THE MONROE DOCTRINE--ITS ORIGIN AND MEANING. [By Prof. John Bassett Moore of Columbia College, New York.] The great diversity of view which has characterized discussions of the Monroe doctrine may be ascribed to several causes, among which are the different mental attitudes of those who have discussed it, a neglect to consider the circumstances in which it originated, and a divergence of opinion or of assumption as to the precise passages in which it is to be found. In order that nothing essential to an understanding of the subject may be lacking, I will quote all the passages in President Monroe's message that have been cited as containing the expression of his doctrine:

I.

which is, not to interfere in the internal con-
cerns of any of its powers; to consider the
government de facto as the legitimate govern-
ment for us; to cultivate friendly relations
with it and to preserve those relations by a
frank, firm and manly policy, meeting in all
instances the just claims of every power, sub-
mitting to injuries from none. But in regard
to these continents, circumstances are emi-
nently and conspicuously different. It is im-
possible that the allied powers should extend
their political system to any portion of either
continent without endangering our peace and
happiness; nor can any one believe that our
southern brethren, if left to themselves,
would adopt it of their own accord.
equally impossible, therefore, that we should
behold such interposition, in any form, with
indifference."-Paragraphs 48 and 49, Message

of Dec. 2. 1823.

It is

It will be observed that the two passages above quoted, which are sometimes printed together-among other places, in Wharton's "International Law Digest"-as if they formed one continuous passage and were intended to convey one idea, are widely separated in President Monroe's message. In reality, they relate to two distinct subjects. I will discuss them in their order.

"At the proposal of the Russian imperial government, made through the minister of the emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg, to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the northwest coast of this continent. A similar proposal has been made by his imperial majesty to the government of Great Britain, which has likewise been acceded to. *** In the discussions to which this interest has given rise, and in the arrangements by which they may terminate, the occasion has been judged proper for asserting as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American This passage has by more than one writer continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and main-nies on these continents." In a proper sense been said to mean: "No more European colotain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers."-Paragraph 7, Message of Dec. 2, 1823.

II.

"In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments. And to the defense of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. * * Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same,

MEANING OF PASSAGE I.

this interpretation is correct. But it is not correct if it is intended to ascribe to President Monroe the declaration that the United States would resist any acquisition whatsoever of territory on either of the American continents by a European power. That question was not before him. The history of the passage shows that it related solely to the question of colonization or original settlement; that it did not refer to the acquisition of territory by gift, purchase or other form of voluntary transfer, or even by conquest; and that it was not designed to commit the government to any course of action in respect of any territory but that which it claimed as its own.

In 1821 the emperor of Russia issued a ukase by which he assumed as owner of the shore to exclude foreigners from carrying on commerce and from navigating and fishing within 100 Italian miles of the northwest coast of America from Bering straits down to the 51st parallel of north latitude. As this assertion of title embraced territory which was claimed by the United States as well as by Great Britain, both those governments protested against it. In consequence the Russian government proposed to adjust the matter by amicable negotiation at St. Petersburg; and instructions to that end were prepared for Mr. Middleton, then our minister to Russia, in the summer of 1823. John Quincy Adams was then secretary of state. At a meeting of the cabinet on June 28 the subject of Mr. Middleton's instructions was discussed, and Mr. Adams expressed the opinion that the claim of the Russians could not be admitted, because they appeared to have no "settlement" upon the territory in dispute. On July 17 he informed Baron Tuyl, the Russian minister, at a conference at the department of state, "that we [the United States] should contest the right of Russia to any territorial establishment on this continent, and that we should assume distinctly the principle that the American continents are no longer subjects for any new European colonial establishments." When

the principle was announced in the message of Dec. 2, President Monroe spoke of "future colonization."

