SIR : Washington, Dec. 12, 1818 With respect to the conduct of General Jackson in the invasion of Florida, and the excesses committed there in violation of the sovereignty and dignity of a friendly Power, as they are public and notorious, and sufficiently reprobated by public opinion . . I abstain from answering the arguments by which you have endeavored to justify that officer in the note I have the honor to reply to. Whatever may be the causes which, in the view of your Government, justified the war against the Seminoles, you cannot fail to admit how improbable it is that those miserable Indians, feeble and wholly destitute as they are, could have provoked it. In the letter of the chief Boleck to the Governor of St. Augustine, of the 20th December, 1816, a copy of which I had the honor to transmit to you on the 27th March last, you must have remarked that he speaks of assassinations, carrying off of men and cattle, usurpations of his territory, and even forging of treaties for the cession of lands, signed or marked by the names of persons unknown to the chiefs of the Creek nation, who, he adds, are alone authorized to transfer the general property; of all of which he accuses the Americans. Besides, the friendship and good understanding existing between the two nations . . . decisively required that any complaints which there might be against the Indians should be laid before His Majesty's Government [Spain], or before his Minister near this Republic, previous to the adoption of violent measures; as it was scarcely possible that those excesses could be restrained by His Majesty so long as he remained ignorant of them. . . . The unquestionable fact is, that General Jackson, at the head of his army, fell upon Florida as a haughty invader and conqueror, regardless of the laws of humanity and the feelings of nature, and put to death two foreigners, who there enjoyed the protection of Spain, and an asylum which has ever been held sacred by all civilized nations; thereby offering an unexampled insult to the sovereignty and independence of Spain; trampling under foot the most solemn compacts, founded on the laws of nations; and contemptuously driving from that province the Spanish commandants and troops in garrison there... Luis de Onis A fortnight before de Onis presented the above note to our State Department, Secretary Adams had dispatched to our minister at Madrid, George W. Erving, his famous letter of instructions which was tantamount to an ultimatum to Spain.1 After "reminding the government of his Catholic Majesty of the incidents in which this Seminole war originated," and giving the Spanish cabinet some precise information of the nature of the business" in which Spain's "allies" were engaged when they were interrupted by General Jackson, Mr. Adams continues : After the repeated expostulations, warnings, and offers of peace, through the summer and autumn of 1817, on the part of the United States, had been answered only by renewed outrages, and after a detachment of forty men under Lieutenant Scott, accompanied by seven women, had been waylaid and murdered by the Indians, orders were given to General Jackson, and an adequate force was placed at his disposal to terminate the war. It was ascertained that the Spanish force in Florida was inadequate for the protection even of the Spanish territory itself against this mingled horde of lawless Indians and negroes; and although their devastations were committed within the limits of the United States, they immediately sought refuge within the Florida line, and there only were to be overtaken. ... There it was that the American commander met the principal resistance from them; there it was that were found the still bleeding scalps 1 It is interesting to compare with the high tone assumed towards Spain the real feeling of the President and of Secretary Adams in the Florida affair. Adams records in his "Memoirs," under the date of November 23, 1818: "The President returned me the draft of a letter to Onis, with some alterations which he suggested as necessary. He thought, among other things, that I had gone too far in the justification of Jackson's proceedings in Florida. He says he is decidedly of opinion that these proceedings have been attended with good results, and that they were in the main justifiable. But they were certainly not contemplated in any of the instructions given to Jackson, He also thinks that the ultimate and deliberate opinion of the public will not entirely justify Jackson, in which opinion I entirely concur." - Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. IV, p. 176. of our citizens, freshly butchered by them. . . . But it was anticipated by this Government that the commanding officers Spain in Florida, whose especial duty it was, in conformity the solemn engagements contracted by their nation, to restr by force those Indians from hostilities against the United Sta [by the treaty of 1795], would be found encouraging, aiding, a abetting them, and furnishing them supplies for carrying such hostilities. The officer in command immediately bef General Jackson was, therefore, specially instructed to resp as far as possible, the Spanish authority, wherever it was ma tained; and copies of these orders were also furnished General Jackson, upon his taking the command. In the course of his pursuit, as he approached St. Mark's was informed direct from the Governor of Pensacola that a pa of the hostile Indians had threatened to seize that fort, and he apprehended the Spanish garrison there was not in stren sufficient to defend it against them. This information . . . pro to have been exactly true. By all the laws of neutrality an war, as well as of prudence and of humanity, he was warra in anticipating his enemy by the amicable, and, that being fused, by the forcible occupation of the fort. There will no citations from printed treatises on international law to p the correctness of this principle. It is engraved in adaman the common sense of mankind. . . . On the approach of General Jackson to Pensacola, the ernor sent him a letter denouncing his entry upon the terr of Florida as a violent outrage on the rights of Spain, comm ing him to depart and withdraw from the same, and threate in case of his non-compliance, to employ force to expel hin It became, therefore, in the opinion of General Jackson, pensably necessary to take from the Governor of Pensacol means of carrying his threat into execution. . . . He took session therefore of Pensacola and of the fort of Barranc he had done of St. Mark's, not in a spirit of hostility to S but as a necessary measure of self-defence; giving notice they should be restored whenever Spain should place com ers and a force there able and willing to fulfil the engage of Spain towards the United States, or of restraining by the Florida Indians from hostilities against their citizens. You are authorized to communicate the whole of this letter, and the accompanying documents, to the Spanish Government. I have the honor, etc., etc. John Quincy Adams Monroe December 2, 1823 [206] The famous paragraphs in President Monroe's seventh 63. The annual message to Congress, December 2, 1823, which Doctrine, announced the policy of the United States in regard to the interference of the European powers in the affairs of this continent, either for the acquisition of new colonies or for the disturbance of existing governments, have gained an added interest in the last few decades, by reason both of our entrance into the ranks of the great naval powers which have conquered and colonized distant lands, and of our increasing concern in the fortunes of the republics of Central and South America. Although the Monroe Doctrine is the only official pronouncement in our history that bears the name of a president, it was not Monroe's, nor any other man's, doctrine. It was simply a clear statement, at a critical moment, of our policy, asserted repeatedly from the days of Washington down, to keep America as remote as possible from the complicated quarrels of the courts of Europe. A precise knowledge of our relations with foreign powers as respects our negotiations and transactions with each is thought to be particularly necessary. Equally necessary is it that we should form a just estimate of our resources, revenue, and progress in every kind of improvement connected with the national prosperity and public defense. It is by rendering justice to other nations that we may expect it from them. It is by our ability to resent injuries and redress wrongs that we may avoid them. . . . At the proposal of the Russian Imperial Government, made through the minister of the Emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg, to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the north-west coast of this continent. . . . In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, 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 future colonization by any European powers. . . . It was stated at the commencement of the last session that a great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of the people of those countries,1 and that 1 In the midsummer of 1822 the revolutionists of Spain had gotten the upper hand and compelled the absolute Bourbon king, Ferdinand VII, to acknowledge a constitutional régime. Then French forces under the Duke of Angoulême invaded Spain (April, 1823) and restored the absolute king in a violent civil war. Riego, the leader of the revolutionists, |