The Monroe Doctrine, as now familiarly called, proceeded from Canning. He was its inventor, promoter, and champion, at least so far as it bears against European intervention in American affairs. Earnestly engaged in counteracting the designs of the Holy Alliance for the restoration of the Spanish colonies to Spain, he sought to enlist the United States in the same policy; and when Mr. Rush, our minister at London, replied, that any interference with European politics was contrary to the traditions of the American Government, he argued, that, however just such a policy might have been formerly, it was no longer applicable,--that the question was new and complicated,--that it was “full as much American as European, to say no more,”--that “it concerned the United States under aspects and interests as immediate and commanding as it did or could any of the States of Europe,”--that “they were the first power established on that continent, and now confessedly the leading power”; and he then asked: “Was it possible that they could see with indifference their fate decided upon by Europe?… Had not a new epoch arrived in the relative position of the United States towards Europe, which Europe must acknowledge? _Were the great political and commercial interests_ which hung upon the destinies of the new continent to be canvassed and adjusted in this hemisphere, without the coöperation, or even knowledge, of the United States?”[628] With mingled ardor and importunity the British Minister pressed his case. At last, after much discussion in the Cabinet at Washington, President Monroe, accepting the lead of Mr. Canning, and with the counsel of John Quincy Adams, put forth his famous declaration, where, after referring to the radical difference between the political systems of Europe and America, he says, that “we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as _dangerous to our peace and safety_,” and that, where governments have been recognized by us as independent, “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 towards the United States_.”[629]