THE BEGINNING OF THE PARTICULARISTIC REACTION
Slavery and the Industrial Policies of the Union--President Monroe and
Protection after 1820--The Committee on Manufactures--The Tariff Bill
of 1823--The General Character of the Bill, and its Failure to
Pass--President Monroe's Message of 1823, and Protection--The Tariff
Bill of 1824--Mr. Clay's Argument in its Support--Mr. Clay's Argument
Answered--The First Expression of the Doctrine that Protection and
Slavery were Hostile Interests--The Bill Amended and Passed--The
Tariff of 1824 not yet Considered Sectional Legislation--South
Carolina and the Tariff of 1824--The Historical Development of the
Doctrine of Internal Improvements--Madison's Ideas upon Internal
Improvements--The Bill of 1822 for Internal Improvements--Passage of
the Bill, and Analysis of the Vote upon it--The Bill in the Interests
of the West--President Monroe's Veto, and Communication of May 4th,
1822--President Monroe's Argument, and the Vote upon the
Veto--Congressional Act of 1824 for Distinguishing National from Local
Improvements--Foreign Relations During Monroe's Second Term--Russia
and the Northwest Coast of America--The Holy Alliance--The Congress at
Verona--Mr. Adams' Declaration to Baron Tuyl--Mr. Canning's Proposal
to Mr. Rush--Mr. Canning's Declaration to Prince Polignac--The "Monroe
Doctrine"--The Meaning of the Monroe Propositions in 1824--Failure to
Commit Congress to these Propositions--The Particularistic Reaction
Scarcely Discoverable before 1824.
[Sidenote: Slavery and the industrial policies of the Union.]
It was hoped and believed that the settlement of the Missouri question
and the compromise in reference to the remainder of the Louisiana
cession had put the problem of negro slavery out of the realm of
national politics. In fact, however, the struggle over these questions
had introduced it into that realm, and had {109} first opened the eyes
of the slaveholders to the bearings of the slavery interest upon all
the questions of constitutional law and public policy. From the point
of view of that interest their attitude toward all these questions was
more and more determined as they came to understand more and more
clearly the relation of these questions to that interest. While,
therefore, the settlement and the compromise served to withdraw the
question of slavery from the direct and immediate issue, they, at the
same time, left it the secret influence over views and actions in
many, if not most, directions.
At the next session, beginning in December of 1821, propositions were
introduced into the Senate to limit and decrease the admiralty
jurisdiction of the United States courts, to make the Senate itself a
court of appeal from the regular Judiciary in cases where a "State"
should be a party, and to limit to two hundred the number of members
in the House of Representatives.
The purpose of all these projects is apparent. Indeed, their proposers
said openly and frankly that their purpose was to lessen and limit the
powers of the general Government in the interests of "States'-rights."
It was natural, however, that the new spirit of particularism should
attack the policies of the Government rather than the structure of the
political system, or, more correctly, should undertake to control
these policies before it sought to transform that system.
[Sidenote: President Monroe and protection after 1820.]
We have seen with what unanimity and national enthusiasm the
protection of home industries was regarded, in the half decade between
1815 and 1820, as a measure indispensable to the attainment and
maintenance of industrial independence. Not even Calhoun then
understood the relation between this policy and the interests of
slavery. The Presidents, Madison and {110} Monroe, were utterly
oblivious to it. Even after the Missouri struggle, Mr. Monroe
continued to recommend the protection of manufactures for the
attainment of industrial independence as the true national policy. His
annual messages of 1821 and of 1822 contain this recommendation. He
either did not comprehend the relation of the slavery interests to the
protective system or disregarded it. It could hardly have been the
latter, for, although he was no radical supporter of slavery, he was a
slaveholder and a very conservative man.
[Sidenote: The committee on Manufactures.]
