Border dispute

“ The policy of the enemy at the north, during the whole season, was to divide their own forces into small detachments, and harass the border settlements at as many different points as possible—thus distracting the attention of the people, and by allowing them neither a sense of security nor repose, rendering them disgusted with the protracted struggle. ”

“ The proximity of the English and Scots in the neighbourhood of the border line, and the inoperative character of the laws, arising from the disorders of the feudal system, which filled both countries with chiefs and petty governors, eager, and sufficiently powerful, to make aggressions and reprisals on each other, are of themselves a sufficient explanation of the causes which led to those continued strifes called the Border warfare. ”

“ We can discover no reason why the two countries should not live peaceably together, each going about its own business. I have heard it said, before now, that it would be a good thing for both countries if the border districts on both sides were stripped altogether of their people, and allowed to lie desolate. ”

“ Through commerce and widespread territories the nation is brought into constant intercourse and often into the most delicate relations with almost every savage race on the globe, thus standing almost alone of European nations on that border-land where civilization confronts barbarism, of all positions in which a nation can be placed perhaps the one most weighted with responsibilities and most pregnant with possibilities of good and evil. ”

“ I say additional, because to abstract so large a number of men from the army in the present state of the country, when there are so many calls for regular troops, and the frontiers exposed to attack are so insufficiently guarded, would be imminently to increase the danger of a border war. ”

“ The people of this beautiful State are just now enduring a double share of the evils of border location, having not only the ill-directed “sympathy” with the insurrectionists of Canada to repress, but the excitement of the newly-vexed question of boundary. As this last subject is one little understood, perhaps the history of the negotiations on the subject may not be unacceptable to the readers of the American Scenery. ”

“ God knows I yearn to cut no man’s thread where it can be avoided, but the true interests of England stand paramount. Would you condemn thousands of innocent men to agony and the horrors of prolonged war, to save the feelings of a Border ruffian who intervenes in a quarrel that should not concern him? ”

“ In such an atmosphere there could not fail to return a belief in the good old border rule, "the simple plan: that they should take who have the power, and they should keep who can." And it must be remembered that an island country's border is the enemy's coast! On that ethical understanding many privateer owners built up large fortunes, still enjoyed by descendants who in these days would look upon high-sea looting of non-combatants with definite horror. ”

“ Regarding the question from another point of view,—it is infinitely more dangerous for a state to have on its borders a race who have kin immediately beyond the border in the enjoyment of a form of government which assures them their independence, or in which they are paramount, than to have on its frontier a race alien to their neighbours beyond the border. ”

“ One may deplore the rivalries over small bits of territory, which acquire a factitious significance in the course of the dispute, but they cannot be ignored. The possession of land is still a passion of peoples, and even of what our census calls ‘minor civil divisions,’ and the history of individual ownership shows that such passions do not grow less with the growth of other interests. So long as states continue to exercise authority within definitely recognized frontiers, the establishing of their territorial limits must remain a fundamental problem of international relations. ”

“ For the frontier, therefore, the centripetal force is weakened; the centrifugal is strengthened often by the attraction of some neighboring state or tribe, which has established bonds of marriage, trade, and friendly intercourse with the outlying community. Moreover, the mere infusion of foreign blood, customs, and ideas, especially a foreign religion, which is characteristic of a border zone, invades the national solidarity. Hence we find that a tendency to political defection constantly manifests itself along the periphery. ”

“ The Border States in our Civil War were the deadliest battle-grounds, not only the meeting-places of the contending armies but also the scene of innumerable local feuds and conflicts between the inhabitants, half of whom inclined to one side and half to the other. ”

“ When border collisions come to receive the sanction or to be made on the authority of either Government general war must be the inevitable result. While it is the ardent desire of the United States to cultivate the relations of peace with all nations and to fulfill all the duties of good neighborhood toward those who possess territories adjoining their own, that very desire would lead them to deny the right of any foreign power to invade their boundary with an armed force. ”

“ While I do not anticipate an interruption of friendly relations with Mexico, yet I can not but look with some solicitude upon a continuance of border disorders as exposing the two countries to initiations of popular feeling and mischances of action which are naturally unfavorable to complete amity. Firmly determined that nothing shall be wanting on my part to promote a good understanding between the two nations, I yet must ask the attention of Congress to the actual occurrences on the border, that the lives and property of our citizens may be adequately protected and peace preserved. ”

“ The British Raj does not want a great border war, and I can bring down ten thousand wild hillmen outlaws between whom and the British Raj there is a blood feud; ten thousand from a land where there is never peace, only truce. ”

“ Calls on the parties to refrain from unilateral troop or population movements, including establishment of any new settlements in areas near the border, until demarcation and orderly transfer of territorial control has been accomplished, in accordance with article 4.16 of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement ”

“ There is every reason to believe that disturbances like those which lately agitated the neighboring British Provinces will not again prove the sources of border contentions or interpose obstacles to the continuance of that good understanding which it is the mutual interest of Great Britain and the United States to preserve and maintain. ”

“ Stresses the importance of the rapid delimitation and demarcation of the common border between the parties in accordance with the OAU Framework Agreement (S/1998/1223, annex) and the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement ”

