dom questions of precedency and
etiquette, which even the European monarchs had of late found it
necessary in a great measure to discard, he dispatched these ministers
to Colombia, Buenos Ayres, and Chili without exacting from those
Republics, as by the ancient principles of political primogeniture he
might have done, that the compliment of a plenipotentiary mission should
have been paid _first_ by them to the United States. The instructions,
prepared under his direction, to Mr. Anderson, the first of our
ministers to the southern continent, contain at much length the general
principles upon which he thought it desirable that our relations,
political and commercial, with these our new neighbors should be
established for their benefit and ours and that of the future ages of
our posterity. A copy of so much of these instructions as relates to
these general subjects is among the papers now transmitted to the House.
Similar instructions were furnished to the ministers appointed to Buenos
Ayres, Chili, and Mexico, and the system of social intercourse which it
was the purpose of those missions to establish from the first opening of
our diplomatic relations with those rising nations is the most effective
exposition of the principles upon which the invitation to the congress
at Panama has been accepted by me, as well as of the objects of
negotiation at that meeting, in which, it was that our plenipotentiaries
should take part.

The House will perceive that even at the date of these instructions the
first treaties between some of the southern Republics had been
concluded, by which they had stipulated among themselves this diplomatic
assembly at Panama. And it will be seen with what caution, so far as it
might concern the policy of the United States, and at the same time with
what frankness and good will toward those nations, he gave countenance
to their design of inviting the United States to this high assembly for
consultation upon _American interests_. It was not considered a
conclusive reason for declining this invitation that the proposal for
assembling such a Congress had not first been made by ourselves. It had
sprung from the urgent, immediate, and momentous common interests of the
great communities struggling for independence, and, as it were,
quickening into life. From them the proposition to us appeared
respectful and friendly; from us to them it could scarcely have been
made without exposing ourselves to suspicions of