PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR 397 Excellency to acquit yourself of this obligation; and some have gone so far as to intimate that Your Excellency's intention is not to submit the Contract for ratification, but merely for the consideration of that body: But this I utterly reject as inconsistent with my experience of Your Excellency's candor and firmness. If Your Excellency is fully persuaded that the ratification of said Contract is a matter of too vast importance to admit of postponement until the meeting of next regular Congress, then the call of an Extra Session for the purpose of its ratification be- comes an imperious duty. But I cannot and will not entertain the idea, that Your Excellency would convoke the Congress with the hope of its rejecting a Convention which Your Excellency would have to submit ostensibly for its ratification. Such a course might, indeed, screen your Excellency from responsibility of its rejection; but it would be at the expense of candor; and if contrary to Your Excellency's expectation the Congress should think proper to ratify the Contract, Your Excellency would be equally implicated with that body in all the Evils which might flow from the measure; because Your Excellency, had full power in your own hands to prevent the mischief, and yet you did not.- This may sound a little like a lesson in moral or political ethics; yet it is not alto- gether irrelevant to the present discussion; and it may be well perhaps not to treat the reflection with a too contemptuous dissregard. It was inattention to the very principle which I am now endeavoring to explain, that involved a certain Executive Chief in a dilemma, from which I believe he has not yet sallied. After a careful and protracted consid- eration of a Treaty which his agents had celebrated, he determined finally to submit it to the National Assembly for its ratification.-To his utter astonishment the Treaty was ratified sure enough. This was more than his Excellency had expected, and a little more than he was willing to bear; and of consequence he made short work of the matter by vetoing the proceedings of that body. The legality and validity of that veto, I believe is still an unsettled question.- After all, however, it may be, that this moral obligation of which I speak, is not the real motive for seeking the ratification of that Contract. Your Excellency may have other and more powerful reasons for desiring its ratification. Very urgent and imperative I suppose they must be to justify the convocation of Congress for that special purpose. Whatever they may be, they are unknown to me; nor can I possibly conjecture them; but I think I shall be able to demonstrate in a few remaining observations, that such a sudden ratification of that Contract under existing circumstances is un- wise and defenseless in evevry [sic] possible contemplation of the subject; and as Costa Rica is more to be effected by its consequ~nces than any other party, I must solicit your Excellency's patient consideration of what I have to offer ;-if indeed it is possible to remain patient under the infliction of a communication so very hurried and discursive.- I contend in the first place that there was no necessity for Costa-Rica uniting with Nicaragua in that Contract. It was an act purely super- erogatory. Costa-Rica possessed no rights privileges or possessions in that Republic. The route belonged exclusively to Nicaragua; she had the exclusive control and jurisdiction of it; it was all within her own limits; and the Concessions necessary for the opening it, had to come from her alone. Costa-Rica had nothing to concede-nothing to grant- and of consequence her connection with the Contract was a mere, useless
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