d at the zenith of his glory and power. No
adherents of the Spanish regime were left in South America to menace the
freedom of its independent states. In January a resistance kept up for
nine years by a handful of royalists lodged on the remote island of
Chiloe, off the southern coast of Chile, had been broken, and the
garrison at the fortress of Callao had laid down its arms after a
valiant struggle. Among Spanish Americans no one was comparable to the
marvelous man who had founded three great republics stretching from the
Caribbean Sea to the Tropic of Capricorn. Hailed as the "Liberator"
and the "Terror of Despots," he was also acclaimed by the people as the
"Redeemer, the First-Born Son of the New World!" National destinies
were committed to his charge, and equestrian statues were erected in
his honor. In the popular imagination he was ranked with Napoleon as a
peerless conqueror, and with Washington as the father of his country.
That megalomania should have seized the mind of the Liberator under
circumstances like these is not strange.

Ever a zealous advocate of large states, Bolivar was an equally ardent
partisan of confederation. As president of three republics--of
Colombia actually, and of its satellites, Peru and Bolivia, through his
lieutenants--he could afford now to carry out the plan that he had long
since cherished of assembling at the town of Panama, on Colombian soil,
an "august congress" representative of the independent countries of
America. Here, on the isthmus created by nature to join the continents,
the nations created by men should foregather and proclaim fraternal
accord. Presenting to the autocratic governments of Europe a solid front
of resistance to their pretensions as well as a visible symbol of unity
in sentiment, such a Congress by meeting periodically would also promote
friendship among the republics of the western hemisphere and supply a
convenient means of settling their disputes.

At this time the United States was regarded by its sister republics with
all the affection which gratitude for services rendered to the cause
of emancipation could evoke. Was it not itself a republic, its people a
democracy, its development astounding, and its future radiant with
hope? The pronouncement of President Monroe, in 1823, protesting against
interference on the part of European powers with the liberties of
independent America, afforded the clearest possible proof that the
great northern republic w