Fully aware as Adams was of the danger that threatened both America and liberty, he was not in favor of accepting Canning's proposal for the cooperation of England and the United States. He based his opposition upon two fundamental objections. In the first place he was not prepared to say that the United States desired no more Spanish territory. Not that Adams desired or would tolerate conquest. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase he had wished to postpone annexation until the assent of the people of that province could be obtained. But he believed that all the territory necessary for the geographical completeness of the United States had not yet been brought under the flag. He had just obtained Florida from Spain and a claim westward to the Pacific north of the forty-second parallel, but he considered the Southwest--Texas, New Mexico, and California--a natural field of expansion. These areas, then almost barren of white settlers, he expected time to bring into the United States, and he also expected that the people of Cuba would ultimately rejoice to become incorporated in the Union. He wished natural forces to work out their own results, without let or hindrance. Not only was Adams opposed to Canning's proposed self-denying ordinance, but he was equally averse to becoming a partner with England. Such cooperation might well prove in time to be an "entangling alliance," involving the United States in problems of no immediate concern to its people and certainly in a partnership in which the other member would be dominant. If Canning saw liberal England as a perpetual minority in absolutist Europe, Adams saw republican America as a perpetual inferior to monarchical England. Although England, with Canada, the West Indies, and her commerce, was a great American power, Adams believed that the United States, the oldest independent nation in America, with a government which gave the model to the rest, could not admit her to joint, leadership, for her power was in, not of, America, and her government was monarchical. Already Adams had won a strategic advantage over Canning, for in the previous year, 1822, the United States had recognized the new South American republics.