THE MONROE DOCTRINE 435 



were, first, that America was no longer to be looked upon as a 

 field for European colonization ; and, secondly, that Europe must 

 not attempt to extend its political system to America, or to con- 

 trol the political condition of any of the American communities 

 who had recently declared their independence. 



The dangers against which President Monroe thought it right 

 to guard were not as imaginary as they would seem at the present 

 day. The formation of the Holy Alliance; the Congresses of 

 Laybach and Verona ; the invasion of Spain by France for the 

 purpose of forcing upon the Spanish people a form of government 

 which seemed likely to disappear, unless it was sustained by 

 external aid, were incidents fresh in the mind of President Mon- 

 roe when he penned his celebrated Message. The system of 

 which he speaks, and of which he so resolutely deprecates the 

 application to the American Continent, was the system then 

 adopted by certain powerful States upon the Continent of Europe 

 of combining to prevent by force of arms the adoption in other 

 countries of political institutions which they disliked, and to 

 uphold by external pressure those which they approved. Various 

 portions of South America had recently declared their indepen- 

 dence, and that independence had not been recognized by the 

 Governments of Spain and Portugal, to which, with small excep- 

 tion, the whole of Central and South America were nominally 

 subject. It was not an imaginary danger that he foresaw, if he 

 feared that the same spirit which had dictated the French expe- 

 dition into Spain might inspire the more powerful Governments of 

 Europe with the idea of imposing, by the force of European arms, 

 upon the South American communities the form of government 

 and the political connection which they had thrown off. In 

 declaring that the United States would resist any such enterprise 

 if it was contemplated, President Monroe adopted a policy which 

 received the entire sympathy of the English Government of that 

 date. 



The dangers which were apprehended by President Monroe 

 have no relation to the state of things in which we live at the 

 present day. There is no danger of any Holy Alliance imposing 

 its system upon any portion of the American Continent, and there 

 is no danger of any European State treating any part of the 

 American Continent as a fit object for European colonization. It 

 is intelligible that Mr. Gluey should invoke, in defence of the 

 views on which he is now insisting, an authority which enjoys so 

 high a popularity with his own fellow-countrymen. But the cir- 

 cumstances with which President Monroe was dealing, and those 

 to which the present American Government is addressing itself, 



