1824.

A THIRD TERM FOR MONROE.

51

wrath of the Holy Allies, and asserted that, as the powers were sure to pay no heed to the message, Monroe must back down or fight. Happily, these men were in the minority, and in all parts of the country the approval was general. Encouraged by this, some admirers of Monroe came forward with the proposition to elect him to a third term. It is plain, they argued, that a few months-nay, a few weekswill see at least five candidates in the field. Not one of them is strong enough to secure the two hundred and sixty-one electoral votes necessary to a choice. There will be no choice by the electors, and that even the House, when the matter comes before it, will agree on any one of them is very doubtful. Monroe at the last election was entitled to have received the unanimous vote of the electors. During his second term he has done nothing to forfeit this confidence of the people, but has done much to maintain it. If now he is succeeded by another, the rulers of Europe, who do not understand our system, will construe this to mean that the people have repudiated the fine stand he has taken in his message against the allies, and may go on with the infamous work of destroying the republics of South America.

Even Clay was so far carried away by the enthusiasm of the moment that he laid before the House of Representatives a resolution that the people of the United States would not see without serious alarm any forcible intervention of the allied powers of Europe in behalf of Spain in the war then going on between her and her late colonies.* The influence

and ominous. Could he have stepped in advance of his superiors? Or have they deserted their first object? Or have the allies shrank from theirs? Or is anything taking place in Spain which the adroitness of the British Government can turn against the allies and in favor of South America? Whatever may be the explanation, Canning ought in candor, after what had passed with Mr. Rush, not to have withheld it, and his doing so enjoins a circumspect reliance on our own councils and energies. One thing is certain: that the contents of the message will receive a very close attention everywhere, and that it can do nothing but good everywhere.

(Indorsed)

Decr. 6, 1828.

MSS. in the Department of State, Washington.

MONROE, JS.

* “Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the people of these States would not see,

of Clay was great. He was a favorite. He was Speaker of the House. He was an avowed presidential candidate; but he forgot that because he was a candidate the resolution if pressed would ruin him. He forgot that ten years before, a great section of the country whose votes he needed had denounced him as a "war hawk" because of the vigorous support he gave to the war for "free-trade and sailors' rights"; he forgot that in the same section he would again be accused of seeking to provoke a war; and he forgot, what was far more important still, that no Southern State could be carried by any man who was actively interested in the welfare of the anti-slavery republics of South America.

But Clay remembered all this before the session closed, and one day in May, when the House was in Committee of the Whole, he rose and asked for a moment's attention while he said a word regarding his resolution. He had introduced it, he declared, because of information disclosed in the President's message, and under the belief that the Holy Allies meditated an attack on Spanish America. It was now clear that, if such a purpose had been seriously meditated, it was abandoned, and to pass the resolution after all that had occurred might be construed by them as unfriendly, if not offensive. Under the full conviction, therefore, that they did not entertain any purpose as diabolical as reducing South America to its ancient subjection, he would not press the resolution, "but would allow it to sleep where it now reposeson the table."

For this Clay has been accused of abandoning the Monroe Doctrine. It seems more reasonable to believe that he acted from political necessity; for when that necessity passed away, when Adams was President and he was Secretary of State, he recovered the courage of his convictions, and in his instructions to Joel R. Poinsett, Minister to Mexico, thought proper to clearly define the meaning of the new doctrine, and,

without serious inquietude, any forcible intervention of the other powers of Europe in behalf of Spain, to reduce to their former subjection those parts of the continent, of America which have proclaimed and established for themselves, respectively, independent Governments, and which have been solemnly recognized by the United States."

1825.

CLAY ON THE DOCTRINE.

