Secretary Cass forty-five years before had so emphatically repudiated—­to close the gates of intercourse on one of the great highways of the world.  When we submitted to Colombia the Hay-Herran Treaty, it had been settled that the time for delay, the time for permitting any government of anti-social character, or of imperfect development, to bar the work, had passed.  The United States had assumed in connection with the canal certain responsibilities not only to its own people but to the civilized world, which imperatively demanded that there should be no further delay in beginning the work.  The Hay-Herran Treaty, if it erred at all, erred in being overgenerous toward Colombia.  The people of Panama were delighted with the treaty, and the President of Colombia, who embodied in his own person the entire government of Colombia, had authorized the treaty to be made.  But after the treaty had been made the Colombia Government thought it had the matter in its own hands; and the further thought, equally wicked and foolish, came into the heads of the people in control at Bogota that they would seize the French Company at the end of another year and take for themselves the forty million dollars which the United States had agreed to pay the Panama Canal Company.

President Maroquin, through his Minister, had agreed to the Hay-Herran Treaty in January, 1903.  He had the absolute power of an unconstitutional dictator to keep his promise or break it.  He determined to break it.  To furnish himself an excuse for breaking it he devised the plan of summoning a Congress especially called to reject the canal treaty.  This the Congress—­a Congress of mere puppets—­did, without a dissenting vote; and the puppets adjourned forthwith without legislating on any other subject.  The fact that this was a mere sham, and that the President had entire power to confirm his own treaty and act on it if he desired, was shown as soon as the revolution took place, for on November 6 General Reyes of Colombia addressed the American Minister at Bogota, on behalf of President Maroquin, saying that “if the Government of the United States would land troops and restore the Colombian sovereignty” the Colombian President would “declare martial law; and, by virtue of vested constitutional authority, when public order is disturbed, would approve by decree the ratification of the canal treaty as signed; or, if the Government of the United States prefers, would call an extra session of the Congress—­with new and friendly members—­next May to approve the treaty.”  This, of course, is proof positive that the Colombian dictator had used his Congress as a mere shield, and a sham shield at that, and it shows how utterly useless it would have been further to trust his good faith in the matter.