The United States of America Part 17

[Ill.u.s.tration: View of the Capitol of the United States. THE CAPITOL BURNED BY THE BRITISH ARMY. From Torrey's "American Slave Trader."

Justice looks from the sky in retribution upon a nation which permits the slave trade to be carried on almost within the shadow of the Capitol.]

Those who believed that compromises were curatives rather than means of temporary relief as we now see them, must have found hope for the future in the number of compromises in the convention caused by slavery.

As the years sped by under the Const.i.tution, and the menace failed to renew its formidable shape, these hopes must have brightened into a belief that the spectre was laid for ever. The expiration of the twenty years demanded by South Carolina and Georgia in which to get their supply of slave labour from Africa drew nigh, and brought forth a prohibitory law to take effect the first day of the year 1808. The newer Gulf States in vain demanded an extension of the open door to place them upon an equal footing with the older States. Yet the law was never enforced, and it was always possible to get a fresh supply of slaves even to the time of the Civil War. The blame must be shared equally by the planters of the Gulf States, who purchased the new slaves, and by the s.h.i.+p-owners of the free States, whose vessels brought them from Africa for the profit of the trade. Cupidity will be found, in the last a.n.a.lysis, to be at the bottom of much of the law-breaking spirit so unfortunately characteristic of the American people.

The Friends kept up an unceasing pet.i.tion to Congress to ameliorate the condition of the slaves or to emanc.i.p.ate them. It was said by some of the British advocates of emanc.i.p.ation, who began to let their voices be heard in the States, that the destruction of the public buildings at Was.h.i.+ngton during the War of 1812 was a judgment of G.o.d upon a people who permitted a slave market almost within the shadow of the Capitol. Slavery was always at base an economic question and was now awaiting some national economic issue before it would manifest its ugly self. The emanc.i.p.ation plans which had been adopted by the Northern States were emphasising slavery as a sectional issue. It would make even more difficult the task of balancing the two sections. So rapidly had public sentiment accepted the inevitable in the matter of sections, that by 1820 it was easy to repeat the fearful phrase, "preserving the balance between the two sections."

It had been possible to preserve this balance in the Senate, where State representation is equal, by admitting a Northern and a Southern State contemporaneously. Thus two Senators from each section were created. In the House of Representatives, where strength depends upon the distribution of population, no such balance could be maintained.

The attractiveness of the back lands as they were opened to settlement, the ease with which farms could be secured from the public domain, the rapid development of water-power, and the increasing immigration from Europe, caused a rapid growth of population in the trans-Alleghenian region. In 1800, only one settler had crossed the mountains to fourteen remaining on the coast-plain. Ten years later one had crossed for every six remaining behind, and in 1820 the proportion was one to four. There had been some alarm manifest in the older States in earlier times, because the power and prestige which they had enjoyed must eventually be reduced if not lost through the rapidly growing West. But whatever danger of this nature was realised became of secondary importance by 1820 to the larger question of the unequal distribution of the migrants in the various parts of the West. Between 1810 and 1820, for instance, Ohio had increased in population 151.9 per cent. and Tennessee only 61.5 per cent. For every 319 people who sought homes in Illinois during that period, only 87 had settled in Mississippi. The two States had been admitted almost simultaneously and had equal attractions. Why should the one gain more population and have more political strength than the other? Although statistics for the spa.r.s.ely populated territories were not so available, there was no doubt that the Northern section everywhere was being settled more rapidly than the Southern.

Under such conditions, the maintenance of the senatorial balance of States between the sections would be impossible. Portions of a Northern territory would be applying for admission before population had reached the required number in any Southern part. An additional alarm was felt because every Northern State admitted thus far, having been formed out of the North-west Territory, had incorporated in its const.i.tution the provision of the Ordinance of 1787 that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes," should ever be permitted. That kept the door of the Northern States closed against the Southern slavery system. Although such action might be held as mandatory on every State created out of the North-west Territory, it could not be so held in States made out of the Louisiana Purchase.

