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.

Events subsequent to that date have tended to place us in a position to
retrieve our mistakes, among which events may be particularly named the
suppression of the rebellion, the manifestation of our undeveloped and
unexpected military power, the retirement of the French from Mexico, and
the abolition of slavery in the United States.

There is good reason to believe that the latter fact has had an
important influence in our favor in Spanish America. It has caused us
to be regarded there with more sympathetic as well as more respectful
consideration. It has relieved those Republics from the fear of
filibusterism which had been formerly incited against Central America
and Mexico in the interest of slave extension, and