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CHAPTER V

INTERPRETATION OF THE ORIGINAL MONROE

DOCTRINE
1824-1826

THE UNWRITTEN MONROE DOCTRINE

THE text of Monroe's message of 1823 is not the only source from which the intent and construction of the Monroe Doctrine of that time can be drawn. The investigator must examine the official correspondence with the English Foreign Office and English minister in Washington, and the memoirs and letters of the principal participants in the doctrine, both in America and Europe. Account must be taken of the conditions of America at the time, and also of the attempts to give the Doctrine clearer form in the period which followed its first announcement. Fifty years ago it was the fashion to limit and pare down its meaning. Richard H. Dana much affected public opinion by his deprecatory note on the subject in his edition of Wheaton's International Law.

Much new material has recently come forward; and critical studies of the Monroe Doctrine show that we must grant to Monroe and Adams a wide vision, and may see in their declaration the germ of many of the more sweeping doctrines which have of late years been put forward by other American statesmen. These studies make it possible to state with more authority the principles as to the rights, privileges, and duties of the United States in the rest of America, as they were understood at the time. The framers of the original doctrine were not planning for the future so much as for their own time. In order to understand the later forms given to their principles, it is necessary to analyze the main features of the MonroeAdams Doctrine.

DOCTRINE OF THE TWO SPHERES

The order of Monroe's statements is somewhat confused; and their relation to the conditions, which have been outlined in earlier chapters of this work, will be easier to understand if they are discussed under a rearrangement.

The first thing to settle was the ground of the doctrine. Monroe carefully restates the already familiar principle of the Two Spheres, as the proper relation of the Western and Eastern hemispheres. Up to the recent Spanish War this axiom was quoted by whomever wished to keep European countries at a distance. It is one of those comfortable and convenient generalizations which act perfectly until a change of circumstances comes about to disrupt them. The Doctrine of the Two Spheres had very little force so long as the greater part of both American continents was politically a part of Europe, so that their commerce, diplomacy, political policy, and official personnel, all came from over seas. Up to 1820, whenever people talked of an "American sphere" and "American isolation", they meant no more than that the United States was free to take care of her own affairs in America.

The first difficulty in the Two Spheres theory is that several European powers retained colonies in America, which must make them interested parties in many American questions. For instance, the British colonies of Jamaica and Belize gave to that power a lively interest in all phases of the Isthmus question; the possession of Alaska led the Russians to claim the coast farther south; a footing in the West India Islands gave color to French conceptions of especial interest in Cuba.

Nevertheless, so long as the United States was practically outside of the questions which occupied Europe, it was easy to make a virtue of a withdrawal from the European concert, which is not possible to-day. The Monroe Doctrine was founded on the idea of a territorial division of the world into two politically separate hemispheres which roughly corresponded to a division in men's minds. The Old World was the realm of manufactures, the New World of food and raw materials; the Old World was subject to an actual division of military force, the New World was protected by distance; the Old World was at that time fast in the grip of military power, the New World was the scene of vast experiments in popular govern

ment; the Old World was crystallized, the New World was protoplasm. When once the idea was broken up that the various kinds of Americans were simply Europeans in another part of the world, the concept of a diversity of interests was natural. The Doctrine of the Two Spheres was effective because at that time it corresponded with the facts. The steady movement of immigrants and commerce across the ocean, the transmission of art and literature, the counter-movement of American political ideas, early began to obliterate that imaginary line drawn north and south through the Atlantic Ocean, which cut off America from Europe.

DOCTRINE OF INTERVENTION

Monroe's inclination to express his mind in public on the use of force by the Holy Alliance against Spain has already been noticed; and he could not quite deny himself the pleasure of making clear his moral objections. Between the lines it clearly appears that he considered it law and gospel for all the world, that every people has a right to its own chosen form of government. Hence he held it to be a denial of the fundamental principles of liberty for other states to compel a nation to receive a government which it detested. When it came to "intervention" or "interposition" in the New World, Monroe laid down three kindred propositions. (a) The Spanish colonies would never be reconquered by Spain alone. (b) For third powers to undertake to restore the colonies to Spain would be looked upon by the United States as unfriendly, or even hostile. (c) Though it is nowhere stated distinctly in the message, other documents show that the United States felt that recognition by the United States was a proof of independence; therefore a denial of the reality of independence was an imputation upon the government and people.

