Excerpt from Handbook of the Venezuelan Question and the Monroe Doctrine That effect it probably had an agency in producing; and, if so, it has performed its office. The President had no power to bind the Nation by such a pledge." Polk in 1845 and 1848. When Polk uttered these words he was a member of Congress from Tennessee. But when our country was next called on to apply the doctrine Polk was President of the United States and had been elected by a party whose cry was "Give us Texas or divide the spoons!" "The whole of Oregon or none; fifty-four, forty, or fight!" and saw before him a war with Mexico and serious trouble with England. In 1826 the Monroe doctrine, he thought, had been "designed to produce an effect on the councils of the Holy Alliance" and "had performed its office." Now he found it had still an office to perform, gave his "cordial concurrence in its wisdom and sound policy," and sent this message to Congress: "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 cannot, therefore, view with indifference attempts of European powers to interfere with the Independent action of nations on this continent." The cause of these remarks was the dispute - in which we were then engaged with England - regarding the ownership of the Oregon country. She claimed as far south as the Columbia River. We claimed as far north as 54 degrees 40 minutes. It was as much a territorial dispute as that now going on with Venezuela. Yet Polk did not hesitate to apply the Monroe doctrine and to assert that "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." Again a little while and Polk applied the doctrine to the purely territorial case of Yucatan. A war had broken out between the Indians and the whites who, driven to desperation, appealed for help to England, Spain, and the United States, offering in return the dominion and sovereignty of the Peninsula. This was not a case of interference by any foreign power. No effort was being made by any European nation to "extend its system." Two such powers had been invited by a hard-pressed people struggling for life to defend them and take in return their country. But Polk, taking the broad ground that any European people who by any means gained on our continents one foot of territory more than they had in 1823, even with the consent and at the request of the owners of it, were "extending their system," sent this message to Congress in.