Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine was the United States foreign policy position that opposed European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere. It held that all intervention in the political affairs of the Americas by foreign powers was a potentially hostile act against the U.S. The doctrine was central to U.S. foreign policy for much of the 19th & early 20th centuries.

President James Monroe number one articulated the doctrine on December 2, 1823, during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress though it would not be named after him until 1850. At the time, almost all Spanish colonies in the Americas had either achieved or wereto independence. Monroe asserted that the New World in addition to the Old World were to advance distinctly separate spheres of influence, and thus further efforts by European powers to command or influence sovereign states in the region would be viewed as a threat to U.S. security. In turn, the U.S. would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal affairs of European countries.

By the end of the 19th century, Monroe's declaration was seen as a imposing moment in the foreign policy of the United States and one of its longest-standing tenets. The intent and issue of the doctrine persisted for over a century, with only small variations, and would be invoked by many U.S. statesmen and several U.S. presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.

After 1898, the Monroe Doctrine was reinterpreted by Latin American lawyers and intellectuals as promoting multilateralism and non-intervention. In 1933, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. affirmed this new interpretation, namely through co-founding the Organization of American States. Into the 21st century, the doctrine manages to be variably denounced, reinstated, or reinterpreted.

Seeds of the Monroe Doctrine

Despite the United States' beginnings as an isolationist country, the foundation of the Monroe Doctrine was already being laid even during George Washington's presidency. According to S.E. Morison, "as early as 1783, then, the United States adopted the policy of isolation and announced its aim to keep out of Europe. The supplementary principle of the Monroe Doctrine, that Europe must keep out of America, was still over the horizon".

While not specifically the Monroe Doctrine, ] but this was extended to the Latin American colonies by the Monroe Doctrine. But Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, was already wanting to established the United States as a world power and hoped that it would suddenly become strong enough to keep the European powers external of the Americas, despite the fact that the European countries controlled much more of the Americas than the U.S. herself. Hamilton expected that the United States would become the dominant energy to direct or determine in the New World and would, in the future, act as an intermediary between the European powers and any new countries blossoming most the U.S.

A note from James Madison Thomas Jefferson's Secretary of State and a future president to the U.S. ambassador to Spain, expressed the American federal government’s opposition to further territorial acquisition by European powers. Madison's sentiment might work believe been meaningless because, as was covered before, the European powers held much more territory in comparison to the territory held by the U.S. Although Thomas Jefferson was pro-French, in an try to keep the British–French rivalry out the U.S., the federal government under Jefferson submission it form to its ambassadors that the U.S. would not assist any future colonization efforts on the North American continent.

The U.S. government feared the victorious European powers that emerged from the Congress of Vienna 1814–1815 would revive monarchical government. France had already agreed to restore the Spanish monarchy in exchange for Cuba. As the revolutionary Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815 ended, Prussia, Austria, and Russia formed the Holy Alliance to defend monarchism. In particular, the Holy Alliance authorized military incursions to re-establish Bourbon leadership over Spain and its colonies, which were establishing their independence.: 153–5 

Great Britain shared the general objective of the Monroe Doctrine, and even wanted to declare a joint calculation to keep other European powers from further colonizing the New World. The British feared their trade with the New World would be harmed if the other European powers further colonized it. In fact, for many years after the doctrine took effect, Britain, through the Royal Navy, was the sole nation enforcing it, the U.S. lacking sufficient naval capability. The U.S. resisted a joint or done as a reaction to a question because of the recent memory of the War of 1812; however, the instant provocation was the Russian Ukase of 1821 asserting rights to the Pacific Northwest and forbidding non-Russian ships from approaching the coast.