It is more probable that one of the reasons which moved President Adams and Mr. Clay to urge attendance upon the congress was to be in a position to restrain the Spanish-American states from attempting to seize Cuba and Porto Rico. During the latter half of the year 1825, at the very moment when the Government was communicating with the Spanish-American states in regard to the congress, Mr. Clay was urging the Czar of Russia, on the one side, to exercise his influence upon the Spanish court for the cessation of hostilities on the part of Spain against the revolting American colonies, on the ground that Spain could never resubjugate them, and would by a continuance of hostilities exasperate them and excite them to attack Cuba and Porto Rico with the purpose of expelling the Spanish power from these islands, and was urging the Spanish-American states, on the other side, to refrain from such an attack, on the ground that if they did attempt to seize these islands the Czar would not only cease his good offices with the Spanish King to end the war, but might bring the entire power of the Holy Alliance to the aid of the Spanish King for the resubjection of his former American colonies. The policy of President Adams' Administration was clearly opposed to the occupation of Cuba and Porto Rico, either by the Spanish Americans or by any European state other than Spain herself. In this matter, also, the Administration and the opposition held the same view.
| Real nature of the opposition to the Panama mission. |
The only natural explanations of the determined opposition to the Panama mission were, thus, either the dread of embarrassing entanglements with the Spanish-American states, and the consequent compromise of the status of neutrality toward them and their motherland, or the spirit of personal hostility to the Administration. From the merits of the question the former would seem the more likely. It was certainly, to any candid mind, a sufficient reason. On the other hand, an expression uttered by Mr. Van Buren as he left the Senate chamber, after having just made a most earnest appeal against the mission and cast his vote against it, would indicate that the opposition fought the Administration in this matter from factional motives purely. He is reported to have said: "They have beaten us by a few votes, after a hard battle; but if they had only taken the other side and refused the mission, we should have had them."
| The failure of the Panama congress. |
The debate continued so long, however, that the congress at Panama adjourned to Tacubaya before the representatives from the United States appeared. Spain ceased to wage war against her former colonies. The Holy Alliance did not interfere. The Spanish-American states suspended their operations against Cuba and Porto Rico. Hayti remained in isolated barbarism. And the congress of the American nations never reassembled.
It is possible that the jingo policy of the Administration may have helped to produce all these results. It is probable that the same results would have followed had the Senate refused the mission to Panama. It is certainly most fortunate that these results were attained without the attendance of the representatives of the United States upon the congress. All possible entanglements were thus avoided, while the purposes of the Administration, in so far at least as they subserved the true interests of the country, were substantially accomplished.
It is true that the special commercial advantages which Clay had hoped for were not secured, nor his dream of an American Confederacy under the protectorate of the United States realized. Neither were the President's ideas in regard to methods for settling mooted questions of international relations, nor those in regard to the advancement of religious liberty, fulfilled. But these things were all premature, to say the least, and none of them would, probably, have been helped onward by any discussion in the congress of the American nations. With the exception of the United States, those nations were altogether too immature to deal with such problems; and the United States itself was not sufficiently consolidated and powerful to assume the duties of instructor and guardian over them. It is not probable that any opportunity for doing good or receiving good was lost by the non-attendance of representatives from the United States upon the deliberations of the Panama congress. It is far more probable that both the doing and the suffering of injury were escaped.
While the question of the relation of the United States to the other states upon the American continents is by no means transitory, the question of the Panama mission was so, at least so much so as not to serve well as an issue for the division of the Republican party into two permanently hostile forces.