Now, what was meant by the term "colonization"? The answer is, simply what was meant by the terms "settlement" and "colonial establishments" previously employed by Mr. Adams. The word "colonization" has a definite meaning. It signifies the settlement by emigrants of a region not under the control of any civilized power, unless that of the parent country. Indeed, Mr. Adams in his instructions to Mr. Middleton clearly expressed himself in that sense. "Occupied," he says, "by civilized nations, they [the American continents] will be accessible to Europeans and each other on that footing alone." It was in this sense that Mr. Adams and President Monroe used the term colonization. They used it to describe a method of acquiring title to unoccupied territory. They denied the existence of Russian settlements in the territory in dispute, and, claiming the territory as our own, they necessarily denied the right of Russia or any other European power to colonize it.

often erroneously conveyed by the expression "no more European colonies on this continent." But, in so doing, he restricted its application to North America, saying that "it should be distinctly announced to the world as our settled policy that no future European colony or dominion shall, with our consent, be planted or established on any part of the North American continent." It is obvious that President Polk in pronouncing against the establishment of any "dominion" by a European power-a term which includes the acquisition by voluntary transfer or by conquest of territory already occupied-asserted something quite different from Monroe's declaration against "colonization." He asserted something which should be called the Polk doctrine rather than the Monroe doctrine; and it was, perhaps, the consciousness of this fact that led him to restrict the new doctrine, which was to be maintained by us without regard to other American powers, and not merely by each of those powers "by its own means," to the North American continent.

President Polk reasserted his doctrine in a special message to congress of April 29, 1848, in relation to Yucatan. An Indian outbreak having occurred in that country, the authorities offered to transfer "the dominion and sovereignty" to the United States, and at the same time made a similar offer to Great Britain and Spain. President Polk recommended the occupation of the territory by the United States, and in so doing declared that "we could not consent to a transfer of this 'dominion and sovereignty' to either Spain, Great Britain or any other European power." This pronouncement went beyond the Monroe doctrine in any of its parts. The Monroe doctrine, in all its parts, was based upon the right of American states, whose independence we had acknowledged, to dispose of themselves as they saw fit. It was directed against the interposition of European powers to control their destiny against their will. Mr. Adams expressed this idea in his diary thus: "Connations, they themselves, and no other nation, had the right to dispose of their condition. We have no right to dispose of them, either alone or in conjunction with other nations. Neither have any other nations the right of disposing of them without their consent." The Polk doctrine, on the other hand, would forbid the acquisition of dominion by a European power in North America even by voluntary transfer or cession. The project of occupying Yucatan was abandoned before any vote on the subject was reached in congress, in consequence of the reception of news that a treaty between the whites and the Indians had been concluded.

While the announcement as to future colonization was made in general terms, applicable to the whole of the American continents, it related, in the message of President Monroe, solely to our territorial claims on the northwest coast. It was put forth with a view to protect those claims against encroach ment, and, as an argument invented for the purpose, it did not become the subject of cabinet deliberation. This could not have been the case if there had been an intention to announce a new policy which the United States was to maintain in behalf of all the Americas. But all doubt as to what was intended in this regard has been precluded by Mr. Adams himself, who was the author of the argument. In his special message to congress of Dec. 26, 1825, touching the Panama congress, he suggested as one of the subjects that might be discussed, "an agreement among all the parties represented at the meeting that each will guard, by its own means, against the estab-sidering the South Americans as independent lishment of any European colony within its borders. ** *This was," he said, "more than two years since announced by my predecessor to the world as a principle resulting from the emancipation of both the American continents." It may be said that if Mr. Adams intended to do no more than announce that territory already occupied by civilized powers was not subject to future colonization, he merely stated a truism. But in its application to the American continents at that time the announcement was far from being a truism. It was by no means generally admitted that the American continents were then wholly occupied by civilized nations. There were vast regions of territory not actually settled by the subjects of civilized powers. Neither Russia nor Great Britain admitted the claim put forth by Mr. Adams.

It is often said that the Monroe doctrine would forbid the transfer by a European power of a colony in America to another European power This is another example of the danger in indulging in loose interpretations. If Spain should transfer Cuba to Denmark, or if Great Britain should transfer Canada and Jamaica to Greece, would we consider either of these acts as "unfriendly" to us, or as "dangerous to our peace and safety"?

THE POLK DOCTRINE.

