Weekly national intelligencer., 1847-07-03

sessions IL Is precisely like saying TO any neigh
bors Small and Feeble /" on two think the houses
I. you live in are yours ! say they are mine and
so we are at law for them but be good enough to
remark that the Greeks THAT noble people) have
since thrown off with much European assistance)
the Turkish yoke; SO, if you please get out Of
those houses, or | will come with force and arms
and drive you out"
Seriously to impute such things TO wise man
like Mr.. MONROE as arguments is cut of the ques-
ton. We explain them away theiefore, in two
ways first, that this declaration was diplomatic
ruse de guerre, stratagem, to make our title in the
Northwest look more imposing to our adversaries,
and be more popular at home; and, secondly, that
lit being our policy to exclude Kings from this con-
tinent, if we could do it by just means and good
tltles) the kindred questions of their right to
strengthen Spain in one quarter and to strengthen
themselves in another were, not altogether unnatu.
rally, confounded.
Enough of all this part of the subject, however
we should have enlarged on it but little il it had
not afforded good occasion for illustrating at the
same time other important subjects, and especially
that to which we now return--the Continental
POLICY of Mr.. MONROE, as laid down in that other
extract from his Message of 1923 which we have
given above.
Like most other documents in which the matter
is shaped for popular apprehension and effect ra-
ther than with method, exacness, and clear depen.
dance Of proposition upon proposition. it needs
some analysis and little elucidation. We shall
resate it. giving just enough of these to make its
meaning and consequences clear and indisputable.
And, first of all, it will be obvious to any person
taking the trouble to scrutinze the two passages
hhese being the only ones in the Message that re-
late to the Continental Policy') that this is the
one from which are to be established Mr.. MoNRoE's
doctrines on that subject. This is minute, argu-
mentative rational: the other but the dogma of
single sentence, paradox connected with its object
by little more than the fact that the former far
momentous and pressing subject was then greatly
engrossing Mr.. MONROE and his Cabinets thoughts
and therefore forced itself into other questions, with
which it had little proper relation. The shorter
passage merely informs Congress that ripartite
negotiation with Great Britain and Russia, as to
their and our several claims on the Northwest coast
of America had been agreed on, and that, in this
negotiation, we should uphold the principle that in
consequence of the independence Of certain States
some fue thousand miles from the subject Of The
dispute and haUing themselves no claim in ii, the
pretensions of our two counterpartes were at an
end. This was, in truth, only telling Congress that
we were going into negotiation, and that we had
set up in it doctrine which precluded all questions
of Right, and therefore all negotiation. If we con-
suit Mr. RUsHs hisory* of the preliminary arrange
ments for this intended triple negotiation, we shall
find that its abandonment was produced by this very
passage of the Message. For it gave umbrage to
Russia, and induced England TO decide that she
would treat separately, in order not to involve her.
self in the difficulty with the Emperor which we
had created for ourselves. And now for the analy-
sis of the other passage of the Message.
Itsays in effect that general duty, both to
all other nations and ourselves, non-interven-
ton in their quarrels, whether lis meant of course)
with each other, or in their internal disputes that
our settled general policy has been and will be in
conformity with this great national duty. The
principle of non-intervention, Mr.. nj. intmates,
comprehends necessarily, the duty Of leaving each
nation (as set forth in our Declaration of Indepen-
dence to settle for ITSELF and without foreign inter-
terence, the 1Orln Ol government WHICH III prefers
as likeliest to its collective happiness that,
as Republic, the United States have both repub-
lican sympathies and republican policy: that its
mere sympathies, however, have never induced it
to take part against the distant combination in Eu-
rope to put down any movement towards Repub-
lie there. For that mere sympathy with one of the
parties does not dissolve the duty Of non-interven
ton. To warrant interposition, nation (say our
selves must have a real concern in the quarrel
that is, the State whose freedom is attacked must
be one Of that system of free States which has now
grown up on the American continents. That, in
word, our interference must be one conservative Of
the system of freedom on this continent whenever,
and whenever only that system shall have been at
tackled as such by the opposite monarchical system
of Europe-to which, however, concede the
same right of taking of itself there, where it
is established, as claim for the system of free
dom in this hemisphere. That, meantime, we shall
continue to respect, as we always have respected,
their existing rights and their colonial dominions in
America. In word, Mr. MONROE distinctly de-
clares that have no right to interfere and snail
not interfere, in contest between Spain Tor any
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