[Sidenote: Opposition in the Senate to the sending of representatives to Panama.] Here was certainly a fine opportunity for all sorts of entanglements; and it is not at all astonishing that, when the subject was brought before the Senate of the United States by the President's message of December 26th, 1825, asking the Senate to approve his nominations of Richard C. Anderson and John Sergeant as ministers from the United States to the "Assembly of American Nations at Panama," a very strong opposition to the project was developed in that body. The Senate referred the nominations to a committee, and called for the diplomatic correspondence and other papers relating to the subject, which, upon examination, revealed the facts briefly stated above. The committee, which was the regular committee on {150} Foreign Relations, reported against the nominations, or rather against the policy of having representatives at the congress at all, on the ground that it might compromise the neutrality of the United States, and involve the United States in entangling connections with foreign powers. This report was made to the Senate on January 16th, 1826. The Senate debated, in secret session, the questions involved in the report during the latter half of February and the first half of March. The view held by those who favored the report was that the Panama congress was to have the character of a military confederation, and that membership in it would be inconsistent with a status of neutrality toward Spain and her revolting American colonies. The view of those who opposed the report and desired to send representatives to the congress was, that the congress was only a meeting, in one place, of the plenipotentiaries of the different states for an interchange of opinions, and would not necessarily alter the attitude of any of the powers taking part in it upon any subject, or toward any other power. [Sidenote: Popular sympathy in the United States for the South-American states.] The strong sympathy of the people of the United States for the cause of independence in Middle and South America really violated the spirit of neutrality, and the influence of this sympathy upon the Senators and Representatives in Congress was very disturbing to a cool and judicial consideration of the attitude which the Government should preserve in the matter of the Panama mission. [Sidenote: The President's nominations confirmed.] [Sidenote: No influence of slavery perceptible in the vote upon the nominations.]