Iditarod pioneer., 1912-10-12

The Monroe Doctrine
Denver Weekly News)

The Monroe doctrine, while named after President Monroe, really had it's origin in the suggestion of Jefferson,
 Madison, Adams and others And. strange as It may seem, it was not an
 American who made the first formal proposal that the United States should inform Europe that a conquest of South
 America would not be allowed
 The way it came about was this: Europe, after he fall of Napoleon,
 went into great political federation | formed by Austria, Prussia, Russia, France and Spain. They called it the
 Holy Alliance, and the object was to establish the doctrine that kings and other monarchs held their power by the direct gift of God. One of the first acts of the Holy Alliance was to crush revolution in Spain with a French army and restore the dissoute Bour- bons. The next move would have been to reconquer those South Ameri- can countries that had been lost to Spain.
 England alone refused to enter into the sweet-smelling compact, and it was Premier Canning who said to Mr. Rush the American minister, "It is time that the United States and England once more stand shoulder to shoulder I have hanr in vii o1 t,> atives to the conference of Royaiists, but 1 will not do it, Say to Mr. Mon- roe that if he will take the initiative, forbidding the Holy Alliance to land it's armies upon American soil, I will sustain him with the full force of Great Britain"
 A little later Thomas Jefferson ad- dressed letter to President Monroe on the subject, from which the follow ing is taken:
 The question is the most moment ous which has been offered to my COL temptation since that of independence That made us a nation; this sets our compass and points the course which we are to steer through the ocean of time opening on us. And never could we embark on it under circumstances more suspicious. Our first and funda- mental maxim should be never to en- tangle ourselves in the broiIs Of Europe. Our second, never suffer Europe to intermeddie with cis-At- lantic affairs. America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe and peculiarly her own. She should, therefore, have 8 system of her own, separate and ! apart from that of Europe. While the last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism, our endeavor should surely be to make our hemi- sphere that of freedom. One nation most of all, could disturb us from this pursuit; she now offers to lead, aid and accompany us in the undertaking. By acceding to her proposition we detach her from the band of despots, bring her mighty weight into the scale Of free government, and emancipate a continent at one stroke which other- wise might finger long in doubt and difficulty. Great Britain is the nation which can do us 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 scdu- lously cherish a cordial friendship; and nothing would tend more to knit our affections than to be fighting once more side by side in the same cause
 "But we have first to ask ourselves question: Do we wish to acquire to our own confederacy any one or more of the Spanish provinces? 1 candidly con- fess that 1 have ever looked on Cubs as the most interesting addition that ever could be made to our system of states The control which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmuS bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well being. Yet l am sensible that this can never be obtained, without war: and as it's independence, which is our second interest, and especially it's in dependence of England, can be secured without it, l have no hesitation in abandoning my first wish to future chances. and accepting it's independ- ence with peace and the friendship of England, rather than it's association at the expense of war and her enmity.'
 It will thus be seen that the original Monroe Doctrine" not only formed a practical alliance with Great Britain, offensive and defensive, but that it also had in view the independence of