154 THROUGH THREEFOLD TENSION 



ish aristocrat, but neither exceeded the other 

 in strength of conviction that his people had 

 the right and the duty of asserting itself in 

 the world without overscrupulous regard for 

 the rights and interests of other peoples. It 

 was well again that Palmerston s chosen field 

 for manifesting British power was the hemi 

 sphere from which Polk deliberately excluded 

 himself. If this division of territory had worked 

 both ways, some friction between the two great 

 promoters of Anglo-Saxon ideas might have 

 been avoided. Folk s hemisphere was too thor 

 oughly permeated with British interests, how 

 ever, to permit of any American development 

 without touching them. Though Palmerston s 

 personal concern about the Americans was of 

 the slightest, and he preserved to the end the 

 attitude of his early chief, Canning, in regard 

 ing the United States as a vexatious intruder 

 in the field of serious diplomacy, yet his spirit 

 was active in the subordinates who were on the 

 ground in America, and trouble was an early 

 result. 



The disintegration of Mexico on its northern 

 frontier and the great southward stride of the 

 United States along the Gulf of Mexico and the 

 Pacific Ocean naturally excited the liveliest 



