It can not be forgotten that this distant community is
an offshoot of our own system, owing its origin to the associated
benevolence of American citizens, whose praiseworthy efforts to create
a nucleus of civilization in the Dark Continent have commanded respect
and sympathy everywhere, especially in this country. Although a formal
protectorate over Liberia is contrary to our traditional policy, the
moral right and duty of the United States to assist in all proper
ways in the maintenance of its integrity is obvious, and has been
consistently announced during nearly half a century. I recommend that in
the reorganization of our Navy a small vessel, no longer found adequate
to our needs, be presented to Liberia, to be employed by it in the
protection of its coastwise revenues.
The encouraging development of beneficial and intimate relations between
the United States and Mexico, which has been so marked within the past
few years, is at once the occasion of congratulation and of friendly
solicitude. I urgently renew my former representation of the need of
speedy legislation by Congress to carry into effect the reciprocity
commercial convention of January 20, 1883.
Our commercial treaty of 1831 with Mexico was terminated, according to
its provisions, in 1881, upon notification given by Mexico in pursuance
of her announced policy of recasting all her commercial treaties. Mexico
has since concluded with several foreign governments new treaties of
commerce and navigation, defining alien rights of trade, property, and
residence, treatment of shipping, consular privileges, and the like.
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