limitations of this doctrine within what he well knew was its original scope, he had no wish to hamper or restrain our national activities. Calhoun spoke like a statesman:

In disavowing a principle which will compel us to resist every case of interposition of European Powers on this continent, I would not wish to be understood as defending the opposite, that we should never resist their interposition. This is a position which would be nearly as dangerous and absurd as the other. But no general rule can be laid down to guide us on such a question. Every case must speak for itself, every case must be decided on its own merits. Whether you will resist or not and the measure of your resistance-whether it shall be by negotiation, remonstrance, or some intermediate measure, or by a resort to arms,-all this must be decided on the merits of the question itself.

Calhoun here set forth the truth of history, and he voiced the highest and truest statesmanship for American administrations in dealing with this question.

National Review. 40:871-89. February, 1903

Monroe Doctrine. A. T. Mahan

The formulation of the Monroe Doctrine, as distinguished from its origin, resulted, as is universally understood, from the political conditions caused by the revolt of the Spanish colonies in America. Up to that time, and for centuries previous, the name Spain had signified to Europe in general not merely the mother country, but a huge colonial system, with its special economical and commercial regulation; the latter being determined through its colonial relations, upon the narrowest construction of colonial policy then known, which was saying a great deal. Spain stood for the Spanish Empire, divisible primarily into two chief components, Spain and Greater Spain; the mother country and the colonies. The passage of time had been gradually reversing the relative importance of the two in the apprehension of other European States. In Sir Robert Walpole's day it was believed by many besides himself that Great Britain could not make head against France and Spain combined. The naval power of Spain, and consequently her political weight, still received awed consideration; a relic of former fears. This continued, though in a diminished degree, through the War of American Independence; but by the end of the century, while

it may be too much to affirm that such apprehension had wholly disappeared-that no account was taken of the unwieldy numbers of ill-manned and often ill-officered ships that made up the Spanish navy-it is true that a Spanish war bore to British seamen an aspect rather commercial than military. It meant much more of prize money than of danger; and that it did so was due principally to the wealth of the colonies.

This wealth was potential as well as actual, and in both aspects it appealed to Europe. To break in upon the monopoly enjoyed by Spain, and consecrated in international usage both by accepted ideas and long prescription, was an object of policy to the principal European maritime states. It was so conspicuously to Great Britain, on account of the pre-eminence which commercial considerations always had in her councils. In the days of William III., the prospective failure of the Spanish royal house brought up the question of what other family should succeed, and to whom should be transferred the great inheritance won by Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro. Thenceforth the thought of dividing this spoil of a decadent empire-the sick man of that day-remained in men's memory as a possible contingency of the future, even though momentarily out of the range of practical politics. The waning of Spain's political and military prestige was accompanied by an increasing understanding of the value of the commercial system appended to her in her colonies. The future disposition of these extensive regions, and the fruition of their wealth, developed and undeveloped, were conceived as questions of universal European policy. In the general apprehension of European rulers, they were regarded as affecting the balance of

power.

It was as the opponent of this conception, the perfectly natural outcome of previous circumstances and history, that the Monroe Doctrine entered the field; a newcomer in form, yet having its own history and antecedent conditions as really as the conflicting European view. Far more than South America, which had seen little contested occupation, the northern continent had known what it was to be the scene of antagonistic European ambitions and exploitation. There had been within her territory a balance of power, in idea, if not in achievement, quite as real as any that had existed or been fought for in Europe. Canada in the hands of France, and the mouth of the Mississippi in alien control, were

matters of personal memory to many, and of very recent tradition to all Americans in active life in 1810. Florida then was still Spanish, with unsettled boundary questions and attendant evils. Not reason only, but feeling, based upon experience of actual inconvenience, suffering and loss-loss of life and loss of wealth, political anxiety and commercial disturbance-conspired to intensify opposition to any avoidable renewal of similar conditions. To quote the words of a distinguished American Secretary of State-for Foreign Affairs-speaking twenty years ago, "This sentiment is properly called a Doctrine, for it has no prescribed sanction, and its assertion is left to the exigency which may invoke it." This accurate statement places it upon the surest political foundation, much firmer than precise legal enactment or international convention, that of popular conviction. The sentiment had existed beforehand; the first exigency which invoked its formulated expression in 1823 was the announced intention of several great Powers to perpetuate by force the European system, whether of colonial tenure, or balance of power, or monarchial forms, in the Spanish colonies; they being then actually in revolt against the mother country, and seeking, not other political relations to Europe, but simply their own independence.

