Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/478

 "It is impossible that the Alied Powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent [American] without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can any one believe that our Southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition, in any form, with indifference."

Shortly after the settlement of Europe by the Congress of Vienna, the more despotic continental Governments suddenly became seriously troubled on account of the liberal sentiments which strikingly manifested themselves in Spain and elsewhere. The Holy Alliance, in its conferences at Troppau and Laybach, declared eternal hostility to all popular institutions, announcing its purpose to "repress republican opinions wherever they might be found, and to extinguish the feelings that prompted them." To use its avowed language: "To preserve what is legally established was, as it ought to be, the invariable principle of their policy. Useful or necessary changes in legislation, and in the administration of States, ought only to emanate from the free will and the intelligent and well-weighed conviction of those whom God has rendered responsible for power." The Czar of Russia had promised Ferdinand of Spain that if he would overthrow the constitution of that kingdom he would assist him, not only in fortifying his throne, but also in re-establishing his authority over the revolting Spanish-American provinces. To this proposition England dissented, in terms so decided as to cause its relinquishment—an occurrence not displeasing to Austria, as she was averse to the marching of a large Russian army across her bosom in the direction of the Pyrenees. But France, acting in the interest of the Holy Alliance, and probably with a view to selfish ulterior objects, determined to intervene in the affairs of Spain, and—under the alleged excuse to England that she wished to prevent the yellow fever, which was prevailing in Portugal, from entering her limits—she established an army in the confines of the Spanish realm, which she designated a "cordon sanitaire." The disappearance of the disease, however, from the peninsula, did not lead to its withdrawal, and subsequently she bestowed upon it the title of the "army of observation." But it was not long—in the summer of 1823—until she marched it over her boundary and undertook to control Spain. When, in 1808, Napoleon attempted to place the crown of that realm durably upon the head of his brother Joseph, he unquestionably contemplated the acquisition by his house of all the distant possessions. This idea might not have been the actuating one in the armed occupation of Spain by France; but it is certain that she regarded those possessions as a prize worth securing, if they could be obtained at a reasonable, or, indeed, an extravagant cost. She saw distinctly that they were as good as lost to the mother country, which was in a deplorable moral, financial, commercial, and physical condition. Mr. Canning, as Premier, made unceasing efforts to influence France to recall her army from Spain, but they were disregarded. This enlightened British statesman boldly arrayed his Government against the principles of the Holy Alliance, and lost no suitable occasion to publicly proclaim the sentiments by which the British were animated—sentiments which were warmly responded to at home, and by the larger portion of the continental public. They were simply these, and, from their very nature, in violent antagonism with those entertained by the stipendiaries of the crowned head contrivers of the Congress