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.