What are three purposes of the Monroe Doctrine?

The Monroe Doctrine was first introduced in 1823 by President James Monroe in his annual message to Congress. The Doctrine became the United States’ primary foreign policy document, declaring the Western Hemisphere closed from European colonization or intervention. Any breach of the Monroe Doctrine would be a threat to the United States. The Monroe Doctrine deeply effected the United States’ foreign policy relationship with Latin American countries. In Latin American countries such as Spain, it had a positive effect because the U.S. demanded Spain to leave the U.S. alone based on the isolationist position. However, it caused a negative effect on Spain because America would no longer be helping or aiding them with troops during wars with other countries. Paradoxically, the Monroe docrtine also justified the expansionist ideas that the United States had at the time, as well as the conflicts over land that were often a result of these ideas. Although the Monroe Doctrine was created to protect Latin America from Europe, it also served America’s best interests. The Monroe doctrine was in a sense a doctrine reastablishing American independence, but also including Latin American countries interests. The way in which the United States chose to intervene in Latin America, especially in Cuba, Mexico, Gran Colombia, and the Falkland Islands, was greatly influenced by the benefits and interests of the nation at the time. It is meant that the reason the United States chose to intervene in these countries were so that the United States could recieve other entities in return. The entities being protected and fulfiled through the interests of the Monroe Doctrine were land, economic prosperity, and the ideologies of the United States.

Portrait of President James Monroe

Introduction to the Monroe Doctrine

The Monroe Doctrine and Latin America

• Introduction to the Monroe Doctrine
• Monroe Doctrine's affect on Land/Territory
• The Monroe Doctrine's affect on Economics
• The United States' Ideologies and Views about Latin America
• In Conclusion
• Artifacts
• Bibliography

The Monroe Doctrine (1823)

(December 2, 1823), cornerstone of U.S foreign policy enunciated by President James Monroe in his annual message to Congress. Declaring that the Old World and New World had different systems and must remain distinct spheres, Monroe made four basic points: (1) The United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of or the wars between European powers; (2) the United States recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere; (3) the Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization; and (4) any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States.

The doctrine was an outgrowth of concern in both England and the United States that the continental powers would attempt to restore Spain's former colonies, in Latin America, many of which had become newly independent nations. The United States was also concerned about Russia's territorial ambitions in the northwest coast of North America. As a consequence, George Canning, the British foreign minister, suggested a joint U.S.-British declaration forbidding future colonization in Latin America. Monroe was initially favourable to the idea, and former presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison concurred. But Secretary of State John Quincy Adams argued that the United States should issue a statement of American policy exclusively, and his view ultimately prevailed.

The Monroe Doctrine, in asserting unilateral U.S. protection over the entire Western Hemisphere, was a foreign policy that could not have been sustained militarily in 1823. Monroe and Adams were well aware of the need for the British fleet to deter potential aggressors in Latin America. Because the United States was not a major power at the time and because the continental powers apparently had no serious intentions of recolonizing Latin America, Monroe's policy statement (it was not known as the "Monroe Doctrine" for nearly 30 years) was largely ignored outside the United States.

The United States did not invoke it nor oppose British occupation of the Falkland Islands in 1833 or subsequent British encroachments in Latin America. In 1845 and again in 1848, however, President James K. Polk reiterated Monroe's principles in warning Britain and Spain not to establish footholds in Oregon, California, or Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. At the conclusion of the Civil War, the United States massed troops on the Rio Grande in support of a demand that France withdraw its puppet kingdom from Mexico. In 1867—in part due to U.S. pressure—France withdrew.

After 1870 interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine became increasingly broad. As the United States emerged as a world power, the Monroe Doctrine came to define a recognized sphere of influence. President Theodore Roosevelt added the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine in 1904; it stated that, in cases of flagrant and chronic wrongdoing by a Latin American nation, the United States could intervene in the internal affairs of that nation. Roosevelt's assertion of hemispheric police power was designed to preclude violation of the Monroe Doctrine by European countries seeking redress of grievances against unruly or mismanaged Latin American states.

From the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt to that of Franklin Roosevelt, the United States frequently intervened in Latin America, especially in the Caribbean. Since the 1930s, the United States has attempted to formulate its Latin American foreign policy in consultation with the individual nations of the hemisphere and with the Organization of American States. Yet the United States continues to exercise a proprietary role at times of apparent threat to its national security, and the Western Hemisphere remains a predominantly U.S. sphere of influence. (Encyclopaedia Britannica Article)

What were the 3 main points of the Monroe Doctrine?

What were the main purposes of the Monroe Doctrine select all that apply?

What were the benefits of the Monroe Doctrine?