These papers were prepared at the close of the last session of Congress, at too late a period to be then acted upon.

The delay in the transmission of this communication is attributable to the earnest desire which I have entertained of acceding to the opinions and complying with the wishes of the Senate.

I can not concur in these opinions.

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

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.

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…

The faith of the United States to foreign powers can not otherwise be pledged.

Nothing was ever lost by kind treatment.

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.

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

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.

ThatAmericahas a set of primary interests which have none or a remote relation to Europe.

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…

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…

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…

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

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

Were the demands of nations upon the justice of each other susceptible of adjudication by the sentence of an impartial tribunal, those to which I now refer would long since have been settled and adequate indemnity would have been obtained.

There has, indeed, rarely been a period in the history of civilized man in which the general condition of the Christian nations has been marked so extensively by peace and prosperity.