After 1815 the foreign policy of the United States was determined by a strict adherence to the principles enunciated in Washington’s Farewell Address.  The adherence was more in the letter than in the spirit, and the ordinary popular interpretation, which prevails until the present day, cannot be granted undivided approval; but so far as its immediate problems were concerned, American foreign policy did not, on the whole, go astray.  The United States kept resolutely clear of European entanglements, and did not participate in international councils, except when the rights of neutrals were under discussion; and this persistent neutrality was precisely the course which was needed in order to confirm the international position of the country as well as to leave the road clear for its own national development.  But certain consequences were at an early date deduced from a neutral policy which require more careful examination.  During the presidency of Monroe the systematic isolation of the United States in respect to Europe was developed, so far as the two Americas were concerned, into a more positive doctrine.  It was proclaimed that abstention on the part of the United States from European affairs should be accompanied by a corresponding abstention by the European Powers from aggressive action in the two Americas.  What our government proposed to do was to divide sharply the democratic political system of the Americas from the monarchical and aristocratic political system of Europe.  The European system, based as it was upon royalist legitimacy and privileges, and denying as it did popular political rights, was declared to be inimical in spirit and in effect to the American democratic state.

The Monroe Doctrine has been accepted in this form ever since as an indisputable corollary of the Farewell Address.  The American people and politicians cherish it as a priceless political heirloom.  It is considered to be the equivalent of the Declaration of Independence in the field of foreign affairs; and it arouses an analogous volume and fury of conviction.  Neither is this conviction merely the property of Fourth-of-July Americans.  Our gravest publicists usually contribute to the Doctrine a no less emphatic adherence; and not very many years ago one of the most enlightened of American statesmen asserted that American foreign policy as a whole could be sufficiently summed up in the phrase, “The Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule.”  Does the Monroe Doctrine, as stated above, deserve such uncompromising adherence?  Is it an adequate expression of the national interest of the American democracy in the field of foreign affairs?