Although U.S. President James Buchanan strongly favored the arrangement, and Mexican President Benito Juárez badly needed the money to finance the war that he was waging against the Conservative Party, the treaty was never ratified by the U.S. Senate because of the imminent civil war in the U.S., whose the northern, free states were concerned that the provisions in the treaty, in particular the free transit of military effects and troops through the isthmus would benefit the soon-to-become Confederate States if there was an open civil war.