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President Pierce Rare Letter of State for a Future Confederate to Negotiate with Honduras and Other Central American Republics
President Pierce Rare Letter of State for a Future Confederate to Negotiate with Honduras and Other Central American Republics
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Pierce Franklin

President Pierce Rare Letter of State for a Future Confederate to Negotiate with Honduras and Other Central American Republics

 

FRANKLIN PIERCE, Document Signed, appointing Solon Borland to negotiate treaty with Honduras, June 15, 1853, Washington, D.C. 2 pp., 11" x 16.75"  Expected folds and some tears on folds, partially repaired by tape.

 

Complete Transcript



Franklin Pierce,


President of the United States of America,

To all to whom these presents may come, Greeting:

            Know ye, that reposing special trust and confidence in the integrity, prudence and abilities of Solon Borland, appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Central America, I have invested him with full and all manner of power and authority, for and in the name of the United States to meet and confer with any person or persons duly authorized by the government of Honduras, being vested with like power and authority, and with him or them to agree, treat, consult and negotiate of and concerning general commerce between the United States and Honduras and all matters and things connected therewith; and to conclude and sign a treaty or treaties, Convention or Conventions touching the premises, transmitting the same to the President of the United States for his ratification by and with the advice and consent of the Senate thereof.


In witness whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed. Given under my hand, at the City of Washington this fifteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, and, of the Independence of the United States the seventy-seventh.

                                                                       
Franklin Pierce

By the President:

W. L. Marcy, Secretary of State.

 

Historical Background



The United States had recognized the independence of the Federation of Central American States from Spain on August 4, 1824, when President James Monroe received an ambassador from the federation. Between 1838 and 1840, the federation broke up into the independent states of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Salvador. On April 18, 1853, the United States recognized the independent states, when President Franklin Pierce nominated Solon Borland as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the five separate states.

 

This document gave Borland specific authority to negotiate a treaty with Honduras. After he established a residence at Managua in September 1853, Borland proposed to Secretary of State William L. Marcy that the United States should commit to supporting Honduras with force in reclaiming the Bay Islands off the north coast of Honduras, seized and colonized by the British. While Borland waited for instructions on his trip to Honduras, war erupted between that country and Guatemala and El Salvador. Ultimately, Borland never visited Tegucigalpa to present his credentials during his eight-month stay in Central America. A committed expansionist, Borland did little to calm the fears of British representatives or the leaders of Nicaragua about America’s territorial ambitions in Central America.

 

After Secretary Marcy reprimanded Borland in a late December dispatch for his threats to engage the United States in a war with Great Britain over Central American islands, Borland offered his resignation to President Pierce. Borland did manage to complete the negotiation of a new commercial treaty with Nicaragua, but the Pierce administration never sent it to the Senate for ratification.

 

As he returned to the United States via Greytown, Borland involved himself in more controversy, preventing the arrest of an American steamer captain for murder. Brandishing his diplomatic immunity and a rifle, Borland prevented the arrest but was struck by a broken bottle thrown by an unknown assailant. His report led the Pierce administration to send a naval ship to Greytown to demand an apology, but the town’s mayor and city council had resigned. In one of the earliest episodes of gunboat diplomacy, the zealous naval commander bombarded the town and sent marines ashore to burn any remaining buildings. The destruction of Greytown proved to be an embarrassment to the Pierce administration.

 

 

Solon Borland (1808-1864) was born in Virginia and moved with his family to North Carolina in 1823. In 1831, he served as a captain of militia forces sent to suppress Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. He studied medicine in Philadelphia and opened a practice in North Carolina. In 1836, he moved to western Tennessee, and in 1843, on to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he became a newspaper editor, active in Democratic politics. During the Mexican War, he led Arkansas cavalry as a major and became a prisoner of war. He escaped and, when his unit was disbanded, remained in the army through to the capture of Mexico City. After the war, the legislature elected him in March 1848 as a United States senator to fill an unexpired term. Unpopular both at home and in the Senate, he resigned in 1853, and served as United States minister to Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica until April 1854. He urged the United States to repudiate the 1850 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain and to support Honduras in its confrontation with Great Britain. Borland returned to his medical practice in Arkansas in October 1854 but led state militia within the state for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Two of his sons served in the Confederate army, and his youngest son joined, though only sixteen years old, and was later killed in action.

 

Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) was born in New Hampshire and graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine in 1824. There he met fellow student Nathaniel Hawthorne, with whom he developed a lifelong friendship. Pierce studied law and was admitted to the New Hampshire bar in 1827. In 1834, he married Jane Means Appleton (1806-1863), and they had three sons, all of whom died in childhood. Pierce represented New Hampshire as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1833 to 1837 and in the U.S. Senate from 1837 to 1842. There, he was a strong opponent of abolitionists and saw federal action against slavery as an infringement of southern states’ rights, though he was personally opposed to slavery. He resigned from the Senate in February 1842 and returned to Concord and his law practice. He served in the Mexican War as colonel of the 9th U.S. Infantry, then as a brigadier general, though he spent much of the war convalescing from injuries and illness. At the Democratic Convention in June 1852, Pierce secured the nomination as a dark-horse candidate on the 49th ballot. In the general election, he defeated Whig nominee Winfield Scott to gain the presidency. His administration began on a tragic note, as his only surviving son died in a train accident two months before the inauguration. His vice president, William R. King of Alabama, died in April 1853, six weeks into Pierce’s term, and he served the remainder of his presidency without a vice president. Pierce supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which doomed his chances of re-nomination in 1856. After the Presidency, Pierce and his wife traveled abroad for three years. He wanted to avoid the Civil War at any price and generally did not support President Lincoln’s efforts, leading to rumors that he was disloyal.

 

 

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