Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/258

210 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independ ence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just princi ples, acknowledged, we could not view any inter position for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." At the close of Monroe s second term as presi dent he retired to private life, and during the seven years that remained to him resided part of the time at Oak Hill, Loudon County, Va., and part of the time in the city of New York. The illustration ac companying this biography is a picture of Oak Hill. He accepted the office of regent in the University of Virginia in 1826 with Jefferson and Madison. He was asked to serve on the elec toral ticket of Virginia in 1828, but declined on the ground that an ex-president should not be a party-leader. He consented to act as a local magistrate, however, and to become a member of the Virginia constitutional convention. The ad ministration of Monroe has often been designated