amity with them, the earliest of which, negotiated by Mr. John Quincy
Adams, served as the model for the subsequent treaties with the Spanish
American Republics. We also, simultaneously therewith, exerted our good
offices with Spain to induce her to submit to the inevitable result and
herself to accept and acknowledge the independence of her late colonies.
We endeavored to induce Russia to join us in these representations.
In all this our action was positive, in the direction of promoting the
complete political separation of America from Europe.

A vast field was thus opened to the statesmen of the United States for
the peaceful introduction, the spread, and the permanent establishment
of the American ideas of republican government, of modification of the
laws of war, of liberalization of commerce, of religious freedom and
toleration, and of the emancipation of the New World from the dynastic
and balance of power controversies of Europe.

Mr. John Quincy Adams, beyond any other statesman of the time in this
country, had the knowledge and experience, both European and American,
the comprehension of thought and purpose, and the moral convictions
which peculiarly fitted him to introduce our country into this new field
and to lay the foundation of an American policy. The declaration known
as the Monroe doctrine, and the objects and purposes of the congress of
Panama, both supposed to have been largely inspired by Mr. Adams, have
influenced public events from that day to this as a principle of
government for this continent and its adjacent islands.

It was at the period of the congress of Aix-la-Chapelle and of
Laybach, when the "Holy Alliance" was combined to arrest all political
changes in Europe in the sense of liberty, when they were intervening
in southern Europe for the reestablishment of absolutism, and when they