By Patrick Frise

The Monroe Doctrine occupies an unusual place in American political discourse. It is often invoked as though it announced a permanent rule of hemispheric governance, capable of being revived or enforced by later administrations. In contemporary usage, it is frequently treated as a declaration of American authority over the Western hemisphere or as a justification for intervention against foreign powers and regional governments. This understanding does not reflect the document as written, the circumstances that produced it, or the limits its authors assumed.

The Monroe Doctrine was not a standing policy. It was a situational proclamation issued in response to a narrow set of geopolitical concerns in the early nineteenth century. Once those conditions passed, the doctrine lost its operative meaning. What remains today is not a living policy, but a historical text repeatedly repurposed to justify authority it never conferred.

The doctrine originated in President James Monroe’s annual message to Congress in December 1823. At the time, the political landscape of the Americas was rapidly changing. Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821. The Central American provinces, including what would become Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, declared independence that same year. South America had been in revolt for more than a decade. These movements were largely complete by the early 1820s, though their political stability remained uncertain. In Europe, the Napoleonic Wars had recently ended, and conservative monarchies organized under the Holy Alliance asserted a right to suppress liberal revolutions and restore traditional regimes. France intervened militarily in Spain in 1823, raising concerns that European powers might assist Spain in reclaiming its former colonies. Russia, meanwhile, was advancing territorial claims along the Pacific coast of North America.

It was in response to these developments that Monroe articulated what later came to be called the Monroe Doctrine. The relevant passages of the message are explicit about their scope. Monroe stated that the American continents, “by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain,” were not to be considered subjects for future colonization by European powers. The conditional clause is central. The........

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