Vol. 42, No. 01
01/01/2026
The Monroe Doctrine Revisited
AT A GLANCE
• The Monroe Doctrine was a commitment to neutrality in European affairs, in exchange for Europe’s refraining from further colonization of the New World.
• The Monroe Doctrine was transformed by Teddy Roosevelt into an unlimited writ of authority to intervene in Latin American and overseas affairs.
• The Monroe Doctrine embodied the prudent foreign policy of the Founders: noninterventionist, but mindful of America’s legitimate sphere of interest.
The world in 1823 was unsettled, yet perhaps less so than in the preceding 30 years. The terrible Napoleonic conflagration had finally ended, and a Bourbon (Louis XVIII) once again occupied the French throne. The major imperial powers of Europe — England, France, Prussia, Austria-Hungary, and Russia — had devised a new international system, a multilateral scheme that would come to be known as the Concert of Europe, as embodied by the Holy Alliance, the Quintuple Alliance, and the Congress system. The new system of European alliances was supposed to guarantee international peace through collective military enforcement, and was already being strained by the Greek war of Independence against the Ottomans.
In Europe’s southwest, meanwhile, decrepit Spain was on the verge of losing her New World dominions. Fatally weakened by Napoleon’s depredations, Spain faced comprehensive revolts for independence from Mexico to Argentina, and it was plain to any sober observer that her days as a world-engirding imperial power (indeed, as William Graham Sumner once pointed out, the inventor of European colonialism) were drawing to a close.
The fledgling United States, meanwhile, having weathered the twin trials of the War of 1812 and the Panic of 1819, was looking increasingly toward her vast new western frontier as a base for expansion and settlement. Even as Spain was on the wane, no impartial observer could deny the immense potential of this upstart republic, with its newly acquired territorial troves stretching halfway across the continent and down into the former Spanish domain of Florida.
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The full article includes detailed analysis of Massie's legislative strategy, exclusive quotes from the interview, and insider information about upcoming votes.
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