388 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



to were those just freed from Spain, and the Executive made 

 use of the words "any European power," for the sake of en- 

 couraging the young republics. 



3. In regard to the use of the word "colonization," as 

 employed by Monroe, it had a specific meaning "the estab- 

 lishment of a settlement by emigrants from the parent coun- 

 try, in a territory either uninhabited, or from which the 

 inhabitants have been partially or wholly expelled." This 

 part of the doctrine was also directed to a certain source of 

 irritation Russian colonization on the northwest coast. To 

 include the whole continent as under the ban, was manifestly 

 an impropriety, as a large part of the continent had not 

 asserted nor maintained its independence ; Hritish and Rus- 

 sian America then exceeded in area the whole of the United 

 States. This portion of the message originated with Mr. 

 Adams, and had not been freely discussed in the cabinet. 

 "I will venture to say," assrrtril Mr. Calhonn, "that if that 

 declaration had come before the cautious cabinet, (for Mr. 

 .Monroe was among the wisest and most cautious men I have 

 ever known,) it would have been modified and expressed with 

 a far greater degree of precision, and with much more deli- 

 cacy in reference to the feelings of the Hritish Government." 



4. In another respect as well, Mr. Calhoun believed, 

 President Polk did not understand the famous declaration. 

 " They were but declarations, nothing more. Declara- 

 tions announcing in a friendly manner to the powers of the 

 world that we should regard certain acts of interposition of 

 the allied powers as dangerous to our peace and safety ; in- 

 terpositions of European powers to oppress the republics- 

 which had just arisen upon this continent, having become 

 free and independent, as manifesting an unfriendly disposi- 

 tion, and that this continent having become free and inde- 

 pendent, was no longer the subject of colonization not one 

 word in any one of them in reference to resistance." 



5. Our country, then, is not expected inexorably to follow a 

 simple declaration as though it were a fixed principle. Such 

 a course would make the United States a party, willing or 

 unwilling, to all the wars, just or unjust, of the several Ameri- 



