Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2). Benton Thomas Hart

and as the Senate sat with closed doors, their objections were not heard, while numerous presses, and popular speakers, excited the public mind in favor of the measure, and inflamed it against the Senate for delaying its sanction. It was a plan conceived by the new Spanish American republics, and prepared as a sort of amphictyonic council for the settlement of questions among themselves; and, to which, in a manner which had much the appearance of our own procuring, we had received an invitation to send deputies. The invitation was most seductively exhibited in all the administration presses; and captivated all young and ardent imaginations. The people were roused: the majority in both Houses of Congress gave way (many against their convictions, as they frankly told me), while the project itself – our participation in it – was utterly condemned by the principles of our constitution, and by the policy which forbade "entangling alliances," and the proposed congress itself was not even a diplomatic body to which ministers could be sent under the law of nations. To counteract the effect of this outside current, the Senate, on the motion of Mr. Van Buren, adopted a resolve to debate the question with open doors, "unless, in the opinion of the President, the publication of documents necessary to be referred to in debate should be prejudicial to existing negotiations: " and a copy of the resolve was sent to Mr. Adams for his opinion on that point. He declined to give it, and left it to the Senate to decide for itself, "the question of an unexampled departure from its own usages, and upon the motives of which not being himself informed, he did not feel himself competent to decide." This reference to the motives of the members, and the usages of the Senate, with its clear implication of the badness of one, and the violation of the other, gave great offence in the Senate, and even led to a proposition (made by Mr. Rowan of Kentucky), not to act on the nominations until the information requested should be given. In the end the Senate relinquished the idea of a public debate, and contented itself with its publication after it was over. Mr. John Sergeant of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Richard Clark Anderson of Kentucky, were the ministers nominated; and, the question turning wholly upon the mission itself, and not upon the persons nominated (to whose fitness there was no objection), they were confirmed by a close vote – 24 to 20. The negatives were: Messrs. Benton, Berrien, Branch, Chandler, Cobb (Thomas W. of Georgia), Dickerson, Eaton, Findlay, Hayne, Holmes of Maine, Kane, King of Alabama, Macon, Randolph, Tazewell, Rowan, Van Buren, White of Tennessee, Williams of Mississippi, Woodbury. The Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun, presiding in the Senate, had no vote, the constitutional contingency to authorize it not having occurred: but he was full and free in the expression of his opinion against the mission.

      It was very nearly a party vote, the democracy as a party, being against it: but of those of the party who voted for it, the design of this history (which is to show the working of the government) requires it to be told that there was afterwards, either to themselves or relatives, some large dispensations of executive patronage. Their votes may have been conscientious; but in that case, it would have been better to have vindicated the disinterestedness of the act, by the total refusal of executive favor. Mr. Adams commenced right, by asking the advice of the Senate, before he instituted the mission; but the manner in which the object was pursued, made it a matter of opposition to the administration to refuse it, and greatly impaired the harmony which ought to exist between the President and the Senate. After all, the whole conception of the Panama congress was an abortion. It died out of itself, without ever having been once held – not even by the states which had conceived it. It was incongruous and impracticable, even for them, – more apt to engender disputes among themselves than to harmonize action against Spain, – and utterly foreign to us, and dangerous to our peace and institutions. The basis of the agreement for the congress, was the existing state of war between all the new states and the mother country – Spanish pride and policy being slow to acknowledge the independence of revolted colonies, no matter how independent in fact; – and the wish to establish concert among themselves, in the mode of treating her commerce, and that of such of her American possessions (Cuba, Porto Rico), as had not thrown off their subjection. We were at peace with Spain, and could not go into any such council without compromising our neutrality, and impairing the integrity of our national character. Besides the difficulties it would involve with Spain, there was one subject specified in the treaties for discussion and settlement in that congress, namely, the considerations of future relations with the government of Haiti, which would have been a firebrand in the southern half of our Union, – not to be handled or touched by our government any where. The publication of the secret debates in the Senate on the nomination of the ministers, and the public discussion in the House of Representatives on the appropriation clauses, to carry the mission into effect, succeeded, after some time, in dissipating all the illusions which had fascinated the public mind – turned the current against the administration – made the project a new head of objection to its authors; and in a short time it would have been impossible to obtain any consideration for it, either in Congress or before the people. It is now entirely forgotten, but deserves to be remembered in this View of the working of the government, to show the questions of policy, of national and constitutional law which were discussed – the excitement which can be got up without foundation, and against reason – how public men can bend before a storm – how all the departments of the government can go wrong: – and how the true conservative power in our country is in the people, in their judgment and reason, and in steady appeals to their intelligence and patriotism.

      Mr. Adams communicated the objects of the proposed congress, so far as the United States could engage in them, in a special message to the Senate; in which, disclaiming all part in any deliberations of a belligerent character, or design to contract alliances, or to engage in any project importing hostility to any other nation, he enumerated, as the measures in which we could well take part, 1. The establishment of liberal principles of commercial intercourse, which he supposed could be best done in an assembly of all the American states together. 2. The consentaneous adoption of principles of maritime neutrality. 3. The doctrine that free ships make free goods. 4. An agreement that the "Monroe doctrine," as it is called, should be adopted by the congress, each state to guard, by its own means, its own territory from future European colonization. The enunciation of this doctrine, so different from what it has of late been supposed to be, as binding the United States to guard all the territory of the New World from European colonization, makes it proper to give this passage from Mr. Adams's message in his own words. They are these: "An agreement between all 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, may be found advisable. This was, more than two years since, announced by my predecessor to the world, as a principle resulting from the emancipation of both the American continents. It may be so developed to the new southern nations, that they may feel it as an essential appendage to their independence." These were the words of Mr. Adams, who had been a member of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, and filling the department from which the doctrine would emanate; written at a time when the enunciation of it was still fresh, and when he himself, in a communication to the American Senate, was laying it down for the adoption of all the American nations in a general congress of their deputies. The circumstances of the communication render it incredible that Mr. Adams could be deceived in his understanding; and, according to him, this "Monroe doctrine" (according to which it has been of late believed that the United States were to stand guard over the two Americas, and repulse all intrusive colonists from their shores), was entirely confined to our own borders: that it was only proposed to get the other states of the New World to agree that, each for itself, and by its own means, should guard its own territories: and, consequently, that the United States, so far from extending gratuitous protection to the territories of other states, would neither give, nor receive, aid in any such enterprise, but that each should use its own means, within its own borders, for its own exemption from European colonial intrusion. 5. A fifth object proposed by Mr. Adams, in which he supposed our participation in the business of the Panama congress might be rightfully and beneficially admitted, related to the advancement of religious liberty: and as this was a point at which the message encountered much censure, I will give it in its own words. They are these "There is yet another subject upon which, with out entering into any treaty, the moral influence of the United States may, perhaps, be exerted with beneficial influence at such meeting – the advancement of religious liberty. Some of the southern nations are, even yet, so far under the dominion of prejudice, that they have incorporated, with their political constitutions, an exclusive Church, without toleration of any other than the dominant sect. The abandonment