294 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



converted into a right to annex Cuba and any other of th< 

 West India Islands. In it is found the right to construe 

 the Nicaragua Canal on foreign soil, and subject its shores t( 

 American jurisdiction ; for, by seizing and controlling these 

 outposts, and, in fact, all other contiguous or adjacent lands 

 it is urged that the United States would be following a con 

 sistent policy of self-defence. There is a danger that the 

 more powerful and formidable the United States becomes 

 and the more grasping and insatiate its policy of expansion 

 the more unrestrained will become the Monroe Doctrine. Ii 

 may, in time, be too frequently construed to justify acts whicl 

 never entered the conceptions of its author. 



A clearer understanding of the principles embodied in the 

 Monroe Doctrine may be obtained by glancing-.at a few inci 

 dents in the history of our foreign relations from the ending 

 of the Revolutionary War (1783), to the close of President 

 Monroe's administration (1824). 



Although the Monroe Doctrine itself, as announced ir 

 1823, was ostensibly a defensive measure against the threat 

 ened aggressions of a powerful European alliance, there car 

 be no doubt that it was also the announcement of a genera! 

 policy that had been gradually forming in the Americar 

 mind for a number of years. This sentiment was the natural 

 outgrowth of the antagonism between the principles of demo- 

 cratic government, as adopted in the United States, and the 

 opposing doctrines of monarchical government, which ob- 

 tained upon the continent of Europe. 



When the Revolutionary struggle was over, and England 

 had acknowledged the independence of the United States 

 (treaty November 30, 1783), the newly created nation was 

 exhausted and disorganized ; its resources were small, and 

 the country was great only in its future possibilities. The 

 territory it occupied was a mere strip along the eastern 

 coast of the vast and little-known American continent. 

 On its entire northern frontier lay English colonies that 



