The Monroe Doctrine and the Government of Chile

Abstract

The Monroe Doctrine has been the subject of much discussion by American and European publicists, and their estimates have been widely different, ranging from those who consider it the principle which has maintained the territorial integrity of this continent for nearly a century to those who deny to it any real influence in the preservation of the nations which emerged into independent life during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Both concepts are, in my judgment, exaggerated. To accept the first judgment would be to ignore and to forget the failure of the United States to assert the doctrine on three different occasions when it was flagrantly violated: the occupation of the Falkland Islands by Great Britain in 1843, islands which were regarded by the Argentine Republic as national property; the military intervention of France in the Republics of the River Platte in 1838, an intervention repeated in conjunction with Great Britain in 1845; and the occupation of the Chincha Islands by Spain in 1865. The attitude of the government of the United States is readily explained when one recalls the fact that the Monroe Doctrine had not become a real factor in world politics until the naval and military strength of the United States had given to that country the position of a great power. Before that time the doctrine was nothing more than a happy formulation of an aspiration deeply felt by the American nations which had on several occasions prior to the celebrated message of 1823 proclaimed the same idea.