most stupid of the restored sovereigns, Ferdinand VII of Spain.
Buenos Aires, however, never recognized his rule, and her
general, the knightly San Martin, in one of the most remarkable
campaigns of history, scaled the Andes and carried the flag of
revolution into Chili and Peru. Venezuela, that hive of
revolution, sent forth Bolivar to found the new republics of
Colombia and Bolivia. Mexico freed herself, and Brazil separated
herself from Portugal. By 1822 European rule had been practically
swept off the American mainland, from Cape Horn to the borders of
Canada, and, except for the empire of Dom Pedro in Brazil, the
newly born nations had adopted the republican form of government
which the European monarchs despised. The spirit of unrest leaped
eastward across the Atlantic. Revolutions in Spain, Portugal, and
Naples sought impiously and with constitutions to bind the hands
of their kings. Even the distant Greeks and Serbians sought their
independence from the Turk.

Divine Right, just rescued from the French Revolution, was
tottering and had yet to test the strength of its new props, the
"Holy" and the "Quadruple" alliances, and the policy of
intervention to maintain the status quo. Congresses at
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, at Troppau in 1820, and at Laibach in
1821, decided to refuse recognition to governments resting on
such revolutions, to offer mediation to restore the old order,
and, if this were refused, to intervene by force. In the United
States, on the other hand, founded on the right of revolution and
dedicated to government by the people, these popular movements
were greeted with enthusiasm. The fiery Clay, speaker and leader
of the House of Representatives, made himself champion of the
cause of the Spanish Americans; Daniel Webster thundered forth