Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/477

 have peace, the peace of union as contemplated by the authors and founders of our Republic. We have grander ends to attain than the frittering away of a healthful existence upon such loathsome, ignoble subjects. Our aspirations should be to spread our heaven-inspired principles, by our lofty public bearing, on to the most remote and benighted regions; proudly, in the rectitude of our intentions, taking our place at the very head of the nations of the earth. It is for us, if we are equal to our mission, to realize for America the poet's vision of the future of England:

But, sir, to return to the Monroe doctrine. In their notice of the message at the time it was promulgated, the then as now calm, observing editors of the National Intelligencer remarked: "It does honor to its author, and the most material parts are conceived in the true spirit of the days in which he first engaged in the scenes of public life." Sir, that doctrine is, perhaps, quite familiar to every member of this Senate; but such has been my unrelaxing pride in it for nearly thirty-five years, increased, if possible, by the fact that I am the only person entitled to a seat in this building to whom it was addressed, that I can not refrain from its perusal, nor from narrating its history and explaining its purpose.

Our relations at that time were not in a satisfactory condition with the Emperor of all the Russias—the differences having grown out of a claim of that autocrat to a portion of this continent—and in this connection Mr. Monroe made the emphatic declaration: "In the discussions to which this interest has given rise, and in the arrangements in which they may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle, in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European Power." Subsequently he reviewed the political condition of the two hemispheres, and referring to the desire of the Holy Alliance to re-establish Spain in her late American possessions, he fearlessly stated that — "We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those Powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their parts to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European Power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States."