The House of Representatives, the body which had upheld even radically
national views of the character of the political system during the
Missouri struggle, very naturally responded to Mr. Monroe's
recommendation, and referred it to its committee on Manufactures for
consideration and support. Heretofore this subject had been referred
to the committee on Ways and Means, the regular revenue-raising
committee. Its reference now to the committee on Manufactures is good
evidence that the House of Representatives regarded a protective
tariff as a subject which Congress might deal with independently, and
without any necessary connection with the subject of the revenue. Such
a view is radically national. It rests upon the doctrine that Congress
may do anything in the regulation of foreign trade and commerce which,
in its own opinion, is conducive to the general welfare, regardless of
the pecuniary needs of the Government.
[Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1823.]
On January 9th, 1823, Mr. Tod, of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the
committee on Manufactures, reported a tariff bill. It proposed to
nearly double the existing duty upon iron, quadruple that upon coarse
woollens, and to increase the custom-house valuation of dyed cotton
goods by some forty per centum.
{111} Moreover, the bill made no provision for the future reduction of
these duties. It therefore indicated that protection was to be the
permanent policy, protection so high as to amount to the prohibition
of the importation of coarse cottons and woollens and bar iron. In
fact, Mr. Tod conceded that the prohibition of the importation of
coarse woollens was intended. He said that the tariff of 1816 on
coarse cotton goods had given a monopoly of the domestic markets for
such goods to the home manufacturers, while the price of the goods had
been reduced through home competition by one-half, and that his
committee desired to bring about the same result in regard to the
manufacture of coarse woollens.
[Sidenote: The general character of the bill, and its failure to
pass.]
Mr. Tod was not able to get a vote upon his bill at this session of
the Congress. Three significant facts, however, were elicited in the
course of the debate upon it, facts which indicated the trend of
political history. These facts were that the bill was a Pennsylvania
measure, that the South would oppose it, and that Massachusetts and
New York City would unite with the South in this opposition. It was,
in fact, a Massachusetts man, Mr. Gorham, who denounced the bill as
sectional legislation, and advised the South to resist it to the
utmost. Cotton and commerce, and that meant slavery and commerce, were
beginning to discover their affinity.
[Sidenote: President Monroe's Message of 1823, and protection.]
President Monroe, however, does not seem to have shared this view of
the subject. In his message of December 2nd, 1823, he again
recommended additional protection to "those articles which we are
prepared to manufacture, or which are more immediately connected with
the defence and independence of the country."
Thus encouraged by the President, the House of {112} Representatives
again referred the question of increasing the tariff to Mr. Tod's
committee.
[Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1824.]
On January 9th, 1824, Mr. Tod brought in his new bill. It was a more
moderate proposition than that of the preceding session; still it
provided for a substantial increase of the duties on woollens and
iron.
Mr. Tod assumed the constitutionality of the bill to be a settled
question, and supported the policy of it by arguments from the
necessity of attaining industrial independence in the manufacture of
the necessaries of life, from the necessity of creating new and more
remunerative employments for labor, and from the policy of developing
better home markets for agricultural products. He predicted that an
ultimate reduction of the prices of manufactured goods would be the
result of the increased home competition produced by higher duties. He
did not, however, make out any very satisfactory prospects for
commerce. This branch of the national pursuits was to make the
sacrifice.
[Sidenote: Mr. Clay's argument in its support.]
Mr. Clay made the great argument in defence of the measure. He
elaborated the patriotic reason in every direction. He pointed out the
utter dependence of the country upon foreign markets, both for the
sale of its agricultural products and for the purchase of manufactured
goods. He demonstrated that these relations had been created by the
quarter of a century of war in Europe, forcing the European countries
to buy the agricultural products of the United States to an unusual
amount, and at high prices, and showed how the restoration of general
peace in Europe had reduced the demand for, and the price of, these
products, while it left the United States dependent upon Europe for
manufactured articles. And he urged the accomplishment of industrial
independence {113} as a necessary corollary of political independence.
