of an American nation, they would have to fight not only that American nation, but the United States as well. Now the Senate was opposed to it and Congress was opposed to it and Thomas H. Benton made the speech of his life against it. The bitterness was greater then than it is today against the League, and the argument was that it would involve us in so many ways that it would destroy the country. Nevertheless, the doctrine was issued and what has been the result? That is ninety-six years ago, and that doctrine has been maintained inviolate ever since, without our engaging in war on account of it and without firing a shot or losing a man. Just because we threatened.
There was one instance of a violation that was an exception but it is the exception that proves the rule. During the Civil War when our hands were tied so that we could not act and could not maintain the threat, then Napoleon III, that fakir Emperor of France, sent troops over here to Mexico and set up the Empire of Maximilian. He did it for three years against our protest, but we had no means of resisting. Then Appomatox came and we sent Sheridan with thirty or forty thousand troops to the Mexican border, and the interest of Napoleon in Mexico ended and he withdrew his troops, and the empire of Maximilian passed and he was tried and shot, and the independence of Mexico was restored. That shows the Monroe Doctrine has been maintained by the threat of the United States with the power to back up that threat. The minute that the power was taken away, the minute it was seen that the United States could not act, then the greedy nations of Europe came over here—and they had been greedy all the time for colonization in other countries than in America. If that be the result of a threat of one nation which has not the power of imposing the universal boycott, what must necessarily be the result of the union of all nations within the League, beginning with the universal boycott, with its withering isolation and destructive character? I say, no nation will court such disaster. The League becomes effective by its minatory character and its overwhelming power. These features of the League will take away the necessity for the actual exercise of force.
That is the second great step.
We Can “Agree” to Make War
I don't know whether I ought to stop to argue the question whether we can agree to make war or not. It is said we cannot agree to make war because congress has to make war. Of course congress has to declare, to make, war, but we can agree in advance that under certain conditions we will make war. We have done it. We guaranteed the integrity of Pan-
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