y any European power. "In the war between Spain and
her colonies," said President Monroe, "the United States will continue to
observe the strictest neutrality.... 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 considerations
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 toward the United States."

[Sidenote: Jefferson's indorsement]

[Sidenote: Canning's part]

[Sidenote: Fyffe's comment]

It was the famous Monroe Doctrine, a doctrine that in its substance, if not
in words, had already served as the guiding star of Thomas Jefferson's and
Madison's foreign policy. It is related that President Monroe, applying to
Thomas Jefferson for his opinion on the matter, was surprised at the
positive nature of the reply which he received. "Our first and fundamental
maxim," said Jefferson, "should be never to entangle ourselves in the
broils of Europe; our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with
cis-Atlantic affairs." At the same time that America thus flung down her
gauntlet to Europe, Canning, on behalf of the British Ministry, proposed to
inform the allied Cabinets of England's intention to accredit envoys to the
South American republics. Assured of the support of the United States, and
of Great Britain as well, South America could feel free to work out her own
destiny. This was the master-stroke of Canning's career. When brought to
bay afterward in Parliament, he could proudly boast: "I called the New
World into being, in order to redress the balance of the Old." To Americans
Canning's boast has ever seemed to rest on a flimsy foundation. As Fyffe,
the English historian of modern Europe, has justly said, "The boast, famous
in our Parliamentary history, has left an erroneous impression of the part
really played by Canning at this crisis. He did not call the New World into
existence; he did not even assist it in winning independence, as France had
assisted the United States fifty years before; but when this independence
had been won, he threw over it the aegis of Great Britain, declaring that no
other European power should reimp