CHAPTER I THE ORIGIN AND ADOPTION OF THE AMERICAN POLICY OF NON-INTERVENTION THE attempt to find in Ancient and European systems the sources and inspiration of American foreign policy is doomed to failure. Not only is identity lacking, but fancied analogies tend only to mislead. European and American policies differ, both historically and theoretically. At the outset, it is well to indicate the scope of the subject and to insist upon the fact that European practice cannot be made to approach American practice, and vice versa. Nevertheless, knowledge of a system entirely different from our own aids materially in gaining an adequate understanding of the American system, by comparison and contrast, if not by identity and analogy. Moreover, American international practice during and after the American Revolution has had at least an indirect relation to European practice. A brief review of the factors entering into the formulation of American policy will contribute to a more comprehensive treatment of the subject. The theories of state-interest and the right of self-preservation, from which is deduced the principle of intervention, are by no means peculiar to Modern Europe. The Greek and Roman legal and political theorists eloquently championed these ideas. The feeling of the time is best expressed by Aristotle who contended that the state is a self-sufficient body, and that the desires of the individual should be subordinated to the interests of the state. The 305] 19 true interests of the individual, indeed, were identical with the interests of the state, because the state could desire only the best for its citizens. With the conception of the primacy of the state well established, it was not difficult to extend the policy of seeking the interests of the state to its international relations, and to cause the will of the state to prevail over exterior, as well as interior, forces. Certain conceptions of the Roman law have been incorporated into international law; and certain others, while not so incorporated, have influenced the conduct of nations profoundly. The conception of state-interest, which treats the maintenance of the position and prosperity of the state as superior to all other considerations, was expressed in alliances, designed to preserve the peace of the Mediterranean, or to check the inordinate power of ambitious states. The adop tion of the principle of the balance of power, also, led to the formation of alliances for its preservation. When the balance of power was destroyed, crippled, or perhaps threatened, it was the duty of the alliance to act. This action, based on the doctrine of necessity, inevitably resulted in intervention in the affairs of another state or group of states. We have, then, the Greek and Roman system ante-dating the Modern European system, and differing little from it. The idea of state-interest extended to a group of states, by means of alliances designed to preserve the balance of power, furnishes the key, generally, to the history of the principle of intervention. Intervention to preserve rights of succession, and intervention by one state alone, constitute exceptions to the rule. The practice of intervention continued in the Ancient world until the principle of the balance of power yielded to the expansion of the Roman Empire. Roman Imperialism, while superseding the principle of |