The whole matter had attracted great attention, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. The appointment of the commission was the result of a chain of circumstances very honorable to the President, to his Secretary of State, Mr. Olney, and to Congress. For years the Venezuelan government had been endeavoring to establish a frontier between its territory and that of its powerful neighbor, but without result; and meantime the British boundary seemed to be pushed more and more into the territory of the little Spanish-American republic. For years, too, Venezuela had appealed to the United States, and the United States had appealed to Great Britain. American secretaries of state and ambassadors at the Court of St. James had "trusted," and "regretted," and had "the honor to renew assurances of their most distinguished consideration"; but all in vain. At last the matter had been presented by Secretary Olney to the government of Lord Salisbury; and now, to Mr. Olney's main despatch on the subject, Lord Salisbury, after some months' delay, had returned an answer declining arbitration, and adding that international law did not recognize the Monroe Doctrine. This seemed even more than cool; for, when one remembered that the Monroe Doctrine was at first laid down with the approval of Great Britain, that it was glorified in Parliament and in the British press of 1823 and the years following, and that Great Britain had laid down policies in various parts of the earth, especially in the Mediterranean and in the far East, which she insisted that all other powers should respect without reference to any sanction by international law, this argument seemed almost insulting. So it evidently seemed to Mr. Cleveland. Probably no man less inclined to demagogism or to a policy of adventure ever existed; but as he looked over the case his American instincts were evidently aroused. He saw then, what is clear to everybody now, that it was the time of all times for laying down, distinctly and decisively, the American doctrine on the subject. He did so, and in a message to Congress proposed that, since Great Britain would not intrust the finding of a boundary to arbitration, the United States should appoint commissioners to find what the proper boundary was, and then, having ascertained it, should support its sister American republic in maintaining it.