Centro Bilingue Vista Alegre

Centro Bilingüe Vista Alegre

Name:
Yenia Quintero

Subject:
Geo/History

Teacher:
Fernando Moran

Level:
8°E

Date:
8/7/2012

Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine is a policy of the United States introduced on December 2, 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts ofaggression requiring U.S. intervention. The Doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The Doctrine was issued at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved independence from the Spanish Empire (except Cuba and Puerto Rico). The United States, working inagreement with Britain, wanted to guarantee no European power would move in.
President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress. It became a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States and one of its longest-standing tenets, and would be invoked by many U.S. statesmen and several U.S. presidents, including TheodoreRoosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and others.
The intent and impact of the Monroe Doctrine persisted with only minor variations for almost two centuries. Its primary objective was to free the newly independent colonies of Latin America from European intervention and control that would make the New World a battleground for the Old. The doctrine put forward that the New World and the Old Worldwere to remain distinctly separate spheres of influence, for they were composed of entirely separate and independent nations.
Background
Dexter Perkins wrote that the Monroe Doctrine was inspired by the Napoleonic Wars. The American government feared the victorious European powers would revive the monarchical government. France had already agreed to restore the Spanish Monarchy in exchange forCuba. As the revolutionary Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) ended, Prussia, Austria, and Russia formed the Holy Alliance to defend monarchism. In particular, the Holy Alliance authorized military incursions to re-establish Bourbon rule over Spain and its colonies, which were establishing their independence.
Allowing Spain to re-establish control of its former colonies would have cut Great Britain fromits profitable trade with the region. For that reason, Great Britain's Foreign Minister George Canning proposed to the United States that they mutually declare and enforce a policy of separating the new world from the old. The United States resisted a joint statement because of the recent memory of The War of 1812, leading to the unilateral statement.
However, the immediate provocation was theRussian Ukase of 1821 asserting rights to the Northwest and forbidding non-Russian ships from approaching the coast.

The Doctrine
The full document of the Monroe Doctrine is long and couched in diplomatic language, but its essence is expressed in two key passages; the first is the introductory statement:
The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights andinterests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.
The second key passage, a fuller statement of the Doctrine, is addressed to the "allied powers" of Europe (that is, the Holy Alliance); it clarifies thatthe United States remains neutral on existing European colonies in the Americas but is opposed to "interpositions" that would create new colonies among the newly independent Spanish American republics:
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...