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It became a justification for Manifest Destiny and would play a major role in the foreign policies of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. So, where did the Monroe Doctrine come from? Well, let’s take a minute to look at some of the major world events of the time period and the major players who brought the Monroe Doctrine about.
All right, dateline It has been a bad couple of years for monarchy in Europe. For one thing, the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution have been convulsing the powers of Europe for several years.
By , the Revolution has more or less finished and the monarchies of Europe have been reinstated. But, this revolutionary fervor coming from the French Revolution, coming also from the American Revolution, has started to spread. So, movements for independence are now taking hold in South America. There’s a Chilean movement for independence, Argentinian movement for independence, Venezuelan movement for independence.
So, they’ve kind of caught the democracy bug. The people in the United States are cheering for their southern brethren, saying, “Excellent work, picking up democracy, “breaking away from old-fashioned, monarchical, “tyrannical Europe. Once the Napoleonic Wars are over, the monarchies of Europe start saying, “Hmm, you know what? Now, we don’t know the extent to which Spain was actually planning on putting these revolutions down, but we do know that the United States and England were very concerned that the monarchies of the continent– France and Spain– might join together and try to put down all of these revolutions.
Now, wouldn’t they want that? Well, for the most part, it kind of came down to markets. If you think back to early American colonial society, the economic system was known as mercantilism.
Mercantilism is the practice of colonies kind of existing to enrich the mother country. So, all trade goes through the home country.
That means that the home country is going to be making sure that the colonies are not trading with any other international partners because they want to be the ones who are enriched by the natural resources of the colonies.
So, when Chile and Argentina and Venezuela revolt from Spain, it means that their markets are now opened up to the United States and to England. So, England and the United States are not eager to see these new nations be returned to their colonial status because, thanks to mercantilism, they’re not going to be able to trade with them anymore. The United States was not quite ready to be friends with the United Kingdom yet.
Secretary of State Adams disagreed. At a cabinet meeting on November 7, , he argued that the United States government should issue a unilateral statement. Adams, who had spent years in Europe serving as a diplomat, was thinking in broader terms.
He was not just concerned with Latin America but was also looking in the other direction, to the west coast of North America. The Russian government was claiming territory in the Pacific Northwest extending as far south as present-day Oregon.
And by sending a forceful statement, Adams hoped to warn all nations that the United States would not stand for colonial powers encroaching on any part of North America.
The Monroe Doctrine was expressed in several paragraphs deep within the message President Monroe delivered to Congress on December 2, And though buried within a long document heavy with details such as financial reports on various government departments, the statement on foreign policy was noticed. In December , newspapers in America published the text of the entire message as well as articles focusing on the forceful statement about foreign affairs.
Other newspapers, however, applauded the apparent sophistication of the foreign policy statement. No intervention in South America by Europeans powers ever happened. However, decades later, in December , President James K. Polk affirmed the Monroe Doctrine in his annual message to Congress.
Polk evoked the doctrine as a component of Manifest Destiny and the desire of the United States to extend from coast to coast. In , the Monroe Doctrine was invoked symbolically when the Soviet Union began to build missile-launching sites in Cuba. Kennedy threw a naval and air quarantine around the island. After several tense days, the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the missiles and dismantle the sites.
Subsequently, the United States dismantled several of its obsolete air and missile bases in Turkey. This document is available on DocsTeach , the online tool for teaching with documents from the National Archives. Find teaching activities that incorporate this document, or create your own online activity. Previous Document Next Document. At the proposal of the Russian Imperial Government, made through the minister of the Emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St.
Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent.
A similar proposal has been made by His Imperial Majesty to the Government of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. The Government of the United States has been desirous by this friendly proceeding of manifesting the great value which they have invariably attached to the friendship of the Emperor and their solicitude to cultivate the best understanding with his Government.
All that this country desires is to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous. Any country whose people conduct themselves well can count upon our hearty friendship. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with reasonable efficiency and decency in social and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, it need fear no interference from the United States.
Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.
If every country washed by the Caribbean Sea would show the progress in stable and just civilization which with the aid of the Platt Amendment Cuba has shown since our troops left the island, and which so many of the republics in both Americas are constantly and brilliantly showing, all question of interference by this Nation with their affairs would be at an end. Our interests and those of our southern neighbors are in reality identical. They have great natural riches, and if within their borders the reign of law and justice obtains, prosperity is sure to come to them.
While they thus obey the primary laws of civilized society they may rest assured that they will be treated by us in a spirit of cordial and helpful sympathy. We would interfere with them only in the last resort, and then only if it became evident that their inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations.
It is a mere truism to say that every nation, whether in America or anywhere else, which desires to maintain its freedom, its independence, must ultimately realize that the right of such independence can not be separated from the responsibility of making good use of it. In asserting the Monroe Doctrine, in taking such steps as we have taken in regard to Cuba, Venezuela, and Panama, and in endeavoring to circumscribe the theater of war in the Far East, and to secure the open door in China, we have acted in our own interest as well as in the interest of humanity at large.
There are, however, cases in which, while our own interests are not greatly involved, strong appeal is made to our sympathies. Ordinarily it is very much wiser and more useful for us to concern ourselves with striving for our own moral and material betterment here at home than to concern ourselves with trying to better the condition of things in other nations.
We have plenty of sins of our own to war against, and under ordinary circumstances we can do more for the general uplifting of humanity by striving with heart and soul to put a stop to civic corruption, to brutal lawlessness and violent race prejudices here at home than by passing resolutions and wrongdoing elsewhere. Nevertheless there are occasional crimes committed on so vast a scale and of such peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it is not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show our disapproval of the deed and our sympathy with those who have suffered by it.
The cases must be extreme in which such a course is justifiable.
Milestones: – – Office of the Historian.
The Monroe Doctrine was a United States foreign policy position that opposed European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It held that any intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act. The Monroe Doctrine is the best known U.S. policy toward the Western Hemisphere. Buried in a routine annual message delivered to Congress by.