This political question of independence, however, involved also necessarily that of commercial relations; and both were interesting to outside States. So far as then appeared, renewed dependence meant the perpetuation of commercial exclusion against foreign states. This characterised all colonial regulation at that time, and continued in Spanish practice in Cuba and other dependencies until the final downfall of her diminished empire in 1898. It must be recognised, therefore, that all outside parties to the controversy, all parties other than Spain and her colonies, which had special incitements of their own, were influenced by two classes of motives, political and commercial. These are logically separable, although in practice intertwined. That of the Continental Powers-Austria, Prussia, and Russia, with the subsequent accession of France-was primarily political. Their object was to perpetuate in South America political conditions connected with the European system, by breaking down popular revolt against absolutist government, and maintaining the condition of dependence upon Spain. Whither this might lead in case

of armed intervention, which was contemplated, was a question probably of the division of spoil; for in the end Spain could hardly pay the bill otherwise than by colonial cessions. But whether the movement of the Holy Alliance, as it was self-styled, issued merely in the suppression of popular liberties, or introduced further a European balance of power with its rivalries and conflicts, its war and rumours of wars, both results were politically abhorrent to American feelings and disturbing to American peace. They gave rise to distinctly political objections by the people and statesmen of the United States. From these sentiments the exigency evoked the first reasoned official expression of the national conviction and purpose, which we now know as the Monroe Doctrine. Subsidiary to this political motive, but clearly recognised and avowed, was the legitimate inducement of commercial interest, benefited by the rejection of European rule, and to be injured by its restoration.

It will not be expected that a British Tory administration, before the Reform Bill of 1832 and with the protective system and Navigation Act in full force, should have shared the particular political prepossessions of the American states, geographically closely concerned, lately themselves colonies, and but very recently emerged from a prolonged conflict with British commercial regulations based upon the ancient conception of colonial administration. But Great Britain, in addition to commercial ambitions and interests greater then than those of the United States, and the outcome of a century of effort against the Spanish monopoly, did have also a distinct political leaning in the matter. There ran through both political parties a real and deep sympathy with communities struggling for freedom. The iniquity of suppressing such efforts by external force of third parties, not immediately concerned, was strongly felt. There was accepted also among British statesmen a clearly defined rule of conduct, which had been conspicuously illustrated in the early days of the French Revolution, still a matter of recent memory in 1820, that interference in the intestine struggles of a foreign country, such as those then afflicting both the Spanish kingdom and colonies, was neither right in principle nor expedient in policy.

Basing its action firmly on these convictions, the British Ministry, under the influence of Canning, intimated clearly that, while neutral towards the intervention of the Holy Alliance in

Spain itself, to restore there the old order of things, it would not permit the transport of armies to South America for a like purpose. The course of the Alliance in Spain was viewed with disapproval, but it did not immediately concern Great Britain to an extent demanding armed resistance. The case of the colonies was different. Intervention there would be prejudicial to British mercantile enterprise, already heavily engaged in their trade and economical development; while, politically, the occupation of the Peninsula by French armies would be offset by the detachment of the colonies from their previous dependence. To the effect of this British attitude the position of the United States Government, defined by President Monroe in his Message of December, 1823, constituted a powerful support, and the news of it evoked general satisfaction in England. However motived, without formal concert, still less in alliance, the two English-speaking countries occupied the same ground and announced the same purpose. Spain might conquer her colonies unaided, if she could; neither would interfere; but the attempt of other Powers to give her armed assistance would be regarded by each as unfriendly to itself.

From this momentary community of position exaggerated inferences have been drawn as to the identity of impulses which had brought either State to it. It was a case of two paths converging; not thenceforth to unite, but to cross, and continue each in its former general direction, diverging rather than approximating. Though crumbling before the rising stream of progress, the ideas appropriate to the eighteenth century had not yet wholly disappeared from British conceptions; still less had the practice and policy of the State conformed themselves to the changed point of view which, in the middle of the nineteenth century, began to characterize British statesmanship with reference to colonies. The battles of reformed political representation and of free trade were yet to fight and win; old opinions continued as to the commercial relationship of colonies to the mother country, although modification in details was being introduced. The West Indies were still the most important group in the British colonial system, and one of the latest acts of Canning, who died in 1827, was to renew there commercial discrimination against the United States; a measure which, however prompted, could scarcely be said to reflect the image of the Monroe Doctrine.