The Promise of American Life

by Herbert David Croly

After 1815 the foreign policy of the United States was determined by a strict adherence to the principles enunciated in Washington's Farewell Address. The adherence was more in the letter than in the spirit, and the ordinary popular interpretation, which prevails until the present day, cannot be granted undivided approval; but so far as its immediate problems were concerned, American foreign policy did not, on the whole, go astray. The United States kept resolutely clear of European entanglements, and did not participate in international councils, except when the rights of neutrals were under discussion; and this persistent neutrality was precisely the course which was needed in order to confirm the international position of the country as well as to leave the road clear for its own national development. But certain consequences were at an early date deduced from a neutral policy which require more careful examination. During the presidency of Monroe the systematic isolation of the United States in respect to Europe was developed, so far as the two Americas were concerned, into a more positive doctrine. It was proclaimed that abstention on the part of the United States from European affairs should be accompanied by a corresponding abstention by the European Powers from aggressive action in the two Americas. What our government proposed to do was to divide sharply the democratic political system of the Americas from the monarchical and aristocratic political system of Europe. The European system, based as it was upon royalist legitimacy and privileges, and denying as it did popular political rights, was declared to be inimical in spirit and in effect to the American democratic state.

The Monroe Doctrine has been accepted in this form ever since as an indisputable corollary of the Farewell Address. The American people and politicians cherish it as a priceless political heirloom. It is considered to be the equivalent of the Declaration of Independence in the field of foreign affairs; and it arouses an analogous volume and fury of conviction. Neither is this conviction merely the property of Fourth-of-July Americans. Our gravest publicists usually contribute to the Doctrine a no less emphatic adherence; and not very many years ago one of the most enlightened of American statesmen asserted that American foreign policy as a whole could be sufficiently summed up in the phrase, "The Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule." Does the Monroe Doctrine, as stated above, deserve such uncompromising adherence? Is it an adequate expression of the national interest of the American democracy in the field of foreign affairs?

At the time the Monroe Doctrine was originally proclaimed, it did unquestionably express a valid national interest of the American democracy. It was the American retort to the policy of the Holy Alliance which sought to erect the counter-revolutionary principles into an international system, and which suppressed, so far as possible, all nationalist or democratic agitation. The Spanish-American colonies had been winning their independence from Spain; and there was a fear, not entirely ill-founded, that the Alliance would apply its anti-democratic international policy to the case of Spain's revolted colonies. Obviously the United States, both as a democracy and as a democracy which had won its independence by means of a revolutionary war, could not admit the right of any combination of European states to suppress national and democratic uprisings on the American continents. Our government would have been wholly justified in resisting such interference with all its available military force. But in what sense and upon what grounds was the United States justified in going farther than this, and in asserting that under no circumstances should there be any increase of European political influence upon the American continents? What is the propriety and justice of such a declaration of continental isolation? What are its implications? And what, if any, are its dangers?

In seeking an answer to these questions we must return to the source of American foreign policy in the Farewell Address. That address contains the germ of a prudent and wise American national policy; but Hamilton, in preparing its phrasing, was guided chiefly by a consideration of the immediate needs and dangers of his country. The Jeffersonian Republicans in their enthusiasm for the French Revolution proposed for a while to bring about a permanent alliance between France and the United States, the object whereof should be the propagation of the democratic political faith. Both Washington and Hamilton saw clearly that such behavior would entangle the United States in all the vicissitudes and turmoil which might attend the development of European democracy; and their favorite policy of neutrality and isolation implied both that the national interest of the United States was not concerned in merely European complications, and that the American people, unlike those of France, did not propose to make their political principles an excuse for international aggression. The Monroe Doctrine, as proclaimed in 1825, rounded out this negative policy with a more positive assertion of principles. It declared that the neutrality of the American democracy, so far as Europe was concerned, must be balanced by the non-intervention of European legitimacy and aristocracy in the affairs of the American continents. Now this extension of American foreign policy was, as we have seen, justified, in so far as it was a protest against any possible interference on the part of the Holy Alliance in American politics. It was, moreover, justified in so far as it sought to identify the attainment of a desirable democratic purpose with American international policy. Of course Hamilton, when he tried to found the international policy of his country upon the national interest, wholly failed to identify that interest with any positive democratic purpose; but in this, as in other respects, Hamilton was not a thorough-going democrat. While he was right in seeking to prevent the American people from allying themselves with the aggressive French democracy, he was wrong in failing to foresee that the national interest of the United States was identified with the general security and prosperity of liberal political institutions—that the United States must by every practical means encourage the spread of democratic methods and ideas. As much in foreign as in domestic affairs must the American people seek to unite national efficiency with democratic idealism. The Monroe Doctrine, consequently, is not to be condemned, as it has been condemned, merely because it went far beyond the limited foreign policy of Hamilton. The real question in regard to the Doctrine is whether it seeks in a practicable way—in a way consistent with the national interest and inevitable international responsibilities—the realization of the democratic idea. Do the rigid advocates of that Doctrine fall into an error analogous to the error against which Washington and Hamilton were protesting? Do they not tend, indirectly, and within a limited compass, to convert the American democratic idea into a dangerously aggressive principle?

