ent. It
was intended to apply to every stage of our national life and can not
become obsolete while our Republic endures. If the balance of power is
justly a cause for jealous anxiety among the Governments of the Old
World and a subject for our absolute noninterference, none the less is
an observance of the Monroe doctrine of vital concern to our people and
their Government.

Assuming, therefore, that we may properly insist upon this doctrine
without regard to "the state of things in which we live" or any changed
conditions here or elsewhere, it is not apparent why its application may
not be invoked in the present controversy.

If a European power by an extension of its boundaries takes possession
of the territory of one of our neighboring Republics against its will
and in derogation of its rights, it is difficult to see why to that
extent such European power does not thereby attempt to extend its system
of government to that portion of this continent which is thus taken.
This is the precise action which President Monroe declared to be
"dangerous to our peace and safety," and it can make no difference
whether the European system is extended by an advance of frontier or
otherwise.

It is also suggested in the British reply that we should not seek to
apply the Monroe doctrine to the pending dispute because it does not
embody any principle of international law which "is founded on the
general consent of nations," and that "no statesman, however eminent,
and no nation, however powerful, are competent to insert into the code
of international law a novel principle which was never recognized before
and which has not since been accepted by the government of any other
country."

Practically the principle for which we contend has peculiar, if not
exclusive, relation to the United States. It may not have been admitted
in so many words to the code of international law, but since in
international councils every nation is entitled to the rights belonging
to it, if the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine is something we may
justly claim it has its place in the code of international law as
certainly and as securely as if it were specifically mentioned; and when
the United States is a suitor before the high tribunal that administers
international law the question to be determined is whether or not we
present claims which the justice of that code of law can find to be
right and valid.

The Monroe doctrine finds its recognition in t