than such an undertaking. The Holy Alliance darkly plotting at its conferences and congresses in Europe to reëstablish the odious despotism of Spain over South and Central America, and thus to gain a basis of operations for interference with the North American Republic, had frequently disturbed his dreams. To form against this league of despotism in the old world a league of republics in the new, and thus to make this great continent the ark of human liberty and a higher civilization, was one of those large, generous conceptions well calculated to fascinate his ardent mind. He succeeded even in infusing some of his enthusiasm into Adams's colder nature. The invitation was promptly accepted. But the definition of the objects of the Congress, filtered through Adams's sober mind, appeared somewhat tame by the side of the original South American scheme, and probably of Clay's desires, too. The South Americans had thought of a league for resistance against a common enemy; of a combination of forces, among themselves at least, to be favored by the United States, for the liberation of Cuba and Porto Rico from Spanish power; of some concert of action for the general enforcement of the principles of the American policy proclaimed by President Monroe, and so on. It is very probable that Clay, although not going quite so far, had in his mind some permanent concert among American states looking to expressions of a common will, and to united action when emergency should require.
