The independence of the Spanish-American governments, which had now been acknowledged by the United States, had not as yet been recognized by Great Britain. But English merchants, like those of the United States, had developed a large trade with the Spanish-American countries-a trade which the restoration of those regions to a colonial condition would, under the commercial system then in vogue, have cut off and destroyed.

In view of this common interest, Canning, towards the close of 1823, began to sound Richard Rush, the American minister at London, as to the possibility of a joint declaration by the two governments against the intervention of the allies in Spanish America. Canning once boasted that he had called into being the New World to redress the balance of the Old. The meaning of this boast can be understood only in the light of his proposals. In a “private and confidential” note to Rush, of August 23, 1823, he declared: "I. We conceive the recovery of the colonies of Spain to be hopeless. 2. We conceive the question of the recognition of them, as independent states, to be one of time and circumstances. 3. We are, however, by no means disposed to throw any impediment in the way of an arrangement between them and the mother country by amicable negotiation. 4. We aim not at the possession of any portion of them ourselves. 5. We could not see any portion of them transferred to any other power with indifference."

If these opinions and feelings were shared by the United States, Canning thought the two governments should declare them in the face of the world, as the best means of defeating the project, if any European Power should cherish it, of subjugating the colonies in the name of Spain, or of acquiring any part of them itself by cession or by conquest. He therefore desired Rush to act upon his proposals at once, if he possessed the power to do so. It was said of Richard Rush by an eminent Senator that, in the course of an unusually long and important diplomatic career, he "never said a word that was improper, nor betrayed a thought that might peril his country's fortunes." On the present occasion he acted with his usual good judgment. His powers did not embrace the making of such a declaration as Canning desired; but, while he expressed the opinion that Canning's sentiments, except as to independence, which the United States had already acknowledged, were shared by his government,

he lost no time in reporting the matter to the President. Monroe, on receiving the correspondence, hastened to take counsel upon it. Jefferson, whose opinion was solicited, replied: "Our first and fundamental maxim should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs.". He was disposed to look, with favor upon cooperation with England in the direction suggested, and Madison shared his opinion. In the cabinet of Monroe, Calhoun inclined to invest Rush with power to join England in a declaration, even if it should pledge the United States not to take either Cuba or Texas. The President at first was inclined to Calhoun's idea of giving Rush discretionary powers, but this was opposed by John Quincy Adams, who maintained that we could act with England only on the basis of the acknowledged independence of the Spanish-American states. The views of Adams prevailed. His basal thought was the right of selfgovernment, which he believed to be the duty and the interest of the United States to cherish and support. He thought that the United States should let England make her own declaration. This England did, without waiting for the decision of the United States. On October 9, 1823, Canning, in an interview with Prince de Polignac, French ambassador, declared that while Great Britain would remain "neutral" in any war between Spain and her colonies, the "junction" of any foreign power with Spain against the colonies would be viewed as constituting "entirely a new question," upon which Great Britain "must take such decision" as her interests "might require."

In his annual message to Congress of December 2, 1823, President Monroe devoted to the subject a long passage. The substance of it is, however, conveyed in a few sentences. After adverting to the abstention of the United States from European wars and to the dangers to be apprehended from the system of the allied Powers, he declared: "We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those Powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power 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 a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."

The sentences just quoted specially relate to the aims of the Holy Alliance; but there is another passage in the message which is also often cited as embodying the Monroe Doctrine. In 1821, the Emperor of Russia issued a ukase, by which he assumed, as owner of the shore, to exclude foreigners from carrying on commerce and from navigating and fishing within a hundred Italian miles of the northwest coast of America, from Bering Strait down to the 51st parallel of north latitude. As this assertion of title embraced territory which was claimed by the United States as well as by Great Britain, both those governments protested against it. In consequence the Russian government proposed to adjust the matter by amicable negotiation; and instructions to 'that end were prepared by John Quincy Adams for the American ministers at London and St. Petersburg. At a meeting of the cabinet on June 28, 1823, while the subject was under discussion, Adams expressed the opinion that the claim of the Russians could not be admitted, because they appeared to have no "settlement" upon the territory in dispute; and on July 17 he informed Baron Tuyl, then Russian minister at Washington, "that we [the United States] should contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments." With reference to this subject, President Monroe, in the message above quoted, said: "In the discussions to which this interest has given rise, and in the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Powers."

