The declaration known
as the Monroe doctrine, and the objects and purposes of the congress of
Panama, both supposed to have been largely inspired by Mr. Adams, have
influenced public events from that day to this as a principle of
government for this continent and its adjacent islands.
It was at the period of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle and of
Laybach, when the "Holy Alliance" was combined to arrest all political
changes in Europe in the sense of liberty, when they were intervening
in southern Europe for the reestablishment of absolutism, and when they
were meditating interference to check the progress of free government
in America, that Mr. Monroe, in his annual message of December, 1823,
declared that the United States would consider any attempt to extend
the European system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to
our peace and safety. "With the existing colonies or dependencies of
any European power," he said, "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 as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United
States.
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