PANAMA CONGRESS

The Panama Congress, held in 1826, was intended to form a union among the newly independent Spanish American republics. Simon Bolívar issued a circular letter on 7 December 1824 calling for a meeting to frame a confederation. On 23 April 1825 a Washington, D.C., newspaper ran an article containing an agenda that included a discussion of neutral rights, the three essential principles of which are: free ships make free goods (goods belonging to a belligerent are considered neutral if in a neutral vessel); limited contraband (that is, those goods that a neutral cannot trade to a belligerent and still remain a neutral); and strict definition of a legal blockade (there must be a reasonable certainty rather than a reasonable possibility of capture). Secretary of State Henry Clay had long been an advocate of Pan American cooperation. President John Quincy Adams had been a skeptic, but he supported the idea of a neutral rights convention. The Mexican and Colombian ministers to the United States tendered unofficial invitations to the United States, mentioning neutral rights. In May the cabinet approved American attendance. In November the United States was formally invited.

In December 1825 Adams nominated Richard C. Anderson, then minister to Colombia, and John Sergeant as ministers to the Panama Congress. Martin Van Buren led the opposition in the Senate, submitting a resolution calling attendance at the Congress unconstitutional. The Senate, however, rejected the resolution on 14 March 1826. The House of Representatives approved the mission on 22 April. Clay instructed the ministers to defend neutral rights and the Monroe Doctrine and to prevent the transfer of Cuba to another power. Anderson died en route and was replaced by Joel R. Poinsett, but the legation did not reach Panama until after the Congress, in January 1827. The Congress met from 22 June to 15 July 1826. The nations present agreed to form a confederation and a combined army and navy. However, only Colombia ratified the agreements. The next meeting, scheduled for the following year in Tacubaya, Mexico, never took place.

See alsoLatin American Revolutions, American Response to; Monroe Doctrine .

bibliography

Hargreaves, Mary W. M. The Presidency of John Quincy Adams. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985.

Lewis, James E., Jr. The American Union and the Problem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire, 1783–1829. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Whitaker, Arthur. The United States and the Independence of Latin America, 1800–1830. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1941.

Robert W. Smith