The United States Of America

The Constitution And Democracy

Monroe Doctrine
Monroe Doctrine, a policy established by the United States in the administration of President James MONROE  that sought to limit European influence in the Western Hemisphere.

What came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine was originally embodied in several paragraphs of the annual message delivered to Congress on Dec. 2, 1823, by President Monroe. The doctrine had four elements. The first was the proposition that “the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” The second was the nearly corollary proposition that nations in the Western Hemisphere were inherently different from those of Europe republics by nature rather than monarchies. The third element was a statement that the United States would regard as a threat to its own peace and safety any attempt by European powers to impose their system on any independent state in the Western Hemisphere. By implication, the United States thus declared itself the protector of independent nations in the Americas. The final element, complementing these assertions of the separateness of the Americas, reaffirmed that the United States would not interfere in European affairs.

The issuance of the Monroe Doctrine was prompted by reports that certain European powers might be preparing to employ military force to restore to Spain colonies in the Americas that had recently won their independence. Such efforts by the Spanish government had been hampered by a lack of resources and by disturbances in Spain that culminated in 1820 in a revolution. Pressed by the continental monarchies Russia, Austria, and Prussia popularly known as the Holy Alliance France sent an army into Spain in 1823 and subdued the revolution. During this period and afterward, rumors circulated that France and the Holy Allies might carry their counterrevolutionary campaign across the Atlantic.

On Aug. 16, 1823, George Canning, the British foreign secretary, discussed this contingency with Richard Rush, the U.S. minister in London. The British government had not approved of the French march into Spain. Still less did it favor French or Allied intervention in Latin America. Canning told Rush that he thought Britain and the United States had common attitudes and interests. He proposed that the two governments form an ad hoc alliance, declaring publicly that they would oppose any action in the Spanish Empire by any European power other than Spain.

Coincidentally, Monroe and his advisers also had before them two other broad questions concerning Europe. First, Russia had shown indications that it might seek to extend its empire in northwestern North America. Alexander I had proclaimed the waters off Alaska closed to vessels of other nations, and agents of the Russian-American Company, which administered Alaska, were operating a trade station at Fort Ross, north of San Francisco. Second, large numbers of American citizens were urging diplomatic recognition of Greece, which a revolutionary group had just detached from the Ottoman Empire. Because no European state had yet taken this step, the Monroe administration had to decide whether thus to offer leadership in a matter entirely European.

Historical Background 
The broad issues facing the Monroe administration were by no means new. In the 17th century, when the civil wars and their aftermath led to several overturned governments in Britain, many Englishmen in the Americas held the colonies to be necessarily involved, while others believed that the colonies should lead separate political lives. When Britain and France fought a series of wars culminating in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), similar differences obtained, some colonists holding that wars in Europe need not extend to America.

In addition, increasing numbers of colonists came to feel that the British in America had a set of interests different from those of the British at home that were neither understood nor appreciated by most statesmen in London. This perception was one among many motives of the American Revolution. During the Revolution, despite exigencies that required a formal alliance with France, majorities in the Continental Congress declared that the United States, while trading with all nations of Europe, should remain outside European politics. Washington's Farewell Address of 1796 was the most famous of many exhortations against European alliances. Monroe and his advisors merely faced in aggravated form the nearly perennial issue of whether the United States belonged to the European political system or whether a distinctive system existed on the western side of the Atlantic.

Domestic Political Considerations 
Complicating the administration's deliberations was the fact that 1824 would be a presidential election year. Monroe planned to retire. One of the leading candidates to succeed him was Secretary of State John Quincy ADAMS . Because the Republican Party, founded by Thomas JEFFERSON  and James MADISON , was dominant, Adams' election depended on his being that party's nominee in a number of large states. Rivals fighting his candidacy were reminding voters that Adams' father, John Adams, had been a Federalist and the opponent of Jefferson, and that the younger Adams had been a member of the Federalist party until 1808. One difference between Republicans and Federalists had concerned relations with Britain, the Federalists generally favoring cordial relations with the British. Therefore, a favorable response by Monroe to Canning's proposal would be seen by Adams' enemies as Adams' doing, and the result cited as evidence that Adams was an unregenerate Federalist. Extension of diplomatic recognition to Greece would likewise embarrass Adams because the foremost advocates of such action happened to be New England Federalists.

Secretary of War John C. CALHOUN , also a contender, argued in favor of accepting the alliance with Britain. He said that the peril to South America was real and immediate and that only joint action with the British could stave it off. He also urged recognition of Greece, on the ground that the United States should uphold liberalism against despotism wherever opportunity offered. Former Presidents Jefferson and Madison, both also opposed to Adams' nomination, advised the president to ally with Britain, and Madison also urged recognition of Greece.

