The Monroe Doctrine

This series has five easy 5-minute installments. This first installment: From the Revolts of the Spanish Colonies in America.

Introduction
President James Monroe, in his annual message to Congress in December, 1823, made certain statements which became known as the Monroe Doctrine. The significance of this doctrine discouraged further European expansion in the western hemisphere.

The statement of President Monroe simply expressed the demand of the people of the United States that there should be no intervention of European powers in affairs of the American continents. An earlier announcement of this political principle has been credited to John Quincy Adams, and also to the English statesman George Canning.

This selection is from his article by Alfred Thayer Mahan in Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 16 published in 1905. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) was the influential naval historian.

Time: 1823
Place: Washington, D.C.

The formulation of the Monroe Doctrine, as distinguished from its origin, resulted, as is universally understood, from the political conditions caused by the revolt of the Spanish colonies in America. Up to that time, and for centuries previous, the name Spain had signified to Europe in general not merely the mother-country, but a huge colonial system, with its special economical and commercial regulation ; the latter being determined through its colonial relations, upon the narrowest construction of colonial policy then known, which was saying a great deal. Spain stood for the Spanish empire, divisible primarily into two chief components, Spain and Greater Spain -— the mother-country and the colonies. The passage of time had been gradually reversing the relative importance of the two in the apprehension of other European states.

In Sir Robert Walpole’s day, it was believed by many beside himself that Great Britain could not make head against France and Spain combined. The naval power of Spain, and consequently her political weight, still received awed consideration; a relic of former fears. This continued, though in a diminished degree, through the War of American Independence but by the end of the century, while it may be too much to affirm that such apprehension had wholly disappeared —- that no account was taken of the unwieldy numbers of ill- manned and often ill-officered ships that made up the Spanish navy — it is true that a Spanish war bore to British seamen an aspect rather commercial than military. It meant much more of prize- money than of danger and that it did so was due principally to the wealth of the colonies.

This wealth was potential as well as actual, and in both aspects it appealed to Europe. To break in upon the monopoly enjoyed by Spain, and consecrated in international usage both by accepted ideas and long prescription, was an object of policy to the principal European maritime states. It was so conspicuously to Great Britain, on account of the preëminence which commercial considerations always had in her councils. In the days of William III, the prospective failure of the Spanish royal house brought up the questions of what other family should succeed and to whom should be transferred the great inheritance won by Columbus, Cortés, and Pizarro. Thenceforth the thought of dividing this spoil of a decadent empire — the “sick man” of that day — remained in men’s memory as a possible contingency of the future, even though momentarily out of the range of practical politics. The waning of Spain’s political and military prestige was accompanied by an increasing understanding of the value of the commercial system appended to her in her colonies. The future disposition of these extensive regions, and the fruition of their wealth, developed and undeveloped, were conceived as questions of universal European policy. In the general apprehension of European rulers, they were regarded as affecting the balance of power.

It was as the opponent of this conception, the perfectly natural outcome of previous circumstances and history, that the Monroe Doctrine entered the field; a newcomer in form, yet having its own history and antecedent conditions as really as the conflicting European view. Far more than South America, which had seen little contested occupation, the northern continent had known what it was to be the scene of antagonistic European ambitions and exploitation. There had been within her territory a balance of power, in idea, if not in achievement, quite as real as any that had existed or been fought for in Europe. Canada in the hands of France, and the mouth of the Mississippi in alien control, were matters of personal memory to many, and of very recent tradition to all Americans in active life in 1810. Florida then was still Spanish, with unsettled boundary questions and attendant evils. Not reason only, but feeling, based upon experience of actual inconvenience, suffering, and loss -— loss of life and loss of wealth, political anxiety and commercial disturbance conspired to intensify opposition to any avoidable renewal of similar conditions. To quote the words of a distinguished American, Secretary of State, speaking twenty years ago: “This sentiment is properly called a doctrine, for it has no prescribed sanction, and its assertion is left to the exigency which may invoke it.” This accurate statement places it upon the surest political foundation, much firmer than precise legal enactment or international convention, that of popular conviction. The sentiment had existed beforehand; the first exigency which invoked its formulated expression in 1823 was the announced intention of several great powers to perpetuate by force the European System, whether of colonial tenure or balance of power, of monarchical forms in the Spanish colonies; they being then actually in revolt against the mother- country and seeking, not other political relations to Europe, but simply their own independence.

This political question of independence, however, involved also necessarily that of commercial relations and both were interesting to outside states. So far as then appeared, renewed dependence meant the perpetuation of commercial exclusion against foreign states. This characterized all colonial regulation at that time and continued in Spanish practice in Cuba and other dependencies until the final downfall of her diminished empire in 1898. It must be recognized, therefore, that all outside parties to the controversy, all parties other than Spain and her colonies, which had special incitements of their own, were influenced by two classes of motives, political and commercial. These are logically separable, although in practice intertwined. That of the Continental powers — Austria, Prussia, and Russia, with the subsequent accession of France —- was primarily political. Their object was to perpetuate in South America political conditions connected with the European System, by breaking down popular revolt against absolutist government, and maintaining the condition of dependence upon Spain. Whither this might lead in case of armed intervention, which was contemplated, was a question probably of the division of spoil; for in the end Spain could hardly pay the bill otherwise than by colonial cessions.

More information here and here and below.

We want to take this site to the next level but we need money to do that. Please contribute directly by signing up at https://www.patreon.com/history