The practical sympathy speedily accorded to the International Congo Association by the greatest Power of the New World, the United States of America, full of life and vigour and ever inclined to progress, proved that King Leopold’s enterprise had secured public support and official suffrage far beyond the limits of Europe. On April 10, 1884, the American Senate, on Mr. Morgan’s remarkable report,[3] passed a resolution asking the President of the United States to recognise the Association “as the governing power of the Congo.” A few days later, on April 22, 1884, that recognition was an accomplished fact. In officially recalling, at the opening of the Berlin Conference, the nature and cause of this great Act, Mr. Kasson, Chief Plenipotentiary of the United States, pointed out that, following upon Stanley’s explorations, the newly discovered regions “would be exposed to the dangerous rivalries of conflicting nationalities. It was the earnest desire of the Government of the United States that these discoveries should be utilised for the civilisation of the native races, and for the abolition of the slave-trade; and that early action should be taken to avoid international conflicts likely to arise from national rivalry in the acquisition of special privileges in the vast region so suddenly exposed to commercial enterprises.” Referring to the work so effectively performed by the International Congo Association “under high and philanthropic European patronage,” he said that those gallant pioneers of civilisation had “obtained concessions and jurisdiction throughout the basin of the Congo from the native sovereignties which were the sole authorities existing there and exercising dominion over the soil or the people. They immediately proceeded,” added he, “to establish a Government _de facto_.” Declaring next that the legality of the acts of that Government should be recognised, under penalty of recognising “neither law, order, nor justice in all that region,” he concluded as follows: “The President of the United States, on being duly informed of this organisation, and of their peacefully acquired rights, of their means of protecting persons and property, and of their just purposes towards all foreign nations, recognised the actual government established, and the flag adopted by this Association. Their rights were grounded on the consent of the native inhabitants, in a country actually occupied by them, and whose routes of commerce and travel were under their actual control and administration. He believed that in thus recognising the only dominant flag found in that country he acted in the common interest of civilised nations.”