VI

NON-INTERVENTION AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE

AMONG the rules of conduct prescribed for the United States by the statesmen who formulated its foreign policy, none was conceived to be more fundamental or more distinctively American than that which forbade intervention in the political affairs of other nations. The right of the government to intervene for the protection of its citizens in foreign lands and on the high seas never was doubted; nor was such action withheld in proper cases. But, warned by the spectacle of the great European struggles that had marked the attempts of nations to control one another's political destiny, the statesmen of America, believing that they had a different mission to perform, planted themselves upon the principle of the equality of nations as expounded by Grotius and other masters of international law. This principle was expressed with peculiar felicity and force by Vattel, who declared that nations inherited from nature "the same obligations and rights," that power or weakness could not in this respect produce any difference, and that a "small

republic" was "no less a sovereign state than the most powerful kingdom." The same thought was tersely phrased by Chief-Justice Marshall, in his celebrated affirmation: "No principle is more universally acknowledged than the perfect equality of nations. Russia and Geneva have equal rights.” And as the Declaration of Independence proclaimed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be "inalienable rights" of individual men, so the founders of the American republic ascribed the same rights to men in their aggregate political capacity as independent nations.

While the principle of non-intervention formed an integral part of the political philosophy of American statesmen, its practical importance was profoundly impressed upon them by the narrowness of their escape from being drawn, by the alliance with France, into the vortex of the European conflicts that grew out of the French Revolution. Even before American independence was acknowledged by Great Britain, American statesmen scented the dangers that lurked in a possible implication in European broils. "You are afraid," said Richard Oswald to John Adams, "of being made the tool of the powers of Europe." "Indeed, I am,' said Adams. "What powers?" inquired Oswald. “All of them," replied Adams; "it is obvious that all the powers of Europe will be continually manoeuvring with us to work us into their real or imaginary bal

ances of power. . . . But I think that it ought to be our rule not to meddle." In 1793, the revolutionary government of France, apparently doubting the applicability of the existing alliance with the United States to the situation in Europe, submitted a proposal for "a national agreement, in which two great peoples shall suspend their commercial and political interests and establish a mutual understanding to defend the empire of liberty, wherever it can be embraced." This proposal the American government declined; and its response found practical embodiment in its acts. The reasons for the policy of non-intervention and neutrality, to which the administration of the time so sedulously adhered, were eloquently summed up by Washington in that immortal political legacy, his Farewell Address. "The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations," said Washington, "is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop." The same thought was conveyed by Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, in the apothegm— "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."

The policy of non-intervention embraced matters of religion as well as of politics. By the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Con

gress was expressly forbidden to make any law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This inhibition against governmental interference with religious opinions and practices was in its spirit extended to the intercourse of the United States with foreign nations. In Article ix. of the treaty between the United States and Tripoli, which was concluded on November 4, 1796, during the administration of Washington, we find this significant declaration: "As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity of Mussulmen, . . . it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." With the omission of the introductory phrase, a similar declaration was inserted in the treaty with Tripoli of 1805, and in the treaties with Algiers of 1815 and 1816. A stipulation less broad in its tolerance appears in Article xxix. of the treaty between the United States and China, signed at Tientsin, June 18, 1858. This article, after reciting that the principles of the Christian religion are "recognized as teaching men to do good, and to do to others as they would have others do to them," provides that "any person, whether citizen of the United States or Chinese convert, who, ac