which had convulsed Europe was the spirit of liberty bred in
France in the days of the Revolution; if order was to be
restored, there must be a return to the former autocratic
principle of government, to the doctrine of "Divine Right"; it
was for kings and emperors to command; it was the duty of
subjects to obey. These principles had not, it was true,
preserved peace in the past, but Metternich now proposed that, in
the future, sovereigns or their representatives should meet "at
fixed periods" to adjust their own differences and to assist one
another in enforcing the obedience of subjects everywhere. The
rulers were reasonably well satisfied with the world as it was
arranged by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and determined to set
their faces against any change in the relations of governments to
one another or to their subjects. They regretted, indeed, that
the Government of the United States was built upon the sands of a
popular vote, but they recognized that it was apparently well
established and decently respectable, and therefore worthy of
recognition by the mutual protection society of the Holy
Alliance.

The subjects of these sovereigns, however, did not all share the
satisfaction of their masters, and some of them soon showed that
much as they desired peace they desired other things even more.
The inhabitants of Spanish America, while their imperial mother
was in the chaos of Napoleon's wars, had nibbled at the forbidden
fruit of freedom. They particularly desired freedom to buy the
products of British factories, which cost less and satisfied
better than those previously furnished by the Spanish merchants,
secure in their absolute monopoly. With peace came renewed
monopoly, haughty officials, and oppressive laws dictated by that