The United States was accordingly asked to take part in the assembly--not to concert military measures, but simply to join its fellows to the southward in a solemn proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine by America at large and to discuss means of suppressing the slave trade.
The Congress that met at Panama, in June, 1826, afforded scant encouragement to Bolivar's roseate hope of interAmerican solidarity.
Whether because of the difficulties of travel, or because of internal dissensions, or because of the suspicion that the megalomania of the Liberator had awakened in Spanish America, only the four continental countries nearest the isthmus--Mexico, Central America, Colombia, and Peru--were represented.

The delegates, nevertheless, signed a compact of "perpetual union, league, and confederation," provided for mutual assistance to be rendered by the several nations in time of war, and arranged to have the Areopagus of the Americas transferred to Mexico.
None of the acts of this Congress was ratified by the republics concerned, except the agreement for union, which was adopted by Colombia.
Disheartening to Bolivar as this spectacle was, it proved merely the first of a series of calamities which were to overshadow the later years of the Liberator.

His grandiose political structure began to crumble, for it was built on the shifting sands of a fickle popularity.

The more he urged a general acceptance of the principles of his autocratic constitution, the surer were his followers that he coveted royal honors.
In December he imposed his instrument upon Peru.

Then he learned that a meeting in Venezuela, presided over by Paez, had declared itself in favor of separation from Colombia.