nations the acknowledgment of their independence.  That it would be viewed by Spain as hostility to her was not only urged, but directly declared by herself.  The Congress and administration of that day consulted their rights and duties, and not their fears.  Fully determined to give no heedless displeasure to any foreign power, the United States can estimate the probability of their giving it only by the right which any foreign state could have to take it from their measures.  Neither the representation of the United States at Panama nor any measure to which their assent may be yielded there will give to the holy league or any of its members, nor to Spain, the right to take offense; for the rest the United States must still, as heretofore, take counsel from their duties rather than their fears.

Such are the objects in which it is expected that the plenipotentiaries of the United States, when commissioned to attend the meeting at the Isthmus, will take part, and such are the motives and purposes with which the invitation of the three Republics was accepted.  It was, however, as the House will perceive from the correspondence, accepted only upon condition that the nomination of commissioners for the mission should receive the advice and consent of the Senate.

The concurrence of the House to the measure by the appropriations necessary for carrying it into effect is alike subject to its free determination and indispensable to the fulfillment of the intention.

That the congress at Panama will accomplish all, or even any, of the transcendent benefits to the human race which warmed the conceptions of its first proposer it were perhaps indulging too sanguine a forecast of events to promise.  It is in its nature a measure speculative and experimental.  The blessing of Heaven may turn it to the account of human improvement; accidents unforeseen and mischances not to be anticipated may baffle all its high purposes and disappoint its fairest expectations.  But the design is great, is benevolent, is humane.

It looks to the melioration of the condition of man.  It is congenial with that spirit which prompted the declaration of our independence, which inspired the preamble of our first treaty with France, which dictated our first treaty with Prussia and the instructions under which it was negotiated, which filled the hearts and fired the souls of the immortal founders of our Revolution.

With this unrestricted exposition of the motives by which I have been governed in this transaction, as well as of the objects to be discussed and of the ends, if possible, to be attained by our representation at the proposed congress, I submit the propriety of an appropriation to the candid consideration and enlightened patriotism of the Legislature.

John Quincy Adams.

Washington,
March 16, 1826.

To the Senate of the United States: 

Some additional documents having relation to the objects of the mission to the congress at Panama, and received since the communication of those heretofore sent, are now transmitted to the Senate.