These statements by Mr. Monroe of his opinion as to what the diplomacy of the United States ought to be, and would be, upon the subjects of the establishment of new European colonies in America, the intervention of the Holy Alliance Powers in the question between Spain and her revolting American colonies, and the forcible imposition by these powers of the _jure divino_ monarchy {128} upon these peoples, who had established republican forms of government for themselves, have had the name fixed upon them by a later generation of "The Monroe Doctrine." There is no difficulty in understanding these statements as Mr. Monroe understood them. Neither he nor his Secretary of State ever called them a "Doctrine." With them they were simply the opinions of the Administration in regard to the course which the United States ought to pursue, and would probably pursue, in meeting certain exigencies, the possibility of the arising of which passed entirely away before the close of the first half of this century. These opinions were simply that the United States ought to resist, and would resist, the planting of any new colonial establishments in America, or the intervention of the Holy Alliance Powers in the question between Spain and her revolting American colonies, or the forcible imposition of the _jure divino_ monarchy, the political system of these powers, upon the new republican governments of South and Middle America. [Sidenote: Failure to commit Congress to these propositions.] The month following the publication of this message, January, 1824, Mr. Clay attempted to move Congress to indorse that part of the President's opinions which referred to the intervention of the Allied Powers in the conflict between Spain and her revolting colonies, but the resolution which he offered to that effect was laid on the table, and never called up. Mr. Poinsett, of South Carolina, made a like attempt later, but with no more success. The Congress of that day had altogether too much intelligence to make diplomatic opinions, advanced by the Administration, either laws of the land, or joint or concurrent resolutions of the legislative department of the Government. {129} [Sidenote: The particularistic reaction scarcely discoverable before 1824.]