in common, and which with the extinction
of some few jealousies, were justified in the anticipation of a
prosperous and peaceful future. There was not an interest or an
ambition of a single one of these republics which threatened an
interest or an ambition of a single European power.

THE REPUBLICS OF AMERICA.

It needs no argument to show that the central element of the
stability of this system of American republics was the strength of
the Federal Union, its growth into a harmonious nationality, and
its ability to prevent anywhere on the two continents the armed
intervention of foreign Powers for the purpose of political
domination. This strength was known and this resolution publicly
declared, and it is safe to affirm that before 1861 or after 1865
not one nor all of the European Powers would have willingly challenged
this policy. But the moment the strength of the Union seemed
weakened, the moment that the leading Republic of this system found
itself hampered and embarrassed by internal dissensions, all Europe
--that Europe which upon the threatening of a Belgian fortress, or
the invasion of a Swiss canton, or the loss of the key to a church
in Jerusalem, would have written protocols, summoned conferences,
and mustered armies--quietly acquiesced in as wanton, wicked, and
foolish an aggression as ever Imperial folly devised. The same
monarch who appealed with confidence to Heaven when he declared
war to prevent a Hohenzollern from ascending the throne of Spain,
appealed to the same Heaven with equal confidence and equal success
when he declared war to force a Hapsburg upon the throne of Mexico.

The success of the establishment of a Foreign Empire in Mexico
would have been fatal to all that the United States cherished, to
all that it hoped peacefully to achieve. The scheme of invasion
rested on the assumption of the dissolution of the Union and its
division into two hostile governments; but aside from that possibility,
it threatened the United States upon the most vital questions. It
was at war with all our institutions and our habits of political
life, for it would have introduced into a great country on this
continent, capable of unlimited development, that curious and
mischievous form of government, that perplexing mixture of absolutism
and democracy,--imperial power supported by universal suffrage,--
which seems certain to produce aggression abroad and co