Hail! Neighbour Republics!
San Martin continued to wage his successful campaign against the Spaniards. Now, let us leave him and Peru for a moment.
Let us turn to the United States and see what we were doing about all this.
We recognized our sister Republics for the first time on March 8, 1822.
On that day President Monroe sent a special message to Congress saying, “the Provinces belonging to this hemisphere are our neighbours.” He recommended that Congress should recognize as independent Nations, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Argentina, then called La Plata.
Brazil had already acknowledged them; so the United States was the second Power to hold out the hand of fellowship to our neighbours. England followed soon after.
This acknowledgment of a brave People’s struggle for freedom, came after more than twenty years of terrible warfare.
Our neighbour Republics—recognized in 1822,—have the honour of having won their own Liberty without the aid of foreign Allies. For though they had the sympathy of all free Peoples, and the moral support of both the English and the United States Governments, and though hundreds of foreign young men—whole legions of them—volunteered in the Patriot Armies and shed their blood for Spanish-American Independence, yet the Patriots of the Southern Republics had to stand up alone and unaided by any Government.
They won their Independence by patient endurance of every conceivable suffering, by rising above momentary defeats, and by courageously persisting to the end under the command of their devoted Liberators.
In the language of San Martin, “God granted them success.”