MONROE

I have been requested to write my opinion as to by what act or policy will ex-President Monroe be best remembered by posterity. Public men are remembered not so much for what they are as for what great policies or acts their names happen to be associated with. The plain, simple-minded backwoodsman, Daniel Boone, occupies a large place in the history of this country, because he first pushed westward into the wilderness and established a home for our race beyond the Alleghenies, and learned lawyers and statesmen of that time who would have looked down with contempt upon the plain pioneer have been forgotten, while Boone is gratefully remembered by millions of Americans. James Monroe is peculiarly fortunate because his name is associated, first, with the great westward extension of our domain beyond the Mississippi, and secondly, with the enunciation of a great doctrine which must for all time dominate the Western Hemisphere. When President Jefferson saw the necessity of securing the mouth of the Mississippi, in order to prevent the western backwoodsmen from going down the river and forcibly taking possession and thus precipitating a war with France-Jefferson being of a conservative and somewhat timid nature he attempted to divert this by purchasing from France the mouth of that river, and having confidence in the ability of Mr. Monroe, he sent him on a special mission to France for this purpose.

As Napoleon was about to declare war against Great Britain, and knowing that the British fleet had weakened the sea power of both France and Spain, and that it would be almost impossible to hold the mouth of the Mississippi river, he was in a frame of mind to treat favorably the proposition made by Mr. Monroe, and our minister to France, Mr. Livingston. Through their combined efforts, but more particularly through the efforts of Mr. Monroe, we were enabled to secure for a small sum not only the mouth of the Mississippi, but the vast territory extending west to the Rocky Mountains; thus fixing the destiny of this country and making it for all time the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere.

After the crushing defeat of the French and Spanish navies by Nelson at Trafalgar, Great Britain was left mistress of the seas, which supremacy, however, was disputed in 1812 by the descendants of the sea rovers who had commenced to build a great empire in the Western Hemisphere. The Spanish colonies extending from Mexico to Cape Horn had succeeded in throwing off the Spanish yoke, but European powers, fearing the extension of republican institutions, formed what is known as the "Holy Alliance," with Russia at its head, and deter