ternation practised in treaties between themselves. With some (p. 128)
difficulty, partly interposed, it must be confessed, by his own
American coadjutors, Mr. Adams succeeded in putting a stop to this
usage. It was a matter of insignificant detail, in one point of view;
but in diplomacy insignificant details often symbolize important
facts, and there is no question that this habit had been construed as
a tacit but intentional arrogance of superiority on the part of the
Europeans.

For a long period after the birth of the country there was a strong
tendency, not yet so eradicated as to be altogether undiscoverable, on
the part of American statesmen to keep one eye turned covertly askance
upon the trans-Atlantic courts, and to consider, not without a certain
anxious deference, what appearance the new United States might be
presenting to the critical eyes of foreign countries and diplomats.
Mr. Adams was never guilty of such indirect admissions of an inferiority
which apparently he never felt. In the matter of the acquisition of
Florida, Crawford suggested that England and France regarded the
people of the United States as ambitious and encroaching; wherefore he
advised a moderate policy in order to remove this impression. Mr.
Adams on the other side declared that he was not in favor of our
giving ourselves any concern whatever about the opinions of any (p. 129)
foreign power. "If the world do not hold us for Romans," he said,
"they will take us for Jews, and of the two vices I would rather be
charged with that which has greatness mingled in its composition." His
views were broad and grand. He was quite ready to have the world
become "familiarized with the idea of considering our proper dominion
to be the continent of North America." This extension he declared to
be a "law of nature." To suppose that Spain and England could, through
the long lapse of time, retain their possessions on this side of the
Atlantic seemed to him a "physical, moral, and political absurdity."

The doctrine which has been christened with the name of President
Monroe seems likely to win for him the permanent glory of having
originated the wise policy which that familiar phrase now signifies.
It might, however, be shown that by right of true paternity the
bantling should have borne a different patronymic. Not only is the
"Monroe Doctrine," as that phrase is customarily construed in our day,
much more comprehensive than the simple theory first