struggle for neutral rights to be drawn out for a much longer period of
time. Neither England nor France regarded us as having any rights
which they were bound to respect, and American commerce was fairly
bombarded by French decrees and British orders in council. There was
really not much more reason why we should have fought England than
France, but as England's naval supremacy enabled her to interfere more
effectually with our commerce on the sea and as this interference was
accompanied by the practice of impressing American sailors into the
British service, we finally declared war against her. No effort was
made, however, to form an alliance or even to cooeperate with Napoleon.
The United States fought the War of 1812 without allies, and while we
gained a number of single-ship actions and notable victories on Lake
Erie and Lake Champlain, we failed utterly in two campaigns to occupy
Canada, and the final result of the conflict was that our national
capitol was burned and our commerce absolutely swept from the seas.
Jackson's victory at New Orleans, while gratifying to our pride, took
place two weeks after the treaty of Ghent had been signed and had,
consequently, no effect on the outcome of the war.

II

FORMULATION OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE

The international situation which gave rise to the Monroe Doctrine was
the most unusual in some respects that modern history records. The
European alliance which had been organized in 1813 for the purpose of
bringing about the overthrow of Napoleon continued to dominate the
affairs of Europe until 1823. This alliance, which met at the Congress
of Vienna in 1815 and held later meetings at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818,
at Troppau in 1820, at Laybach in 1821, and at Verona in 1822,
undertook to legislate for all Europe and was the nearest approach to a
world government that had ever been tried. While this alliance
publicly proclaimed that it had no other object than the maintenance of
peace and that the repose of the world was its motive and its end, its
real object was to uphold absolute monarchy and to suppress every
attempt at the establishment of representative government. As long as
England remained in the alliance her statesmen exercised a restraining
influence, for England was the only one of the allies which professed
to have a representative system of government. As Castlereagh was
setting out for the meeting at Aix-la-Chapelle Lord Liverpool, who was
then prime