justified in so far as it sought to identify the attainment of a desirable democratic purpose with American international policy.  Of course Hamilton, when he tried to found the international policy of his country upon the national interest, wholly failed to identify that interest with any positive democratic purpose; but in this, as in other respects, Hamilton was not a thorough-going democrat.  While he was right in seeking to prevent the American people from allying themselves with the aggressive French democracy, he was wrong in failing to foresee that the national interest of the United States was identified with the general security and prosperity of liberal political institutions—­that the United States must by every practical means encourage the spread of democratic methods and ideas.  As much in foreign as in domestic affairs must the American people seek to unite national efficiency with democratic idealism.  The Monroe Doctrine, consequently, is not to be condemned, as it has been condemned, merely because it went far beyond the limited foreign policy of Hamilton.  The real question in regard to the Doctrine is whether it seeks in a practicable way—­in a way consistent with the national interest and inevitable international responsibilities—­the realization of the democratic idea.  Do the rigid advocates of that Doctrine fall into an error analogous to the error against which Washington and Hamilton were protesting?  Do they not tend, indirectly, and within a limited compass, to convert the American democratic idea into a dangerously aggressive principle?

The foregoing question must, I believe, be answered partly in the affirmative.  The Monroe Doctrine, as usually stated, does give a dangerously militant tendency to the foreign policy of the United States; and unless its expression is modified, it may prevent the United States from occupying a position towards the nations of Europe and America in conformity with its national interest and its national principle.  It should be added, however, that this unwholesomely aggressive quality is only a tendency, which will not become active except under certain possible conditions, and which can gradually be rendered less dangerous by the systematic development of the Doctrine as a positive principle of political action in the Western hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine has, of course, no status in the accepted system of International Law.  Its international standing is due almost entirely to its express proclamation as an essential part of the foreign policy of the United States, and it depends for its weight upon the ability of this country to compel its recognition by the use of latent or actual military force.  Great Britain has, perhaps, tacitly accepted it, but no other European country has done so, and a number of them have expressly stated that it entails consequences against which they might sometime be obliged strenuously and forcibly to protest.  No forcible protest has as yet been made, because no European country has had anything to gain from such a protest, comparable to the inevitable cost of a war with the United States.