The foregoing question must, I believe, be answered partly in the affirmative. The Monroe Doctrine, as usually stated, does give a dangerously militant tendency to the foreign policy of the United States; and unless its expression is modified, it may prevent the United States from occupying a position towards the nations of Europe and America in conformity with its national interest and its national principle. It should be added, however, that this unwholesomely aggressive quality is only a tendency, which will not become active except under certain possible conditions, and which can gradually be rendered less dangerous by the systematic development of the Doctrine as a positive principle of political action in the Western hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine has, of course, no status in the accepted system of International Law. Its international standing is due almost entirely to its express proclamation as an essential part of the foreign policy of the United States, and it depends for its weight upon the ability of this country to compel its recognition by the use of latent or actual military force. Great Britain has, perhaps, tacitly accepted it, but no other European country has done so, and a number of them have expressly stated that it entails consequences against which they might sometime be obliged strenuously and forcibly to protest. No forcible protest has as yet been made, because no European country has had anything to gain from such a protest, comparable to the inevitable cost of a war with the United States.

The dangerously aggressive tendency of the Monroe Doctrine is not due to the fact that it derives its standing from the effective military power of the United States. The recognition which any proclamation of a specific principle of foreign policy receives will depend, in case it conflicts with the actual or possible interests of other nations, upon the military and naval power with which it can be maintained. The question as to whether a particular doctrine is unwholesomely aggressive depends, consequently, not upon the mere fact that it may provoke a war, but upon the doubt that, if it provokes a war, such a war can be righteously fought. Does the Doctrine as usually stated, possibly or probably commit the United States to an unrighteous war—a war in which the United States would be opposing a legitimate interest on the part of one or a group of European nations? Does an American foreign policy of the "Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule" proclaim two parallel springs of national action in foreign affairs which may prove to be incompatible?

There is a danger that such may be the case. The Monroe Doctrine in its most popular form proclaims a rigid policy of continental isolation—of America for the Americans and of Europe for the Europeans. European nations may retain existing possessions in the Americas, but such possessions must not be increased. So far, so good. A European nation, which sought defiantly to increase its American possessions, in spite of the express declaration of the United States that such action would mean war, would deserve the war thereby incurred. But there are many ways of increasing the political influence of European Powers in the Americas without actual territorial appropriation. The emigration from several European states and from Japan to South America is already considerable, and is likely to increase rather than diminish. European commercial interests in South America are greater than ours, and in the future will become greater still. The South Americans have already borrowed large quantities of European capital, and will need more. The industrial and agricultural development of the South American states is constantly tying them more closely to Europe than it is to the United States. It looks, consequently, as if irresistible economic conditions were making in favor of an increase of effective European influence in South America. The growth of that influence is part of the world-movement in the direction of the better utilization of the economic resources of mankind. South America cannot develop without the benefits of European capital, additional European labor, European products, and European experience and training; and in the course of another few generations the result will be a European investment in South America, which may in a number of different ways involve political complications. We have already had a foretaste of those consequences in the steps which the European Powers took a few years ago to collect debts due to Europeans by Venezuela.

The increasing industrial, social, and financial bonds might not have any serious political consequences, provided the several South American states were possessed of stable governments, orderly political traditions, and a political standing under definite treaties similar to that of the smaller European states. But such is not the case. The alien investment in South America may involve all sorts of political complications which would give European or Asiatic Powers a justifiable right under the law of nations to interfere. Up to the present time, as we have seen, such interference has promised to be too costly; but the time may well come when the advantages of interference will more than counterbalance the dangers of a forcible protest. Moreover, in case such a protest were made, it might not come from any single European Power. A general European interest would be involved. The United States might well find her policy of America for the Americans result in an attempt on the part of a European coalition to bring about a really effectual isolation. We might find ourselves involved in a war against a substantially united Europe. Such a danger seems sufficiently remote at present; but in the long run a policy which carries isolation too far is bound to provoke justifiable attempts to break it down. If Europe and the Americas are as much divided in political interest as the Monroe Doctrine seems to assert, the time will inevitably arrive when the two divergent political systems must meet and fight; and plenty of occasions for such a conflict will arise, as soon as the policy of isolation begins to conflict with the establishment of that political relation between Europe and South America demanded by fundamental economic and social interests. Thus under certain remote but entirely possible conditions, the Doctrine as now proclaimed and practiced might justify Europe in seeking to break it down by reasons at least as valid as those of our own country in proclaiming it.

But if the Monroe Doctrine could only be maintained by a war of this kind, or a succession of wars, it would defeat the very purpose which it is supposed to accomplish. It would embroil the United States and the two American continents in continual trouble with Europe; and it would either have to be abandoned or else would carry with it incessant and enormous expenditures for military and naval purposes. The United States would have to become a predominantly military power, armed to the teeth, to resist or forestall European attack; and our country would have to accept these consequences, for the express purpose of keeping the Americas unsullied by the complications of European politics. Obviously there is a contradiction in such a situation. The United States could fight with some show of reason a single European Power, like France in 1865, which undertook a policy of American territorial aggrandizement; but if it were obliged to fight a considerable portion of Europe for the same purpose, it would mean that our country was opposing a general, and presumably a legitimate, European interest. In that event America would become a part of the European political system with a vengeance—a part which in its endeavor to escape from the vicissitudes of European politics had brought upon itself a condition of permanent military preparation and excitement. Consequently, in case the "Monroe Doctrine and the Golden Rule" are to remain the foundation of American foreign policy, mere prudence demands a systematic attempt to prevent the Doctrine from arousing just and effective European opposition.