He contended that the aid granted to the manufacturing interests would
impose no sacrifice upon the agricultural and commercial interests;
that by the establishment of new manufacturing centres new home
markets for the products of agriculture would be created, which would
not only emancipate the country from the necessity of foreign markets
for these products, but would give the country steady and certain
markets, under its own control; and that the growth of manufactures
would speedily result in the establishment of an export trade in
manufactured goods to all parts of the world, and especially to South
America, which would ultimately more than compensate the commercial
interests for the temporary losses they might incur by reason of the
increased duties. This was a strongly tinted picture upon both sides.
It represented the distress of the country too darkly, and it painted
the speculative benefits of the high tariff in too vivid colors.
Moreover, Mr. Clay now omitted any reference to the temporary
character of protection. It now appeared to be a permanent article of
his creed.
[Sidenote: Mr. Clay's argument answered.]
[Sidenote: The first expression of the doctrine that protection and
slavery were hostile interests.]
Webster for Massachusetts, Cambreleng for the city of New York, and
Barbour for the South, denied Mr. Clay's statement in regard to the
intense and general financial distress throughout the country, and
demonstrated the destructive effects of a high tariff upon agriculture
and commerce, and upon the existing manufacturing interests
themselves. They contended that such a tariff would so prohibit
importation of foreign products as to make it impossible for Europe to
buy the agricultural products of the United States, since Europe would
not be able to pay for them; that the promised increase of domestic
markets would not at all compensate for the loss of {114} foreign
markets; that commerce would thus be destroyed both ways; and that
even the manufacturing industries already established would suffer
from the unnatural competition which would be created by the
inducements which the high tariff would hold out to capital otherwise
employed. Mr. Barbour frankly declared that the slave labor of the
South could not be used in the development of manufactures, and that,
therefore, the high tariff must inure to the benefit of the North, by
making the South tributary to the North for all manufactured goods.
The theory accepted by all parties, however, at the moment, was, that
the duties were paid ultimately by the consumers of the imported
goods. Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, pronounced this doctrine
himself. Upon this view the North must pay the duties equally, at
least, with the South. So long, then, as this idea was held, and so
long as the commercial interests of Massachusetts, Maine, and the city
of New York made common cause with the agricultural interests of the
South against the bill, it could not be strictly regarded as sectional
legislation, it could not develop into a political and constitutional
question between the North and the South.
[Sidenote: The bill amended and passed.]
While this combination of interests was not able to prevent the House
from finally passing the bill by a narrow majority, it did succeed in
imposing several very substantial modifications upon it in the
direction of more moderate protection.
In the Senate the bill suffered still further modification in the same
direction. The burden of the Senate's amendments fell, however, on the
wool- and hemp-growing and liquor-distilling West. It was for this
reason that the House of Representatives refused to concur in {115}
them. Recourse was then had to a conference committee, which arranged
a compromise that gave a little less protection than the House had
voted, and a little more than the Senate had voted.
The tariff of May, 1824, was still only a moderately protective
tariff. It was certainly in only one particular anything like
prohibitory; it preserved the high tariff of 1816 on coarse cotton
goods. In other respects it was not much more than a continuation of
the reasonable duties already imposed.
[Sidenote: The tariff of 1824 not yet considered sectional
legislation.]
So long as the tariff remained moderately protective, and was approved
in Kentucky and Missouri, and disapproved in Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Maine, and the city of New York, and so long as its burdens
were generally believed to fall ultimately upon the consumers of the
dutiable articles, it could not take on the form of a sectional issue,
dominated by the question of slavery. Some of the Southerners had,
indeed, discovered that slave labor could not be employed in the
mills, and that, therefore, protection of manufactures would not
secure the establishment of these industries in the South, and had
begun to treat the tariff question in a manner to develop a party
issue out of it. But this tendency had not advanced far enough in 1824
to produce a division of the all-comprehending Republican party. It
needed another four years of personal differences among the leaders,
another revision of the tariff in the direction of higher duties, and
a more complete consolidation of the North for protection, before this
result could be attained.
[Sidenote: South Carolina and the tariff of 1824.]
