" The same
committee also alluded to the possibility that the condition of the
islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, still the possessions of Spain and
still slaveholding, might be made the subject of discussion and of
contemplated action by the Panama congress. "If ever the United States,"
they said, "permit themselves to be associated with these nations in any
general congress assembled for the discussion of common plans in any way
affecting European interests, they will by such act not only deprive
themselves of the ability they now possess of rendering useful
assistance to the other American States, but also produce other effects
prejudicial to their own interests."
Thus the necessity at that day of preserving the great interest of the
Southern States in African slavery, and of preventing a change in the
character of labor in the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, lost to the
United States the opportunity of giving a permanent direction to the
political and commercial connections of the newly enfranchised Spanish
American States, and their trade passed into hands unfriendly to the
United States, and has remained there ever since.
Events subsequent to that date have tended to place us in a position to
retrieve our mistakes, among which events may be particularly named the
suppression of the rebellion, the manifestation of our undeveloped and
unexpected military power, the retirement of the French from Mexico, and
the abolition of slavery in the United States.
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