n,
_March 15, 1826_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
In compliance with the resolution of the House of the 5th ultimo,
requesting me to cause to be laid before the House so much of the
correspondence between the Government of the United States and the new
States of America, or their ministers, respecting the proposed congress
or meeting of diplomatic agents at Panama, and such information
respecting the general character of that expected congress as may be in
my possession and as may, in my opinion, be communicated without
prejudice to the public interest, and also to inform the House, so far
as in my opinion the public interest may allow, in regard to what
objects the agents of the United States are expected to take part in the
deliberations of that congress, I now transmit to the House a report
from the Secretary of State, with the correspondence and information
requested by the resolution.

With regard to the objects in which the agents of the United States are
expected to take part in the deliberations of that congress, I deem it
proper to premise that these objects did not form the only, nor even the
principal, motive for my acceptance of the invitation. My first and
greatest inducement was to meet in the spirit of kindness and friendship
an overture made in that spirit by three sister Republics of this
hemisphere.

The great revolution in human affairs which has brought into existence,
nearly at the same time, eight sovereign and independent nations in our
own quarter of the globe has placed the United States in a situation not
less novel and scarcely less interesting than that in which they had
found themselves by their own transition from a cluster of colonies to a
nation of sovereign States. The deliverance of the Southern American
Republics from the oppression under which they had been so long
afflicted was hailed with great unanimity by the people of this Union as
among the most auspicious events of the age. On the 4th of May, 1822, an
act of Congress made an appropriation of $100,000 "for such missions to
the independent nations on the American continent as the President of
the United States might deem proper." In exercising the authority
recognized by this act my predecessor, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate appointed successively ministers plenipotentiary
to the Republics of Colombia, Buenos Ayres, Chili, and Mexico. Unwilling
to raise among the fraternity of free