During the passage of the bill public meetings had been held
throughout South Carolina protesting against it, and the year
subsequent to its enactment the South Carolina legislature denounced
it as unconstitutional, but the people {116} of the Commonwealth
acquiesced, though with very bad temper, in the execution of the law.
The other question of internal policy, to which certain of the
historians refer as suffering under the baleful influences of the
slavery interest immediately after 1820, was the question of national
internal improvements.
[Sidenote: The historical development of the doctrine of internal
improvements.]
This question became a definite issue in Congress for the first time
on December 19th, 1805, when a committee of the Senate, charged with
the duty of reporting to the Senate an opinion as to how the money
appropriated in the Enabling Act for Ohio ought to be applied,
recommended the use of it for the building of a road across the
Alleghanies from Cumberland, in Maryland, to a point upon the Ohio
River, near Wheeling, in Virginia.
If we may take the first Act passed by Congress, that of March 29th,
1806, in regard to the matter as expressing the views of the
Government and the people upon the subject, we must conclude that the
first matured ideas were that the general Government had the power to
lay out and construct roads within and through the Commonwealths, by
and with the consent of the Commonwealths through which they might
pass. The Cumberland road was originally built by the general
Government, after the consent thereto of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia had been obtained. The appropriations for subsequent repairs
upon the road were, however, not considered as requiring the consent
of those Commonwealths before being made or expended.
[Sidenote: Madison's ideas upon internal improvements.]
The second stage in the evolution of opinion upon the subject was
attained in the year 1817, when Mr. Madison vetoed Mr. Calhoun's bill
for setting aside the bonus and the dividends to be paid to the
Government by the United States Bank as a fund for constructing roads
and canals, and {117} improving the navigation of water-courses in the
several Commonwealths. This bill proposed to authorize the general
Government to expend the money, thus appropriated, only with the
consent of the Commonwealth, or Commonwealths, in which the proposed
improvement might lay, antecedently given, and distributed the sum to
be spent among the Commonwealths according to the ratio of their
representation in the national House of Representatives. As has been
pointed out, Madison vetoed this bill on the ground that the power to
enact it was not to be found among the enumerated powers of Congress,
and could not be regarded as a necessary and proper means for carrying
out any of the enumerated powers.
The President drew no distinction between the power to construct
internal improvements and the power to appropriate money for their
construction, nor between such powers and the power to administer
them, or to exercise jurisdiction over them. He regarded all, or any
of these things, as unwarranted by the Constitution. He furthermore
declared that the consent of the several Commonwealths to the exercise
of such powers by the general Government could not make the exercise
of them constitutional, unless that consent should be given in the
form of an amendment to the Constitution.
The vote upon the vetoed bill in the House of Representatives
manifested the fact that a substantial majority of that body remained
unconvinced by the President's argument. It is reasonably certain that
Mr. Madison's views were not the views of the country at that moment.
A large majority of the people felt that he had abandoned his earlier
faith in regard to this subject. An analysis of the vote upon the
vetoed bill shows that New England was almost unanimous in opposing
the measure; that Virginia and North {118} Carolina also opposed it,
though less decidedly; that New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the
Northwest, together with South Carolina and Georgia, favored it; and
that Kentucky and Tennessee inclined to favor it. Certainly, down to
1817, no influence of the slavery interest upon the question of
internal improvements is discoverable. It was evident that the general
opinion was, that the middle Atlantic section and the Northwest would
receive the larger share of the benefits of a national system of
internal improvements. It was also evident that New England viewed the
matter purely in that light, and that Virginia was impelled wholly by
her ancient principle of strict construction of the powers of the
general Government. It was South Carolina and Georgia whose actions
appeared at this juncture to spring from unselfish and patriotic
motives.
[Sidenote: The bill of 1822 for internal improvements.]
The third stage in the development of constitutional interpretation in
reference to this subject was attained in the year 1822. In May of
that year Congress passed a bill appropriating money for the repair of
the Cumberland road, and authorizing the President to cause the
erection of toll-gates upon it, and to appoint toll-gatherers. The
toll charges, and penalties for attempting to avoid paying them, and
for not keeping to the left in passing, were fixed in the bill itself.
