MONROE DOCTRINE. The term applied to the policy of the United States regarding foreign interference in American affairs. It takes its name from President Monroe, who in his message to Congress in 1823 first gave it formal announce ment. It is sometimes stated as the corollary of Washington's policy of neutrality towardall European affairs. In modern conception it is the policy of the United States to regard any attempt on the part of a European power to gain a foothold in this hemisphere by conquest. or to acquire any new USA:11)11,h Mel) t in North or South America as an net hostile to the United states. Yet it does not contravene the right of any nation to enforce indemnity for injuries to its subjects. physical or financial. but applies only to • territorial aggression by foreign powers, whether or permanent. The concep tion of the policy is one of gradual growth, and as fat as it ha- authority in international law it rests upon the principle of the right of a State to protect its 05511 111lCrest, from aggression. \Vitt' the wide and com plex development of modern .\inerican interests, appeal to this argument is strengthened, yet the assertion of the doetrine in its extreme form is always attended with the danger of grave inter national coin pl ica t ions.
The 'doctrine' is based upon two passages in nairoe's message, and has a twofold relnthn a non-colonization and a non-intervention fea tore. The first passage referred to the boundary dispute in the Northwest, then in issue between Russia. Great. Britain, and the United States, Russia having assumed to exclude foreigners from disputed territory extending to the tifty first parallel of latitude. President Alonroe said: "The occasion has been judged proper for assert ing a: a principle in AvItielt the rights and inter csts of the United States are illl.'011.1`11, that the American continents, by the free and independent conditions which they have assumed and main tained. are henceforth not to be considered as sub jects for future colonization by any European powers." Both the conditions which inspired the passage and its language prove that it related to an acquisition of territory by original occupation or settlement : that it did not include acquisition by gift, purchase, or like voluntary transfer, or by conquest. Further, while it did not strictly
commit. the United States to the application of the principle to territory other than that. imme diately in dispute in the Northwest, in prospec tive consideration it involved the vast tracts of unclaimed land on the continent still unexplored and unoccupied, upon which the establishment of a European eolony with the exclusive trade policies then professed by all Continental govern ments 4.cold not. fail to prejudice the trade rela tions of the United States. The controversy in yuestimt was settled by the treaty of Is25 with Russia, but the doctrine formulated was again asserted in 182e, by l're-ident Q. Adams in the proposed instructions of the United States delegates to the Panama f'ongress 19.v.4, its application, however, being limited to it: adop tion by each separate State as a protection of the territory elaimed by that Stale. and committing the powers as a body to "a joint resistance against any floure attempt to plant a colony." The question, how ever. was not considered by the 1'a11011111 gre-s, owing to the non-arrival of the United States delegate:. and this phase of the doctrine remained in abcp1111e for twenty years.
The second part of the loriroe message related to the proposed action of the Holy Alliance a: :11111111111C1.11 hy the resolutions of the Congress of Vcrona I NOVelldier, 1522), directed against the •-y-41.111 of representative government in Europe, and aiming at the reimposition of the Spanish yoke upon the South American colonies. then in a state of revolt, the independence of :hide the United States had already recognized. This ac tion of the Powers threatened English commercial interests already established with these States, and England promptly proposed to the United States a joint declaration by the two govern ments against their action: hut without awaiting a reply from this II,.verninent. on October It.