In his annual message of Dec. 2, 1845, President Polk, referring to our dispute with Great Britain as to the Oregon territory and to the possible intervention of European powers in consequence of our annexation of Texas and possibly of other territory southward, sought to give to President Monroe's announcement on the subject of colonization the meaning

It is obvious that President Polk, in invoking the Monroe doctrine in the sense in which he sought to apply it, was endeavoring to strengthen his position in respect to his policy of annexation, to which many persons were strenuously opposed. That he had an eye chiefly to this feature of his administration is shown by the fact that he abandoned in 1846 his claim to the Oregon territory and settled the boundary at forty-nine instead of at the line of "fifty-four-forty or fight," to which he had previously pronounced our title to be unquestionable.

MEANING OF PASSAGE II. This passage, which was anxiously considered by President Monroe and his cabinet, related to the threatened interference of a combination of European powers in the political affairs of the independent American states. On Sept. 26, 1815, the emperors of Austria and Russia and the king of Prussia concluded at Paris a treaty which was known as the holy alliance. The object of this league

*

was declared to be the administration of gov- London, as to the possibility of a joint declaernment, in matters both internal and exter- ration by the two governments against the innal, according to the precepts of justice, tervention of the allies in Spanish America. charity and peace; and to this end the allied When Mr. Rush reported these conversations monarchs, "looking upon themselves as dele- to his government, President Monroe lost no gated by Providence" to rule over their re- time in taking counsel upon them. Jefferson, spective countries, engaged to "lend one whose opinion was sought, replied: "Our another, on every occasion and in every first and fundamental maxim should be never place, assistance, aid and support." In the to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe; course of time, as revolt against the arrange- our second, never to suffer Europe to interments of the treaty of Vienna became more meddle with cis-Atlantic affairs, * widespread and more pronounced, the alli- While the last [Europe] is laboring to become ance ceased to wear its originally benevolent the domicile of despotism, our endeavor aspect and came more and more to assume should surely be to make our hemisphere the form of a league for the protection of the that of freedom. One nation [Great Britain], principle of legitimacy-the principle of the most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit; divine right of kings as opposed to the rights she now offers to lead, aid and accompany us of the people-against the encroachments of in it. By acceding to her proposition we deliberal ideas. Congresses were held at Aix-la- tach her from the bands, bring her mighty Chapelle, Troppau and Laybach for the pur- weight into the scale of free government and pose of maturing a programme to that end. emancipate a continent at one stroke. * * * The league was joined by the king of France, Great Britain is the nation which can do us but England, whose prince regent had origi- the most harm of any one or all on earth, and nally given it his informal adhesion, began to with her on our side we need not fear the grow hostile. In the circular issued at Trop- whole world. With her, then, we should most pau, the allies associated "revolt and crime," sedulously cherish a cordial friendship, and and declared that the European powers had nothing would tend more to knit our affec"had an undoubted right to take a hostile at- tions than to be fighting once more side by titude in regard to those states in which the side in the same cause." Mr. Madison viewed overthrow of the government might operate the suggestion of Canning with favor. as an example." In the circular issued at Lay, In the cabinet of Monroe, Mr. Calhoun inbach they denounced "as equally null, and clined to invest Mr. Rush with power to join disallowed by the public law of Europe, any England in a declaration, even if it should pretended reform effected by revolt and open pledge the United States not to take either force." Popular movements were forcibly Cuba or Texas. He believed that the holy suppressed in Piedmont and Naples. In Octo-alliance "had an ultimate eye to us; that ber, 1822, representatives of the allies assem- they would, if not resisted, subdue South bled at Verona, especially for the purpose of America. *** Violent parties would arise concerting measures against the revolution- in this country, one for and one against them, ary government in Spain. As the result of and we should have to fight upon our own their deliberations they issued a circular in shores for our own institutions." The presiwhich they announced their determination dent at first inclined to Calhoun's idea of giv"to repel the maxim of rebellion, in whatever ing Mr. Rush discretionary powers, but this place and under whatever form it might show was opposed by Mr. Adams, who maintained itself"; and they adjourned with the secret that we could act with England only on the understanding that France should intervene basis of the acknowledged independence of to suppress the constitutional government in the Spanish-American states. He thought Spain. Their ultimate object was more ex- that we should let England make her own plicitly expressed in a secret treaty in which declaration. He did not believe that the they engaged mutually "to put an end to the holy alliance meant to establish monarchy system of representative governments" in among us. But if they should subdue the Europe and to adopt measures to destroy Spanish provinces, the ultimate result would, "the liberty of the press." said Mr. Adams, be to recolonize them, partitioned out among themselves. Russia might take California, Peru and Chile; France might take Mexico, and Great Britain, if she could not resist the course of things, would take at least the island of Cuba as her share of the scramble. What, then, would be the situation of the United States-England holding Cuba, and France Mexico? We should therefore make a declaration for ourselves. The act of the executive could not, after all, commit the nation to a pledge of war, and congress would be left free to act or not, as circumstances might arise.

