Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 1).djvu/281

Rh But the purposes of our participation in the Panama Congress, as they appeared in the President's messages to the Senate and the House, and later in Clay's instructions to the American envoys, were cautiously limited. The Congress was to be looked upon as a good opportunity for giving to the Spanish-American brethren kindly advice, even if it were only as to their own interests; also for ascertaining in what direction their policy was likely to run. Advantageous arrangements of commercial reciprocity might be made; proper definitions of blockade and neutral rights might be agreed upon. The “perpetual abolition of private war on the ocean,” as well as a “concert of measures having reference to the more effectual abolition of the slave-trade,” should be aimed at. The Congress should also be used as “a fair occasion for urging upon all the new nations of the South the just and liberal principles of religious liberty,” not by interference with their concerns, but by claiming for citizens of the United States sojourning in those republics the right of free worship. The Monroe doctrine should be interpreted to them as meaning only that each American nation should resist foreign interference, or attempts to establish new colonies upon its soil, with its own means. The recognition of Hayti as an independent state was to be deprecated, — this against Clay's first impulse, — on the ostensible ground that Hayti, by yielding exclusive commercial advantages to France, had returned to a semi-de-