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Show At about this time the United States engaged in sharp diplomatic exchanges with Brazil over the navigation of the .Amazon River, which that government had closed to all flags except its own. Great Britain and France joined in the protests of the United States, which strongly urged the same views previously advanced by Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams in the controversies over the opening of navigation on the rivers Mississippi and St. Lawrence* President Franklin Pieroe, expressing himself through his Secretary of State and his Minister to Brazil as justified in enforcing the demands of the United States for free navigation to and from the nations on the upper Amazon, had this to say: "This right is not derived from treaty stipulations-it is a natural one-as much so as that to navigate the ocean, the common highway of nations• • • We claim for this continent the same privileges which nearly forty years ago were arranged by common consent and have ever been since applicable to the navigable waters of Europe. The regulations adopted by the allied sovereigns at the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, on this subject were but the recognition of the law of nations in regard to the use of navigable rivers passing through different realms."-^" Tfifhile Brazil procrastinated, Bolivia made a treaty with the United States inviting commerce by navigation upon its principal rivers and expressly pro- claiming that "In accordance with fixed principles of international law, Bolivia regards the rivers Amazon arid La Plata, with their tributaries, as _ highways or channels opened hy nature for the commjerce of all nations.11 ' After much deliberation and a delay of several years the Brazilian govern- ment, without any treaty, opened the waters of the Amazon River to all nations on equal terms; and a little later like action was taken by the riparian nations on the other principal rivers of South America.108 At home, the same persistent policy proceeded with the admission of Oregon into the Union with its navigable waters as common highways, and with its as- sumption of concurrent jurisdiction, civil and criminal, on the Columbia, the Snake River and all other common boundary waters.^09 KaeckenbeQck, International Rivers, 2k, 2li+, citing :1 Moorefs Digest of International Law, 6I4.3. The date was August 8, 1853* • Trousdale was *the Minister of the United States to Brazil. Consult, also, Message of President Pierce to Congress, December, I853. , . • * , . • ...*.• 107 . . Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between Bolivia and the United States. I858, Art. XXVI, 12 Stat. at L. 1003, 1016, 1 Malloy»s Treaties, 113, 122. l oft Kaeolcenbeeck, International Rivers. <Aot of Feb. lij., I859, o. 33, 11 Stat. at L. 383, 5 Thorpe's Constitutions, 29965 5 Thoi-pe's Constitutions, 2998 et seq. Oregon was admitted into the Union .in the year I859. Act of Feb. II4., I859, o. 33, 11 Stat; at L. 383, 5 Thorpefs |
