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 consideration 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." [Footnote: Richardson,
Messages and Papers, II., 207-218; cf. Hart, Foundations of Am.
Foreign Policy, chap. vii.] Herein was the assertion of the well-
established opposition of the United States to the doctrine of
intervention as violating the equality of nations. It was the
affirmation also of the equality of the Old and the New World in
diplomatic relations, and the announcement of the paramount interest
of the United States in American affairs. [Footnote: Moore, "Non-
Intervention and the Monroe Doctrine," in Harper's Mag.
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