The duty of opposition to filibustering has been admitted by every President.  Washington encountered the efforts of Genet and of the French revolutionists; John Adams, the projects of Miranda; Jefferson, the schemes of Aaron Burr.  Madison and subsequent Presidents had to deal with the question of foreign enlistment or equipment in the United States, and since the days of John Quincy Adams it has been one of the constant cares of Government in the United States to prevent piratical expeditions against the feeble Spanish American Republics from leaving our shores.  In no country are men wanting for any enterprise that holds out promise of adventure or of gain.

In the early days of our national existence the whole continent of America (outside of the limits of the United States) and all its islands were in colonial dependence upon European powers.

The revolutions which from 1810 spread almost simultaneously through all the Spanish American continental colonies resulted in the establishment of new States, like ourselves, of European origin, and interested in excluding European politics and the questions of dynasty and of balances of power from further influence in the New World.

The American policy of neutrality, important before, became doubly so from the fact that it became applicable to the new Republics as well as to the mother country.

It then devolved upon us to determine the great international question at what time and under what circumstances to recognize a new power as entitled to a place among the family of nations, as well as the preliminary question of the attitude to be observed by this Government toward the insurrectionary party pending the contest.

Mr. Monroe concisely expressed the rule which has controlled the action of this Government with reference to revolting colonies pending their struggle by saying: 

As soon as the movement assumed such a steady and consistent form as to make the success of the Provinces probable, the rights to which they were entitled by the laws of nations as equal parties to a civil war were extended to them.

The strict adherence to this rule of public policy has been one of the highest honors of American statesmanship, and has secured to this Government the confidence of the feeble powers on this continent, which induces them to rely upon its friendship and absence of designs of conquest and to look to the United States for example and moral protection.  It has given to this Government a position of prominence and of influence which it should not abdicate, but which imposes upon it the most delicate duties of right and of honor regarding American questions, whether those questions affect emancipated colonies or colonies still subject to European dominion.