parture of European government from this continent and the adjacent islands," in 1870-77 favored the acquisition of San Domingo, as a measure of national protection to prevent the apprehended danger of its control as a possession or a protectorate of a European Power, and to secure a "just claim to a controlling influence" over the future commercial traffic across the isthmus. Later, he endeavored to negotiate with Colombia a treaty by which he sought for the United States a greater privileged status and more extensive rights of intervention on the isthmus—a treaty which Colombia refused to ratify. In 1880, Secretary Evarts asserted the doctrine of American "paramount interest" in projects of interoceanic canal communication across the isthmus, and the right to be a principal party to any political arrangements affecting this American question. This doctrine received new meaning in 1881 after the occupation of Egypt by Great Britain which already owned a controlling majority of the stock of the Suez Canal, and again after the events of the American intervention in Cuba which brought new opportunities, new duties and new responsibilities to the United States. The construction of the canal under American control was the logical conclusion of a long series of events; and the wisdom of the diplomacy and policy which seized opportunity by the forelock, and terminated the long period of discussion and delay, can safely be submitted to the test of time.

Although changed conditions in both hemispheres, and of motive power on the ocean, have modified the earlier meaning of the Monroe Doctrine, and may still further modify it, its main basic principle for America has not been abandoned. This principle is not obsolete. It has been retained on the broad ground of national welfare, in spite of the defects in Latin American governments so frequently resulting in troubles due to unpaid claims; and European Powers have recently shown a readiness to accept it at the Hague Conference and in connection with the Venezuelan debt question of 1902. The latter incident, according to leaders in England, gave the Monroe Doctrine an immensely increased authority. Mr. Balfour, approving the American policy, suggested that the United States should more actively enter into an arrangement by which constantly-occurring difficulties between European Powers and certain states in Latin America could be avoided.

Unless we have reached the conclusion that all Latin America might be better under European control, and that this control would not seriously threaten the peace and permanent interests of the United States, at least one important principle of the Doctrine should still be retained as a fundamental part of American foreign policy. Under whatever name, and however modified to suit the conditions and needs of American foreign policy, it is still a useful principle. It may fitly be called the doctrine of national defense, which in its results may be regarded also as a doctrine of Pan-American defense. In America the United States government has duties and responsibilities which can not be abandoned to the mercy of trans-oceanic powers, nor submitted to the decision of international conferences or tribunals. It must attend to the larger interests of the United States-without any unnecessary interference with the larger interests of other powers. Certainly, in Mexico at present, the United States has a larger interest than that of any European Power. She has a far greater interest than any other power in the restoration of peace and the establishment of a government that has proper basis or permanency in its method of selection and in its policies for adjustment of problems that press for solution. Peace in America, on the basis of good government, is more important to the United States than it is to Europe, and more important to the United States than peace in Europe.

The present basis of policy is the paramount interest of the United States in American affairs-a special interest which, especially in the Caribbean, can be shared with no other power, and perhaps would be questioned by no European Power. After the war for the relief of the Cuban situation in 1898 a war which made the United States an Asiatic power and brought it in contact with European politics in the far East-American paramount interests in the West Indies, and in the Caribbean, were greatly increased and especially found expression in the messages of President Roosevelt and in various acts of the American government-including the construction of the Panama Canal which has clearly increased the importance of maintaining around the Caribbean the American policy against the interference of European Powers. In this region the United States has duties and responsibilities which it may not willingly share with any European Power.

Farther south, the assertion and maintenance of the doctrine of non-intervention has been rendered less necessary by the growth of several more perfect, orderly and stable governments, which themselves are the best guarantors of the Doctrine. The larger Latin American republics, in which governments have reached sure bases of permanence, may properly be invited by the United States to cooperate or participate in the consideration of mutual larger interests in America, and to share the responsibilities incident to the American principle of defense of American nationalities. Doubtless by such a continental extension of the means of safeguarding the Monroe Doctrine, Latin American neighbors through the sobering effect of actual responsibility would cease to misinterpret the motives of the mother republic in the Caribbean and on the Isthmus.

Whether we admit Olney's declaration that "the United States is practically sovereign on this continent," it seems clear that as a result of its geographic situation it has a "paramount interest" in the western hemisphere which imposes certain rules of policy toward Latin-American neighbors-especially toward those in the Caribbean and round its shores. This doctrine was at the basis of the Cuban intervention, of the construction of the Panama canal under American control, of the declaration of policy to Germany in connection with the blockade of Venezuelan ports, of the policy in Santo Domingo, of the recent policy in Nicaragua, and of the present Mexican policy. The essential idea is to prevent the danger of European intervention which might result in the acquisition of territory.

