It is well known to the American people and to all nations that this Government has never interfered with the relations subsisting between other governments.  We have never made ourselves parties to their wars or their alliances; we have not sought their territories by conquest; we have not mingled with parties in their domestic struggles; and believing our own form of government to be the best, we have never attempted to propagate it by intrigues, by diplomacy, or by force.  We may claim on this continent a like exemption from European interference.  The nations of America are equally sovereign and independent with those of Europe.  They possess the same rights, independent of all foreign interposition, to make war, to conclude peace, and to regulate their internal affairs.  The people of the United States can not, therefore, view with indifference attempts of European powers to interfere with the independent action of the nations on this continent.  The American system of government is entirely different from that of Europe.  Jealousy among the different sovereigns of Europe, lest any one of them might become too powerful for the rest, has caused them anxiously to desire the establishment of what they term the “balance of power.”  It can not be permitted to have any application on the North American continent, and especially to the United States.  We must ever maintain the principle that the people of this continent alone have the right to decide their own destiny.  Should any portion of them, constituting an independent state, propose to unite themselves with our Confederacy, this will be a question for them and us to determine without any foreign interposition.  We can never consent that European powers shall interfere to prevent such a union because it might disturb the “balance of power” which they may desire to maintain upon this continent.  Near a quarter of a century ago the principle was distinctly announced to the world, in the annual message of one of my predecessors, that—­

The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for colonization by any European powers.

This principle will apply with greatly increased force should any European power attempt to establish any new colony in North America.  In the existing circumstances of the world the present is deemed a proper occasion to reiterate and reaffirm the principle avowed by Mr. Monroe and to state my cordial concurrence in its wisdom and sound policy.  The reassertion of this principle, especially in reference to North America, is at this day but the promulgation of a policy which no European power should cherish the disposition to resist.  Existing rights of every European nation should be respected, but it is due alike to our safety and our interests that the efficient protection of our laws should be extended over our whole territorial limits, and that it should be distinctly announced to the world as our settled policy that no future European colony or dominion shall with our consent be planted or established on any part of the North American continent.