64 KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



sovereign and independent and alone had the right to decide their 

 destiny; the second limited that right to a disposition conformable 

 to our interests — in short, they might do as they pleased as long 

 as they pleased to do as we pleased. In what mysterious way the 

 sovereignty of the United States was suddenly extended over the 

 entire continent was not explained. Nevertheless Polk's statement 

 gave the Monroe doctrine its final form: Europe shall not interfere 

 with American states and shall not acquire territory in America in 

 any way. The United States may interfere and may acquire terri- 

 tory whenever her interests demand it. This, I take it, is the form 

 in which the Monroe doctrine rests in the minds of the American 

 people to-day. 



Polk's misconstruction of the Monroe doctrine did not pass 

 unchallenged. Mr. Calhoun was at that time the only surviving 

 member of Monroe's cabinet. He was, therefore, of all men living 

 the best acquainted with the circumstances and discussions attend- 

 ing the issue of the declaration. His pro-slavery sympathies and 

 his own part in the annexation of Texas might have inclined him 

 to accept Polk's construction. Instead he declared in the Senate 

 that the case of Yucatan did not come within the Monroe declara- 

 tions; that they did not furnish the slightest support for it. * It 

 was not the extension of the European political system to this 

 continent, for that system had already ceased to exist. It was not 

 an interposition of an European power to oppress an American 

 government, because that power would come, not to oppress, but 

 to save. Even if England should assert her sovereignty over Yuca- 

 tan, it would not bring the case within the Monroe doctrine because 

 the tender of that sovereignty had voluntarily been made. It was 

 not colonization. That word had a specific meaning. It meant the 

 establishment by emigrants from a parent colony of a settlement in 

 territory either uninhabited or from which the inhabitants had 

 been partially or wholly expelled. The occupation of Yucatan 

 could not be construed to be colonization by any forced interpre- 

 tation. Yucatan might become a province or a possession of Great 

 Britain but not a colony. In conclusion he said: 



"What the President has asserted in this case is not a principle 

 belonging to these declarations; it is a principle which, in his 

 misconception, he endeavors to engraft upon them but which has 

 an entirely different meaning and tendency .... It goes infinitely 

 and dangerously beyond Mr. Monroe's declaration. It puts it in 

 the power of other countries on this continent to make us a party 



♦Calhoun's "Works," Vol. i, pp. i'A-m. 



