The policy here outlined, and elaborated a few months later in an address before the Southern Commercial Congress at Mobile, Alabama, has been termed the New Pan-Americanism. The Pan-American ideal is an old one, dating back in fact to the Panama Congress of 1826. The object of this congress was not very definitely stated in the call, which was issued by Simon Bolivar, but his purpose was to secure the independence and peace of the new Spanish republics through either a permanent confederation or a series of diplomatic congresses. President Adams through Henry Clay, who was at that time Secretary of State, promptly accepted the invitation to send delegates. The matter was debated at such length, however, in the House and Senate that the American delegates did not reach Panama until after the congress had adjourned. In view of the opposition which the whole scheme encountered in Congress, the instructions to the American delegates were very carefully drawn and their powers were strictly limited. They were cautioned against committing their government in any way to the establishment of "an amphictyonic council, invested with power fully to decide controversies between the American states or to regulate in any respect their conduct." They were also to oppose the formation of an offensive and defensive alliance between the American powers, for, as Mr. Clay pointed out, the Holy Alliance had abandoned all idea of assisting Spain in the reconquest of her late colonies. After referring to "the avoidance of foreign alliances as a leading maxim" of our foreign policy, Mr. Clay continued: "Without, therefore, asserting that an exigency may not occur in which an alliance of the most intimate kind between the United States and the other American republics would be highly proper and expedient, it may be safely said that the occasion which would warrant a departure from that established maxim ought to be one of great urgency, and that none such is believed now to exist." The British Government sent a special envoy to reside near the Congress and to place himself in frank and friendly communication with the delegates. Canning's private instructions to this envoy declared that, "Any project for putting the U. S. of North America at the head of an American Confederacy, as against Europe, would be highly displeasing to your Government. It would be felt as an ill return for the service which has been rendered to those States, and the dangers which have been averted from them, by the countenance and friendship, and public declarations of Great Britain; and it would probably, at no distant period, endanger the peace both of America and of Europe."