本文耙梳了玻利瓦（Simón Bolívar）在西元1820年代寫給桑坦德（FranciscoSantander）的信件後，對渠泛美主義之內涵與實踐困境進行再理解。在解殖後新國家的想像上，玻利瓦主張建立一個中央集權的大型單一國家，這是渠執著於泛美主義整合的原因；惟玻利瓦又反對北美式的聯邦主義，使得在美洲國族國家的建構過程中，既欠缺有效的元素去說服人民認同彼此，又無法用制度理性去節制地方主義。玻利瓦以務實主義彈性調整其泛美整合的路徑，不但先將國家整合的範圍縮減至由他所解放的區域，並且階段性地以西語美洲聯盟為整合標的、訴諸共同的外在危機來凝聚內部團結，這成為西元1826年巴拿馬會議召開之主要目的；然而，當時連玻利瓦自己都無法擺脫的本位主義，難以消解，助長了離心力量，正是美洲整合最大的障礙。
Through analyzing his letters to Francisco Santander in the 1820s, this paper attempts to further understand Simón Bolívar's Pan-Americanism, including its contents and difficulties. The factor that Bolívar imagined a new nation-state with huge populations, broad territories, and centralized powers led him to persist in Pan-Americanism. However, because Bolívar opposed to adopt the federal system of the Northern American Style, neither did it possess enough elements to convince its people to identify each other nor systematic rationality to restrict the vested sectionalism. Indeed, Bolívar, with pragmatism, modulated his way of the Pan-Americanist integration by reducing his dreamed nation into the regions liberated under his efforts and by changing the objective from a Pan-American nation-state into a confederation which was built on the common danger due to the European threats. Such a confederation was a reason to convene the Panama Congress of 1826. Nonetheless, the sectionalism, which also dominated Bolívar, was still the biggest obstacle for the Pan-American integration.
