70 KANSAS UNIVERSITY QUARTERLY. 



says President Woolsey,* "beating down wickedness, all over the 

 world, it is enough to say that such a principle, if carried out, 

 would destroy the independence of states, justify nations in taking 

 sides in regard to all national acts and lead to universal war." 



A doctrine which claims a right to interfere in controversies 

 between other states or in their internal affairs, when our national 

 existence is in no way imperiled or even remotely involved, is a 

 violation of international law and an encroachment upon the rights 

 of foreign nations. 



The Polk doctrine is a menace to our peace and safety. A state 

 that interferes in matters that do not concern her does so at her 

 peril. Especially dangerous are alliances with states so unstable 

 and changeable as those of Central and South America. Their 

 internal affairs are in a state of confusion. Under the forms of 

 republican institutions their governments are in fact a succession 

 of military dictatorships — despotisms tempered by revolution. 

 Within a period of forty years Mexico had nearly forty revolutions 

 and more than seventy presidents. The history of the other states 

 is very similar. So precarious are the lives of their statesmen that 

 a right of asylum in foreign legations is admitted in all of them 

 upon the ground that otherwise experienced men could not be 

 induced to engage in affairs of government, "f" They are continually 

 involved in wars with each other. Their wholesale repudiation of 

 their debts continually embroils them with Europe. The govern- 

 ment of to-day may be overthrown to-morrow. They ask our 

 assistance only when involved in controversies with other states. 

 At other times they reject our advice and repel our advances. 

 Such protection is a thankless and fruitless task. Connection with 

 them may at any time render us responsible for acts that we cannot 

 control. Connection with one of them recently threatened a war 

 in which we had no interest involved or principle at stake, a war 

 with a state to which we are bound by ties of common blood, com- 

 mon language, common literature and common history, a war that 

 would have caused incalculable loss and misery, a war that would 

 have arrested the progress of the world for a decade and disgraced the 

 closing years of the century. Let us take warning from experience 

 and renounce a policy fraught with so much danger to our peace 

 and safety. 



The so-called Monroe doctrine is, therefore, contrary to the 

 teaching of the founders of the republic, a perversion of the true 



♦"International Law," tith ed.. p. 19. 

 ■tWharton's " Digest." Vol. 1, p. KCi. 



