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There is no subject more deserving of judicious consideration, and which challenges, in a higher degree, fair and impartial treatment, than one growing out of those rules and regulations which govern nations in their intercourse with each other, or out of those principles which guide a single nation or people in its own development. We are never more susceptible to the influence of prejudice or bias than when considering a great question in which our own country is interested, and of which, as with the one before us, she has been the originator and most conspicuous advocate. chiefly on account of its subserviency to the happiness of mankind, am not ashamed to confess that I shall feel a great consolation, at the conclusion of these lectures, if, by a wide survey and exact examination of the conditions and relations of human nature, I shall have confirmed but one individual in the conviction that justice is the permanent interest of all men and of all commonwealths. To discover one new link of that eternal chain by which the Author of the Universe has bound together the happiness and the duty of his creatures, and indissolubly fastered their interests to each other, would fill my heart with more pleasure than all the fame with which the most ingenious paradox ever crowned the most ingenious sophist." Aside from the bias referred to, the imporWhen we recall, for instance, the Declaration tance of this subject is also worthy of prelimiof Independence, or any other monument of nary remark. Our position among the nations liberty and progress, we instinctively feel a thrill of the earth is no longer, if it ever was, an isoof exultation which, unless guarded against, unlated one. Our rapidly increasing population consciously incapacitates us, to some extent, and the prodigious development of our resources for that serene temper necessary to the just aprender us, as a nation, more and more conspicpreciation of the subject. Sir James Mackintosh rose to the highest reach of this desirable mental condition, and indicated in glowing words the broad and elevated ground upon which inquirers after truth in such matters should place themselves. In closing his introduction to a course of lectures delivered at Lincoln's Inn Hall, on the law of nature and of nations, he said: "I know not whether a philosopher ought to confess that, in his inquiries after truth, he is biased by any consideration, even the love of virtue; but I, who conceive that a real philosopher ought to regard truth itself Vol. III.-25. uous. Twenty years ago we had thirty millions of inhabitants; now we number fifty millions. Twenty years hence the present population may be doubled. Probably before that time not only the Monroe Doctrine, but other tenets peculiar to our system, will have been not merely announced, but asserted with vigor and effect. Principles and doctrines essential to us, which, in the soil of theory, have attained luxuriant growth, may in the near future be put to the severest practical test. In the councils of the world we are destined to have a voice, while we are bound by every [Copyright by THE CALIFORNIA PUBLISHING COMPANY. All rights reserved in trust for contributors.] sentiment of national honor and pride to teach and encourage by our example the rising republics of the western continent. We cannot, without humiliating retrogression, shirk the duty of maintaining, with that dignity and resolution becoming a great commonwealth, our position as the first of the republics of the New World, and one of the first among the nations of the earth. In order to appreciate still further this subject and its growing importance, an allusion to the intellectual and moral conditions of America, in certain respects, may not be unprofitable. These have always been propitious for the growth and development of ideas. Even the discovery of America was the result of an idea rationally conceived and tenaciously adhered to in spite of contradiction and ridicule. Here also ideas, uprooted as noxious in the Old World, have been freely planted and cultivated. Nearly every colony, from Massachusetts Bay to Georgia, brought its peculiar idea of civil or religious liberty, or both, which it came here to develop and enjoy. The names of Oglethorpe, Lord Baltimore, William Penn, and others, are significant of those ideas. But the greatest of these was that of liberty and equality expressed on that memorable occasion, when, for the first time, the object of the "civil body politic" was announced as "to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony." This was the first written constitution of government in human history, and the corner-stone of the American Republic. These ideas, thus planted, have at last found their highest expression in the Declaration of Independence, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Thirteenth Amendment. There is a material distinction between the civilizations of Europe and America which it is important in this connection also to consider. | In some respects they are alike, in others radically different. Both have access to the same fountains of knowledge. They profess the same religion, and study the same philosophies. We find in our system no objection to adopting and assimilating whatever excellence in literature, whatever advancement in science, whatever refinement or polish, European society may produce. But we have no sympathy, and never can have, with the harsh principles of government, or rather of mastery over the governed, which sustain the monarchies of Europe, which infringe the rights and check the progress of mankind. All those doctrines were left in the Old World by the settlers | of the New, and every attempt by the mother countries to introduce them here has met with resistance and final defeat. Any idea of liberty planted in Europe is at once repressed by the weight of those doctrines of government which are established to strengthen certain dynasties and tighten the fetters of mankind. In the New World the influences are the reverse. Hence, America, by her example and her hospitality to the oppressed of other nations, has done more to relieve and succor the world in one century than Europe has done in a millennium. While it is not just to say that Europe makes no prog. ress toward popular government, it must be conceded that European advancement in that respect is almost fatally impeded. It resembles the imperceptible movement of the glacier, while that of America is like the rapid river. America, therefore, is the true field to which the world must resort for the cultivation of those ideas of government which give the governed their choice as to who shall wield the governing power and assure them the greatest security consistent with the least restraint. The duty, therefore, of preserving those influences uncontaminated is peculiarly cast upon Amer ica. With these preliminary observations we approach the subject. under consideration. It naturally divides itself into three parts: First. The origin and history of the Monroe Doctrine. Secondly. The principles it involves. Thirdly. Is it applicable to the Isthmian Canal? FIRST.--The origin and history. The Monroe Doctrine was first formally enunciated in 1823, when Spain sought, through the Holy Alliance, to resubjugate her rebellious American colonies. Previous to that time, in the year 1815, a league had been formed at Laybach by the sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, called the "Holy Alliance”—a name given it by Alexander of Russia. Its ostensible object was to regulate the relations of the States of Christendom by the principles of Christian charity, but its covert and real purpose was to preserve the power and influence of existing dynasties. Most of the other European powers acceded to it, and the treaty was formally published in the Frankfurt Journal, February 2, 1816. The doctrines avowed in this treaty were that the high contracting parties had the right to interfere in the concerns of another State, and reform its government in order to prevent the effect of its bad example. By this bad example was meant the example of free govern |