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 President Roosevelt decided that it would be best for the government to continue the work, which was placed under the more immediate control of the U.S.A. Corps of Engineers. At the same time the Isthmian Canal Commission was reorganized, Major G. W. Goethals, of the Corps of Engineers, becoming engineer in chief and chairman, in succession to Mr J. F. Stevens who, after succeeding Mr T. P. Shonts as chairman, himself resigned on the 1st of April.

PAN-AMERICAN CONFERENCES. At intervals delegates from the independent countries of North, Central and South America have met in the interests of peace and for the improvement of commercial relations and for the discussion of various other matters of common interest. A movement for some form of union among the Spanish colonies of Central and South America was inaugurated by Simon Bolivar while those colonies were still fighting for independence from Spain, and in 1825 the United States, which in May 1822 had recognized their independence and in December 1823 had promulgated the Monroe Doctrine, was invited by the governments of Mexico and Colombia to send commissioners to a congress to be held at Panama in the following year. Henry Clay, the secretary of state, hoped the congress might be the means of establishing a league of American republics under the hegemony of the United States, and under his influence President J. Q. Adams accepted the invitation, giving notice however that the commissioners from the United States would not be authorized to act in any way inconsistent with the neutral attitude of their country toward Spain and her revolting colonies. The principal objects of the Spanish-Americans in calling the congress were, in fact, to form a league of states to resist Spain or any other European power that might attempt to interfere in America and to consider the expediency of freeing Cuba and Porto Rico from Spanish rule; but in his message to the Senate asking that body to approve his appointment of commissioners Adams declared that his object in appointing them was to manifest a friendly interest in the young republics, give them some advice, promote commercial reciprocity, obtain from the congress satisfactory definitions of the terms “blockade” and “neutral rights” and encourage religious liberty. In the Senate the proposed mission provoked a spirited attack on the administration. Some senators feared that it might be the means of dragging the United States into entangling alliances; others charged that the President had construed the Monroe Doctrine as a pledge to the southern republics that if the powers of Europe joined Spain against them the United States would come to their assistance with arms and men; and a few from the slave holding states wished to have nothing to do with the republics because they proposed to make Cuba and Porto Rico independent and liberate the slaves on those islands. The Senate finally, after a delay of more than ten weeks, confirmed the appointments. There was further delay in the House of Representatives, which was asked to make an appropriation for the mission; one of the commissioners, Richard C. Anderson (1788–1826), died on the way (at Cartagena, July 24), and when the other, John Sergeant (1779–1852), reached Panama the congress, consisting of representatives from Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, had met (June 22), concluded and signed a “treaty of union, league and perpetual confederation” and adjourned to meet again at Tacubaya, near the City of Mexico. The governments of Guatemala, Mexico and Peru refused to ratify the treaty and the Panama congress or conference was a failure. The meeting at Tacubaya was never held.

Mexico proposed another conference in 1831, and repeated the proposal in 1838, 1839 and 1840, but each time without result. In December 1847, while Mexico and the United States were at war, a conference of representatives from Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, New Granada and Peru met at Lima, gave the other American republics the privilege of joining in its deliberations or becoming parties to its agreements, continued to deliberate until the 1st of March 1848, and concluded a treaty of confederation, a treaty of commerce and navigation, a postal treaty and a consular convention; but with the exception of the ratification of the consular convention by New Granada its work was rejected. Representatives from Peru, Chile and Ecuador met at Santiago in September 1856 and signed the “Continental Treaty” designed to promote the union of the Latin- American republics, but expressing hostility toward the United States as a consequence of the filibustering expeditions of William Walker (1824–1860); it never became effective. In response to an invitation from the government of Peru to each of the Latin-American countries, representatives from Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina met in a conference at Lima in November 1864 to form a “Union.” Colombia was opposed to extending the invitation to the United States lest that country should “embarrass the action of the Congress”; the conference itself accomplished little. In 1877–1878 jurists from Peru, Bolivia, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Honduras, Argentina, Venezuela and Costa Rica met at Lima and concluded a treaty of extradition and a treaty on private international law, and Uruguay and Guatemala agreed to adhere to them. War among the South American states prevented the holding of a conference which had been called by the government of Colombia to meet at Panama in September 1881 and of another which had been called by the government of the United States to meet at Washington in November 1882. In 1888–1889 jurists from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay met at Montevideo and concluded treaties on international civil law, international commercial law, international penal law, international law of procedure, literary and artistic property, trade-marks and patents, several of which were subsequently ratified by the South American countries.