almost
a hundred years; but he failed to dictate American policy. Adams on his
part detached the United States from European politics without throwing
England into the arms of Europe. He took advantage of the divisions of
the Old World to establish the priority of the United States in American
affairs; but he failed in his later attempt to unite all the Americas in
cordial cooperation. Earnest as was his desire and hard as he strove in
1825 when he had become President with Clay as his Secretary of State,
Adams found that the differences in point of view between the United
States and the other American powers were too great to permit a
Pan-American policy. The Panama Congress on which he built his hopes
failed, and for fifty years the project lay dormant.

Under the popular name of the Monroe Doctrine, however, Adams's policy
has played a much larger part in world affairs than he expected.
Without the force of law either in this country or between nations,
this doctrine took a firm hold of the American imagination and became
a national ideal, while other nations have at least in form taken
cognizance of it. The Monroe Doctrine has survived because Adams did
not invent its main tenets but found them the dominating principles of
American international politics; his work, like that of his contemporary
John Marshall, was one of codification. But not all those who have
commented on the work of Adams have possessed his analytical mind, and
many have confused what was fundamental in his pronouncement with what
was temporary and demanded by the emergency of the time.

Always the American people have stood, from the first days of their
migration to America, for the right of the people of a territory to
determine their own development. First they have insisted that their own
right to work out their political destiny be acknowledged and made safe.
For this they fought the Revolution. It has followed that they have in
foreign affairs tried to keep their hands free from entanglements
with other countries and have refrained from interference with foreign
politics. This was the burden of Washington's "Farewell Address," and it
was a message which Jefferson reiterated in his inaugural. These are
the permanent principles which have controlled enlightened American
statesmen in their attitude toward the world, from the days of John
Winthrop to those of Woodrow Wilson.

It was early found, however, that the affairs of the immediate neigh