It seems also desirable to disclaim in advance any purpose on the part of the United States to prejudge the issues to be presented to the congress.  It is far from the intent of this Government to appear before the congress as in any sense the protector of its neighbors or the predestined and necessary arbitrator of their disputes.  The United States will enter into the deliberations of the congress on the same footing as the other powers represented, and with the loyal determination to approach any proposed solution not merely in its own interest or with a view to asserting its own power, but as a single member among many coordinate and coequal States.  So far as the influence of this Government may be potential, it will be exerted in the direction of conciliating whatever conflicting interests of blood or government or historical tradition may necessarily come together in response to a call embracing such vast and diverse elements.

You will present these views to the minister of foreign relations of Mexico, enlarging, if need be, in such terms as will readily occur to you, upon the great mission which it is within the power of the proposed congress to accomplish in the interest of humanity, and upon the firm purpose of the United States to maintain a position of the most absolute and impartial friendship toward all.  You will thereupon, in the name of the President of the United States, tender to His Excellency the President of the Mexican Republic a formal invitation to send two commissioners to the congress, provided with such powers and instructions on behalf of their Government as will enable them to consider the questions brought before that body within the limit of submission contemplated by this invitation.

The United States as well as the other powers will in like manner be represented by two commissioners, so that equality and impartiality will be amply secured in the proceedings of the congress.

In delivering this invitation through the minister of foreign affairs you will read this dispatch to him and leave with him a copy, intimating that an answer is desired by this Government as promptly as the just consideration of so important a proposition will permit.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

JAMES G. BLAINE.

[Footnote 10:  Sent under the same date, mutatis mutandis, to the United States ministers in the Argentine Republic, Bolivia, Brazil, Central America, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay, Peru, and Venezuela:  also directly to the minister of foreign relations of Ecuador, in which country the United States had no diplomatic representative.]

EXECUTIVE MANSION, April 18, 1882.

To the Senate and House of Representatives: 

I transmit herewith, for the consideration of Congress, a note addressed by the minister plenipotentiary of Mexico to the Secretary of State, proposing the conclusion of a convention between the two countries for defining the boundary between the United States and Mexico from the Rio Grande westward to the Pacific Ocean by the erection of durable monuments.  I also lay before Congress a letter on the same subject, with its accompaniment, from the Secretary of War, to whom the proposition was referred by the Secretary of State for the expression of his views thereon.