form, insisted upon doing so this time. The doctrine that the Constitution conferred by implication upon the government powers of almost unlimited extent, and also imposed upon it the duty of keeping those powers in constant activity, not only disturbed the political thinkers of the Democratic school, but it was especially apt to alarm the slave-holding interest, which at that period began to see in the strictest construction, and in the maintenance of the extremest states' rights principles, its citadel of safety.
The first actual collision between the administration and its opponents occurred upon another question. The President announced in his message that the Spanish-American republics had resolved upon a congress to meet on the Isthmus of Panama, in which they should all be represented; that they had also invited the United States to send plenipotentiaries; that this invitation had been accepted, and that ministers on the part of the United States would be commissioned to “attend at those deliberations.” This was the famous Panama mission.
A grand council of the South and Central American republics was planned as early as 1821, Bolivar favoring it, and a series of treaties with regard to it was concluded between them. In April, 1825, Clay was approached by the Mexican and Colombian ministers with the inquiry whether an invitation to the United States to be represented in the Panama Congress would be favorably considered. Nothing could be more apt to strike Clay's fancy