Indeed, the treaty of 1803 promised the inhabitants "the free enjoyment of their liberty; property, and religion." So strongly was the Southern element entrenched in national affairs, and so slightly had the ethical views of the Pennsylvania Friends affected the country at large, that the word "property" was tacitly allowed to cover slaves. Louisiana, the first trans-Mississippi State, was admitted with a const.i.tution not prohibiting, and hence permitting slavery. The act changing the Territory of Louisiana, which covered the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase, into the Missouri Territory, pa.s.sed at the same time, left the Territory open to slavery in the same manner. Slaves could be legally held on the west of the Mississippi as far north as Canada.

This Territory of Missouri, extending from the southern boundary of the State of Arkansas to the Canadian line, received its share of Western migrants. It embraced the heart of the continent. It extended indefinitely up the Missouri River and the Yellowstone, where its traders and trappers came into compet.i.tion with the outposts of the Hudson Bay and the North-west fur-trading companies, under the protection of a vast system of British troops and outposts. Still farther to the north-west the Americans found the Russian Company, under protection of its Government, taking furs presumably from the Louisiana country to supply Euro-Asia. It is no wonder that American traders began to demand similar protection from their Government. Other industries arising from the rapidly increasing population also demanded attention.

When the United States took possession of the Louisiana country, the upper portion contained probably not more than six thousand inhabitants, about one thousand being slaves. In 1810, it had twenty thousand. A decade later, as the Territory of Missouri, it had grown to four times that number and was ready for division and statehood. A pet.i.tion reached Congress in 1819, setting forth its claims. It was understood that the new State would centre about St. Louis, a thriving city of ten thousand inhabitants, situated just below the mouth of the Missouri, and that both the Northern and Southern extremes of the vast territory would be cut off. To make a proper line of demarcation, the Kentucky-Tennessee boundary of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes was extended across the Mississippi; and the "Arkansas country," which lay to the south of it, was erected into a separate territory and given that name. A northern boundary for the proposed state was projected westwardly from near the mouth of the Des Moines River.

An attempt was made by a few radicals to apply the anti-slavery clause from the North-west Territory Ordinance of 1787 to the Territory of Arkansas; but it would so manifestly destroy the balance between the sections that the project was abandoned. In time Arkansas would become a slave State. It was presumed by many Northern statesmen that the boundary line between Arkansas and Missouri would thus be accepted as a continuation of the line between the two sections, which had been extended across the continent with the movement of the people. It was begun when Pennsylvania and all States north adopted some form of emanc.i.p.ation for their slaves, and neither Maryland nor any State south thought best to do so. Hence the boundary line between the two States, run by the geographers, Mason and Dixon, in early days, became the first sectional line. The Ohio River was made a prolongation of the unfortunate line through the ordinance creating the North-west Territory, which forbade slavery north of the river, and the ordinance, for the South-western Territory, which forbade interference with slavery south of the river. The westward movement of population now made it necessary to extend the line across the Louisiana Purchase.

It had been impossible to decide the slavery question when the Territory of Missouri was created, as was done for the land north of the Ohio, because it extended over so many degrees of lat.i.tude, covering land both favourable and hostile by climate to the system. It was thought that about one-fifth of the population was composed of slaves in 1820; but they were mostly in Arkansas Territory. From a geographical standpoint, the southern boundary of the proposed State was within half a degree of being a direct continuation of the Ohio River at its mouth. It seemed to the Northern people a most reasonable line to establish between the sections. But the Ohio pursues a south-west instead of a due west course. By following it, the South had lost two and a half degrees of territory. The Mason and Dixon line is about thirty-nine degrees and thirty minutes north lat.i.tude, while the mouth of the Ohio is at thirty-seven degrees. By extending the interstate boundary line nearest the mouth--viz., that between Kentucky and Tennessee at thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes--the slavery section would lose a strip across the Louisiana Purchase as wide as the State of Kentucky at its greatest width. Thus even the natural features of the continent seemed to cry out against drawing sectional lines for a united people. For this reason the Southern element demanded that the continuation of the line between slavery and free soil should be drawn along the northern boundary of the proposed State, which was about one degree north of the old Mason and Dixon line.