In April, 1823, France proceeded to execute the plans of the allies by invading Spain for the purpose of restoring the absolute monarch, Ferdinand VII. Before the close of the ensuing summer such progress had been made in the execution of that design that notice was given to the British government that, as soon as the military objects of the allies in Spain were achieved, they would propose a congress with a view to the termination of the revolutionary governments in Spanish America. At this time Lord Castlereagh, who had always been favorably disposed toward the alliance,had been succeeded in the conduct of the foreign affair of England by George Canning, who reflected the popular sentiment as to the policy of the allied powers. The independence of the Spanish-American governments, which had now been acknowledged by the United States, had not as yet been recognized by Great Britain. But English merchants, like those of the United States, had developed a large trade with the SpanishAmerican countries, a trade which their restoration to a colonial condition, whether under Spain or any of the allies, would, under the commercial system then in vogue, have cut off and destroyed.

As the interests of the United States and of England were thus to a great extent identical, Canning, toward the close of the summer of 1823, began to sound Mr. Rush, our minister at

On Oct. 9, 1823. Canning, in an interview with Prince de Polignac, the French ambassador, declared that while Great Britain would remain "neutral" in any war between Spain and her colonies, the "junction" of any foreign power with Spain against the colonies would be viewed as constituting "entirely a new question, upon which Great Britain must take such decision as her interests required." This declaration, followed by that of President Monroe for the United States, shattered the plans of the holy alliance with reference to Spanish America. Against the two great maritime powers of the world the allies were, in respect to any transatlantic project, utterly helpless.

The motive of England was chiefly commercial. But the motive of the United States was largely political. The holy alliance rep

resented a force avowedly and aggressively | hostile to the form of popular government of which the United States furnished the most shining example. It was for this reason that President Monroe declared that any attempt on their part to extend "their system" to any portion of this hemisphere would be considered as "dangerous to our peace and safety. The further declaration that we could not view any interposition by any European power in the affairs of the governments whose independence we had acknowledged, for the purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other manner their destiny, in any other light than as "the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States," grew out of the same circumstances as the preceding declaration, and may, as Mr. Calhoun has said, be considered as an appendage to it. Those governments, said Mr. Calhoun, who spoke with peculiar authority on the subject, "had just emerged from their protracted revolutionary struggles. They had hardly yet reached a point of solidity, and in that tender stage the administration of President Monroe thought it proper not only to make that general declaration in reference to the holy alliance but to make a more specific one against the interference of any European power, in order to countenance these young republics as far as we could with propriety." Mr. Webster, in 1826, said that the "amount" of President Monroe's declarations was "that this government could not look with indifference on any combination to assist Spain in her war against the South American states; that we could not but consider any such combination as dangerous or unfriendly to us, and that if it should be formed it would be for the competent authorities of this government to decide when the case arose what course our duty and interest should require us to pursue."

On Jan. 20, 1824, Mr. Clay offered in the house of representatives a joint resolution, by which it was declared that the people of the United States "would not see, without serious inquietude, any forcible intervention by the allied powers of Europe in behalf of Spain," to reduce her colonies to subjection. Upon this resolution no action was taken. Regarding the danger as probably passed, congress was unwilling to commit the government to general declarations by which its freedom of action might in the future be hampered. Indeed, the house of representatives adopted a resolution declaring that the United States ought not to form any alliances with South American republics or enter into any joint declarations on the subject of President Monroe's pronouncement, but that the people should be "left free to act, in any crisis, in such manner as their feelings of friendship toward those republics and as their own honor and policy may at the time dictate."

stand how the policy of non-intervention, which Washington adopted and inculcated, involved the policy which Monroe, thirty years later, advocated, of intervention in behalf of independent American states against the aims of the holy alliance.

