The United States has been alert in opposition to what was be lieved to involve action of this character. Historic instances are those relating to the Mosquito coast in 1858-6o, the French inter vention in Mexico ending in 1867, the arbitral settlement of the controversy as to the boundary line between Venezuela and Bri tish Guiana in 1895-97, and the disposition of the claims of Ger many, Great Britain and Italy against Venezuela in 1902-04.
Character and Purport of the Doctrine.—The Monroe Doctrine is not a legislative pronouncement ; it has been approved by action of Congress, but it does not rest upon congressional sanction. It is not defined by treaty, and it does not draw its force from any international agreement. It had, however, the implied endorsement of the treaty making power of the United States in the reservations to the two Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which provided: "Nothing contained in this convention shall be construed as to require the United States of America to depart from its traditional policy of not intruding upon, interfering with, or entangling itself in the political questions of policy or internal administration of any foreign State ; nor shall anything contained in the said convention be construed to imply a relinquishment by the United States of America of its traditional attitude toward purely American questions." The doctrine is not like a constitu tional provision deriving its authority from the fact that it is a part of the organic law transcending and limiting executive and legislative power. While it is not a part of international law, it rests, as Elihu Root has stated, "upon the right of self-protection and that right is recognized by international law." It was asserted at a time when the danger of foreign aggression was very real, when the new American States had not yet established a firm basis of independent national life and republican institutions were men aced by the threats of Old World powers. But despite changes in conditions it still remains, to be applied if necessary, as a prin ciple of national security. Its significance lies in the fact that in its essentials as set forth by President Monroe and as forcibly asserted by responsible statesmen, it has been for 10o years, and continues to be, an integral part of national thought and purpose expressing a profound conviction which even the upheaval caused by the World War, and the participation of the United States in that struggle upon European soil, did not upset.
The doctrine, as has been stated authoritatively, does not imply, or countenance, a policy of aggression. It does not infringe upon the independence and sovereignty of other American States. It does not attempt to establish a protectorate over Latin American States. The declaration that encroachment by non-American powers upon the independence of American States will be regarded as dangerous to the safety of the United States gives no justifica tion for such encroachment on its part. In stating with extreme vigour the position of President Cleveland's administration in the correspondence with Great Britain relating to the Venezuela boun dary, Secretary Olney recognized the limitations of the doctrine and his other statements should be read in the light of their con text. He said : "The precise scope and limitations of this rule can not be too clearly apprehended. It does not establish any general protectorate by the United States over other American states. It does not relieve any American state from its obligations as fixed by international law nor prevent any European power directly interested from enforcing such obligations or from inflicting merited punishment for the breach of them. It does not con template any interference in the internal affairs of any American state or in the relations between it and other American states. It does not justify any attempt on our part to change the established form of government of any American state or to prevent the people of such state from altering that form according to their own will and pleasure. The rule in question has but a single purpose and object. It is that no European power or combination of European powers shall forcibly deprive an American state of the right and power of self-government and of shaping for itself its own poli tical fortunes and destinies." President Roosevelt in his annual message of 1901 thus referred to the doctrine : "It is in no wise intended as hostile to any nation in the Old World. Still less is it intended to give cover to any aggression by one New World power at the expense of any other. It is simply a step, and a long step, toward assuring the universal peace of the world by secur ing the possibility of permanent peace on this hemisphere." And in his annual message of 1906, President Roosevelt said : "In many parts of South America there has been much misunderstand ing of the attitude and purposes of the United States toward the other American republics. An idea had become prevalent that our assertion of the Monroe Doctrine implied or carried with it an assumption of superiority and of a right to exercise some kind of protectorate over the countries to whose territory that doctrine applies. Nothing could be farther from the truth." As the policy embodied in the Monroe Doctrine was distinctively the policy of the United States, the Government of the United States has reserved to itself its definition and application. Presi dent Wilson observed : "The Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed by the United States on her own authority. It always has been maintained, and always will be