The balance of power between the sections in the Senate, which had been maintained without difficulty thus far, was seriously threatened by this Missouri question. At the beginning of the Const.i.tutional Union seven States were clearly destined by their climate and occupation for free labour, leaving six for slave labour. The latter thus lacked two senatorial votes of equalling the North from the beginning. The admission of Vermont and Kentucky, a Northern and a Southern State, maintained the ratio. It was continued farther by the admission of Tennessee and Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana, Mississippi and Illinois.

This balance had been thus far an accident, depending upon the time when a portion of land had sufficient population for statehood; but it had become such a tacit understanding, that the admission of Alabama in 1819, it was said, made the sections exactly equal in the number of Senators. At almost the same time Missouri and Maine were ready.

The latter because of climate must undoubtedly be admitted as a free State. The former must be given to slavery if the balance between the two sections was to be maintained. But the extension of the line of thirty-six thirty would make Missouri a free State. The location of States heretofore admitted had been so indisputably upon the one side or the other of the slavery-freedom line that uncertainty was impossible. Missouri, as has been shown, lay right athwart the extension.

There had been comparatively little anti-slavery agitation thus far, being confined to attacks upon the slave trade and an occasional pet.i.tion from the Friends; yet the sentiment that slavery was an economic evil was firmly established in the overstocked border slave States, and that it was both an economic and moral evil was believed by a growing number in the Northern States. The "Lower South," or Gulf States, were thus left as the guardians of a system which the increasing cultivation of cotton in that region made unusually profitable and, as they thought, indispensable. Missouri lay far to the north of them, but the maintenance of political power in the Union was essential to their future if they read aright the growing hostile sentiment of the North. Immediate or gradual emanc.i.p.ation had been provided by every old State in the North, and slavery had been prohibited by the const.i.tutions of the new Northern States. Feeling the approval of a good conscience, it was probable that the North would eventually demand a kindred movement in the South. There is no reformer likely to be so intolerant as the one who has left off what he considers a bad habit.

The slavery system had been so thoroughly rooted in colonial times and so freely recognised and protected in the Const.i.tution, that few as yet contemplated interfering with it in any State where it already existed. Home rule and individual rights were too sacred for that.

Majority rule had not yet made sufficient headway against individualism.

But the Union had a kind of prenatal control which it could exercise over States created from Territories. Here was an opportunity to exercise it. An early attempt was made in Congress on the part of those hostile to the extension of slavery to make Missouri a free State by prohibiting "the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude." It was met by a counter amendment from the pro-slavery people jointly admitting Maine and Missouri with no such restrictions.

This would evidently throw Missouri open to slavery.

The ensuing debates in Congress, covering parts of two sessions, opened all the sectional dissensions, showed how weak were the ties of unionism thus far developed, cut sharp lines across political parties, and s.h.i.+fted the old East and West sectional danger to North and South. The phrase "Mason and Dixon line" was used to express the sectional demarcation, transformed to that use, it is said, by John Randolph.

Recrimination and abuse were common. Northern speakers drew insulting comparisons between the population, wealth, and prosperity of the free and slave States. They attributed the difference to the blight of slavery. Southern speakers explained that slavery was a thing of which a non-resident could not judge properly; that what appeared to an outsider as a lack of prosperity was the enjoyment of life by a people not devoted to the sordid aspects of existence; that slavery was a matter for home rule and did not concern the other half of the Union.

