CONFERENCES. The six Inter national Conferences of the American States, with various scien tific, financial, commercial, legal and journalistic conferences held in the past coo years are generally classified under this head, as being part of the movement toward co-operation amongst the 21 republics of the Western Hemisphere. These conferences include representatives of all the national areas of the hemisphere, except ing Canada and the British, French and Dutch colonies.
The original Pan-American Congress was called by Simon Boli var (q.v.), and met in Panama in 1826, with representatives of Great Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru in attendance. Representatives of the United States were named, but did not arrive until the Congress had adjourned. A treaty of "union, league, and perpetual confederation" was signed, June 22, 1826, but Mexico, Peru and Guatemala failed to ratify it. The post poned sessions of the Panama conference, which was to recon vene at Tacubaya, near Mexico City, were never held.
In 1856, representatives of Peru, Chile and Ecuador met in Santiago, Chile, and signed the "Continental Treaty," which was designed to promote the union of the Latin American republics, but also expressed hostility toward the United States, on account of the recent activities of William Walker (q.v.), the filibuster, in Nicaragua; the treaty never became effective. In 1864, an other conference, called at the invitation of Peru, met in Lima, for the avowed object of forming a union of the Latin American States. This conference was attended by representatives of Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Ar gentina.
In 1877 and 1878, jurists from Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Cuba, Honduras, Argentina, Venezuela and Costa Rica met at Lima and drew up treaties of extradition and made the first steps toward agreement on private international law (conflict of laws). Uruguay and Guatemala agreed to adhere to these treaties. Prog ress was being made slowly, and in 1881 Colombia called a conference to be held in Panama, but owing to the War of the Pacific, between Peru and Bolivia, and Chile, this was not held.
In 1882, invitations were issued by the U. S. Government, James G. Blaine being secretary of State, for a conference to be held in Washington in November of that year, to discuss arbitra tion between the nations of the American hemisphere. The assassination of President James A. Garfield, and the accession of President Chester A. Arthur, caused the withdrawal of the invi tations, which were not reissued until 1889. Meanwhile, in 1888 89, jurists from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay met at Montevideo and concluded treaties on inter national law, civil, commercial and penal, on international law of procedure, copyrights, trade-marks and patents, several of which were ratified by the signatory powers.
In May 1888, the United States invited the Latin American countries to join with it in a conference in Washington "to con sider measures for preserving the peace," the formation of a customs union, better communications, a common silver coin, a uniform system of weights and measures, patent rights, copy rights, trade-marks, sanitary regulation of ships and ports, etc. President Benjamin Harrison had recalled Blaine to be his secre tary of State and this was one of his first acts. All the countries except Santo Domingo accepted the invitation. This conference, later to be known as the First Pan-American Conference, met on Oct. 2, 1889, with Blaine presiding, and continued its sessions to April 19, 1890. The conference voted for compulsory arbitra tion, and recommendations were made regarding reciprocity in trade, customs regulations, port duties, sanitary regulations, free navigation of rivers, a monetary union, common weights and measures, patents and trade marks, extradition of criminals, an intercontinental railway (first voiced at this conference by Blaine), and other matters. Failure to ratify or no action at all by the Governments nullified virtually all the work done, but from this conference came the establishment of the International Bureau of American Republics, later to become the present Pan American Union (q.v.).