James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States of America, served two terms in office from 1817-1825. On the second of December 1823 he delivered his address to the US Congress in which he unveiled what would become known as the Monroe Doctrine. This philosophy was largely ignored for quite some time and only truly enforced by the future president, Roosevelt’s, amendment to it. This article seeks to uncover the historical setting for the Monroe doctrine, the reason for its delay and the steps towards its enactment and its practical application in Latin America and the wider world since the Roosevelt Corollary.
The United States was still a young country by the time James Monroe became president in 1817. Britain maintained the top position in the world economy. It was in this setting, in 1823, that James Monroe, in his sixth year of presidency, gave a speech which “declared that the Americas were no longer open to European colonization and that the United States would regard any intervention of a European power in the Americas as an unfriendly act against the United States.” Although the thought of national superiority had already begun to grow in the minds of the citizens, especially among the elite of the United States, they were not, at the time, in a position to actually enforce this bold statement. We can therefore, in hindsight, see that the Monroe Doctrine was more a vision of things to come than an implementation of US foreign policy.
Over the next few decades, as Latin American countries began to gain their independence and European powers became consumed in regional issues, the situation in the ‘New World’ began to change, especially within the borders of the ever expanding United States.
Despite Monroe’s declaration, European powers continued to intervene in the affairs of Latin America. It was not until 1842, when the British tried to stop Texas joining the United States, that the US government, under the control of President John Tyler, began to object to this interference. The United States continued their expansion across the American continent throughout the 1840s. President James Polk, the eleventh president, serving from 1845-1849, redefined the parameters of the Monroe Doctrine to explain that, while the doctrine declared that no European power could invade or conquer a territory or state in the western hemisphere, “the Monroe Doctrine did not prohibit territorial changes among the nations of [the western] hemisphere.” This strategy further accelerated the desire and self-justification of the expansionist attitudes of the United States which lead to Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California all falling to the power of the United States in the space of a single decade.
Not only did the United States feel justified in their pursuit of western hemispheric dominance politically, they also felt justified by a sense of Manifest Destiny. This term was coined by John O’Sullivan, the US diplomat to Portugal. It suggests that the white, Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of North America, especially those who were citizens of The United States, were chosen and set apart by God to bring order to the New World and, eventually, the whole world. This quote from John O’Sullivan shows how patently racist this mentality was; “This Continent is for white people, and not only the continent but the islands adjacent, and the Negro must be kept in slavery.” This attitude was apparent throughout all sectors of society from religious and political leaders to the layman in the street. The following two quotes, the first from Reverend Strong, a key religious figure, the second from Senator Albert J. Beveridge demonstrate the national mentality “This powerful race will move down Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can anyone doubt that the result of this competition of races will be the ‘survival of the fittest?’” “God has marked the American People as His chosen Nation to finally lead to the regeneration of the world… we are trustees of the world’s progress, guardians of its righteous peace.”
These statements help us to see how the Monroe Doctrine went from being one man’s vision, to a nation’s belief which could act as justification for war and the violent expansion, as apparent in the cases of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California, of a racist regime. Before I move on to discuss the Roosevelt Corollary there is another incident which demonstrates that this national superiority complex justified forced annexation as well as expansion.
Cuba was ‘discovered’ by Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas in 1492. It was initially used only to launch missions to North America and Mexico. When it was eventually colonised, most of the indigenous peoples were killed. The Spanish, therefore, had to import slaves from Africa to work the land. Initial production focused on tobacco and coffee but shortly Cuba’s main crop became sugar. It was close to the United States and was becoming increasingly valuable due to its dominance in the sugar market. Initially the US offered to buy Cuba from the Spanish; the offer was rejected. Many revolutionary movements had been quashed by the Spaniards but the fight for independence, which broke out in 1895, caught the attention of the United States. “The U.S. public was excited by sensationalist press accounts of Spanish brutality, and business and religious leaders demanded U.S. recognition of the rebels. The expansionist urge… was fed both by those who stood to gain economically and by those who preached of a U.S. mission to rescue the Cubans from Spanish misrule.”
It was, however, not until the USS Maine mysteriously exploded in Havana harbour in 1898 that the US Congress granted permission to declare war on Spain. True Cuban independence was short-lived since in 1901 they were forced to sign the Platt amendment, “which gave the United States the right to intervene in domestic politics at will.” Cuba then suffered more than 50 years of US dominance at the hands of dictators chosen and installed for the purpose of fulfilling the will of US investors and government.
In 1901, six months after the above mentioned incident, Theodore Roosevelt was elected president of the United States. Three years into his two term presidency he made a declaration that would become known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. This is what he said; “The adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of… wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.”
This attitude towards the world, then and now, has proven to be fatal to the legitimacy of governments, diplomacy of nations and the distribution of power throughout the western hemisphere and wider-world. Examples from the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and many others demonstrate this point.
For instance, “under pressure from the international community, London agreed… to permit the United States to build, operate and fortify a canal across the Isthmus [in Panama].” There was, however, one final obstacle confronting the US ambition to join the two great oceans; the region which contained the narrowest stretch of Central America was in Panama which, at the time, was part of Columbia, the government of which would not permit the US to build the canal. With the assistance of two US gunboats the Panamanians were able to declare independence from Colombia on the third of November 1903. The assistance granted to the Panamanians came at a severe price; a treaty signed by the US secretary of State and a French adventurer, claiming to be representative of the interests of Panama, which “granted the United States “in perpetuity” control of a ten-mile strip across the Isthmus with power and jurisdiction as if it were sovereign.” The canal was built and controlled by the United States from then onwards and was only handed back to Panama on the 31st of December 1999. Years after the incident, when he was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Theodore Roosevelt still believed he had acted justly in Panama.
This same imperative, to remain stalwart when in a position of power still exists today in the United States. We witness a president who continues to refuse to apologise for lying to his people in order to gain popular support for an illegal war. Another thing that remains constant is the expansionist and elitist attitude of the American state. Since Guantanamo Bay opened in 2002, we have been inundated with reports of terrible injustices being committed to its inmates. Perhaps even worse than this are the reports from Abu Ghraib. This was a measure created by the Bush administration to deal with the issue of international terrorism. With or without consent from the international community and individual nations, the United States have claimed the right, under the pretence of self-defence, to arrest and detain anyone suspected by their intelligence agencies of being involved in terrorism. This is general knowledge yet it seems nothing can be done to stop them. More recently it has been reported by various journalists and papers, that this power to arrest across international borders has extended beyond those suspected of plotting, committing or funding terrorist activity. “Kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the US Supreme Court has sanctioned it” and “the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington.”
The Monroe Doctrine was the dream of a proudly American president but its effects have been devastating, not only to the inhabitants of the western hemisphere but also to the citizens of free nations throughout the world. When a nation believes that God “has made [them] the master organisers of the world” the people, especially the elite, of that nation will act in such a way that their belief may become, as we can witness, a morbid reality.
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