The Path of Empire, A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power | Page 6

of accepting Canning's proposal for the
cooperation of England and the United States. He based his opposition
upon two fundamental objections. In the first place he was not prepared
to say that the United States desired no more Spanish territory. Not that
Adams desired or would tolerate conquest. At the time of the Louisiana
Purchase he had wished to postpone annexation until the assent of the
people of that province could be obtained. But he believed that all the
territory necessary for the geographical completeness of the United
States had not yet been brought under the flag. He had just obtained
Florida from Spain and a claim westward to the Pacific north of the
forty-second parallel, but he considered the Southwest--Texas, New
Mexico, and California--a natural field of expansion. These areas, then
almost barren of white settlers, he expected time to bring into the
United States, and he also expected that the people of Cuba would
ultimately rejoice to become incorporated in the Union. He wished
natural forces to work out their own results, without let or hindrance.

Not only was Adams opposed to Canning's proposed self-denying
ordinance, but he was equally averse to becoming a partner with
England. Such cooperation might well prove in time to be an
"entangling alliance," involving the United States in problems of no
immediate concern to its people and certainly in a partnership in which
the other member would be dominant. If Canning saw liberal England
as a perpetual minority in absolutist Europe, Adams saw republican
America as a perpetual inferior to monarchical England. Although
England, with Canada, the West Indies, and her commerce, was a great
American power, Adams believed that the United States, the oldest
independent nation in America, with a government which gave the
model to the rest, could not admit her to joint, leadership, for her power
was in, not of, America, and her government was monarchical. Already
Adams had won a strategic advantage over Canning, for in the previous
year, 1822, the United States had recognized the new South American
republics.
Great as were the dangers involved in cooperation with England,
however, they seemed to many persons of little moment compared with
the menace of absolutist armies and navies in the New World or of,
perhaps, a French Cuba and a Russian Mexico. The only effective
obstacle to such foreign intervention was the British Navy. Both
President Monroe and Thomas Jefferson, who in his retirement was
still consulted on all matters of high moment, therefore favored the
acceptance of Canning's proposal as a means of detaching England
from the rest of Europe. Adams argued, however, that England was
already detached; that, for England's purposes, the British Navy would
still stand between Europe and America, whatever the attitude of the
United States; that compromise or concession was unnecessary; and
that the country could as safely take its stand toward the whole outside
world as toward continental Europe alone. To reject the offer of a
country whose assistance was absolutely necessary to the safety of the
United States, and to declare the American case against her as well as
against the more menacing forces whose attack she alone could prevent,
required a nerve and poise which could come only from ignorant
foolhardiness or from absolute knowledge of the facts. The
self-assurance of Adams was well founded, and no general on the field
of battle ever exhibited higher courage.

Adams won over the Cabinet, and the President decided to incorporate
in his annual message to Congress a declaration setting forth the
attitude of the United States toward all the world, and in particular
denying the right of any European power, England included, to
intervene in American affairs. In making such a statement, however, it
was necessary to offer compensation in some form. The United States
was not prepared to offer Canning's self-denying ordinance barring the
way to further American expansion, but something it must offer. This
compensating offset Adams found in the separation of the New World
from the Old and in abstention from interference in Europe. Such a
renunciation involved, however, the sacrifice of generous American
sympathies with the republicans across the seas. Monroe, Gallatin, and
many other statesmen wished as active a policy in support of the
Greeks as of the Spanish Americans. Adams insisted, however, that the
United States should create a sphere for its interests and should confine
itself to that sphere. His plan for peace provided that European and
American interests should not only not clash but should not even meet.
The President's message of December 2, 1823, amounted to a rejection
of the Holy Alliance as guardian of the world's peace, of Canning's
request for an entente, and of the proposal that the United States enter
upon a campaign to republicanize the world. It stated the intention of