US Presidency
1854

It is referred to on the present occasion only because of its intimate connection with the special object now to be brought to the attention of Congress. The unsettled political condition of some of the Spanish American Republics has never ceased to be regarded by this Government with solicitude and regret on their own account, while it has been the source of continual embarrassment in our public and private relations with them. In the midst of the violent revolutions and the wars by which they are continually agitated, their public authorities are unable to afford due protection to foreigners and to foreign interests within their territory, or even to defend their own soil against individual aggressors, foreign or domestic, the burden of the inconveniences and losses of which therefore devolves in no inconsiderable degree upon the foreign states associated with them in close relations of geographical vicinity or of commercial intercourse. Such is more emphatically the situation of the United States with respect to the Republics of Mexico and of Central America.