honorable, and beneficial to both parties. The relations between the United States and South America have been chiefly political rather than commercial or personal. In the early days of the South American struggle for independence, the eloquence of Henry Clay awakened in the American people a generous sympathy for the patriots of the south as for brethren struggling in the common cause of liberty. The clear-eyed, judicious diplomacy of Richard Rush, the American minister at the Court of St. James, effected a complete understanding with Great Britain for concurrent action in opposition to the designs of the Holy Alliance, already contemplating the partition of the southern continent among the great powers of continental Europe. The famous declaration of Monroe arrayed the organized and rapidly increasing power of the United States as an obstacle to European interference and made it forever plain that the cost of European aggression would be greater than any advantage which could be won even by successful aggression. That great declaration was not the chance expression of the opinion or the feeling of the moment; it crystallized the sentiment for human liberty and human rights which has saved American idealism from the demoralization of narrow selfishness, and has given to American democracy its true world power in the virile potency of a great example. It responded to the instinct of self-preservation in an intensely practical people. It was the result of conference with Jefferson and Madison and John Quincy Adams and John C. Calhoun and William Wirt--a combination of political wisdom, experience, and skill not easily surpassed. The particular circumstances which led to the declaration no longer exist; no Holy Alliance now threatens to partition South America; no European colonization of the west coast threatens to exclude us from the Pacific. But those conditions were merely the occasion for the declaration of a principle of action. Other occasions for the application of the principle have arisen since; it needs no prophetic vision to see that other occasions for its application may arise hereafter. The principle declared by Monroe is as wise an expression of sound political judgment today, as truthful a representation of the sentiments and instincts of the American people today, as living in its force as an effective rule of conduct whenever occasion shall arise, as it was on December 2, 1823. These great political services to South American independence, however, did not and could not in the nature of things create any relation between the people of South America and the people of the United States except a relation of political sympathy.