That is, this bill assumed for the general Government not only the
powers of appropriating and expending money for the construction of
the road, but the power of operating the road and jurisdiction over
it. The passage of such a bill is certainly very good evidence that
President Madison's views, as expressed in his veto message of March
3rd, 1817, were not the views of the country in 1822 upon the subject
of internal improvements.
[Sidenote: Passage of the bill, and analysis of the vote upon it.]
It is interesting and instructive to analyze the vote upon this bill.
In the House of Representatives the {119} members from the New England
section were nearly evenly divided, pro and con. The majority of the
New Yorkers voted against it. The Pennsylvanians were nearly balanced.
The Marylanders voted for it. The Virginians were against it by a
decided majority. The North Carolinians were indifferent. The South
Carolinians and Georgians abandoned their high national ground of
1817, and voted unanimously against it. The Representatives from the
Northwest went unanimously for it; and those from Kentucky now wheeled
into line with them. Lastly, while the Tennesseeans still maintained
their attitude of indifference, the members from the Commonwealths
south of Tennessee, and west of Georgia, all voted for the bill.
In the Senate the majority in favor of the measure was very large.
Only the Senators from the Carolinas and Alabama, and one Senator from
Missouri, voted against it.
There is somewhat more of an appearance of slavery influence in the
vote upon this bill than upon the bill of 1817, in that South Carolina
showed herself practically a unit against this bill. Still it is
probable that this opposition rested upon other grounds. Certainly
when we read in the "Annals of Congress," that so stanch a friend of
free labor, so eminent a lawyer, and so honorable a man as John W.
Taylor, of New York, said of this bill that it was so important in its
character, and proposed such a violation of the Constitution, that he
felt obliged to call for the yeas and nays upon it, we must concede
that other motives may have influenced the statesmen of South Carolina
than such as might have sprung from subserviency to the interests of
slavery.
[Sidenote: The bill in the interests of the West.]
If we review the analysis of the vote in the House of Representatives
we shall see that the entire {120} West--taking the Appalachian range
as the dividing line, for that period, between the East and the
West--was for the bill, while the whole East, with the exception of
Maryland, which was specially interested in the road, was either
against it or indifferent to it. The Eastern Commonwealths had made
their roads with Commonwealth money, and did not wish to assist the
Western Commonwealths to make theirs by giving them national money
with which to do it. The West, on the other hand, was new and
comparatively poor, and wanted the nation to help it out of the mud.
This is unquestionably the plain statement of the situation from the
point of view of interests. The interests of slavery played but little
part, if any at all, in the distribution of the vote.
[Sidenote: President Monroe's veto, and communication of May 4th,
1822.]
President Monroe promptly vetoed the bill, on the ground that it was
in excess of the powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. He
also sent a communication, of the same date as the veto, to the House
of Representatives, explaining his views upon those principles of the
Constitution generally, and upon those provisions specially, which
could be regarded as vesting powers in the general Government
concerning internal improvements. The paper is prolix, confused, and
confusing, but, upon the specific question at issue, the propositions
advanced are definite and intelligible. He held that the power of
Congress in regard to internal improvements was to be found in the
Constitution only by implication, by implication from the power to
appropriate money, and that, therefore, its nature and limitations
were to be drawn from the character of the power to appropriate money.
He contended, on the one side, that the power of Congress to
appropriate money was not limited to the objects enumerated in the
{121} Constitution, but was, on the other side, limited by the spirit
of the Constitution to national purposes. He concluded, therefore,
that Congress was empowered to appropriate money to internal
improvements of a national character. But he asserted that Congress
could not, under the power to appropriate money, establish
jurisdiction over such improvements, or authorize the executive
department of the Government to administer them. The bill in question
did just that, and it was for this reason that the President returned
it with his objections.
[Sidenote: President Monroe's argument, and the vote upon the veto.]
