Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1865-03-16
8radford geporter,
Towanda, Thursday, March l6, 1866.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

pledge themselves to repress all efforts of
the popular will to enlarge the liberty of
the subject,-not only is the pledge given
in regard to their own immediate subjects,
but also to help each other when help is
needed .s- .r..
If a people bound down by oppression
essay to break the chain which binds them
to strike for popular rights, they are, at
once, to be treated as rebels against law
and order, and reduced to servitude more
degrading than that from which they had
striven to fee themselves.
To this system of political action the
reigning cabinets of Europe have committed
themselves they have solemuly sworn to
each other to make the defense of the old
and effete systems of monarchy under
which the subject has groaned from time
to which the memory of man runneth not
to the contrary, common cause. If
single breast on the broad domain which
owns their sway heaves with single as
piration for natural right, million bayon-
cts are pointed at it. If the down-trodden
slave Of one tyrant tugs at his chain, the
legions of every other kingly tyrant are
pledged to his destruction. This system
at its inception was called the Holy Alli-
ance--it was a band of titled robbers, of
kingly murderers, of crowned assasins,
who in the name of law and order, rioted
on the blood, and grew fat upon the spoils
of their fellow men.
That this system was instituted for no
other purpose but to perpetuate kingly rule,
and to drive out of existence every princi-
pie of human liberty that it had no other
object and could have no other, let the his
tory of Europe for the last fifty years tell.
Let Poland tell how well it has served its
originators. Let Hungary, baptised in the
blood of its brave sons, recount its tale OF
horror Let Italy speak. There is scarce
ly an European State which has not felt its
time-worn structure of kingly rule tremble
and rock in the blast of popular indigna-
ton, and 10, as if by magic, those dilapida-
ted walls have been again upreared and es
tablished by foreign intervention.
By the operation of just such system
the first BoNAPARTE was destroyed, and the
antagonizing principle Of which he was the
founder, broken down. The same system
would to-day, uphold the third BoNAPARTE,
in his career of tyranny were his throne in
danger from the revolt of his subjects. 1t
has more than once saved that gigantic in
strument of oppression, the Austrian mon
archy, from absolute ruin, when its subjects,
stung beyond longer endurance, have rails
ed the standard of revolt. This great sys-
TEN of wrong, whose arms reach from the
White sea to the Mediterranean, casts its
dark shadow over the British Isles, and its
iron chain binds even the English and Irish
peasant to the car of irresponsible power.
There is no square foot of European soil
which does not groan and languish under
its load
How proper and natural was it, then, for
American statesmen, and for American peo-
pie to congratulate themselves upon their
entire independence of European systems
and ideas. From the earliest times in the
history of our government from the days
Of WASHINGTON, we have kept aloof of all
entangling alliances with foreign States.
The Father ofhis country in his last official
act pointed out to us the danger of foreign
influence, and warned us of the evils of
foreign diplomacy. Later yet, the last
ADAMS had an earnest desire to institute an
American policy which while it conserved
American right, was aggressive only when
attacked. With this object he favored a
congress of representatives from American
States, at Panama, charged with the inaug-
uration of just such a policy. Later yet,
this feeling of enlightened American states
men eliminated in what is now known as
the Monroe Doctrine, which only declares
that d" the American people will not look
with favor upon any future attempt of any
European government to colonize any por-
tlon OF American territory
In this there is nothing aggressive-it is
a simple declaration of American views and
principles, having only a prospective ard
conditioned action, and having also the
form Of public announcement. 1t is word
to the whole world that the whole continent
is american, and that American interests
and feelings are distinct and diverse from
European, and that while we shall not in
tervene in favor of liberty in the old world,
50 we shall not suffer the old world to in
tervene in favor of despotsm in the new.
This is all the most active Imagination can
say or think respecting it, whether in at
tack or defence. 1t has never been an
nOunced in an Ostentatious manner, and no
European State can show any reason why
it should not have been declared. 1t is
patent to all that Europe will not suffer a
colonization of American republics upon her
soil, and why not apply the same rule to
European colonization here
One thing is certain-the announcement
of the Monroe Doctrine has already had a
favorable effect. What foreign State has