LATTER-DAY FALLACIES.

At the present time an idea seems to prevail that the Monroe doctrine committed us to a kind of protectorate over the independent states of this hemisphere, in consequence of which we are required to espouse their quarrels, though we cannot control their conduct. To state this theory is to refute it. Like other independent nations, we are at liberty to act with some regard to our own interests. Our position is not that of an involuntary military force, at the beck and call of any American state that may stand in need of it. When it became apparent that the French sought to establish a monarchy in Mexico, we did not hesitate to declare our opposition; and in 1866 we notified the Austrian government that, if it sent any troops to the support of Maximilian, we could not engage longer to remain neutral in the contest. This was a correct assertion of the Monroe doctrine. But we have not assumed to forbid European powers to settle their quarrels with American states by the use of force any more than we have hesitated to do so ourselves. In 1861 we admitted the right of France, Spain and Great Britain to proceed jointly by force against Mexico for the satisfaction of claims. Indeed, Mr. Seward, in an instruction to our minister to France of June 21, 1862, said: "France has a right to make war against Mexico, and to determine for herself the cause. We have a right and interest to insist that France shall not improve the war she makes to raise up in Mexico an anti-republican or anti-American government. or to maintain such a government there. France has disclaimed such designs, and we, besides reposing faith in the assurances given in a frank, honorable manner, would, in any case, be bound to wait for, and not anticipate, a violation of them." It was not til they were subsequently violated that Mr. Seward protested.

In 1842 and again in 1844 Great Britain blockaded the port of San Juan de Nicaragua, In 1851 the same power laid an embargo on traffic at the port of La Union, in Salvador, and blockaded the whole coast of that country. In 1862 and 1863 the same power seized Brazilian vessels in Brazilian waters in reprisal for the plundering of the bark Prince of Wales on the Brazilian coast. In 1838 France blockaded the ports of Mexico as an act of redress for unsatisfied demands. In 1845 France and Great Britain blockaded the ports and coasts of Buenos Ayres for the purpose of securing the independence of Üruguay. From 1865 till some scarcely defined date Spain was at war with the republics on the west coast of South America. The bombardment of Valparaiso by a Spanish fleet was a prominent incident of the conflict. In 1831 a United States man-of-war dispersed the Buenos Ayrean colony on the Malvinas, or Falkland islands. and released some of our Attempts have frequently been made to citizens who had been arrested there for killtrace back the declarations of President Mon- ing seals on the coast. In 1846 we went to war roe to utterances of other statesmen made with Mexico. In 1854 the commander of one of long previously. It has even been said that our men-of-war, having failed to obtain from their germs are to be found in Washington's the town of Greytown an indemnity of $24,000 proclamation of neutrality in the war between for the seizure and destruction of property. England and France, and in his farewell and an apology for an affront to the American address. But, as all the territory of the minister by some of the inhabitants of the American continents, except that occupied by place, bombarded it, and afterward, "in orthe United States, belonged at that time to der to inculcate a lesson never to be forgotEuropean powers and was more or less in- ten," burned such buildings as were left volved in their contests, it is difficult to under-standing. In 1859 we sent an expedition to

In this view there is certainly great wisdom. To attempt to anticipate particular cases would be a futile experiment; while, if an effort were made to employ terms so general as to cover all future cases, contingencies might arise in which the government would find itself seriously embarrassed by its own unadvised declarations.

THE UNEXPLORED GLOBE.

Leaving out of account the very imper- | Arctic regions.. fectly known regions of central Asia and the interior of the northern parts of both North and South America, as well as the similar areas of Africa and Australia, there is an aggregate area of about 20,000,000 of square miles of the surface of the globe as yet quite unexplored. This aggregate is made up as follows: Sq. miles.

When we add to this great total not merely regions, but also those that, though explored, the enormous areas of only partially explored are not yet accurately surveyed, it will be seen that the field for further geographical exploration and research is abundantly wide; 6,500,000 for the globe cannot be said to be geographic2,250,000 ally conquered until all its physical features 1,500.000 are accurately known and mapped, and all 500,000 its habitable lands, at least, have been cov250,000 ered with the network of a complete geodetic 500,000 triangulation.