THE MONROE DOCTRINE 311 



morals ; that it had become a society whose main object was 

 the perpetuation of monarchical institutions, and that its 

 paramount duty was to suppress, wherever found, all popular 

 movements against such forms of government. 



Great popular movements recur in the lives of nations with 

 a strange regularity. Like the waves of the sea, with corre- 

 sponding depressions between, these movements hurl them- 

 selves against the bulwarks of conservatism, and as quickly 

 subside. So have the waves of liberalism risen and fallen in 

 Europe ; but, as in the swelling tides of the ocean, each suc- 

 ceeding wave reaches a higher point. The tremendous 

 enthusiasm in Spain that greeted the reestablishment of 

 Ferdinand VII when at its very climax, in 1820, suddenly 

 cooled. The revolt of her American colonies had begun 

 about eight years before, and had depleted Spain of her 

 resources. The last dollar had been squeezed from the treas- 

 ury, the last available man had been forced into the army, 

 the last ship had sailed away with arms and ammunition, 

 and all to no purpose. In 1820, the last regiment that could 

 be mobilized for transatlantic service rebelled, and in a 

 moment all Spain was in a ferment of revolution against the 

 tyranny and oppression of Ferdinand. An incoming wave 

 of liberalism swept over Spain, over Naples and Sicily, then 

 over Portugal, and threatened to inundate France. Ferdi- 

 nand was forced to grant a constitution to the people, and 

 absolutism in Naples, Sicily, and Portugal collapsed. Fright- 

 ened by the signs, Louis XVIII hastily called upon the allies 

 to meet, which they accordingly did at Troppau, October, 

 1820. The English ambassador at Troppau was a silent 

 spectator; the French envoys quarrelled among themselves, 

 and the original founders of the alliance Russia, Prussia, 

 and Austria were left to act as they saw fit. Now. if the 

 rulers of peoples receive their right to govern through Divine 

 Grace, and if they are the agents of God, whose mission on 

 earth is to govern the children of men according to the will 

 of Heaven, then it must necessarily follow that all attempts 

 to depose a legitimate monarch are wicked. All liberal 

 movements, therefore, are unholy ; all revolutions against 