The Northern contingent replied that slavery was a menace to free labour and that their devotion to all parts of the Union, as well as their right of self-preservation, warranted their interference. Then the Southern speakers taunted them with Shays's Rebellion, the whiskey insurrection, and the Hartford Convention, as proofs of their devotion to the Union. The people of New York were reproached with wis.h.i.+ng to deprive Southern people of their slave property, although they themselves still held more than ten thousand slaves and held them under protection of the State laws. One Southern speaker came very near the truth when he predicted that the census for 1820 would show fully twenty thousand slaves still held in bondage in the Northern States.

A long discussion arose over the number of troops each section had furnished to the Revolutionary War and upon the number of distinguished men bred in each section. The Bible was quoted freely to attack or defend human bondage. Resolutions of State Legislatures added their weight to either side. Some debaters in Congress deplored the "poisoning of the national affection," seeing in it the revival of the sectional envy and dislike dormant for the past thirty years. Other hot-blooded speakers declared that this contest could be ended only by bloodshed.

Looking beneath the unfortunate sectionalism, which was to r.e.t.a.r.d the growth of the Union for the coming half-century, one sees that the people faced a new question: had the United States a right to place an anti-slavery restriction on a sovereign State at the time of creating it from a Territory? The answer would greatly affect the relation of the States to the Union. Few States had been admitted without some conditions, such as the non-taxation of public lands and the perpetual freedom of navigable waters; but those were of national importance and different from slavery, which was claimed to be of local concern. In admitting Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, formed from the North-west Territory, Congress had provided that their const.i.tutions should not be repugnant to the Ordinance of 1787. That this did not mean a rigid adherence to the anti-slavery provision was shown by the admission of Illinois in 1818 with an apprentice system, which made slavery possible in that State for twenty-two years to come. A motion to reject the application of Illinois on this ground was overwhelmingly defeated. The States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, had been created out of the indefinite territory south of the Ohio River in which Congress had pledged itself to make no law emanc.i.p.ating slaves. No slavery conditions were placed upon their admission, which was considered equivalent to an agreement that they were to be slave States. Louisiana was created out of the Louisiana Purchase and Arkansas made into a Territory with the same tacit permission, as has been said.

Precedent consequently taught everything and nothing so far as Missouri was concerned.

The obligations of the Union toward a State were freely discussed; whether "new states may be admitted by the Congress" meant "must" be admitted. On a small scale the discussion rehea.r.s.ed the Hayne-Webster debate a decade later. Occasional pleas were heard for "the old Republican doctrine which limited the general government to the expressed powers and prevented it from encroaching on the young states or on the free movement of personal property." Various phrases in the Const.i.tution were quoted both to prove and disprove the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in a new State. "The citizens of each state shall be ent.i.tled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states," it was claimed, would permit the migration of slaveholders to Missouri with their property. "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to 1808," was said to permit, conversely, such prohibition after that date. The other side claimed that the clause was intended to refer solely to slaves imported into the United States and not to interstate migration. Under the clause that the Congress shall guarantee a republican form of government to every State, the Declaration of Independence was quoted to prove that freedom is the natural condition of a republic and that slaves were held only pending their emanc.i.p.ation.

Such sentiments drew a sharp rebuke from the opposing side. Slaves might even then be in the gallery, it was said, to overhear such revolutionary doctrine.

So persistent were members in hunting up and interpreting various phrases of the Const.i.tution, each to suit his own views, that one disgusted Republican protested against "a species of special pleading which hunts for powers in words and sentences taken here and there from the instrument and patched together forming something like a pretext for the exercise of power palpably interdicted by the plain sense and intention of the instrument." The cry of "home rule" for the State of Missouri on the slavery question was the forerunner of "squatter sovereignty" two decades later. Calhoun's later plea that any citizen had the right to migrate to any part of the co-operative public lands and to carry with him all his property found a first hearing in this debate on the admission of Missouri.