“ But we shall never get away from the Border if we stop to moralise on all its scenes of strife—most of them well forgotten. Border fighting was commonly on a small scale, with plunder rather than conquest or glory for its aim; like the Arabs of to-day, those fierce but canny neighbours were seldom in a spirit for needless slaughter, that would entail fresh blood-feuds on their own kin. The Border fortresses were many, but chiefly small, designed for sudden defence against an enemy who might be trusted not to keep the field long. ”

“ I should have been glad to announce some favorable disposition of the boundary dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela touching the western frontier of British Guiana, but the friendly efforts of the United States in that direction have thus far been unavailing. This Government will continue to express its concern at any appearance of foreign encroachment on territories long under the administrative control of American States. ”

“ Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you can not fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you. There is no line, straight or crooked, suitable for a national boundary upon which to divide. Trace through, from east to west, upon the line between the free and slave country. ”

“ Before dealing in detail with the stirring stories of Border history and legend, to retell which is the purpose of this book, we will first inquire—What is it that settles exactly the position of the border-line between two countries? To find the answer we must think what happens when a country is invaded.
If the invaders are stronger than the people whom they attack, they go on thrusting back their foes till these reach some strong position where, by the aid of mountain, river, or marsh, they are able, at any rate for a time, to hold their own. ”

“ She is separated from every other foreign country and joined to every other part of the British Empire by the sea alone. Her land frontier is long and has given cause for much dispute in times of crisis. ”

“ If ever there was a cold-blooded transaction, in which the lives and happiness of thirty thousand innocent people were reckoned of no account in the mere tracing of a boundary line between two countries, this appears to be one ”

“ The neighborhood of Spanish and British territories, bordering on some States, and not on others, naturally confines the causes of quarrel more immediately to the borderers. The bordering States, if any, will be those who, under the impulse of sudden irritation, and a quick sense of apparent interest or injury, will be most likely, by direct violence, to excite war with these nations; and nothing can so effectually obviate that danger as a national Government, whose wisdom and prudence will not be diminished by the passions which actuate the parties immediately interested. ”

“ In Europe and Asia frontiers are usually strongly fortified and strictly watched in times of peace as well as during war. In South America strictly defined boundaries are still the exception, and the claims of neighbouring nations have very frequently given rise to war, though now more commonly to arbitration. [53]
The modes of government amongst civilized peoples have little influence on political geography; some republics are as arbitrary and exacting in their frontier regulations as some absolute monarchies. ”

“ At times each country found itself drawn into defending persons because of their nationality who deserved no protection from any one. Sometimes the rules of international law, which were intended to promote good relations among nations, seemed to be the chief cause of entanglements. For example, it was not always easy to differentiate border raids from "revolutions" or either of these from the Indian depredations, which even down to our own day have continued to be a source of disturbance along the boundary. ”

“ The regions of the world in which the problem of the protection of foreign interests promises to be most important are three. In eastern Europe and the Near East it is evident that the settlements following the World War cannot set up states that will at once be able to discharge easily all the responsibilities toward their neighbors and toward resident foreigners that the great powers will wish to have assumed. ”

“ The location of a frontier may, in a given case, not only be an international question in the sense that it should be settled internationally, but also in the sense that it is justiciable, according to the usual idea of justiciable questions. ”

“ Territorial disputes have at all times been found one of the most fertile sources of hostility among nations. Perhaps the greatest proportion of wars that have desolated the earth have sprung from this origin. This cause would exist, among us, in full force. We have a vast tract of unsettled territory within the boundaries of the United States. ”

“ The officers posted on the frontiers should be constantly reminded of the fact that the peace of the central nation depends upon the conduct of the borderers. The borderers, if they commit lawless raids into others' territories in their vicinity, will give occasion for reprisals and involve the nation in the horrors of foreign warfare in an unjust cause. ”

“ A long reach weakens the arm of authority, especially where serious geographical barriers intervene; hence border uprisings are usually successful, at least for a time. When accomplished, they involve that shrinkage of the frontiers which we have found to be the unmistakable symptom of national decline. ”

“ In the execution of the treaties of peace of 1782-11 and 1783-09, between the United States and Great Britain, and which terminated the war of our independence, a line of boundary was drawn as the demarcation of territory between the two countries, extending over nearly 20 degrees of latitude, and ranging over seas, lakes, and mountains, then very imperfectly explored and scarcely opened to the geographical knowledge of the age. ”

“ The general introduction gives us a general survey of the graphic pictures of Border quarrels, their simple violence and simple cunning. It enters, for instance, with grave humour into the strong distinction taken in the debatable land between a "freebooter" and a "thief," and the difficulty which the inland counties had in grasping it, and paints for us, with great vivacity, the various Border superstitions. ”

“ No territory should be transferred from one nation to another against the will of the inhabitants, nor should any readjustments be made which might breed fresh wars. National boundaries should coincide as far as possible with national sentiment. No terms of settlement should be regarded as satisfactory if they impose upon any nation such harsh and humiliating terms of peace as would be inconsistent with its independence, self-respect, or well-being. ”