25 The Monroe Doctrine 



ments are, on their face, so absurd that they need 

 no refutation, and can be relegated where they be- 

 long to the realm of the hair-splitting schoolmen. 

 They have no concern either for practical politi- 

 cians or for historians with true historic insight. 



We have asserted the principles which underlie 

 the Monroe Doctrine, not only against Russia and 

 Spain, but also against France, on at least two 'dif- 

 ferent occasions. The last and most important was 

 when the French conquered Mexico and made it 

 into an Empire. It is not necessary to recall to any 

 one the action of our Government in the matter as 

 soon as the Civil War came to an end. Suffice it 

 to say that, under threat of our interposition, the 

 French promptly abandoned Maximilian, and the 

 latter's Empire fell. Long before this, however, and 

 a score of years before the doctrine was christened 

 by the name Monroe, even the timid statesmen of 

 the Jeffersonian era embodied its principle in their 

 protest against the acquisition of Louisiana by 

 France, from Spain. Spain at that time held all of 

 what is now the Great West. France wished to 

 acquire it. Our statesmen at once announced that 

 they would regard as hostile to America the trans- 

 fer of the territory in question from a weak to a 

 strong European power. Under the American pres- 

 sure the matter was finally settled by the sale of the 

 territory in question to the United States. The 

 principle which our statesmen then announced was 

 in kind precisely the same as that upon which we 

 should now act if Germany sought to acquire Cuba 



