic of New Granada, among the conditions of which was a stipulation on the part of New Granada guaranteeing to the United States the right of way or transit across that part of the Isthmus which lies in the territory of New Granada, in consideration of which the United States guaranteed in respect of the same territory the rights of sovereignty and property of New Granada.

The effect of this treaty was to afford to the people of the United States facilities for at once opening a common road from Chagres to Panama and for at length constructing a railway in the same direction, to connect regularly with steamships, for the transportation of mails, specie, and passengers to and fro between the Atlantic and Pacific States and Territories of the United States.

The United States also endeavored, but unsuccessfully, to obtain from the Mexican Republic the cession of the right of way at the northern extremity of the Isthmus by Tehuantepec, and that line of communication continues to be an object of solicitude to the people of this Republic.

In the meantime, intervening between the Republic of New Granada and the Mexican Republic lie the States of Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, the several members of the former Republic of Central America.  Here, in the territory of the Central American States, is the narrowest part of the Isthmus, and hither, of course, public attention has been directed as the most inviting field for enterprises of interoceanic communication between the opposite shores of America, and more especially to the territory of the States of Nicaragua and Honduras.