It will be seen at a glance, by even the most careless political tyro, that the Hise treaty was directly in line and accord with the express principles of the "Munroe Doctrine;" and that it would have given to this country the exclusive rights, which under the treaty adopted it must share with its co-partner, Great Britain. Had the United States accepted the offer made by Nicaragua, and thus obtained the exclusive privilege of opening and controlling the canal, we could have opened it to the commerce of the world, on such terms and conditions as we should deem wise, just, and politic; and it would have been more creditable to us as a nation to have acquired it ourselves, and opened it freely to the use of all nations, rather than to have entered into a co-partnership by which we not only have no control in prescribing the terms upon which it shall be opened, but lose the right of future acquisition and control of Central American territory. Had we accepted it (or should we accept the recent offer of Nicaragua to the same general effect) we should have held in our possession a right, and a might, which would have been ample security for every nation under heaven to have kept the peace with the United States. Honorable Stephen A. Douglas, in commenting upon the conduct of the State Department of 1849 and 1850, said: "When we surrendered this exclusive right we surrendered a great element of power, which in our hands would have been wielded in the cause of justice for the benefit of all mankind." "But suppose," said Senator Clayton in reply, "that Great Britain and other European powers would not have consented to our exclusive control of a canal, in which they, as commercial nations, had as much, and more interest, that we had?" "Well, then," in the language of Senator Douglas, "if Nicaragua desired to confer the privilege, as it appears she did, and we were willing to accept, it was purely an American question with which England or any other foreign power had no right to interfere, or claim to be consulted, no more than we could claim to be consulted when the Holy Alliance sought to establish the equilibrium of Europe. We were not consulted then, and in matters purely continental we have no occasion to consult them; and if England, or any other foreign power, should attempt to interfere, the sympathies of the rest of the civilized world would be with us."