THE MONROE DOCTRINE 291 



It is impossible to anticipate what course of action may 

 suddenly be made necessary by national complications, 

 and it would be useless, therefore, to attempt a definition 

 of all the extraordinary powers a sovereign state may exert 

 in a moment of extreme danger. Suffice it to say, it may 

 d^juivtfiin^^ ; the consciousness of 



right that exists in all hearts will give sanction, provided it 

 is clear, and above all doubt, that the danger is real and that 

 the act done is in good faith, and not prosecuted beyond the 

 strict requirements of self-defence. 



The celebrated Monroe Doctrine of the United States finds 

 its origin and its justification in principles of a similar char- 

 acter. In this instance there was no actual intervention, 

 no overt act on the part of the United States in derogation 

 of what, in the public law, had been accepted as the sov- 

 ereign rights of other nations. In this case Mr. Monroe did 

 not choose to wait until the actual commission of threatened 

 acts which, in his judgment, would endanger the integrity 

 .and peace of the United States, but gave notice to the 

 European powers that certain enumerated acts, if perpe- 

 trated, would be resisted by forcible intervention by his 

 government. The doctrine in its character is rather prophy- 

 lactic than curative, preventive rather than remedial. 



In so far as the Monroe Doctrine forbids other sovereign 

 powers to do what properly belongs, as of right, to all sov- 

 ereign powers, it can find no place in international law. It 

 is useless to seek, through ingenious argument, to invest it 

 with the sanction of an international code. It was purely 

 and simply one of those measures of self-defence which, fall- 

 ing outside the legal prerogatives of a sovereign state, is 

 justified among civilized nations only by virtue of an extreme 

 necessity. This has been essentially the American view. It 

 is quite certain that the other civilized nations of the world 

 have not accepted the principles enunciated in this doctrine 

 as a part of the public law, nor do they admit that its exist- 

 ence is, or ever was, necessary to the safety of the United 

 States. In fact, the many protests from abroad clearly 

 Indicate that the world in general has regarded this national 



