The fear of giving umbrage to the Holy League of Europe was urged as a motive for denying to the American nations the acknowledgment of their independence.

The Congress and the administration of that day consulted their rights and their duties, not their fears.

The United States must still, as heretofore, take counsel from their duties, rather than their fears." Contrast, fellow-citizens, this declaration of John Quincy Adams, President of the United States in 1825, with the proclamation of neutrality, between the belligerents of Europe, made by Washington in 1793, with the querrulous complaints of your Ministers against the French Directory and the British Ministry at the close of the last century, and with the acts of embargo and non-intercourse at the beginning of the present century, destroying our own commerce to conquer forbearance from the intolerant European powers.

Learn from this contrast, the epoch of the consolidation of the Republic.

Thus instructed, do honor to the statesman and magistrate by whom, not forgetting the meed due to his illustrious compeers, the colonial system was overthrown throughout Spanish America, and the independence of the United States was completely and finally consummated.
The intrepid and unwearied statesman now directed his attention to the remnants of the colonial system still preserved in the Canadas and West Indies.