The Monroe Doctrine: In Defense of Global Liberty
An analysis on how the European Events in the Early 1820s played a key role in the development of the Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine was the first foray of the United States onto the geopolitical stage. A revision of George Washington’s Farewell Address which declared US foreign policy passive and isolationist, the Monroe Doctrine enmeshed the United States in the affairs of (the now named) Latin America by declaring itself the guarantor of all the newly formed Spanish Republics. Common historiography paints the Doctrine as a move of realpolitik, an attempt by the United States to establish for itself the Western Hemisphere as its sphere of influence.
While its later invocations and expansions (the Roosevelt Corollary) were used to justify big stick diplomacy and establish American hegemony, the initial proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine was more heavily influenced by ideological concerns rather than a need to exert geopolitical power, of which the United States had little.
Issued by Monroe within a broader address to Congress towards the end of 1823, the Monroe Doctrine was largely a response to the ideological convulsions and events which continued to grip Europe and the world at large in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. Despite Napoleon’s own death in 1821 on the island of St. Helena, the forces of Revolution which had been initiated during the French Revolution and he had come to embody throughout Europe continued to simmer. Despite the best efforts of the Holy Alliance: Great Britain, France, the Habsburg Empire, Prussia and Russia, “Jacobinist” energies would regularly boil over.
In Spain a military coup in 1820 had forced the reactionary King Ferdinand VII of Spain to accede to a liberal constitution and govern with a Parliament. A similar situation had happened in Portugal. By the middle of 1821 military revolutions had rocked the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Piedmont Savoy. To the more conservative members of the Holy Alliance, particularly the Habsburgs and Russia, it appeared as if the dominoes of Europe were falling one by one. It was only a matter of time before the whole continent was to be convulsed in Revolution.
Tsar Alexander I of Russia had come to see himself and his brother monarchs as God’s Anointed, jointly united in standing against a global Satanic Conspiracy to liquidate the thrones and alters of Europe.
"At this moment we are fighting the Kingdom of Satan; [...] only those whom the Lord had placed at the head of Nations can, if He so wills, persevere in this struggle and not bow to this satanic power, growing ever greater"
-Tsar Alexander I (emphasis mine)
Even the sober minded Metternich was convinced that a united and coordinated cabal was at the root of these revolutions.
“It has been revealed that a vast and dangerous conspiracy has since 1814 acquired enough force and means to action to have taken control of a great many branches of the administration in many countries.” -Prince Metternich (emphasis mine)
Swift and decisive action was required. 120,000 Austrian troops, with Prussian and Russian support, marched into Italy to support the embattled monarchs of Piedmont Savoy and the Two Sicily’s. At the sight of such a force, the Revolutionary armies quickly melted away and the forces of reaction triumphed. Order was restored.
At least in Italy. The Iberian Peninsula was still in the grips of infernal Revolution and worse still, the long protracted wars of independence in the Spanish Colonies were nearing their completion. Tsar Alexander had long seen the liberal revolutionaries in Spain and now the liberal government in Spain and subversive threat to the thrones of Europe. He had long advocated for the Holy Alliance to launch a joint invasion of the Spanish colonies to support royalists and readily advocated for an armed expidition into Spain itself to dissolve the liberal government and restore Spanish absolutism. The other members of the Holy Alliance balked at these suggestions for years, but with the stunning successes of 1821, reactionary sentiment was surging.
By 1823 it was agreed upon that France would be given general sanction to invade Spain and dissolve the liberal constitution. Marching into Spain with an army 105,000, within 6 months, King Ferdinand VII was returned to supremacy and absolutism was restored.
The forces of reaction seemed utterly ascendant. Liberalism seemed no more a paper tiger. In this environment, Tsar Alexander’s dream of the Holy Alliance sailing across the Atlantic and overthrowing the Revolutionary Republics of Spanish America seemed within the realm of possibility.
It was with these events in mind that on December 2nd, 1823 - the same day as the French army made a triumphal entry into Paris - the Monroe Doctrine was delivered in a broader update to Congress. While there were very real concerns of national security and interest at stake, sympathy with America’s new brother republics played a powerful role.
To whit:
"It was stated at the commencement of the last session that a great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the condition of the people of those countries, and that it appeared to be conducted with extraordinary moderation. […]
The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on that side of the Atlantic. [...]
[W]e should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. [...]
[T]he Governments [...] whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged [...]
[T]he allied powers [..] have thought it proper [...] to have interposed by force in the internal concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may be carried [...] is a question in which all independent powers whose governments differ from theirs are interested, even those most remote. It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord.”
- President Monroe, excerpted from various portions of what is now considered the Monroe Doctrine, emphasis mine
It is clearly noted that what the Monroe administration is warning off against isn’t simply wars of reconquest or resubjugation. Any attempt by the European powers to establish monarchical rule (which was another idea that was swirling around) was off the table. Telling as well, is the statement by Monroe that nobody could “believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord," an essentially eschatological statement declaring republican systems of government as the natural endpoint for all New World societies. A bold statement as it was only that very year that the Empire of Mexico was dissolved and replaced with the First Republic and Brazil would remain an Empire until 1889.
Time and time again, the Doctrine expresses itself it terms of “systems of government,” and places the sympathy of the United States very clearly on the side of all liberal governments, whether they be in Europe or the Americas.
US foreign policy was clearly being driven by ideological sympathy - and dare I say; romantic impulses - towards liberalism. It is true that the Doctrine confines itself to the Western Hemisphere, but this I believe is a concession to the constraints of US influence and power, rather than a diplomatic maneuver to carve out a sphere of influence. The Monroe administration was limited by the realities of the time and could not (and it would be unwise to) send direct and immediate aid to the Revolutionary forces expressing themselves throughout the world.
But just as equally, it held little in the way of national interest to serve as a guarantor of freedom in the Western Hemisphere. What practical reason was there to unilaterally declare the United States as the defensive ally of every New World Republic? Against some of the most powerful military nations on Earth? Should the Holy Alliance have decided on a transatlantic invasion, many hundreds of thousands of troops could have been marshalled.
It placed the United States squarely against some of the most powerful military nations on Earth. If Monroe was to purely be in the national interest, he either would have staid entirely out of the European affairs with their former possessions or most daringly, joined them to suppress the republics and receive due compensation. Had for example, the USA arranged to join Spain in resubjugating Mexico, could Spain not have ceded portions of Spanish territory to the US in recompense?
Republican sentiment clearly played a role in how the USA chose to approach the issue. They viewed the South American Republics akin to brother republics and if the Great Powers overthrew them then the Monroe administration feared the same would happen to the United States. The Monroe administration implicitly viewed the destiny of American liberty as intertwined with Latin American liberty. By guaranteeing Latin American liberty, Monroe was helping preserve American liberty and global liberty as a whole. There is, in my opinion, no logical reason to think this beyond Republican sentimentality.
The United States of America, has been from the earliest days, a guarantor of global liberty.
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I’m reading Charles Sellers currently and he emphasizes your point about republicanism in that era. The carryover of “entrepreneurial spirit” that prompted yeoman farmers to settle further and further west during the Jefferson administration has not yet subsided. It was during Monroe’s administration that, he argues, that the essential aspects of capitalism were established by the gentry class and, then, there was no turning back.