The President's views were apparently convincing to many who had voted
for the bill. Upon its passage, the vote in the House of
Representatives was eighty-seven for, and sixty-eight against, the
measure. After the veto, it stood sixty-eight yeas and seventy-two
nays.
It may be safely assumed that the view expressed by President Monroe
in the paper accompanying the veto of this bill was the view which
prevailed throughout the country in the year 1824. It may be also said
that the power of Congress to authorize the President to expend the
appropriation by causing the improvements to be planned and
constructed was generally regarded, in 1824, as a necessary
consequence of the power to appropriate money for the same. The acts
of Congress appropriating money for the construction and repair of
roads, canals, etc., after, as well as before, that date, seem to
proceed upon this theory.
[Sidenote: Congressional Act of 1824 for distinguishing national from
local improvements.]
The great difficulty which lay in the way of the realization of
President Monroe's principle of the appropriation of national money
for internal improvements of a national character was the proper
determination of the question as to what improvements were really of
that character. The danger was that the {122} appropriation bills
would become log-rolling measures for the purpose of obtaining
national money for matters of local concern. This difficulty was
distinctly felt, and Congress undertook to meet it by the Act of April
30th, 1824, which authorized the President to cause "surveys, plans,
and estimates to be made of the routes of such roads and canals as he
might deem of national importance," and required him to lay the same
before Congress.
From all this it is apparent that, down to the presidential election
of 1824, the development of a pro-slavery, strict-constructionist,
"States' rights" party is hardly to be discovered in the attitude of
the different sections of the country toward the question of internal
improvements. Despite the fact that the slaveholders had become
conscious during the Missouri struggle that their interests demanded
the establishment of a particularistic view of the Constitution and a
particularistic practice in the working of the governmental system of
the country, not much progress had been made, in the period between
1820 and 1824, in the way of twisting the policies developed during
the previous eight years into line with such a view. In fact the
foreign relations of the United States were again, in 1822, of a
somewhat threatening character, and the consideration of these
relations was acting as a certain hindrance to the development of
parties upon internal issues.
[Sidenote: Foreign relations during Monroe's second term.]
The menace, or perhaps it would be more correct to say the apparent
menace, came from two quarters; but in neither case did it relate
immediately to the territory or interests of the United States. In
both cases it was consequential and more or less remote.
{123} [Sidenote: Russia and the northwest coast of America.]
In the first place, the movements of Russia in the North Pacific had
created grave apprehensions. At the close of the first decade of the
century the Russian American Company put forward a claim to the
territory of the North American continent along the Pacific coast from
Behring's Strait to the mouth of the Columbia River, and even to
points south of the Columbia. Really this claim came into conflict
only with the rights of Great Britain and Spain, but the United
States, having the presentiment of its future, if not a legal claim to
any part of this territory as a part of Louisiana, regarded the
Russian movement with jealous discontent. And when, on September 16th,
the Russian Czar issued an edict, asserting Russia's rights to the
North Pacific territory from Behring's Strait to the fifty-first
parallel of north latitude, it was natural that this discontent should
become hostile in its nature. The Government of the United States
declared its dissent from the Russian pretensions, and the matter
rested momentarily with that.
[Sidenote: The Holy Alliance.]
At the same time the other danger was developing. The European
reaction against the terrible excesses of the Revolution and the
despotism of Bonaparte had assumed the form of an alliance between the
Governments of the great continental states, Russia, Austria, Prussia,
and France, for the purpose of maintaining each by the power of all
against the reappearance of revolutionary movements anywhere. Great
Britain had scented in this Holy Alliance a combination of continental
powers which might prove, in some degree at least, as dangerous to her
continental relations as the commercial system of Bonaparte had been.
There is no doubt, too, that there was a large party in England which
repudiated the fundamental {124} political doctrine of the Holy
Alliance Powers, the doctrine of the _jure divino_ monarchy. England
had, in fact, repudiated that doctrine at the close of the seventeenth
century. For these reasons the British Government had declined to
enter the Holy League, and regarded it with suspicion and
ill-concealed hostility.
