A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 7, part 1: Ulysses S. Grant

by Unknown

It was at the period of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle and of Laybach, when the "Holy Alliance" was combined to arrest all political changes in Europe in the sense of liberty, when they were intervening in southern Europe for the reestablishment of absolutism, and when they were meditating interference to check the progress of free government in America, that Mr. Monroe, in his annual message of December, 1823, declared that the United States would consider any attempt to extend the European system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. "With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power," he said, "we have not interfered and shall not interfere; but with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."

This declaration resolved the solution of the immediate question of the independence of the Spanish American colonies, and is supposed to have exercised some influence upon the course of the British cabinet in regard to the absolutist schemes in Europe as well as in America.

It has also exercised a permanent influence on this continent. It was at once invoked in consequence of the supposed peril of Cuba on the side of Europe; it was applied to a similar danger threatening Yucatan; it was embodied in the treaty of the United States and Great Britain as to Central America; it produced the successful opposition of the United States to the attempt of Great Britain to exercise dominion in Nicaragua under the cover of the Mosquito Indians; and it operated in like manner to prevent the establishment of a European dynasty in Mexico.

The United States stand solemnly committed by repeated declarations and repeated acts to this doctrine, and its application to the affairs of this continent. In his message to the two Houses of Congress at the commencement of the present session the President, following the teachings of all our history, said that the existing "dependencies are no longer regarded as subject to transfer from one European power to another. When the present relation of colonies ceases, they are to become independent powers, exercising the right of choice and of self-control in the determination of their future condition and relations with other powers."

This policy is not a policy of aggression; but it opposes the creation of European dominion on American soil, or its transfer to other European powers, and it looks hopefully to the time when, by the voluntary departure of European Governments from this continent and the adjacent islands, America shall be wholly American.

It does not contemplate forcible intervention in any legitimate contest, but it protests against permitting such a contest to result in the increase of European power or influence; and it ever impels this Government, as in the late contest between the South American Republics and Spain, to interpose its good offices to secure an honorable peace.

The congress of Panama was planned by Bolivar to secure the union of Spanish America against Spain. It had originally military as well as political purposes. In the military objects the United States could take no part; and, indeed, the necessity for such objects ceased when the full effects of Mr. Monroe's declarations were felt. But the pacific objects of the congress—the establishment of close and cordial relations of amity, the creation of commercial intercourse, of interchange of political thought, and of habits of good understanding between the new Republics and the United States and their respective citizens—might perhaps have been attained had the Administration of that day received the united support of the country. Unhappily, they were lost; the new States were removed from the sympathetic and protecting influence of our example, and their commerce, which we might then have secured, passed into other hands, unfriendly to the United States.

In looking back upon the Panama congress from this length of time it is easy to understand why the earnest and patriotic men who endeavored to crystallize an American system for this continent failed.

Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams were far-sighted statesmen, but, unfortunately, they struck against the rock of African slavery. One of the questions proposed for discussion in the conference was "the consideration of the means to be adopted for the entire abolition of the African slave trade," to which proposition the committee of the United States Senate of that day replied: "The United States have not certainly the right, and ought never to feel the inclination, to dictate to others who may differ with them upon this subject; nor do the committee see the expediency of insulting other states with whom we are maintaining relations of perfect amity by ascending the moral chair and proclaiming from thence mere abstract principles, of the rectitude of which each nation enjoys the perfect right of deciding for itself." The same committee also alluded to the possibility that the condition of the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, still the possessions of Spain and still slaveholding, might be made the subject of discussion and of contemplated action by the Panama congress. "If ever the United States," they said, "permit themselves to be associated with these nations in any general congress assembled for the discussion of common plans in any way affecting European interests, they will by such act not only deprive themselves of the ability they now possess of rendering useful assistance to the other American States, but also produce other effects prejudicial to their own interests."

Thus the necessity at that day of preserving the great interest of the Southern States in African slavery, and of preventing a change in the character of labor in the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, lost to the United States the opportunity of giving a permanent direction to the political and commercial connections of the newly enfranchised Spanish American States, and their trade passed into hands unfriendly to the United States, and has remained there ever since.