53

having done so, bade Mr. Poinsett "urge upon the Government of Mexico the utility and expediency of asserting the same principles on all proper occasions." *

Thus instructed, the Minister set out, and had not been long at his post when the appearance of a great French fleet on our coast gave the republics of South America just cause to believe that the French, having stamped out constitutional government in Spain, was about to invade and seize Cuba and Porto Rico. Such an event was so much to be dreaded that Mexico called on the United States "to fulfil," in the

"Whatever foundation may have existed three centuries ago, or even at a later period, when all this continent was under European subjection, for the establishment of a rule, founded on priority of discovery and occupation, for apportioning among the powers of Europe parts of this continent, none can be now admitted as applicable to its present condition. There is no disposition to disturb the colonial possessions, as they may now exist, of any of the European powers; but it is against the establishment of new European colonies upon this continent that the principle is directed. The countries in which any such new establishments might be attempted are now open to the enterprise and commerce of all Americans. And the justice or propriety cannot be recognized of arbitrarily limiting and circumscribing that enterprise and commerce, by the act of voluntarily planting a new colony, without the consent of America, under the auspices of foreign powers belonging to another and a distant continent. Europe would be indignant at any American attempt to plant a colony on any part of her shores, and her justice must perceive, in the rule contended for, only perfect reciprocity.

"The other principle asserted in the message is that while we do not desire to interfere in Europe with the political system of the allied powers, we should regard as dangerous to our peace and safety any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere. The political systems of the two continents are essentially different. Each has an exclusive right to judge for itself what is best suited to its own condition and most likely to promote its happiness, but neither has a right to enforce upon the other the establishment of its peculiar system. This principle was declared in the face of the world, at a moment when there was reason to apprehend that the allied powers were enter'taining designs inimical to the freedom, if not the independence, of the new Governments. There is a ground for believing that the declaration of it had considerable effect in preventing the maturity, if not in producing the abandonment of all such designs. Both principles were laid down after much and anxious deliberation on the part of the late administration. The President, who then formed a part of it, continues entirely to coincide in both. And you will urge upon the Government of Mexico the utility and expediency of asserting the same principles on all proper occasions.”—Clay to Joel R. Poinsett, March 26, 1825. Register of Debates, 1825-226, Part ii, App., p. 84.

words of Mr. Clay, "the memorable pledge of the President of the United States in his message to Congress of December, 1823." Clay, with as little delay as possible, acceded to the request, applied the Monroe Doctrine, instructed our Minister at Paris to notify France "that we would not consent to the occupation of those islands by any other European power than Spain under any circumstances whatever," and bade Mr. Poinsett inform Mexico what had been done.*

* Clay to Poinsett, November 9, 1825.-"No longer than about three months ago, when an invasion by France of the island of Cuba was believed in Mexico, the United Mexican Government promptly called upon the Government of the United States, through you, to fulfil the memorable pledge of the President of the United States in his message to Congress of December, 1823. What they would have done had the contingency happened may be inferred from a despatch to the American Minister at Paris, a copy of which is herewith sent, which you are at liberty to read to the plenipotentiaries of the United Mexican States."

1821.

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

55

CHAPTER XLII.

BREAKING UP OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

THE campaign which sent John Quincy Adams to the White House and put Henry Clay at the head of the Department of State began in 1821. Many things combined to give it a peculiar character and a lasting interest. A great national party, the sole one then in existence-a party which but a few months before presented the most singular illustration of harmony and unity afforded by our political annals —was, on a sudden, split into fragments. A piece of political machinery in use for four-and-twenty years was utterly destroyed and never resorted to again. Then for the first time was heard the cry that the President should be "a man of the people." Then for the first time the people made themselves felt not only in the election, but in the selection of a President. Then for the first time in its history the Republican party had no leader pre-eminent over a dozen others.

The generation which fought the war for independence, which furnished the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, who constituted the Continental Congress, who created the confederation, who framed the Constitution, was practically extinct. The generation of men then in control of affairs had been born since Bunker Hill and Yorktown, and possessed no leader who, having hazarded life and fortune in the struggle for the rights of man, had peculiar claims on the gratitude of his countrymen. The development of the country in the course of forty years had produced yet greater changes. The rush of population into the Mississippi Valley, the rise there of nine new States with democratic constitutions of the modern type, the rapid extension of the franchise, the