of wards but, instead, a full and honorable association as of partners between ourselves and our neighbors, in the interest of all America, north and south.  Our concern for the independence and prosperity of the states of Central and South America is not altered.  We retain unabated the spirit that has inspired us throughout the whole life of our government and which was so frankly put into words by President Monroe.  We still mean always to make a common cause of national independence and of political liberty in America.  But that purpose is now better understood so far as it concerns ourselves.  It is known not to be a selfish purpose.  It is known to have in it no thought of taking advantage of any government in this hemisphere or playing its political fortunes for our own benefit.  All the governments of America stand, so far as we are concerned, upon a footing of genuine equality and unquestioned independence.

We have been put to the test in the case of Mexico, and we have stood the test.  Whether we have benefited Mexico by the course we have pursued remains to be seen.  Her fortunes are in her own hands.  But we have at least proved that we will not take advantage of her in her distress and undertake to impose upon her an order and government of our own choosing.  Liberty is often a fierce and intractable thing, to which no bounds can be set, and to which no bounds of a few men’s choosing ought ever to be set.  Every American who has drunk at the true fountains of principle and tradition must subscribe without reservation to the high doctrine of the Virginia Bill of Rights, which in the great days in which our government was set up was everywhere amongst us accepted as the creed of free men.  That doctrine is, “That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community”; that “of all the various modes and forms of government, that is the best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.”  We have unhesitatingly applied that heroic principle to the case of Mexico, and now hopefully await the rebirth of the troubled Republic, which had so much of which to purge itself and so little sympathy from any outside quarter in the radical but necessary process.  We will aid and befriend Mexico, but we will not coerce her; and our course with regard to her ought to be sufficient proof to all America that we seek no political suzerainty or selfish control.