The congress of Panama was planned by Bolivar to secure the union of Spanish America against Spain.  It had originally military as well as political purposes.  In the military objects the United States could take no part; and, indeed, the necessity for such objects ceased when the full effects of Mr. Monroe’s declarations were felt.  But the pacific objects of the congress—­the establishment of close and cordial relations of amity, the creation of commercial intercourse, of interchange of political thought, and of habits of good understanding between the new Republics and the United States and their respective citizens—­might perhaps have been attained had the Administration of that day received the united support of the country.  Unhappily, they were lost; the new States were removed from the sympathetic and protecting influence of our example, and their commerce, which we might then have secured, passed into other hands, unfriendly to the United States.

In looking back upon the Panama congress from this length of time it is easy to understand why the earnest and patriotic men who endeavored to crystallize an American system for this continent failed.

Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams were far-sighted statesmen, but, unfortunately, they struck against the rock of African slavery.  One of the questions proposed for discussion in the conference was “the consideration of the means to be adopted for the entire abolition of the African slave trade,” to which proposition the committee of the United States Senate of that day replied:  “The United States have not certainly the right, and ought never to feel the inclination, to dictate to others who may differ with them upon this subject; nor do the committee see the expediency of insulting other states with whom we are maintaining relations of perfect amity by ascending the moral chair and proclaiming from thence mere abstract principles, of the rectitude of which each nation enjoys the perfect right of deciding for itself.”  The same committee also alluded to the possibility that the condition of the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, still the possessions of Spain and still slaveholding, might be made the subject of discussion and of contemplated action by the Panama congress.  “If ever the United States,” they said, “permit themselves to be associated with these nations in any general congress assembled for the discussion of common plans in any way affecting European interests, they will by such act not only deprive themselves of the ability they now possess of rendering useful assistance to the other American States, but also produce other effects prejudicial to their own interests.”

Thus the necessity at that day of preserving the great interest of the Southern States in African slavery, and of preventing a change in the character of labor in the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, lost to the United States the opportunity of giving a permanent direction to the political and commercial connections of the newly enfranchised Spanish American States, and their trade passed into hands unfriendly to the United States, and has remained there ever since.