North American Review. 176: 185-99. February, 1903

Monroe Doctrine-Its Origin and Import. William L. Scruggs

It has been said that the Monroe Doctrine, even as thus limited and understood, has never received the assent of Europe, nor even the sanction of our own Congress; consequently, that it has no legal validity. It seems to me that such an assumption, totally unsupported as it is by either fact or law, scarcely needs refutation. Even if the facts were as alleged, they would not warrant the conclusion drawn from them. But since the facts are not as alleged, the conclusion is doubly erroneous.

As a matter of fact, there has never been a formal protest against the Monroe Doctrine by any European Power. On the contrary, all have passively acquiesced in it for nearly a whole century, and passive acquiescence is tantamount to assent. And, whilst our national legislature has never specifically, and in so many words, reaffirmed it, that body has many times either taken its validity for granted or constructively affirmed it. Every resolution or other measure bearing upon it that has ever been introduced into either House of Congress, has been in support of it; never has there been one against it. That of 1824, by Mr. Clay, was never called up; because, under the change of circumstances which soon followed, the measure was deemed superfluous. That of 1864, which passed both Houses without a dissenting vote, took the validity of the Monroe Doctrine for granted, and resulted, as everybody knows, in the almost immediate evacuation of Mexico by the French. That of 1879 was never reported from the Committee on Foreign Affairs-possibly because the occasion for it had already passed. That of 1880 was unanimously sustained by the Foreign Affairs Committee, but the session closed before it could be acted upon. That of 1895-6, in relation to the Anglo-Venezuelan question, passed both Houses without a dissenting voice, and led to the settlement of the dispute by arbitration.

The Resolution of 1826, relative to the proposed Panama Congress, constitutes no exception. In the first place, it was not germane to the case at all. Its passage turned upon totally different issues, as is manifest from the very words of the Resolution itself. It merely expressed the opinion that the United States ought not, under the then existing circumstances, to be represented in that particular conference "except in a purely diplomatic character;" that we ought not, at that particular time, to form “any alliance with all or any of the Spanish-American states," but be left free to act, in any crisis that might arise, in "such manner as our feelings of friendship towards our sister republics and our own honor and traditional policy may at the time dictate." In the next place, viewed at this distance of time, it is easy to see just why that Congress failed. Not the Monroe Doctrine, but Negro Slavery was the rock on which it was wrecked. One of the questions proposed for discussion by the Congress was "the consideration of means to be adopted for the

entire abolition of the African slave trade." Cuba and Porto Rico, then slave-holding provinces of Spain, were certain to be made subjects of discussion; Hayti, already a Negro republic, would be represented; and there were then over four millions of negro slaves in the United States, right of property in which was guaranteed by our fundamental law. Here, then, was an awkward dilemma to be avoided; and in avoiding it—in yielding to the necessity of preserving a class of vested interests in our slave-holding States-we lost the opportunity of giving permanent direction to the political and commercial connections of the newly enfranchised South-American republics, and the bulk of their trade passed into other hands. But the principles of the Monroe Doctrine were not, in any manner, abridged or modified thereby.

Again, it has been said that the so-called "Clayton-Bulwer Treaty," of 1850, was a material modification, if not a virtual abandonment, of the principles of the Monroe Doctrine. That that compact was a monumental diplomatic blunder, cannot be denied. Even British statesmen could not conceal their amazement at our short-sightedness in entering into such a one-sided agreement. It kept us on the stool of repentance for nearly half a century. But there were no circumstances connected with its negotiation, nor anything in the Treaty itself as ratified by the Senate, to warrant an inference that it contemplated the abandonment, or even a modification, of the Monroe Doctrine. The primary object was to obtain from Great Britain a solemn pledge never to attempt to colonize any alleged "unoccupied" portions of Central America. The secondary object was to stimulate investment of foreign capital in a great American enterprise, at a time when capital for such purposes was difficult to obtain. The -blunder consisted in overlooking a covert (and perhaps doubtful) recognition of a British colony already illegally established in Central America. But aside from this, and the incautious "agreement to agree" (in Article VIII) relative to the control and management of some possible future isthmian canal, the Treaty could not be construed as, in any way, derogatory of the Monroe Doctrine. Moreover, the Treaty itself, as finally proclaimed, was of very doubtful legality. It lacked the Senate's concurrence in Mr. Clayton's incautious assent to certain written constructions of it by the British Government, presented for the