Monroe Doctrine Essay

505 Words3 Pages
The Monroe Doctrine was the statement of U.S. policy toward Latin America. Scholars have interpreted the doctrine as the U.S. declaration of intent to be the principal power of the Western hemisphere.After Latin American nations overthrew Spanish and Portuguese rule in the early 1800s, the United States feared other European nations would try to claim the newly independent nations as colonies.President James Monroe's speech to Congress in late 1823 is known as the Monroe Doctrine. He declared the Americas off limits to any future European colonization and announced America's intention to stay out of European affairs.U.S. presidents invoked the Monroe Doctrine throughout the 1800s. For instance, James K. Polk told Europeans not to interfere in the U.S. dispute with Mexico over California and Texas in 1845.President Theodore Roosevelt's Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904 proclaimed the U.S. would intervene militarily in Latin American nations considered unstable. "Secretary of State John Quincy Adams sent a letter to Hugh Nelson, the American minister to Spain, outlining his concerns: Such indeed are, between the interests of that island and of this country, the geographical, commercial, moral, and political relations, formed by nature, gathering in the process of time, and even now verging to maturity, that in looking forward to the probable course of events for the short period of half a century, it is scarcely possible to resist the conviction that the annexation of Cuba to our federal republic will be indispensable to the continuance and integrity of the Union itself."British foreign minister George Canning proposed to the American government that a joint warning be issued to continental Europe. President Monroe considered the British proposal, but eventually accepted John Quincy Adams’ counsel that America craft an independent statement. In his message
Open Document