, that is
out of the question. Monarchy in Mexico, and monarchy in Brazil,
would cure the evils of universal democracy, and prevent the drawing
of the line of demarkation, which I most dread, America versus
Europe. The United States naturally enough aim at this division, and
cherish the democracy which leads to it. But I do not much apprehend
their influence, even if I believed it. I do not altogether see any
of the evidence of their activity in America. Mexico and they are
too neighborly to be friends."--_Canning, to the British Minister
at Madrid, December 31, 1823._

On the part of the United States the Monroe Doctrine was the formal and
authoritative expression of a sentiment which had animated American
breasts from the origin of the Republic. The Monroe Doctrine is based on
patriotism and self-preservation, and the crisis which called it forth
was of the gravest consequence to the American people. The Spanish empire
in America had never been a menace to the United States. It was too
decrepit to be dangerous. Conditions would have been very different with
France, for instance, or Prussia, established as a great South American
power. There was the strongest reason for believing that the governments
of continental Europe combined in the "Holy Alliance" seriously intended
to dispose the destinies of South America, as they had divided the
continent of Europe. The primary object of the allied powers--the
proscription of all political reforms originating from the people--could
leave no doubt of the concern and hostility with which they viewed the
development of events in Spanish America, and the probable establishment
of several independent, free States, resting on institutions emanating
from the will and the valor of the people. But there is more specific
evidence of their hostile intentions--Don Jose Vaventine Gomez, envoy
from the government of Buenos Ayres at Paris, in a note to the secretary
of his government of the twentieth of April, 1819, said that "the
diminution of republican governments was a basis of the plans adopted by
the holy alliance for the preservation of their thrones; and that in
consequence, the republics of Holland, Venice, and Genoa, received their
deathblow at Vienna, at the very time that the world was amused by the
solemn declaration that all the States of Europe would be restored to the
same situation they were in before the French revolution