54 REFORM AND DEMOCRACY 



the Pacific coast of America. He took pains 

 to declare, however, that his government did 

 not accept the principle laid down, and he 

 emphasized his protest by withdrawing from 

 association with the United States in the nego 

 tiations at Saint Petersburg by which the limit 

 of Russian claims in America was fixed. 



Canning was right in restraining his enthu 

 siasm over Monroe s message. It was, in fact, 

 the pronunciamento of a great democracy just 

 arrived at aggressive self-consciousness. Its un 

 derlying spirit was in very truth antagonism, 

 so far as concerned affairs of the Western Hemi 

 sphere, to all monarchic Europe, Great Britain 

 included. The significant passages in the doc 

 ument owed their phraseology, in great part, 

 to John Quincy Adams; and he has left on rec 

 ord abundant evidence that no sentiment of 

 attachment to Great Britain would ever in 

 fluence him to except her from the sweep of 

 a policy devised to promote the interest and 

 glory of his own government. Canning in 

 stinctively resented the spirit of which Adams 

 was the particular embodiment. Hence the 

 marked subsidence, after 1823, of the demon 

 strative warmth which the Monroe Doctrine 

 of that year temporarily produced between the 



