That is the popular paraphrase of the Monroe doctrine. And the popular voice has favoured--aye, and the greatest statesmen among them have looked upon it as inevitable--an extension of the principles of democracy over this continent. Now, I suppose a universal democracy is no more acceptable to us than a universal monarchy in Europe would have been to our ancestors; yet for three centuries--from Charles V. to Napoleon--our fathers combated to the death against the subjugation of all Europe to a single system or a single master, and heaped up a debt which has since burdened the producing classes of the Empire with an enormous load of taxation, which, perhaps, none other except the hardy and ever-growing industry of those little islands could have borne up under. The idea of a universal democracy in America is no more welcome to the minds of thoughtful men among us than was that of a universal monarchy to the minds of the thoughtful men who followed the standard of the third William, or who afterwards, under the great Marlborough, opposed the armies of the particular dynasty that sought to place Europe under a single dominion. "But if we are to have a universal democracy on this continent, the Lower Provinces--the smaller fragments--will be 'gobbled up' first, and we will come in afterwards by way of dessert. The proposed Confederation will enable us to bear up shoulder to shoulder; to resist the spread of this universal democracy doctrine; it will make it more desirable to maintain on both sides the connection that binds us to the parent State; it will raise us from the position of mere dependent colonies to a new and more important position; it will give us a new lease of existence under other and more favourable conditions; and resistance to this project, which is pregnant with so many advantages to us and to our children, means simply this, ultimate union with the United States. But these are small matters, wholly unworthy of the attention of the Smiths, and Annands, and Palmers, who have come forward to forbid the banns of British-American Union. Mr. Speaker, before I draw to a close the little remainder of what I have to say-- and I am sorry to have detained the House so long--