Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-10-05
The orioin Of the Monroe Doctrine.

.r,. .ronroa doctrine" said Lord
r,orondon IN 1884 to Mr.. Buchanan
when the latter was minister at tue
court of st. James. the Monroe doc
trine is merely the dictum OF it's dis
t;nguished author" Times and opin
ions have greatly changed in Great
Britain since Lord Clarendon thus
cynically expressed his opinion of this
now world wide famous principle. and
British statesmen no longer hold that
it is merely a dictum. Indeed, they
now contend that it is a principle that
originated with their own brilliant
statesman, George Canning, and that
it, was owing to his suggestion that
President Monroe adopted it.
A remarkably interesting article in
the Fortnightly Review for September
entitled THE Original Intention of the
Monroe Doctrine" by Theodore A.
Cook, gives the secret history of the
so-called doctrines" origin and prJ-
mitigation. There is no doubt that
Canning, the British minister of for
posed to Mr.. Rush, the American min
lister to Great Britain, that the United
States cooperate with Great Britain
against the Holy Alliance, then sus-
pected of intending to give assistance
to Spain in the subjugation of her
South American colonies. Mr.. Rush
dent Monroe, who, as was his custom,
consulted Jefferson and Madison in
| regard to it, first expressing his own
opinion that it was a proposal that
should be accepted. In his letter to
Jefferson he says: My own impress
sion is that we ought to meet the pro-
posal of the British government and
| make it known that we would view an
| interference on the part of the Euro
| pean powers, and especially an attack
on the colonies by them as an attack
on ourselves"
The Fortnightly article gives the
letters of Monroe, Jefferson and Mad
ison in full, as copied from the originals
in the archives of the state department
at Washington. The greatest interest
centers in the letter of Jefferson 10
Monroe, for it discusses most ably the
question involved, which he thinks is
1.-The most momentous which has ever
been offered to my contemplation since
| that of independence that made us
nation"
There is much in this letter that
! bears upon some of the questions that
confront the American people today,
and may now be read in the light of
the present as well as that of the past.
He says: Our first and fundamental
maxim should be never to entangla
ourselves in the broils of Europe; our
second never to suffer Europe to med
die in Cis-Atlantic affairs. America.
North and South, has a set of interests
distinct from those of Europe
and peculiarly her own; she
should therefore havea sys-
tenn of her own, separate and apart
from that of Europe. Great
Britain is the nation which can do us
the most harm of any one or all on
earth; and with her on our side We
need not fear the whole world. With
her, then, we should most sedulously
nourish a cordial friendship, and moth
ing would tend more to knit our af-
fections than to be fighting once more
side by side in the same cause. Not
that I would purchase even her amty
at the price of taking part in her wars,
but the war in which the present
proposition might engage us, should
that be its consequence, is not her war
but ours
Further along jefferson asks the
our confederacy any one or more of the
Spanish provinces? 1 candidly confess
that have ever looked on Cuba as the
most interesting addition which could
ever be made TO our system of states
AS he believes that this can only be
obtained at the expense of war; he
abandons his wish for Cuba, leaving
it ITO future chances" Have those
chances" now come to us? After
such expression. of opinion, who can
doubt that Jefferson, were he living
| today, would favor at least the acquisi-
ton of Porto Rico and Cuba? The
statements of fact made in the Fort :
, nightly article are historically true,
and these letters show that the Mon
: roe doctrine originated with Canning,
Jefferson, Madison and Monroe.