WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1826
32
act in accordance: those of the United States stand aloof; we do not choose to concur in their resolutions-and what is the conse- quence? We have sent our Commissioners, Agents, or Ministers to negotiate a treaty, on the presumption of establishing an alli- ance with those Peop!e: for they expect nothing less from us. Should we decline acceding to their propositions, what would be the consequence? They would say the Republic of the United States. do not cherish for us those feelings we anticipated from her. The United States will not accede to our propositions; they endeavor to stand alone; they have withdrawn from our Assembly, and have set up for themselves. Is not this, said Mr. H., better calculated to exasperate these people than if we were not to send Ministers at all? He regarded this invitation, on the part of Bolivar, as an act of courtesy, affording us the opportunity of acceding to or declining the proposition. We could have declined it with courtesy; we could have established with each of those Governments an understanding so as to secure all the advantages we wished, with these People, and every object to be obtained by this Government would have been gained. The position we now occupy is different: a pledge has been given; but, said Mr. H., is the nation bound to redeem that pledge? It might have been judiciously given, but we are not sure of that. We have not the information to satisfy us on that point. The House was not yet called upon to act upon and redeem that pledge. At this time, therefore, Mr. H. said, the information was not necessary which this resolution proposed to ca!l for. The House had been told that Ministers were to be sent to Panama for the purpose of disseminating our principles amongst the people of the Southern Republics and of making them acquainted with our institutions; that we are to go there to infuse into them certain principles, ~nd that we are to be the model by which they are to act. Could gentlemen suppose, Mr. H. said, that the deputies of the different Republic of South America would take it as a compliment to be told they were incapable of self-government; that they had not sufficient capacity; that they were not sufficiently enlightened; and that, therefore, the United States had sent their Ministers as special teachers of their doctrines, to give them light on the subject of self-government? Were our Ministers, Mr. H. asked, to be the teachers of politics to them? Did we send them there to enlighten the South Americans- that People who had been lauded and justly lauded, throughout the world, for throwing off
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