The equilibrium maintained so carefully in the Senate had long since disappeared in the House because of the varying distribution of population. Of the 180 members who considered the Missouri question in the more popular branch, 104 came from the free States and only 76 from the slave States. The vote of 87 to 76 by which the House finally forbade slavery in the new State was indicative to some extent of this proportion, although party lines influenced a few votes. Virginia stood solidly for slavery, and New York, with one exception, against it. Of the nineteen votes from Pennsylvania, only one was cast for slavery in Missouri. Ma.s.sachusetts was almost as unanimous. North and South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi, the future champions of the system, unanimously opposed placing such restriction on the new State. The Senate, more nearly balanced, refused to agree with the restrictive vote of the House. A counter-measure was proposed by the Southern interests to admit Maine and Missouri jointly, allowing home rule to each on the slavery question. The majority in the House opposed this method of evidently opening the new State to slavery. A deadlock between the two branches was imminent.

Meanwhile a bill had appeared in the Senate to draw the dividing-line between slavery and freedom across the Louisiana Purchase along thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes north lat.i.tude, a continuation of the Kentucky-Tennessee boundary. This would make Missouri a free State. Considering the triangular shape of the purchase, with the bulk of land lying to the north of the proposed line, the division was manifestly unequal. Roughly estimated, the proportions would be about one to seven. That would mean in time fourteen Northern and two Southern Senators. It would mean seven times the chances of population for representation in the House. At last, Henry Clay, Speaker of the House, who had favoured slavery in Missouri, was able to effect a compromise whereby thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes was accepted as the dividing-line; but the State of Missouri, which lay to the north of it, was made an exception and admitted without any restriction and, consequently, open to slavery. In all the remainder of the vast tract north of the line slavery was forbidden, as it had been in the Northwest Territory.

This extension of the slavery-freedom line ran up the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio, pa.s.sed about the State of Missouri, returned to her southern boundary, and ran thence to the summit of the Rocky Mountains. There were now twelve free and twelve slave States in the Union. The South had gained her point in throwing Missouri open to slavery and so maintaining the balance of power in the Senate. But she had paid a heavy penalty for it. That she would remain content with this unequal distribution; that the next generation would abide by the compromise when new States were created; that the free migration of the people with their property could be checked by a parallel of lat.i.tude; that the question of territorial slavery had been settled by a drawn battle, few could hope or expect.

This dissension over the simple matter of admitting a State to the Union was a temporary check to the national feeling engendered by the War of 1812. The spectre of sectionalism was disclosed at the banquet table. Jefferson compared it to an alarm-bell in the night, when writing from Monticello to John Adams. "The Missouri question," replied the retired statesman of Braintree, "I hope, will follow the other waves under the s.h.i.+p and do no harm." Yet he appreciated the dangers of sectionalism under unscrupulous leaders. "I am Ca.s.sandra enough to dream," he added, "that another Hamilton, another Burr, might rend this mighty fabric in twain ... and a few more choice spirits of the same stamp might produce as many nations in North America as there are in Europe." The third ex-President, Madison, deplored the "angry and unfortunate discussion" about Missouri. "Should a state of parties arise," he said, "founded on geographical boundaries and other physical and permanent distinctions which happen to coincide with them, what is to control those great repulsive ma.s.ses from awful shocks against each other?" Time alone was needed to bring a sad answer to the inquiry.

CHAPTER XIX

ANNOUNCEMENT OF NATIONAL INDIVIDUALITY

The rebirth of nationalism, which followed the War of 1812 in the New World, was likely sooner or later to come into conflict with the rebirth of monarchy, which followed the Napoleonic wars in the Old World. The restoration of the European monarchs had been witnessed by the American people with a mingling of indignation and despair. Daily the conviction grew that free government must find a home in America if it survived.

