Key Events

• The Monroe Doctrine was a policy of the United States introduced on December 2, 1823.

• President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress.

• The Monroe Doctrine accurately portrays more ideas of John Quincy Adams (Secretary of State).

• The term "Monroe Doctrine" itself was devised in 1850.

• The Monroe's declaration was seen as a defining movement in the foreign policy of the United States and one of the its longest-standing principles.

• The Doctrine stated that the New World and the Old World should stay distinctly separate worlds of influence.

British Foreign Secretary George Canning wanted to keep other European powers out of the New World fearing that its trade with the New World would be in danger if the other European powers further colonized it.

• The United Kingdom in much of its early years of the Monroe Doctrine was the foundation nation enforcing it through its navy.

• Canning proposed to the U.S. that they mutually declared and enforced a policy separating the new world from the old.

The doctrine was invoked in 1865 when the U.S. government exerted diplomatic and military pressure in support of the Mexican President Benito Juarez.

• 1904 European creditors of a number of Latin American countries threatened armed intervention to collect debts. President Theodore Roosevelt urgently proclaimed the right of the U.S. to international police power to stop such critically dangerous activities.

1962 the doctrine was invoked when the Soviet Union began to build missile launching sites in Cuba. With the support of the Organization of American States, President John F. Kennedy threw naval and air quarantine around the island. Soon the Soviet Union agreed to withdraw the missiles and dismantle sites.

• It was not until the Spanish American War in 1898 that the U.S. declared war on European powers due to its interference in the Western Hemisphere.

• The doctrine stemmed from several attempts by European powers to reassert their influence in America early 1820's, in North America Russia attempted to expand its influence in the Alaska territory and in Central and South America the U.S. government feared a Spanish colonial recovery. Britain was also seeking a major role in the political and economic future of America and Adams feared a passive role for the U.S.

• The doctrine stated further efforts by European Nations to colonize land or interfere with states in the Western Hemisphere would be seen as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. mediation. At the same time, the doctrine expressed that the U.S. would neither intervene with existing European colonies nor intrude in the concerns of European countries.

• The doctrine was issued during a period of time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved or were gaining its independence from Portuguese and Spanish Empires.

• The Untied States were in ally with Britain and wanted to guarantee that no European power would advance in. (John Calhoun and former presidents T. Jefferson and J. Madison all advised Monroe to ally w/ Britain)

• • -The United States in the 1800s