empire not only invited the intervention of European powers in the internal affairs of the new republics, but also exposed portions of the North American continent to their aggressions.

On several occasions Canning conferred with Richard Rush, the minister of the United States resident in London, to ascertain whether his Government would join Great Britain in a public declaration against any "forcible enterprise for reducing the colonies to subjugation on behalf of or in the name of Spain; or which meditates the acquisition of any part of them to itself, by cession or by conquest." England had no designs upon the distant colonies of Spain, Canning asseverated; at the same time it "could not see any part of them transferred to any other power with indifference." Not trusting impli citly in Canning's altruism, Rush wisely suggested that Great Britain should first recognize the South American republics as a preliminary to a joint declaration. To this Canning would not commit himself; and Rush would not assume responsibility for a public declaration on any other conditions.

On receiving the dispatches from Rush recounting these interesting conferences, President Monroe took counsel with the two Virginia oracles, Jefferson and Madison. Both advised him to meet Canning's overtures and to make common cause with Great Britain

the one nation, as Jefferson put it, which could prevent America from having an independent system and which now offered "to lead, aid, and accompany us in it." Monroe was disposed to follow this advice. He not only drafted a message to Congress upon

these lines, but he went further and urged the recognition of Greek independence in a way which departed widely from the traditional aloofness which earlier Presidents had maintained in matters of European concern. On the other hand, Adams was decidedly of the opinion that Canning's invitation should be declined. He did not wish the country to appear "as a cock-boat in the wake of the British man-of-war." Moreover, Adams was considerably alarmed at the reactionary principles which the Russian ministry had avowed in a communication addressed to the minister at Washington. He urged the President to seize the occasion to make an explicit declaration of American principles. “The ground I wish to take," said he, "is that of earnest remonstrance against the interference of European powers by force with South America, but to disclaim all interference on our part with Europe; to make an American cause and adhere inflexibly to that."

Yielding to his contentious Secretary of State, President Monroe redrafted his message to Congress. In its final form, December 2, 1823, this famous state paper contained the essential principles of what has come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine. It was asserted "as a general principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved that the American continents, by the free and independ ent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." The message expressly disclaimed any purpose to inter, fere in European politics; but respecting the affairs

of the Western hemisphere a direct and immediate interest was frankly avowed. "The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America." "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 manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States."

The immediate effects of the message are not easily traced. It is not clear, even, that the favorable treaty made with Russia in the following year was the outcome of what Canning somewhat contemptuously styled "the new Doctrine of the President." Russia, it is true, agreed to waive her claims below fifty-four degrees forty minutes and to exclusive jurisdiction in Bering Sea; but the conflicting claims of England in the Northwest remained, and Canning predicted that England would "have a squabble with the Yankees yet in and about those regions."

Later generations have read strange meanings into the message of President Monroe. Even contemporaries were not clear as to its import. Interpreted in the light of its origin, it was a candid announcement

that the United States did not purpose to meddle in the affairs of European states or of their existing dependencies, and a protest against the increase of power of European states in America either by intervention or by new colonization.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

In the concluding volume of Henry Adams's History of the United States are excellent chapters on American literature, art, and religious thought. W. B. Cairns's On the Development of American Literature from 1815 to 1833 (1898) contains much interesting information about periodicals. Barrett Wendell's A Literary History of America (1900) is full of pungent comment on early men of letters. C. C. Caffin, The Story of American Painting (1907), and H. T. Tuckerman, Artist-Life, or Sketches of American Artists (1847), record the small achievements of American art. John Trumbull's Autobiography, Reminiscences, and Letters, from 1756 to 1841 (1841), is a book of great interest. E. G. Dexter's A History of Education in the United States (1904) is an excellent manual. The Unitarian Movement can be best followed in J. W. Chadwick's William Ellery Channing (1903). The history of the various denominations may be found in volumes of the American Church History Series. The genesis of Monroe's message is described by F. J. Turner, The Rise of the New West (in The American Nation, vol. 14, 1906), and F. E. Chadwick, The Relations of the United States and Spain (1909). Both of these accounts are based on W. C. Ford, John Quincy Adams: His Connection with the Monroe Doctrine (in Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1902) An excellent essay is that by W. F. Reddaway, The Monroe Doctrine (2d. ed., 1905).

CHAPTER XVII

THE NEW DEMOCRACY

By the year 1824, the West had become a section to be reckoned with by those who were calculating their chances in the presidential race. Since the war six Western States had been admitted into the Union. The population west of the Alleghanies had increased by nearly a million and a half within a decade. The relative importance of this new section appears in the census returns. In 1790, less than six per cent of the total population lived west of the Alleghanies; in 1820, nearly thirty-two per cent were domiciled in this vast region. In the National Legislature the West had acquired notable weight. By the apportionment of 1822, it had forty-seven out of two hun. dred and thirteen members of the House; in the Senate, eighteen out of forty-eight. But these figures do not tell the whole tale. As Professor Turner has well said, rightly to estimate the weight of Western population we must add the people of western New York and of the interior counties of Pennsylvania, and of the trans-Alleghany counties of Virginia, as well as the people of the back-country of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, North Carolina, and Georgia. "All of these regions were to be influenced by the ideals of democratic rule which were springing up in the Mississippi Valley."

Economic conditions bred a democratic society in