By the term "future colonization” President Monroe evidently intended to convey the same meaning as was expressed by the

terms "settlement" and "colonial establishments" previously employed by Adams. They were used to denote, what they were then commonly understood to mean, the acquisition of title to territory by original occupation and settlement. But in the course of time the phrase "future colonization" came to receive a broader interpretation. President Polk, in his annual message of December 2, 1845, declared that, while existing rights of every European nation should be respected, it should be "distinctly announced to the world as our settled policy that no future European colony or dominion shall, with our consent, be planted or established on any part of the North-American continent." By pronouncing against the establishment by a European Power of any "dominion"-a term which included even the voluntary transfer of territory already occupied-President Polk expressed a conception which has come generally to prevail, and which is embodied in the popular phrase, “No more European colonies on these continents." The same meaning is conveyed in the phrase, "America for the Americans," which signifies that no European Power shall be permitted to acquire new territory or to extend its dominions in the western hemisphere.

In this sense, but apparently with the qualification in the particular case that only a forcible acquisition of territory was forbidden, the Monroe Doctrine was invoked by President Cleveland in respect of the Venezuelan boundary question. This incident, as is well known, grew out of a long-standing dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela, which was the continuation of a dispute two centuries old between the Netherlands and Spain as to the limits of the Dutch and Spanish settlements in Guiana. In 1844 Lord Aberdeen proposed to Venezuela a conventional line, beginning at the river Moroco. This proposal was declined; and, chiefly in consequence of civil commotions in Venezuela, negotiations remained practically in abeyance till 1876. Venezuela then offered to accept the Aberdeen line; but Lord Grenville suggested a boundary farther west; and in subsequent negotiations the British demand was extended still farther in that direction. Venezuela, representing that this apparent enlargement of British dominion constituted a pure aggression of her territorial rights, invoked the aid of the United States on the ground of the Monroe Doctrine. Venezuela asked for arbitration, and in so doing included in her claim a large portion of British Guiana.

Great Britain at length declined to arbitrate unless Venezuela would first yield all territory within a line westward of that offered by Lord Aberdeen. In these circumstances, Mr. Olney, as Secretary of State, in instructions to Mr. Bayard, American ambassador at London, of July 20, 1895, categorically inquired whether the British government would submit the whole controversey to arbitration. In these instructions Mr. Olney declared that the Monroe Doctrine did not establish a "protectorate" over other American states; that it did not relieve any of them "from its obligations as fixed by international law nor prevent any European Power directly interested from enforcing such obligations or from inflicting merited punishment for the breach of them"; but that its "single purpose and object" was that “no European Power or combination of European Powers" should "forcibly deprive an American state of the right and power of self-government, and of shaping for itself its own political fortunes and destinies." This principle he conceived to be at stake in the dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela, because, as the dispute related to territory, it necessarily imported “political control to be lost by one party and gained by the other."

"To-day," declared Mr. Olney, "the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition." All the advantages of this superiority were, he affirmed, at once imperilled if the principle should be admitted that European Powers might convert American states into colonies or provinces of their own. Lord Salisbury declined unrestricted arbitration; and when his answer was received, President Cleveland, on December 17, 1895, laid the correspondence before Congress. "If a European Power, by an extension of its boundaries, takes possession of the territory of one of our neighboring republics against its will and in derogation of its rights," it was, said President Cleveland, the precise thing which President Monroe had declared to be "dangerous to our peace and safety”; but, he added, “any adjustment of the boundary which that country [Venezuela] may deem for her advantage and may enter into of her own free will cannot, of course, be objected to by the United States."

He then recommended the appointment by the United States of a commission to investigate the merits of the controversy, and declared that, if the title to the disputed territory should be