Page "Nicaragua Canal" Paragraph 13

While officials in Washington, D. C. thought the project had merit, and Secretary of State Henry Clay formally presented it to the Congress of the United States in 1826, the plan was not approved.

The US was worried about the poverty and political instability of Nicaragua, as well as the rival strategic and economic interests of the British government, which controlled both British Honduras ( later Belize ) and the Mosquito Coast.