England's invulnerableness tantalized him; her habitual luck infuriated
him. Her ownership of the right thing at the right place and time
mystified him. Concretely now there were the Mosquito Islands off the
coast of Honduras which England claimed to own, but Douglas thought
without any right. He was advocating the cutting of a canal across
Nicaragua. What would England do? She would try to use the Mosquito
Islands as a basis of agreement for joint control with the United States
of the canal--in spite of the Monroe Doctrine. Why would not all
statesmen rise with him in the assertion of a title to the whole of
North America? Was America in the business of pirating around the shores
of Europe to pick up islands, or promontories like Gibraltar? Not at
all. Then why should England be tolerated in this Western Hemisphere?
What divided the American imagination? The old loyalists and royalists
who had become the Federalists under Hamilton, who were now the Whigs
with the same banking scheme, the same old tariff, the same old hatred
of democratic government, the same hypocrisy, the same disingenuous and
devious policies. There was but one American party, one pure-blooded
party, good for the East and the West, friendly to every just thing that
the East desired, understanding the West; that was the Democratic party!
It stood for America.
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