isting between
the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider
any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this
hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing
colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered
and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared
their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have,
on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could
not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or
controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power
in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly
disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new
Governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their
recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere,
provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment of the competent
authorities of this Government, shall make a corresponding change on
the part of the United States indispensable to their security.

The late events in Spain and Portugal shew that Europe is still
unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be adduced than
that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on any principle
satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal
concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried, on
the same principle, is a question in which all independent powers whose
governments differ from theirs are interested, even those most remote,
and surely none more so than the United States. Our policy in regard
to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have
so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the
same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of
its powers; to consider the government _de facto_ as the legitimate
government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to
preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting
in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries
from none. But in regard to those continents circumstances are eminently
and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the allied powers
should extend their political system to any portion of either continent
without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that
our southern breth