THE MONROE DOCTRINE 427 



as North, by geographical proximity, by natural sympathy, by 

 similarity of governmental constitutions, are friends and allies, 

 commercially and politically, of the United States. To allow the 

 subjugation of any of them by an European power is, of course, to 

 completely reverse that situation and signifies the loss of all the 

 advantages incident to their natural relations to us. But that is 

 not all. The people of the United States have a vital interest in 

 the cause of popular self-government. They have secured the 

 right for themselves and their posterity at the cost of infinite 

 blood and treasure. They have realized and exemplified its 

 beneficent operation by a career unexampled in point of national 

 greatness or individual felicity. They believe it to be for the 

 healing of all nations, and that civilization must either advance 

 or retrograde accordingly as its supremacy is extended or cur- 

 tailed. Imbued with these sentiments, the people of the United 

 States might not impossibly be wrought up to an active propa- 

 ganda in favor of a cause so highly valued both for themselves 

 and for mankind. But the age of the Crusades has passed, and 

 they are content with such assertion and defence of the right of 

 popular self-government as their own security and welfare de- 

 mand. It is in that view more than in any other that they believe 

 it not to be tolerated that the political control of an American 

 state shall be forcibly assumed by an European power. 



The mischiefs apprehended from such a source are none the 

 less real because not immediately imminent in any specific case, 

 and are none the less to be guarded against because the combina- 

 tion of circumstances that will bring them upon us cannot be pre- 

 dicted. The civilized states of Christendom deal with each other 

 on substantially the same principles that regulate the conduct of 

 individuals. The greater its enlightenment, the more surely 

 every state perceives that its permanent interests require it to be- 

 governed by the immutable principles of right and justice. Each, 

 nevertheless, is only too liable to succumb to the temptations 

 offered by seeming special opportunities for its own aggrandize- 

 ment, and each would rashly imperil its own safely were it not to 

 remember that for the regard and respect of other states it must 

 be largely dependent upon its own strength and power. To-day 

 the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and 

 its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interpo- 

 sition. Why ? It is not because of the pure friendship or good 

 will felt for it. It is not simply by reason of its high character 

 as a civilized state* nor because wisdom and justice and equity are 

 the invariable characteristics of the dealings of the United States. 

 It is because, in addition to all other grounds, its infinite resources 



