Not only was Adams opposed to Canning's proposed self-denying ordinance, but he was equally averse to becoming a partner with England.Such cooperation might well prove in time to be an "entangling alliance," involving the United States in problems of no immediate concern to its people and certainly in a partnership in which the other member would be dominant.If Canning saw liberal England as a perpetual minority in absolutist Europe, Adams saw republican America as a perpetual inferior to monarchical England.Although England, with Canada, the West Indies, and her commerce, was a great American power, Adams believed that the United States, the oldest independent nation in America, with a government which gave the model to the rest, could not admit her to joint, leadership, for her power was in, not of, America, and her government was monarchical.Already Adams had won a strategic advantage over Canning, for in the previous year, 1822, the United States had recognized the new South American republics.
Great as were the dangers involved in cooperation with England, however, they seemed to many persons of little moment compared with the menace of absolutist armies and navies in the New World or of, perhaps, a French Cuba and a Russian Mexico.The only effective obstacle to such foreign intervention was the British Navy.Both President Monroe and Thomas Jefferson, who in his retirement was still consulted on all matters of high moment, therefore favored the acceptance of Canning's proposal as a means of detaching England from the rest of Europe.Adams argued, however, that England was already detached; that, for England's purposes, the British Navy would still stand between Europe and America, whatever the attitude of the United States; that compromise or concession was unnecessary; and that the country could as safely take its stand toward the whole outside world as toward continental Europe alone.To reject the offer of a country whose assistance was absolutely necessary to the safety of the United States, and to declare the American case against her as well as against the more menacing forces whose attack she alone could prevent, required a nerve and poise which could come only from ignorant foolhardiness or from absolute knowledge of the facts.The self-assurance of Adams was well founded, and no general on the field of battle ever exhibited higher courage.
Adams won over the Cabinet, and the President decided to incorporate in his annual message to Congress a declaration setting forth the attitude of the United States toward all the world, and in particular denying the right of any European power, England included, to intervene in American affairs.In making such a statement, however, it was necessary to offer compensation in some form.The United States was not prepared to offer Canning's self-denying ordinance barring the way to further American expansion, but something it must offer.This compensating offset Adams found in the separation of the New World from the Old and in abstention from interference in Europe.
Such a renunciation involved, however, the sacrifice of generous American sympathies with the republicans across the seas.Monroe, Gallatin, and many other statesmen wished as active a policy in support of the Greeks as of the Spanish Americans.Adams insisted, however, that the United States should create a sphere for its interests and should confine itself to that sphere.His plan for peace provided that European and American interests should not only not clash but should not even meet.
The President's message of December 2, 1823, amounted to a rejection of the Holy Alliance as guardian of the world's peace, of Canning's request for an entente, and of the proposal that the United States enter upon a campaign to republicanize the world.
It stated the intention of the Government to refrain from interference in Europe, and its belief that it was "impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent [of America] without endangering our peace and happiness." The message contained a strong defense of the republican system of government and of the right of nations to control their own internal development.It completed the foreign policy of the United States by declaring, in connection with certain recent encroachments of Russia along the northwest coast, that the era of colonization in the Americas was over.The United States was to maintain in the future that boundaries between nations holding land in America actually existed and could be traced--a position which invited arbitration in place of force.