[Sidenote: The Congress at Verona.]
The United States Government paid little attention to its workings so
long as they were confined to purely European relations, but when, in
1822, at the congress of these powers at Verona, which had been
assembled to consider the question of aiding the Spanish Government to
suppress the insurrection against its authority in Spain, the subject
of aiding that Government to re-establish its authority over Spain's
revolting colonies in North and South America was discussed, serious
apprehensions were roused in both Great Britain and the United States.
It was stated, and generally believed, in the United States, that the
plan was the re-establishment of the Spanish power over all of Spain's
American possessions, except Mexico and California, and the cession of
Mexico to France, and of California to Russia, in consideration of the
military aid to be rendered to Spain by these two great powers in the
work of restoration.
[Sidenote: Mr. Adams' declaration to Baron Tuyl.]
To the United States the supposed intentions of Russia in respect to
the Pacific coast appeared the more immediate danger, and the United
States Government addressed its diplomacy to this question first. On
July 17th, 1823, the Secretary of State, Mr. John Quincy Adams,
declared to the Russian Minister at Washington, Baron Tuyl, that "we
should contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on
this continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle
that the American {125} continents are no longer subjects for any new
European colonial establishments."
[Sidenote: Mr. Canning's proposal to Mr. Rush.]
The following month, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr.
George Canning, proposed to the Minister of the United States at the
Court of St. James, Mr. Richard Rush, a joint declaration by the
British Government and the Government of the United States to Europe,
that the two Governments would not remain indifferent to an
intervention by the Holy Alliance Powers to restore the Spanish
authority over Spain's revolting American colonies. Both commercial
interests and political principles moved the British Government to
make this proposition.
[Sidenote: Mr. Canning's declaration to Prince Polignac.]
Mr. Rush had not been instructed by his Government in anticipation of
the British advances, but he offered to assume the responsibility of
joining for the United States in the declaration, provided the British
Government would acknowledge the independence of the revolting Spanish
colonies in America, as the Government of the United States had
already done. The British minister was not then prepared to go so far,
and the plan of the joint declaration fell through. But Mr. Canning
declared for his Government to the French ambassador at St. James,
Prince Polignac, that Great Britain would resist any intervention on
the part of the Holy Alliance Powers in the question between Spain and
her revolting American colonies, and the President of the United
States, in his annual message of December 2nd, 1823, stated the
position which the United States Government and the people of the
United States ought, in his opinion, to assume, and would, in his
opinion, assume, in regard to the whole subject.
[Sidenote: The "Monroe Doctrine."]
Mr. Monroe dealt first with the question of Russian {126} colonization
upon the Pacific coast. After informing Congress of the instructions
which had been given to the Minister representing the United States at
St. Petersburg for negotiating with the Czar's Government, he said:
"In the discussions to which this interest has given rise, and in the
arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion has been judged
proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests
of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by
the free and independent condition which they have assumed and
maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future
colonization by any European powers."
Toward the close of the message Mr. Monroe addressed himself to the
other question, the question of intervention by the Holy Alliance
Powers in the contest between Spain and her revolting American
colonies in the following language: "In the wars of European powers,
in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor
does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights
are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make
preparations for our defence. With the movements in this hemisphere we
are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by causes which
must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The
political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this
respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which
exists in their respective governments, and to the defence of our own,
which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and
matured by the wisdom of our most enlightened citizens, and under
which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is
devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations
existing between the United {127} 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 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 a manifestation of an unfriendly
disposition toward the United States.... 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 brethren, if left to themselves,
would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible,
therefore, that we should behold such interposition, in any form, with
indifference. If we look to the comparative strength and resources of
Spain and these new Governments, and their distance from each other,
it must be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the
true policy of the United States to leave the parties to themselves,
in the hope that other powers will pursue the same course."
[Sidenote: The meaning of the Monroe propositions in 1824.]
