, CIX., 857.]
This classic statement of the position of the United States in the
New World, therefore, applied an old tendency on the part of this
country to a particular exigency. Its authorship can hardly be
attributed to any single individual, but its peculiar significance
at this juncture lay in the fact that the United States came
forward, unconnected with Europe, as the champion of the autonomy
and freedom of America, and declared that the era of European
colonization in the New World had passed away. The idea of an
American system, under the leadership of the United States,
unhampered by dependence upon European diplomacy, had been
eloquently and clearly voiced by Henry Clay in 1820. But John Quincy
Adams also reached the conception of an independent American system,
and to him belongs the credit for the doctrine that the two Americas
were closed to future political colonization. His office of
secretary of state placed him where he was able to insist upon a
consistent, clear-cut, and independent expression of the doctrine of
an American system.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322