It was,
however, as the House will perceive from the correspondence, accepted
only upon condition that the nomination of commissioners for the mission
should receive the advice and consent of the Senate.
The concurrence of the House to the measure by the appropriations
necessary for carrying it into effect is alike subject to its free
determination and indispensable to the fulfillment of the intention.
That the congress at Panama will accomplish all, or even any, of the
transcendent benefits to the human race which warmed the conceptions of
its first proposer it were perhaps indulging too sanguine a forecast of
events to promise. It is in its nature a measure speculative and
experimental. The blessing of Heaven may turn it to the account of human
improvement; accidents unforeseen and mischances not to be anticipated
may baffle all its high purposes and disappoint its fairest
expectations. But the design is great, is benevolent, is humane.
It looks to the melioration of the condition of man. It is congenial
with that spirit which prompted the declaration of our independence,
which inspired the preamble of our first treaty with France, which
dictated our first treaty with Prussia and the instructions under which
it was negotiated, which filled the hearts and fired the souls of the
immortal founders of our Revolution.
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