It leaves me doubtful whether it was intended by the Senate as their decision upon the nomination or not.

I can not concur in these opinions.

I transmit to the House a report from the Secretary of State, with the documents desired by the resolution.

I transmit herewith a report from the Secretary of War, with documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

I communicate a report from the Secretary of the Navy, with documents, containing the information desired by the resolution.

Some additional documents having relation to the objects of the mission to the congress at Panama, and received since the communication of those heretofore sent, are now transmitted to the Senate.

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…

My first and greatest inducement was to meet in the spirit of kindness and friendship an overture made in that spirit by three sister Republics of this hemisphere.

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.

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 congress of Panama whether we are…

If it be true that the noblest treaty of peace ever mentioned in history is that by which the Carthagenians were bound to abolish the practice of sacrificing their own children because it was stipulated in favor of human nature, I can not…

Nothing was ever lost by kind treatment.

The purpose of the meeting itself is to deliberate upon the great and common interests of several new and neighboring nations.

The acceptance of this invitation, therefore, far from conflicting with the counsel or the policy of Washington, is directly deducible from and conformable to it.

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.

It may be that in the lapse of many centuries no other opportunity so favorable will be presented to the Government of the United States to subserve the benevolent purposes of Divine Providence; to dispense the promised blessings of the…

I now transmit to the House a report from the Secretary of State, with the correspondence and information requested by the resolution.

I shall, indeed, in the first instance, consider the assembly as merely consultative.