American self-government and a free people were arrayed in popular thought against European monarchy and n.o.bility. Commenting on the acc.u.mulated wealth of the British n.o.bility, an American editor said: "Thanks be to Heaven! we have probably not one man in the United States whose settled income is equal to a half of the least of these. But in lieu of such great estates, we have a pleasing contrast to offer in the vast majority we possess of persons who earn or receive from $1,000 to $1,500 a year, and who are the bone and sinew of our country and the natural republicans of every clime." American newspapers lost no opportunity of ridiculing European royalty. The cost of maintaining the n.o.bility was dwelt upon as a burden on the people. The attempt of George IV. to divorce his Queen furnished a text for many republican sermons. The coronation of the King in his "holy" and "sacred" vestments was declared to be ridiculous. "We plain republicans," said one writer, "cannot understand how there could be anything more like sacrilege in stealing that mantle than in stealing a sheep."

The Church was prominent in all phases of the restoration of legitimacy in Europe--a connection incomprehensible in America, where Church and State had been completely severed in the course of the political revolution. Disestablishment by statute in Virginia had been followed by similar action in all States where the Established Church held.

Local const.i.tutions as formed by the States guaranteed not toleration, but absolute religious freedom. The first amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States made this freedom national. The Ordinance for the North-west Territory extended it to States yet unborn. Was.h.i.+ngton, as President, gave a.s.surance of non-interference in the replies which he framed to addresses from the leading sects. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how a State church could have been maintained in the rapid s.h.i.+fting of the Chief Executive. President Was.h.i.+ngton was an Episcopalian, President Adams a Congregationalist, and President Jefferson a free-thinker, or Unitarian of later times. So thoroughly had Church and State been divorced in America that some suspicion was aroused over a manifesto signed at St. Petersburg, on "the day of the birth of our Saviour," 1816, by the monarchs of Austria, Russia, and Prussia. It announced that "in conformity with the words of the Holy Scripture, which commands all men to regard one another as brethren,"

the three agreed to lend each other a.s.sistance, aid, and support, and to govern their subjects in "a spirit of fraternity for the protection of religion, peace and justice." The exhortation of these monarchs to their people to fortify themselves in the principles of the Saviour, no less than the confession that they themselves ruled only by a delegation of power from Christ, was regarded by the Protestant Americans as religious cant. The power behind the throne was more likely force of arms. The provision that other nations professing these principles should be "received with as much readiness as affection in this holy alliance" was regarded as a bid and possible conspiracy for the extension of legitimacy not alone to Europe, but to the colonial holdings as well.

The United States, although sneering at the legitimacy of European monarchs and disappointed in seeing their high hopes in the French Revolution brought to such a defeat, had no vital interest in any restoration save within the Spanish colonies in America, which had revolted under Napoleonic interference. British Canada had made no attempt at revolution and France had no possessions on the American Continent. The United States had watched eagerly and sympathetically the spread of revolutionary principles from colony to colony in the Spanish-American possessions, and the resulting inst.i.tution of self-government. Orators vied with each other in picturing the spread of freedom in the New World. Statesmen drew up const.i.tutions for the new republics. Clay was given a vote of thanks by the Mexican Congress for his sentiments expressed for their welfare. Ministers had been sent to them as rapidly as they showed ability to govern themselves and to maintain a stable government. Should all this good work be undone and the hands turned backward on the dial of liberty by conspiring European monarchs? Should legitimacy cast its blight again on the New World as it had already done on the Old? Should the Holy Alliance be allowed to extend its monarchical compulsion to the Spanish-American republics under the sacred garb of religion?

Speculation was rife in both British and American newspapers concerning the objects of this holy league, or Holy Alliance, as it began to be called. To some it smacked of Inquisition days. To others it suggested a crusade on all republican principles. In the House of Commons Castlereagh explained that it contemplated no hostility to States outside the Church and that it was couched in the mildest spirit of Christian toleration. He confessed that it was drawn up in an unusual manner, but that it nevertheless gave no grounds whatever for entertaining the slightest jealousy.

