| The acceptance of the invitation. |
The answers to these inquiries were not received until the following November, and in Mr. Clay's letter acknowledging their receipt, they were said to be not entirely satisfactory to the President. The ministers were informed, however, that the President had resolved to send commissioners to the congress at Panama, in case the Senate, which was to assemble in a few days, should assent to it; but that the commissioners would not be empowered to do or say anything which would compromise the neutrality of the United States.
| The President too hasty after all. |
As a matter of fact, the replies from the Governments of Colombia and Mexico to President Adams' questions would have been regarded as highly unsatisfactory by any judicious mind, entirely uncommitted; for, while they left the President's second and third questions entirely unanswered, they suggested a joint resistance of all the American states to European interference in American affairs, and to any further European colonization upon the American continents, as the principal subjects in the discussion and determination of which the United States would be expected to take part. They referred to the fact that President Monroe in his noted message had characterized these things as being matters of common interest to both North and South America.
| Opposition in the Senate to the sending of representatives to Panama. |
Here was certainly a fine opportunity for all sorts of entanglements; and it is not at all astonishing that, when the subject was brought before the Senate of the United States by the President's message of December 26th, 1825, asking the Senate to approve his nominations of Richard C. Anderson and John Sergeant as ministers from the United States to the "Assembly of American Nations at Panama," a very strong opposition to the project was developed in that body. The Senate referred the nominations to a committee, and called for the diplomatic correspondence and other papers relating to the subject, which, upon examination, revealed the facts briefly stated above.
The committee, which was the regular committee on Foreign Relations, reported against the nominations, or rather against the policy of having representatives at the congress at all, on the ground that it might compromise the neutrality of the United States, and involve the United States in entangling connections with foreign powers. This report was made to the Senate on January 16th, 1826. The Senate debated, in secret session, the questions involved in the report during the latter half of February and the first half of March. The view held by those who favored the report was that the Panama congress was to have the character of a military confederation, and that membership in it would be inconsistent with a status of neutrality toward Spain and her revolting American colonies. The view of those who opposed the report and desired to send representatives to the congress was, that the congress was only a meeting, in one place, of the plenipotentiaries of the different states for an interchange of opinions, and would not necessarily alter the attitude of any of the powers taking part in it upon any subject, or toward any other power.