%563.  The Venezuelan Boundary Dispute.%—­During 1895, the boundary dispute which had been dragging on for more than half a century between Great Britain and Venezuela, reached what the President called “an acute stage,” and made necessary a statement of the position of the United States under the Monroe Doctrine.  Great Britain was therefore informed “that the established policy of the United States is against a forcible increase of any territory of a European power” in the New World, and “that the United States is bound to protest against the enlargement of the area of British Guiana against the will of Venezuela”; and she was invited to submit her claims to arbitration.  Her answer was that the Monroe Doctrine was “inapplicable to the state of things in which we live at the present day” and a refusal to submit her claims to arbitration.  The President then asked and received authority to appoint a commission to examine the boundary and report.  “When such report is made and accepted,” said Cleveland, “it will in my opinion be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power, as a willful aggression upon its rights and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands, or the exercise of any governmental jurisdiction, over any territory which after investigation we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela.”  For a time the excitement this message aroused in Great Britain and our own country was extreme.  But it soon subsided, and on February 2, 1897, a treaty of arbitration was signed at Washington between Great Britain and Venezuela.

%564.  The Election of 1896%.—­By that time the presidential election was over.  When in the spring the time came to choose delegates to the party nominating conventions, the drift of public sentiment was so strong against the administration, that it seemed certain that the Republicans would “sweep the country.”  Little interest, therefore, was taken by the Democrats, while the Republicans were most concerned in the question whether Mr. McKinley or Mr. Reed should be their presidential candidate.  But as delegates were chosen by the Democrats in the Western and Southern States, it became certain that the issue was to be the free and unlimited coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of 16 to 1.

The Republican convention met in June, nominated William McKinley and Garret A Hobart, and declared the party “opposed to the free coinage of silver except by international agreement,” whereupon thirty-four delegates representing the silver states (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, South Dakota, and Utah) seceded from the party.  The Democratic convention assembled early in July, and after a most exciting convention chose William J. Bryan and Arthur Sewall, and declared for “the free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold at the present legal ration of 16 to 1, without waiting for the aid and consent of any other nation.”  A great defection followed this declaration, scores of newspapers refused to support the candidates, and in September a convention of “gold Democrats,” taking the name of the National Democratic party, nominated John M. Palmer and Simon B. Buckner, on a “gold standard” platform.