On the 4th of May, 1822, an
act of Congress made an appropriation of $100,000 "for such missions to
the independent nations on the American continent as the President of
the United States might deem proper." In exercising the authority
recognized by this act my predecessor, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate appointed successively ministers plenipotentiary
to the Republics of Colombia, Buenos Ayres, Chili, and Mexico. Unwilling
to raise among the fraternity of freedom questions of precedency and
etiquette, which even the European monarchs had of late found it
necessary in a great measure to discard, he dispatched these ministers
to Colombia, Buenos Ayres, and Chili without exacting from those
Republics, as by the ancient principles of political primogeniture he
might have done, that the compliment of a plenipotentiary mission should
have been paid _first_ by them to the United States. The instructions,
prepared under his direction, to Mr. Anderson, the first of our
ministers to the southern continent, contain at much length the general
principles upon which he thought it desirable that our relations,
political and commercial, with these our new neighbors should be
established for their benefit and ours and that of the future ages of
our posterity.
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