Page 101 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

82 The Isthmus and Sea Power.

events until the time when the Spanish colonial
empire began to break up, in 1808-10, and the
industrial system of the West India islands to
succumb under the approaching abolition of
slavery. The concurrence of these two deci-
sive incidents, and the confusion which ensued
in the political and economical conditions, rap-
idly reduced the Isthmus and its approaches to
an insignificance from which the islands have
not yet recovered. The Isthmus is partially
restored. Its importance, however, depends
upon causes more permanent, in the natural
order of things, than does that of the islands,
which, under existing circumstances, and under
any circumstances that can be foreseen as yet,
derive their consequence chiefly from the effect
which may be exerted from them upon the
tenure of the Isthmus. Hence the latter, after a
period of comparative obscurity, again emerged
into notice as a vital political factor, when the
spread of the United States to the Pacific raised
the question of rapid and secure communication
between our two great seaboards. The Mexi-
can War, the acquisition of California, the dis-
covery of gold, and the mad rush to the diggings
which followed, hastened, but by no means origi-