maintained, upon her own responsi bility." But it has frequently been stated that the United States would welcome the adoption by the other American republics of a similar policy. President Wilson sought to give the principles of the doctrine a world-wide application. In his address to the Senate on Jan. 22, 1917, he said: "I am proposing, as it were, that the nations should with one accord adopt the doctrine of President Monroe as the doctrine of the world ; that no nation should seek to extend its polity over any other nation or people, but that every people should be left free to determine its own polity, its own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, unafraid, the little along with the great and powerful." The Cove nant of the League of Nations refers to the doctrine in Article 21, which provides: "Nothing in this Covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace." Many in the United
States did not consider this statement to be an adequate or ac curate description of the doctrine, and one of the reservations which the Senate of the United States adopted in its discussion of the Treaty of Versailles declared the Monroe Doctrine "to be wholly outside the jurisdiction of said League of Nations and entirely unaffected by any provision contained in said treaty of peace with Germany" and reserved to the United States the sole right to interpret the doctrine. The treaty failed of ratification, and this reservation may be regarded as an expression of the opinion held by the majority of the members of the Senate. In replying (Feb. 26, 192o) to a request of the minister of foreign affairs of Salvador for an interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine because of the bearing which such interpretation might have on the attitude of Salvador toward the Covenant, the acting secretary of State of the United States stated that the views of his Govern ment were set forth in the address (Jan. 1916) of President Wilson before the Second Pan-American Scientific Congress. In the course of that address, President Wilson said that "the Monroe Doctrine demanded merely that European Governments should not attempt to extend their political systems to this side of the Atlantic." In Sept. 1928, the Council of the League of Nations, an inquiry by the Government of Costa Rica as to the interpretation placed by the League of Nations on the Monroe Doctrine, and the scope given to that doctrine when it was included in Article 21 of the Covenant, stated: "Article 20 stipulates that `the Members of the League severally agree that this Covenant is accepted as abrogating all obligations or understandings inter se which are inconsistent with the terms thereof. . . .' Article 21 gives the States parties to international engagements the guarantee that the validity of such of these engagements as secure the main tenance of peace would not be affected by accession to the Cove nant of the League of Nations. In declaring that such engage ments are not deemed incompatible with any of the provisions of the Covenant, the Article refers only to the relations of the Cove nant with such engagements; it neither weakens nor limits any of the safeguards provided in the Covenant. . . . In regard to the scope of the engagements to which the Article relates, it is clear that it cannot have the effect of giving them a sanction or validity which they did not previously possess. It confines itself to referring to these engagements, such as they may exist, without attempting to define them : an attempt at definition being, in fact, liable to have the effect of restricting or enlarging their sphere of applica tion. Such a task was not one for the authors of the Covenant ; it only concerns the States having accepted inter se engagements of this kind." The Monroe Doctrine does not attempt to define in any other respects than those above mentioned the policies of the United States with respect to the other American republics. The con struction of the Panama canal has not only established a new and convenient highway of commerce but has created new exigencies and new conditions of strategy and defence. It is the declared pur pose of the United States to protect that highway. It is part of American policy not to yield to any foreign power the control of the Panama canal, or the approaches to it, or the obtaining of any position which would interfere with the right of protection on the part of the United States or would menace the freedom of its communications. This position is maintained equally with respect to American and non-American powers. The right asserted by the Government of the United States to afford protection to the lives and property of its nationals, when endangered in areas where governments have ceased properly to function, is main tained although there may be no prospect of non-American inter ference and no occasion for applying the Monroe Doctrine. Such interposition may have the actual and intended effect of avoiding the interposition of non-American powers and the consequent activities and developments at which the Monroe Doctrine was aimed, but the right of the United States to give appropriate protection to its nationals is regarded as quite distinct from the doctrine. The interest of the United States in the stability, the good order and the peace of its immediate neighbours, its efforts to promote amicable settlements of controversies, and its action under its treaties, may be based upon grounds independent of the Monroe Doctrine, although the success of such endeavours may have an indirect effect in making more remote the contingencies to which the doctrine would apply.