To James Madison from Martin Van Buren, 22 April 1826
From Martin Van Buren
Washington April 22d 1826
Dear Sir,
I appreciate most highly the favourable opinion you have been pleased to express of my remarks on the Panama Mission. A great change in public opinion has taken place and is still progressing on that subject. The discussions in the Senate were commenced under a general belief that the measure was a popular one. That belief was founded on the knowledge of the favourable reception by the people of the sentiments touching S. American affairs containd in Mr. Monroes Message of 1823.1 It was to that circumstance alone that the nomination passed the Senate; the positive influence of the administration could not alone have effected their confirmation. The change in the public mind has wrought a correspondent one here. The committee on foreign relations of the house of Rep. made an elaborate report on the subject2 concluding with a simple resolution in favour of the expediency of the measure. The passage of this Resolution by a large majority was promised & expected with great confidence. An amendment was offered by Mr. McLane (the character of which you will see by the enclosed)3 which was resisted with great earnestness & zeal in a debate of several weeks. The amendment however passed by a vote of 99 to 94 & the friends of the administration then turned round and voted agt. the resolution. Thus avowing their opposition to any mission which would not leave the President at liberty to enter into Stipulations on the subject of European interference & Colonization—justifying the grounds taken by us as to the views of the Executive & withal abando[n]i[n]g the hope of any other expression of the approbation of the house than that which may be inferred from the passage of the appropriation Bill. We yesterday ratified the new Creek Treaty by which Georgia gets all she is entitled to.4 Grateful for your kindness & desiring to be cordially remembered to Mrs Madison I am Dr Sir yours with perfect respect & esteem
M. V. Buren
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. , 6:339–40.
2. See JM to Edward Everett, 9 Apr. 1826, and n. 3.
3. On 20 April 1826 Louis McLane of Delaware moved to amend the resolution appropriating sums necessary to send ministers to the Congress of Panama: “The House, however, in expressing this opinion, do not intend to sanction any departure from the settled policy of this Government; that in extending our commercial relations with foreign nations, we should have with them as little political connection as possible; and that we should preserve peace, commerce, and friendship, with all nations, and form entangling alliances with none. It is, therefore, the opinion of this House, that the Government of the United States ought not to be represented at the Congress of Panama, except in a diplomatic character, nor ought they to form any alliance, offensive or defensive, or negotiate respecting such an alliance with all or any of the Spanish American Republics; nor ought they to become parties with them, or either of them, to any joint declaration for the purpose of preventing the interference of any of the European Powers with their Independence or form of Government, or to any compact for the purpose of preventing colonization upon the Continent of America: but, that the People of the United States should be left free to act, in any crisis, in such a manner as their feelings of friendship towards these Republics, and as their own honor and policy may, at the time, dictate” (Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Being the First Session of the Nineteenth Congress [Washington, D.C., 1825], 451–52). A newspaper clipping with JM’s note: “Mr Lanes amendmt” is in the Library of Congress, Madison Papers, series 7, OV 1.
4. The treaty between the United States and the Creek Nation, signed on 24 January 1826, and ratified by the U.S. Senate on 21 April, extinguished the Creek title to all land in Georgia in exchange for a payment of $217,600 and an annuity of $20,000 (Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly [Berkeley, Calif., 1994], 148–51).