POLITICS AND STATE RIGHTS
The circumstances of his election made the position of President Adams one of very great difficulty. He alluded to his embarrassment in his first message to Congress. "Less possessed of your confidence in advance than any of my predecessors," said he, "I am deeply conscious of the prospect that I shall stand more and oftener in need of your indulgence." It is doubtful, however, if even he appreciated the momentum of the forces which were already combining to discredit his administration. In October, the legislature of Tennessee had again nominated Jackson for the Presidency, and he had accepted the nomination as a summons to wage war upon the forces of evil in high places. The campaign of 1828, indeed, had already begun: and it was to be a campaign of personal vindication as well as of popular rights.
Under similar circumstances most men would have made sure of the loyalty of their constitutional advisers, at least, but Adams flattered himself that he could carry on a non-partisan administration. The results were disastrous, for at least two of the Cabinet were not above using the patronage of office to further the cause of Jackson. In his laudable desire not to allow the Government to become "a perpetual and unintermitting scramble for office," Adams refused to make removals in the civil service on partisan grounds, yet he retained in office underlings who labored incessantly in the cause of the opposition.
Equally impolitic was the attitude of the President toward questions of public policy in his first message to Congress. Just when the opposition was in a fluid state and the winds of conflicting doctrines were ruffling the surface of national politics, Adams gave utterance to opinions on the functions of government which were bound to alienate many of his followers. Entertaining no doubts as to constitutional limitations upon the powers of the National Government, he advocated not only the construction of roads and canals, but the establishment of observatories and a national university. His program included governmental aid to the arts, mechanical and literary, and to the sciences, "ornamental and profound." He was prepared to give encouragement not only to manufacturing but to agriculture and to commerce. Many of these were objects which President Jefferson had recommended to the consideration of Congress in 1806; but whereas he had urged the adoption of amendments to the Constitution which would authorize Congress to provide for roads and canals and education, Adams seemed oblivious to the limitations of the Constitution. In much alarm Jefferson suggested to Madison the desirability of having Virginia adopt a new set of resolutions, bottomed on those of 1798, and directed against the acts for internal improvements. In March, 1826, the general assembly declared that all the principles of the earlier resolutions applied "with full force against the powers assumed by Congress" in passing acts to protect manufactures and to further internal improvements. That the Administration would meet with opposition in Congress, whatever its program might be, was a foregone conclusion. The only question was whether the diverse and mutually hostile factions which had followed the fortunes of Crawford, Calhoun, and Jackson could coalesce into a consistent opposition. The first test occurred when the Administration proposed the Panama mission.
The overthrow of the authority of Spain in South America had left the way clear for the long-projected union of the republics. Early in the year 1825, the ministers of Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia waited on Clay to learn whether the United States would accept an invitation to a great council or congress which had been called by the revolutionist Bolívar, now President of Colombia. The project appealed strongly to Clay. A league of young republics in the New World to offset the Holy Alliance in Europe was, as his biographer remarks, "one of those large, generous conceptions well calculated to fascinate his ardent mind." The imagination of the President was not so easily touched: he instructed Clay to inquire more particularly into the purposes of the congress.
The condition of affairs in the countries bordering on the Caribbean Sea—the American Mediterranean—was such, indeed, as to justify extreme caution in dealing with the Latin-American republics. It was matter of common knowledge that Colombia and Mexico had designs upon Cuba, the last of the Spanish outposts in the New World. So long as Spain continued at war with her old colonies, the United States was bound to be uneasy about the fate of Cuba and Porto Rico. Even if the islands were liberated by the republican armies of Central and South America, they were likely to fall a prey to some European power. The appearance of a French fleet off the coast of Cuba during the summer of 1825 gave point to these not unwarranted apprehensions. It was rumored that Cuba was to be made the basis for an expedition against Mexico in behalf of Spain. This episode prompted Clay to make strong representations to France that the United States could not consent to the occupation of Cuba by any other European power.
When, then, a formal invitation came to participate in the Panama Congress, the Administration determined to seize the occasion to exercise a wholesome restraint by friendly advice upon the assembled delegates of the republics, and at the same time to ascertain their purposes. In asking the Senate to confirm the nomination of two delegates, however, the President voiced his own expectation of what the Congress would be and do, rather than the purposes of Bolívar and his associates. The occasion would be favorable, the President intimated, for the discussion of commercial reciprocity, of neutral rights, and of principles of religious liberty. An alliance with the Latin-American republics was not contemplated. On the contrary, the delegates from the United States would urge "an agreement between all of the parties represented at the meeting, that each will guard by its own means against the establishment of any future European colony within its borders." At this stage in its evolution the Monroe Doctrine was not understood to include any obligation on the part of the United States to police the territories of the lesser republics of the New World.
The instructions given to the envoys leave no doubt as to the intentions of the Administration. Every possible endeavor was to be made to dissuade Colombia and Mexico from their designs upon Cuba and Porto Rico. The recognition of Hayti as an independent state was to be deprecated. In short, the status quo in the Caribbean Sea was to be maintained; and throughout, the congress was to be regarded as a diplomatic conference and in no wise as a convention to constitute a permanent league of republics.