Aside from an unsuccessful attempt to purchase Texas from Mexico, President Adams did not seek to expand into Latin America or North America. Adams and Clay instead sought engagement with Latin America to prevent it from falling under the British Empire's economic influence. As part of this goal, the administration favored sending a United States delegation to the Congress of Panama, an 1826 conference of New World republics organized by Simón Bolívar. Clay and Adams hoped that the conference would inaugurate a "Good Neighborhood Policy" among the independent states of the Americas. However, the funding for a delegation and the confirmation of delegation nominees became entangled in a political battle over Adams's domestic policies, with opponents such as Van Buren impeding the confirmation of a delegation. Van Buren saw the Panama Congress as an unwelcome deviation from the more isolationist foreign policy established by President Washington, while many Southerners opposed involvement with any conference attended by delegates of Haiti, a republic that had been established through a slave revolt. Though the United States delegation finally won confirmation from the Senate, it never reached the Congress of Panama due to the Senate's delay.