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210 inferior in quality commanding from two to four dollars per acre—and thus insure immense fortunes to the speculators and adventurers above mentioned. And out of such a condition of things political complications between the two countries, at no distant day, are almost certain to originate.

Again, in asserting the "Monroe doctrine," the United States virtually assumes a protectorate over Mexico. For, whatever else the Monroe doctrine may embody, it unmistakably says to Mexico: "You shall not change your form of government"; "You shall not enter into any European alliances"; "You shall not make cessions of territory, except as we (the United States) shall approve"; and in return "We will not allow any foreign power, ourselves excepted, to bully, invade, or subjugate you." It may be, and is, replied that the necessity of repelling from the outset any attempt at further aggrandizement of any European power on the North American Continent, with its contingent menace to the maintenance of democratic institutions, sufficiently justifies the assertion of the Monroe doctrine, and is for the good of Mexico as well as of the United States. But, at the same time, if there was any other power on the American Continent which should arrogate to itself the right to dictate to or control the United States, as the United States