England had a.s.sisted in the restoration of monarchy. Would Protestant England join the Holy Alliance? Would the Alliance turn its attention to the Spanish-American republics after it had carried out its evident determination to replace Ferdinand on the Spanish throne? These were questions asked by the people of the United States. If Europe was to become the champion of monarchy and legitimacy, why should not America become the guardian of freedom and republicanism? Undoubtedly the tendency of Russia to creep quietly down the Pacific coast from her north-west possessions contributed to the conviction that the offices of the Holy Alliance could be called into service in that quarter also if necessary. It is just as true that the struggle for autonomy which the Greeks were inst.i.tuting attracted sympathy in America and added to the conviction that a world struggle was imminent between monarchy and republicanism.

That destiny had marked the United States for an unparalleled career had been a common saying since the days of Patrick Henry. But that isolation from European entanglements was necessary to fulfil it was equally appreciated. Was.h.i.+ngton had expressed this conviction in his farewell address. Jefferson had been goaded into the wish that an ocean of fire separated the two hemispheres. Madison in 1811, fearing that Great Britain intended interfering in Florida affairs, questioned whether the United States should not announce that it could not see, "without serious inquietude," neighbouring territory pa.s.s from Spain to any other foreign power. "The provinces belonging to this hemisphere are our neighbors," said President Monroe in a special message to Congress in 1822. "The foothold which the nations of Europe had in either America is slipping from under them," wrote ex-President Jefferson to Monroe, "so that we shall soon be rid of their neighborhood." "The American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments," said Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to the Russian Minister, in discussing the proper limits of Russian America on the north-west coast. The United States representative to England was authorised by Adams to announce the fact that the American continents would be no longer subject to European colonisation. Occupied by civilised, independent nations, they would be accessible to Europeans and to each other on that footing alone.

The United States "should therefore have a system of her own separate and apart from that of Europe," replied Jefferson to President Monroe, who had consulted him in the autumn of 1823 concerning the various topics to be treated in his annual message to Congress. "While the last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism, our endeavor should surely be to make our hemisphere that of freedom." He agreed upon the advisability of some public notice. "Its object is to introduce and establish the American system of keeping out of our land all foreign powers, of never permitting those of Europe to intermeddle with the affairs of our nation." Since such a stand might bring war, he advised Monroe to present the matter to Congress at the coming session in the shape of a declaration of principles.

These utterances of public men backed by the increasing feeling of nationality among the people a.s.sumed final shape in the announcement by Monroe in his seventh annual message to Congress, December, 1823, of the famous "doctrine" which bears his name. It strongly hinted that the United States would interpose against any European attempt to interfere with the freedom of the South American republics or to extend farther the monarchical system to the New World. At the same time, it denied any intention on the part of the United States of interfering with European affairs. It meant the future separation of the two hemispheres so far as control was concerned. The only exceptions at the time were England in Canada, Spain in the West Indies, and Russia on the north-west coast. It meant self-preservation for the present and proper precautions for the future.

The announcement created little comment at home. The people generally are not in touch with presidential messages unless some concrete case is involved. The Holy Alliance had taken as yet no overt action toward the New World. In Europe the announcement attracted more attention.

Before this time, it had been said in the British Commons that the Congress of Vienna should have seen to the balance of power in the New as well as the Old World. Another speaker had called attention to the fact that two German princes could not exchange meadows without attracting European attention in a congress, but that the United States was allowed to take any stand or acquire any territory in a vast continent. But British sentiment had now turned against the Holy Alliance, and the British press p.r.o.nounced the Monroe doctrine "n.o.ble and firm, yet temperate and pacific." They contrasted its "manly plainness" with the Machiavellism and hypocrisy of the European manifestos. "Intervention in South American affairs," said one writer, "may now be considered as at rest. The United States would resist by war and no power is willing to affront both the United States and Great Britain." The French press belittled the announcement as the personal expression of "a temporary president of a republic only forty years old." It also called attention to the fact that this republic, which was so boldly proclaiming the severance of the Western world, was bounded on the north by the possessions of the king of England and on the south by those of the king of Spain--a pretty situation for the self-appointed protector of the two Americas!

