government’s right to intervene to stop European creditors who were threatening armed intervention in order to collect debts in Latin American countries.īut his claim went further than that. This was especially true after 1904, when President Theodore Roosevelt claimed the U.S. Roosevelt Corollaryįrom 1870 onward, as the United States emerged as a major world power, the Monroe Doctrine would be used to justify a long series of U.S. government supplied military and diplomatic support to Benito Juárez in Mexico, enabling his forces to overthrow the regime of Emperor Maximilian, who had been placed on the throne by the French government, in 1867. When the Civil War drew to a close, the U.S. In 1833, the United States did not invoke the Monroe Doctrine to oppose British occupation of the Falkland Islands it also declined to act when Britain and France imposed a naval blockade against Argentina in 1845.īut as the nation’s economic and military strength grew, it began backing up Monroe’s words with actions. It clearly did not have the military or naval power to back up its assertion of unilateral control over the Western Hemisphere, and Monroe’s bold policy statement was largely ignored outside U.S. Monroe Doctrine in Practice: US Foreign PolicyĪt the time Monroe delivered his message to Congress, the United States was still a relatively minor player on the world stage. In declaring separate spheres of influence and a policy of non-intervention in the foreign affairs of Europe, the Monroe Doctrine drew on past statements of American diplomatic ideals, including George Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796, and James Madison’s declaration of war with Britain in 1812. Any attempt by a European power to exert its influence in the Western Hemisphere would, from then on, be seen by the United States as a threat to its security. “The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for colonization by any European powers,” Monroe continued. The United States, for its part, would not interfere in the political affairs of Europe, or with existing European colonies in the Western Hemisphere. WATCH: James Monroe Monroe’s Message to Congressĭuring the president’s customary message to Congress on December 2, 1823, Monroe expressed the basic tenets of what would later become known as the Monroe Doctrine.Īccording to Monroe’s message (drafted largely by Adams), the Old World and the New World were fundamentally different, and should be two different spheres of influence. policy that would set an independent course for the young nation and claim a new role as protector of the Western Hemisphere. opportunities for expansion, and that Britain might well have imperialist ambitions of its own.Īdams convinced Monroe to make a unilateral statement of U.S. Though Monroe had initially supported the idea of a joint U.S.-British resolution against future colonization in Latin America, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams argued that joining forces with the British could limit future U.S. Russia had also inspired concerns of imperialism, with Czar Alexander I claiming sovereignty over territory in the Pacific Northwest and banning foreign ships from approaching that coast in 1821. Yet both Britain and the United States worried that the powers of continental Europe would make future attempts to restore colonial regimes in the region. government recognizing the new republics of Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico in 1822. By the early 1820s, many Latin American countries had won their independence from Spain or Portugal, with the U.S.
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