The age-herald., 1898-01-30

trade with all parts of the world" and for various other acts of tyranny cited in that indictment of George III. and proclamation of the parties to a war if intended for that people, called the Declaration of Independ- ence. the American colonsts separated from Great Britain and set up a govern ment of their own. This privilege of de- veloping the oountrys material resources, of cultivating the peoples industrial and commercial tastes and capabilities, and of trading with the rest of the world on the best terms which could be obtained, was one of the t'inaiienable rights fought for by the "embattled farmers" of 1775, and their successors who fired the shot heard round the aworld.Y and which was secured in that more perfect union" established in 17s9 when the nation under the constitu- tion came into being.
 Troubles about trade were among the causes of the second war between the United States and England. In the series of wars beginning in 179S and ending in 1Sl5 between England and France both these countries preyed on American com merce. The United States, neutral in the great conflicts of the closing years of the eighteenth century, declared for the principle that free ships make free goods that is, that all goods, whether belonging to neutral nations to belligerents. if car ried in neutral vessels, should be free from seizure unless they were such as are or dinarily classed as contraband of war. These articles, and these only, on a neutral ship were subject to confiscation by one of the parties to a war if intended for that nations enemy. Both France and Eng land disregarded this principle, confiscated many American vessels, inflicted damage to the extent of millions of dollars on the comme cree of the United States and created the exasperation in this country which at one time threatened war with France, and which eventually precipitated the conflict of 1S12-15 with England the chief aggres- sor.
 Englands suggestion in 1923 of the policy which is called the Monroe doctrine was largely dictated by trade considerations. Learning in August, 1923, that after France had crushed liberalism in Spain and re- stored the reactionary Ferdinand VII. to autocratic power, the Holy AllianceNRus- sia, Austria. Prussia and France-would be likely to attack Mexico, Chilli, Peru and the other countries on the American con- tinent which had gained their freedom from Spain, and which had been recognized as independent by the United States, George Canning, the British foreign secretary, gave this information to Richard Rush, the American minister at London and urged Rush to ask the Monroe administration to cooperate with England in opposing this design. Rush, with admirable tact, told Canning that the United States had already recognized the independence of those coun- tries, and suggested that Great Britain place itself on common ground with us by doing likewise, proposition which star tied Canning. Meanwhile, Rush wrote the whole situation to Monroe and Secretary of State Adams, when it was laid before the cabinet. Monroe also consulted by let ter ex-Presdents Jefferson and Madison. The result of the deliberations and consul tations was revealed to the world in the immortal message to congress in Decem- Der, 1923, by which the United States, act ing independently of England, warned Eu- frx1 fc h dc offf tonc of American continent. This, and Cannings subsequent open opposition to the conti- mental powers designs deterred the Holy Alliance.
 Canning afterward claimed some of the credit for the Monroe doctrine by declaring that he "cal.ed the New World into exist ence to redress the. balance of the Old.' There is a little. but only a little, basis for this claim. Monroe's warning to Europe against aggression on the American conti- nent was merely the extension of the policy of keeping clear of alliances with Eu- ropean nations urged by Washington in his farewell address, by Jefferson in his first inaugural, and by other American states men in the period between 17S9 and 1923 The movements of the Holy Alliance were closely watched by the Monroe administra- tion; the administration would quickly have learned the intention of the alliance to assail the Spanish-American nations if that purpose were decided upon and would have made some sort of a protest against 1t. The knowledge that England was op- posed to any such purpose by the alliance doubtless made Monroe's farming a little more pointed and specific than it would otherwise have been, and perhaps brought it out earlier.
 Rush, Madison and Adams intimated that Canning's course was dictated by British trade interests rather than by any regard for the cause of liberalism There is good ground for this view. Canning had been tory along to that time. He had as little sympathy for democracy as Burke had for the purposes of the French revolutionists of 1790. The highly profitable trade which England had with the Central and South American nations after their separation from Spain would be lost if those countries should be either restored to Spain or should come under the control of the nations of the Holy. Alliance. Moreover, Canning, soon after the Monroe declaration had giv- en the holy allies pause, took occasion to negotiate commercial ~ treaties with the Spanish-American countries by which Eng land traded with them on more advantage ous terms than she had enjoyed previously
 Comm merciaI@exigencies precipitated the nulification controversy in South Carolina in 1892, which was the precursor of the secession movement of thirty years later which the same state led. The tariffs of 1924 and 1S2S the south declared, bore heav- fly on it's region by advancing the prices 
 without increasing the value of any inn portant article, except one or two, which it had to sell. This was true, of course, for slavery had shut manufacturing out of the south, and therefore, that locality had less interest in tariffs than the north Its staple crop, cotton had to depend on Eu rope for the gerater part of Its market. The United States was the chief producer of cotton in the slavery days, as at present. A duty cotton would have been absurd. The articles, sugar. tobacco and one or two other commodities which the south produced, and which the tariff aided, or would aid, were of much less commercial importance than cotton. Consequently the majority of the southern statesmen con- tended that the tariff was negotiable in its operation, it's advantages going to the north and it's drawbacks to the south. For this reason notification was devised by South Carolina to prevent the enforcement of the tariff in that state. Notification stopped short of secession, and was thus less logical than that doctrine. The pre- tense that a state had a right to suspend the operation of a law of the union at will, and at the same time remain in the union and enjoy all the benefits which the union conferred, was ridiculous Secession steered l,;, to1r;