Monroe Adopts Adams' Views 
Adams employed all his considerable intelligence, learning, and skill as an advocate to dissuade Monroe from following the counsel of Calhoun, Jefferson, and Madison. He minimized the danger of European intervention in Latin America. Should such intervention threaten, he predicted that the British would interpose themselves because of their own national interest, whether or not the United States had agreed to be their partner. By acting as Canning proposed, the United States, said Adams, would become “a cockboat in the wake of a British man of war. It would be far better for the U.S. government to declare its policy independently and let the British seem to follow suit. As for Greece, Adams advised against recognition on the ground that the United States should be consistent in the position that the European and American systems were distinct.

As was the case with Calhoun, Jefferson, and Madison, Adams' reasoning was grounded in convictions concerning the best interests of the United States but, as with the three Southerners, his recommendations happened to be exactly those that best served his own political interests in the 1824 presidential election. Although at first inclined otherwise, Monroe eventually succumbed to the arguments of Adams. Monroe allowed Adams to communicate to the Russian minister in Washington carefully worded documents stating U.S. opposition to any extension of Russian domain in the Americas and any effort by the Holy Allies to restore Spanish dominion in Latin America. 

In his annual message he incorporated language, mostly drafted by Adams, setting forth the elements of the Monroe Doctrine. During the early weeks of the congressional session of 1823–1824, the president used his influence to defeat a resolution recommending recognition of Greece. Though bearing some imprint of the president, the Monroe Doctrine was largely the handiwork of John Quincy Adams.

History of the Doctrine After 1823 
Neither in 1823 nor for a long time thereafter were Monroe's utterances perceived as having more than transitory significance. Editorial writers and political leaders on the Continent and in Britain attacked Monroe's declared policy as presumptuous. At home, the president's words were generally praised but interpreted as specific responses to issues of the moment. Nor did the administration itself apply its principles categorically. When propositioned by Colombia and then by Brazil, Secretary Adams declined to negotiate defensive alliances. In 1826, as president, Adams evidenced minimal enthusiasm for a conference of American republics convened on the initiative of Simón Bolívar. Adams instructed his delegates “neither to contract alliances, nor to engage in any undertaking or project importing hostility to any other nation. 

In 1845, however, President James K. POLK </presidents/ea/bios/11ppolk.html> cited Monroe's message as a precedent when claiming that the United States rather than Britain should get the disputed Oregon territory, and when warning Britain and Europe not to interfere in the controversies between the United States and Mexico that were to eventuate in the Mexican War of 1846-1848. 
In the 1860's the U.S. government did not refer to Monroe's language when protesting Spain's short-lived reoccupation of the Dominican Republic or the effort by Napoleon III of France to establish a monarchy in Mexico. The reason was that Secretary of State William H. Seward recognized European reluctance to acquiesce formally in the Monroe Doctrine. Conducting most of his diplomacy while the American Civil War was in progress, he had good reason to be circumspect. Members of Congress and editorial writers repeatedly said, however, that Seward was invoking the Monroe Doctrine, and, after the restoration of Dominican independence in 1865 and the withdrawal of French troops from Mexico in 1866, it was alleged that the doctrine had in practice won European acceptance. In 1895, President Grover CLEVELAND  explicitly invoked the doctrine when demanding that Britain submit to arbitration a dispute over the boundary between its Guiana colony and Venezuela. His secretary of state, Richard Olney, asserted, “the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition.” When Britain yielded, it appeared that all the great powers effectively recognized this claim.

In 1904 and 1905, President Theodore ROOSEVELT  developed what came to be known as “the Roosevelt corollary to the doctrine. He said that occasions arose when European states would be justified in taking military action against a nation in the Western Hemisphere because it defaulted on debts or mistreated foreign subjects. The Monroe Doctrine forbade their doing so. In such instances, therefore, the United States had to exercise “an international police power.

Roosevelt and his successors applied this corollary until 1929, when the executive branch declared that the Monroe Doctrine warranted only opposition to European action against states in the hemisphere, not U.S. intervention in the internal affairs of those states. This interpretation became part of the Good Neighbor” policy of President Franklin D. ROOSEVELT .
Although the Monroe Doctrine was invoked on occasion during the 1930's, World War II, and the Cold War, it effectively became an anachronism after World War I when the United States became so powerful that it could no longer even attempt to confine its influence to the Western Hemisphere.

Ernest R. May
Harvard University, Author, The Making of the Monroe Doctrine 
For Further Reading 
Bingham, Hiram, The Monroe Doctrine (1913; reprint, Da Capo 1976)
Dozer, Donald, The Monroe Doctrine: Its Modern Significance (ASU Lat. Am. Studies 1976)
Kasson, John A., The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States and History of the Monroe Doctrine (1904; reprint, Rothman 1985)
May, Ernest R., The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (Harvard Univ. Press 1975)
Merk, Frederick, The Monroe Doctrine and American Expansionism, 1843-1849 (Knopf 1966)
Rappaport, Armin, ed., The Monroe Doctrine (Krieger 1976).