purposes of ambition,
if not of domination, more suited to rouse resistance and excite
distrust than to conciliate favor and friendship. The first and
paramount principle upon which it was deemed wise and just to lay the
corner stone of all our future relations with them was
_disinterestedness_; the next was cordial good will to them; the third
was a claim of fair and equal reciprocity. Under these impressions when
the invitation was formally and earnestly given, had it even been
doubtful whether _any_ of the objects proposed for consideration and
discussion at the Congress were such as that immediate and important
interests of the United States would be affected by the issue, I should,
nevertheless, have determined so far as it depended upon me to have
accepted the invitation and to have appointed ministers to attend the
meeting. The proposal itself implied that the Republics by whom it was
made _believed_ that important interests of ours or of theirs rendered
our attendance there desirable. They had given us notice that in the
novelty of their situation and in the spirit of deference to our
experience they would be pleased to have the benefit of our friendly
counsel. To meet the temper with which this proposal was made with a
cold repulse was not thought congenial to that warm interest in their
welfare with which the people and Government of the Union had hitherto
gone hand in hand through the whole progress of their revolution. To
insult them by a refusal of their overture, and then invite them to a
similar assembly to be called by ourselves, was an expedient which never
presented itself to the mind. I would have sent ministers to the meeting
had it been merely to give them such advice as they might have desired,
even with reference to _their own_ interests, not involving ours. I
would have sent them had it been merely to explain and set forth to them
our reasons for _declining_ any proposal of specific measures to which
they might desire our concurrence, but which we might deem incompatible
with our interests or our duties. In the intercourse between nations
temper is a missionary perhaps more powerful than talent. Nothing was
ever lost by kind treatment. Nothing can be gained by sullen repulses
and aspiring pretensions.

But objects of the highest importance, not only to the future welfare of
the whole human race, but bearing directly upon the special interests of
this Union, _will_ engage the deliberations of the