territories should be slave or free.

The acquisition of California brought up a new problem of quick transit
between Atlantic and Pacific, and a canal was planned across Central
America. Here Britain and America acted together, at first in amity,
though the convention signed in 1850 later developed discord as to the
British claim of a protectorate over the Atlantic end of the proposed
canal at San Juan del Nicaragua. But Britain was again at war in Europe
in the middle 'fifties, and America was deep in quarrel over slavery at
home. On both sides in spite of much diplomatic intrigue and of
manifestations of national pride there was governmental desire to avoid
difficulties. At the end of the ten-year period Britain ceded to
Nicaragua her protectorate in the canal zone, and all causes of
friction, so reported President Buchanan to Congress in 1860, were
happily removed. Britain definitely altered her policy of opposition to
the growth of American power.

In 1860, then, the causes of governmental antagonisms were seemingly all
at an end. Impressment was not used after 1814. The differing theories
of the two Governments on British expatriation still remained, but
Britain attempted no practical application of her view. The right of
search in time of peace controversy, first eased by the plan of joint
cruising, had been definitely settled by the British renunciation of
1858. Opposition to American territorial advance but briefly manifested
by Britain, had ended with the annexation of Texas, and the fever of
expansion had waned in America. Minor disputes in Central America,
related to the proposed canal, were amicably adjusted.

But differences between nations, varying view-points of peoples,
frequently have deeper currents than the more obvious frictions in