There is good reason to believe that the latter fact has had an
important influence in our favor in Spanish America. It has caused us
to be regarded there with more sympathetic as well as more respectful
consideration. It has relieved those Republics from the fear of
filibusterism which had been formerly incited against Central America
and Mexico in the interest of slave extension, and it has produced
an impression of the stability of our institutions and of our public
strength sufficient to dissipate the fears of our friends or the hopes
of those who wish us ill.
Thus there exists in the Spanish American Republics confidence toward
the United States. On our side they find a feeling of cordial amity and
friendship, and a desire to cultivate and develop our common interests
on this continent. With some of these States our relations are more
intimate than with others, either by reason of closer similarity of
constitutional forms, of greater commercial intercourse, of proximity in
fact, or of the construction or contemplated construction of lines of
transit for our trade and commerce between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
With several of them we have peculiar treaty relations. The treaty of
1846 between the United States and New Granada contains stipulations
of guaranty for the neutrality of that part of the Isthmus within the
present territory of Colombia, and for the protection of the rights
of sovereignty and property therein belonging to Colombia.
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