The Monroe doctrine, or "policy" as it should be called, spoke the sentiment of nationality engendered by the late war and augmented until it had a.s.sumed the cry of "America for Americans!" The acquisition of Louisiana and the Floridas, the absence of political parties, and the appreciation of republican blessings were the prime causes. The announcement marked the climax of unionism for the time. The sectional fears aroused by the slavery issue in Missouri three years before had been quieted by a compromise and were now forgotten in a national alliance against foreign menace. The announcement inaugurated a period of isolation for the United States, during which she could gain strength to meet her European rivals on equal ground instead of becoming a tool for them. Never again would she be caught in an entangling alliance such as that with France in 1778.

If American national feeling had diminished after the announcement, the doctrine of American individuality and of American destiny would have waned and disappeared. That the policy has been expanded until it covers nearly every phase of foreign relations.h.i.+p in the New World, that a simple announcement which grew out of a condition has been made into an expression of American paramount interest, that it has become a national fetich although unrecognised as a part of international law,--all this is a fresh indication of the steady growth of national sentiment and activity.

Just in the full flush of the announcement, a more zealous race with a more fiery temperament than the Americans might have gone too far.

The temptation was presented most attractively. The South Americans, the antipodals of the North Americans, saw in the Monroe announcement a protection from European interference. Several of the republics planned a congress at the central city of Panama, "to settle a general system of American policy in relation to Europe, leaving to each section of the country a perfect liberty of independent self-government." They hoped for a gathering of "the powers of America" to offset the powers of Europe. An alliance against an Alliance was the thought. Among the objects to be considered was "the manner in which all the colonization of European powers on the American continent shall be resisted, and their interference in the present contest between Spain and her former colonies prevented." Since this was simply a re-statement of the Monroe doctrine, it was presumed that the United States would take a leading part; but because the abolition of slavery was another point to be considered, the pro-slavery element in Congress overruled the wish of President Adams to take part in the meeting. It was also feared that a partic.i.p.ation might involve the United States in the prevailing war between Spain and the South American republics.

The interesting but profitless field of speculation might be exhausted in imagining the result if the United States had thus linked herself to the Spanish Americas in an American alliance. The problem of securing the trade of those republics, which has occupied the attention of many statesmen since that day, might have yielded to this solution; but that any permanent alliance could have been made between peoples of antagonistic temperament and varying ideals of self-government is far from likely. Many times since then the growing American spirit has demanded that Uncle Sam should become the policeman of America; but the narrow escape in this instance from incurring such an undesirable task leads to the hope that it will never be a.s.sumed.

Leaders.h.i.+p in the "let us alone" policy was taken by the United States as the result of her geographic isolation, as well as her centrality of location. She was nearest to the new republics and had most to lose.

Eliminating Canada as a British possession and Brazil with an enervating climate and Latin leaders.h.i.+p, the United States was the only power whose size and resources ent.i.tled her to speak with authority on the question of European interference. The Monroe doctrine was primarily intracontinental and for immediate self-preservation; secondarily it was extracontinental and for ultimate self-preservation. England, the only European New World power remaining of the six whose discoveries originally ent.i.tled them to that distinction, was equally interested in the preservation of Canada and the freedom of trade which the independence of the Spanish-American republics made possible. She rejected the Holy Alliance to support the Monroe doctrine. Without British co-operation it is doubtful whether the stand could have been maintained and the Holy Alliance held in check. This cooperation brought about a speedy _rapprochement_ between the two recent enemies. It was hastened by the diplomatic skill of Gallatin in arranging for a joint occupation of the region west of the Rocky Mountains commonly known as the Oregon country. By the treaties of 1818 and 1827, final decision was delayed until increasing population should aid in deciding owners.h.i.+p.

Nationality had been breeding constantly in directions aside from foreign policy, protective tariffs, and internal improvements. A literary independence was manifesting itself, although in a crude form.

The sneers of Britain that the Americans were dependent upon Europe for their literature, although indignantly denied, were largely true.