Monroe, Gallatin, and many other statesmen wished as active a policy in support of the Greeks as of the Spanish Americans.

Adams insisted, however, that the United States should create a sphere for its interests and should confine itself to that sphere.

His plan for peace provided that European and American interests should not only not clash but should not even meet.
The President's message of December 2, 1823, amounted to a rejection of the Holy Alliance as guardian of the world's peace, of Canning's request for an entente, and of the proposal that the United States enter upon a campaign to republicanize the world.

It stated the intention of the Government to refrain from interference in Europe, and its belief that it was "impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent [of America] without endangering our peace and happiness." The message contained a strong defense of the republican system of government and of the right of nations to control their own internal development.

It completed the foreign policy of the United States by declaring, in connection with certain recent encroachments of Russia along the northwest coast, that the era of colonization in the Americas was over.