DOCTRINE OF COLONIZATION

The hardest-worked clause of the Monroe message from 1823 to 1915 has been that relating to colonization, which came into the controversy through the tactless combination by the Russian foreign office of a sweeping claim to territory, and a veiled criticism of American democracy. The underlying principle

of Monroe's utterance was simply that, for the protection of the United States from difficulty and danger, the territorial status of America must be considered as already adjusted. The colonization clause of Monroe's message accords with Adams' instructions to Rush, our minister in England, four months earlier :

"A necessary consequence of this state of things [the destruction of the Spanish Empire] will be, that the American continents, henceforth, will no longer be subjects of colonization.”

This meant that the boundaries of America, so far as European powers were concerned, had already become crystallized; therefore any extension of the influence of those powers, either at the expense of organized communities, or by taking up territory claimed to be wild and unoccupied, was contrary to the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. This sacredness of existing American boundaries was, however, still subject to two important reservations. (1) The United States did not undertake to protect any of its neighbors either against disintegration into smaller fragments, or against absorption by each other; and both those processes began immediately. (2) Still more important, the Monroe Doctrine was never a guarantee against ambitious designs of the United States itself; and in the thirty years after Monroe's message, the boundary of the great republic was carried far to the northwest and southwest.

Monroe took pains to admit that the United States had no complaint to make of European colonies then existing. Later commentators have not always seen how much this limited the scope of the document. In our day, when Canadian newspapers advertise "American Bowling Alleys", - meaning thereby bowling alleys of a type common in the United States and unusual in British America, we do not realize that in 1823 the United States was only the second American power in territory, and only the fourth in military and naval strength. Great Britain had a larger unquestioned area in America than the United States; and Great Britain, France, and Russia were all much more powerful military nations.

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The framers of the Monroe Doctrine recognized this state of things; and, according to the testimony of John Quincy Adams, of Daniel Webster, and of other contemporaries, it was never the purpose of that Doctrine to shake the foundations

of the European colonies still existing in America in 1823; especially in view of the fact that the people of the remaining colonies were quite satisfied to be dependent. The Doctrine was intended to make a distinction between such continuing colonies and the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies who had thrown off their allegiance, and in their own behalf and by the weight of their own arms had achieved actual, though precarious, independence.

The principle that the Monroe Doctrine was hostile to the creation of new European colonies out of remnants of the Latin-American empires was cordially conceded by the LatinAmerican states. In a letter of the Colombian minister, November 2, 1825, setting forth the objects of the Panama Congress, he included

"The manner in which all colonization of European powers on the American continent shall be resisted, and their interference in the present contest between Spain and her former colonies prevented."

The Latin-American states were far from satisfied by Adams' statement to Congress that

"Our views would extend no further than to a mutual pledge of the parties to the compact to maintain the principle in application to its own territory, and to permit no colonial lodgments or establishment of European jurisdiction upon its own soil."

The context and the circumstances show that Adams had expected to enter into a binding agreement for the defense of our neighbors against aggression; and that by the resistance of Congress he was compelled to take a less heroic attitude. The one public man who at that time seemed to expect the European colonies to fade away was Adams. Many years later, in 1848, Calhoun informed the Senate that the clause relating to colonization was not submitted to the Cabinet, and formed no part of the principle they intended to announce ; it was the position taken by Mr. Adams. Adams said in conversation with the English minister in 1822:

"It was impossible that the old exclusive and excluding Colonial system should much longer endure anywhere. . . . The whole system of modern colonization was an abuse of government, and it was time that it should come to an end."

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