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The class of issues here raised stands quite aside from the original intent of the Monroe Doctrine. Here is the need of new international law, of the services of the Hague Tribunal, very likely of the establishment of a permanent Congress of Nations.
How far ought any nation to undertake by warships and armies to collect debts for venturesome subjects who have speculated in the tumultuous politics of semi-civilized peoples? How far is the real welfare of the world served by punitive expeditions dispatched in the name of missionaries, travelers, and traders, who have chosen to take their own lives in their hands in the wild regions of the world?
There is no call for a Monroe Doctrine on these points. The issue is international, not American. The question is not so much whether France and England may send a fleet to take the customs duties of a dilapidated South American port, as it is, what course ought any government to take when wily promoters ask its assistance in carrying out their schemes in Bogota or Caracas, or Pekin; or again an equally pertinent question , what remedy, if any, international law ought to give when one of our own cities or states defaults its bonds held in Paris or Berlin.
Grant that it is uncomfortable to our traders in South America to see European sheriffs holding ports where we wish to do business. We evidently have no right to protest against other nations doing whatever we might do in like circumstances.
If we can send armored ships to South America, all the others can do so. If we like to keep the perilous right to collect debts, we must concede it to others. We may not like to see strangers, or even our own neighbors, taking liberties and quarreling in the next field to our own. But who gives us the right forcibly to drive them out of a field which we do not own?
The rule here seems to be the same for the nation as for the individual. In other words, whatever the Monroe Doctrine historically means, it no longer requires us to stand guard with a show of force to maintain it. In its most critical form, when it meant a warning against despotism, it only needed to be proclaimed, and never to be defended by fighting ships. In the face of governments practically like our own, the time has come to inquire whether there remains any reasonable issue under the name of the Monroe Doctrine, over which the American people could have the least justification for a conflict of arms with a European government.
The interests of the United States in South America are not different from those of other powers, like England and Germany. They are substantially identical interests; they are all obviously involved together with the improvement of material, political, and moral conditions in the South American states. We have sought so far such an interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine as may honorably go in company of the Golden Rule, or, in other words, of international justice.
There remains, however, a possible new definition of the Doctrine, which should be fairly faced. There is an idea in the air that the United States holds a certain protectorate or suzerainty over the whole continent of America. A manifest destiny is thought to be working in favor of the dominion or suzerainty of a single power from the Arctic Ocean to Patagonia. Porto Rico is ours. Cuba is almost ours. Many believe that Canada will some time desire to be with us.
No people to the south of us shows stable promise of what we call good government. The new canal at Panama affords additional reasons for our control of the continent. Boundless resources are yet to be developed in the virgin continent. We are the people who can provide the brains, the capital, and the political security requisite for the exploitation of practically a seventh of the surface of the earth.
The new Monroe Doctrine comes thus to mean, frankly, that we want, or at least may some time want, all America for ourselves. What else does the Monroe Doctrine mean, that there should be the pretense of a necessity to fight for it? If Europe must not be suffered to discipline them, must we not give them their lessons? The recent movement to assume a receivership at San Domingo, to collect and pay Dominican taxes for the benefit of bond-holders both at home and abroad, brings the new doctrine into practical effect.
Here and nowhere else looms up the need of new battleships and a hundred millions of dollars a year for the navy. It is in regard to South America, and for the extension of the Monroe Doctrine to a control over the continent, that we discover in the political horizon all manner of colossal foreign responsibilities and the possibilities of friction and war. We may fancy that we would like to be the suzerain power on the continent, with United States officials in authority in every Spanish and Portuguese American capital.
The stern ancient question presses: What right has the United States to assume a protectorate, and much less any form of sovereignty, over South America? The South American governments are as independent as our own. There are no traditions common between us to constitute us an acknowledged Lord Protector over them. On the contrary, our conduct toward Colombia and the Philippines, and the extraordinary utterances of some of our public men, seem to have already produced a certain nervousness among our Spanish-American neighbors.
Neither does international law, which has never in the past given the Monroe Doctrine any clearly acknowledged footing, admit the right of the United States to mark off the American continent as its own preserve, and to stand, like a dog in the manger, to warn other friendly peoples from entering it. Moreover, the millions of the plain American people, who toil and pay the taxes to the tune of about forty dollars a year for every average family, have no valid interests whatever in spending the money or the administrative ability of the country in dubious enterprises beyond the seas, at the behest of ambitious capitalists or politicians, who aim to open markets and run satrapies by the use of national battleships.
The people, who need indefinite services for the expansion of their welfare and happiness at home, have never even been asked to consider, much less to approve, a policy which threatens to dissipate the activities of their government over the length of the continent. The new Monroe Doctrine is a menace to the interests of every American workingman.
It is the old story. The few usurp the power of the many to work their own ends. In short, so far as we are good friends of the South American peoples, so far as we are friends of our kinsmen over the seas on the continent of Europe, so far as our intentions in South America are honestly humane and philanthropic, we have no need whatever of the Monroe Doctrine any longer.
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Next lesson. Current timeTotal duration Google Classroom Facebook Twitter. Video transcript - On December 2, , U. President James Monroe was giving his annual State of the Union Address to Congress when he threw in a couple of remarks about the United States' relationship with the powers of Europe.
He said, "The American continents, "by the free and independent condition "which they have assumed and maintained, "are henceforth not to be considered as subjects "for future colonization by any European powers.
He said, "As far as I'm concerned, "the era of colonization is over. Stop looking at your maps and trying to decide where you might place a little colony next. No more European colonization in the Americas. What's more, don't interfere. You can keep your system, and by system, Monroe meant monarchy, out of the Americas. This is the hemisphere of democracy. So, this is an incredibly bold statement. Let's not forget here that the United States is not exactly a world power in They could, at best, be said to be a minor power, even in the Americas.
The United States is not a major world military power, it's not a major world Navy power. Let's remember that in this era, having a strong Navy was tantamount to being able to take over the world.
They're kind of a second-rate nation in a second-rate part of the world. So, what was the response when the United States made this incredibly bold assertion that they would not permit any more colonization or interference in the Americas from Europe? Nobody really cared. To the established powers of Europe, the United States was no more than a little mosquito, buzzing around, maybe making a lot of noise, a bit annoying, but pretty easy to swat.
No matter how much noise the United States made, the only thing that mattered to the great powers of the world was whether or not the United States could enforce the Monroe Doctrine, which with such a weak military presence, they certainly could not. Nevertheless, the Monroe Doctrine became a key facet of American foreign policy throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century.
It became a justification for Manifest Destiny and would play a major role in the foreign policies of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
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