These statements by Mr. Monroe of his opinion as to what the diplomacy
of the United States ought to be, and would be, upon the subjects of
the establishment of new European colonies in America, the
intervention of the Holy Alliance Powers in the question between Spain
and her revolting American colonies, and the forcible imposition by
these powers of the _jure divino_ monarchy {128} upon these peoples,
who had established republican forms of government for themselves,
have had the name fixed upon them by a later generation of "The Monroe
Doctrine." There is no difficulty in understanding these statements as
Mr. Monroe understood them.
Neither he nor his Secretary of State ever called them a "Doctrine."
With them they were simply the opinions of the Administration in
regard to the course which the United States ought to pursue, and
would probably pursue, in meeting certain exigencies, the possibility
of the arising of which passed entirely away before the close of the
first half of this century. These opinions were simply that the United
States ought to resist, and would resist, the planting of any new
colonial establishments in America, or the intervention of the Holy
Alliance Powers in the question between Spain and her revolting
American colonies, or the forcible imposition of the _jure divino_
monarchy, the political system of these powers, upon the new
republican governments of South and Middle America.
[Sidenote: Failure to commit Congress to these propositions.]
The month following the publication of this message, January, 1824,
Mr. Clay attempted to move Congress to indorse that part of the
President's opinions which referred to the intervention of the Allied
Powers in the conflict between Spain and her revolting colonies, but
the resolution which he offered to that effect was laid on the table,
and never called up. Mr. Poinsett, of South Carolina, made a like
attempt later, but with no more success. The Congress of that day had
altogether too much intelligence to make diplomatic opinions, advanced
by the Administration, either laws of the land, or joint or concurrent
resolutions of the legislative department of the Government.
{129} [Sidenote: The particularistic reaction scarcely discoverable
before 1824.]
Thus neither in the question of the tariff, nor in that of internal
improvements, nor, naturally, in the diplomatic questions, is anything
more than the faint beginnings of the particularistic reaction to be
discovered in the period between 1820 and 1824. In fact, it may be
said that the year 1820 marks roughly the date of the extinction of
the old Federal party, and of the almost complete absorption of the
whole voting population in the Republican party. In the presidential
election of that year the candidate of the Republican party, Mr.
Monroe, received two hundred and thirty-one of the two hundred and
thirty-two electoral votes cast, and the one elector who did not vote
for him was a Republican. The Federal party did not even undertake to
present a ticket. From the point of view of the preservation of its
own dominance, the Federal party had committed two grave errors, one
of principle and one of policy. It had held to the principle that the
mass of men are not fit to govern themselves, but should be governed
by the few who are wise and good; and it had adopted the policy of too
close alliance with the commercial interests of the country. The
levelling, not to say debasing, influences of the French political
philosophy, which rolled like a tidal wave over the country during the
last decade of the eighteenth century, and was worked up into a
political dogma by Jefferson and his disciples, together with the
reflex influence of the practical equality which established itself
among the first adventurers who settled the lands beyond the
Alleghanies, destroyed the Federal party, upon the side of principle;
while the great extension of the agricultural interests, produced by
these same settlements, made it intolerable upon the side of policy.
The earlier advantage which the Federal party, as the upholder of
centralization, enjoyed {130} over the Republican party, as the
champion of "States'-rights," had been lost by the nationalization of
the Republican party through the War of 1812, and the
denationalization of the Federal party through the same experiences.
In 1820, therefore, there was only one party in fact and in principle.
It is undoubtedly true that the struggle of the years 1819 and 1820
over the Missouri question had sowed the seeds of dissension in this
all-comprehending party; but four years did not constitute a period of
time sufficient for their completed growth and fructification. The
presidential contest of 1824 could not, therefore, he fought under the
issues of party principles. It was little more, and, under the
circumstances, it could be little more, than a personal contest
between the leaders of the Republican party. The result of it,
however, contributed very largely to the development of political
differences, and to the organization of parties upon the basis of
these differences. It must, therefore, be described with some
particularity.
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