The Path of Empire: A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power

the countries of Europe, over the plains of Russia and the hills of Palestine, men and women had known what war was and had prayed that its ho

l Savior," and Prince Metternich, the real ruler of Austria, the spider who was for the next thirty years to spin the web of European secret diplomacy. While the Czar invited all govern

of subjects to obey. These principles had not, it was true, preserved peace in the past, but Metternich now proposed that, in the future, sovereigns or their representatives should meet "at fixed periods" to adjust their own differences and to assist one another in enforcing the obedience of subjects everywhere. The rulers were reasonably well satisfied with the world as it was arranged by the Congress of Vienna

onopoly. With peace came renewed monopoly, haughty officials, and oppressive laws dictated by that most stupid of the restored sovereigns, Ferdinand VII of Spain. Buenos Aires, however, never recognized his rule, and her general, the knightly San Martin, in one of the most remarkable campaigns of history, scaled the Andes and carried the flag of revolution into Chili and Peru. Venezuela, that hive of revolution, sent forth Bolivar to found the new republics of Colombia and Bolivia. Mexico freed herself, and Brazil separated herself f

to offer mediation to restore the old order, and, if this were refused, to intervene by force. In the United States, on the other hand, founded on the right of revolution and dedicated to government by the people, these popular movements were greeted with enthusiasm. The fiery Clay, speaker and leader of the House of Representatives, made himself champion of the cause of the

ially to the American problem. Spain was to be restored to her sovereignty, but was to pay in liberal grants of American territory to whatever powers helped her. Canning is regarded as the ablest English foreign minister of the nineteenth century; at least no one better embodied the fundamental aspirations of the English people. He realized that liberal England would be perpetually a minority in a united Europe, as Europe was then organized. He believed that the best security for peace was not a union but a balance of powers. He opposed intervention in the internal affairs of nations and stood for the right of each to choose its own form of government. Particularly he fixed his eyes on America, where he hoped to find weight to help him balance the au

ecretary of State. In his earlier missions he had often shown an unwise impetuosity and an independent judgment which was not always well balanced. He had, however, grown in wisdom. He inspired respect by his sterling qualities of character, and he was an admirable presiding

ared in midsummer Washington without a neckcloth. His early morning swim in the Potomac and his translations of Horace did not conquer a temper which embittered many who had business with him, while the nightly records which he made of his interviews show that he was generally suspicious of his visitors. Yet no American can show so long a roll of diplomatic successes. Preeminently he knew his business. His intense devotion and his native talent had m

est. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase he had wished to postpone annexation until the assent of the people of that province could be obtained. But he believed that all the territory necessary for the geographical completeness of the United States had not yet been brought under the flag. He had just obtained Florida from Spain and a claim westward to the Pacific north of the forty-second

mber would be dominant. If Canning saw liberal England as a perpetual minority in absolutist Europe, Adams saw republican America as a perpetual inferior to monarchical England. Although England, with Canada, the West Indies, and her commerce, was a great American power, Adams believed that the United States, the oldest independent natio

acceptance of Canning's proposal as a means of detaching England from the rest of Europe. Adams argued, however, that England was already detached; that, for England's purposes, the British Navy would still stand between Europe and America, whatever the attitude of the United States; that compromise or concession was unnecessary; and that the country could as safely take its stand toward the whole outside world as toward continental Europe alone. To reject

The United States was not prepared to offer Canning's self-denying ordinance barring the way to further American expansion, but something it must offer. This compensating offset Adams found in the separation of the New World from the Old and in abstention from interference in Europe. Such a renunciation involved, however, the sacrifice of generous American sympathies with the republica

as "impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent [of America] without endangering our peace and happiness." The message contained a strong defense of the republican system of government and of the right of nations to control their own internal development. It completed the foreign policy of the Uni

on his part detached the United States from European politics without throwing England into the arms of Europe. He took advantage of the divisions of the Old World to establish the priority of the United States in American affairs; but he failed in his later attempt to unite all the Americas in cordial cooperation. Earnest as was his desire and

e a national ideal, while other nations have at least in form taken cognizance of it. The Monroe Doctrine has survived because Adams did not invent its main tenets but found them the dominating principles of American international politics; his work, like that of his cont

nd made safe. For this they fought the Revolution. It has followed that they have in foreign affairs tried to keep their hands free from entanglements with other countries and have refrained from interference with foreign politics. This was the burden of Washington's

interest. As early as 1780 Thomas Pownall, an English colonial official, predicted that the United States must take an active part in Cuban affairs. In 1806 Madison, then Secretary of State, had instructed Monroe, Minister to Great Britain, that the Government began to broach the idea that the whole Gulf Stream was within its maritime jurisdiction. The message of Monroe was an assertion that the fate of bo

ca. No boundaries, not even oceans, can today prohibit international interference. But while the particular method followed in 1823 is no longer appropriate, the ends which the United States set out to attain have remained the same. Independence, absolute and complete, including the absence of all entanglements which might draw the country into other peoples' quarrels; the recognition of a similar independence in all other peoples, which involves both keeping its own hands off and also strongly disapproving of interference by one nation with another-these have been the guiding principles of the United States. These principles the Government has maintained by such means as seemed ap

hose controversies which accompanied this growth and taxed the diplomatic resources of American Secretaries of State from the times of Adams