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James MonroeMonroe Doctrine
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1823A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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US-European Relations
At the time of President Monroe’s 1823 Congressional message, the United States was a young country, eager to expand in both territory and influence. The President was keenly aware of the country’s status in relation to the great European powers, especially empires like Britain, Spain, and Russia, which were older and, in many ways, stronger. It was reasonable and even necessary for the US to pursue amicable relations with those imperial powers. It was less clear that the US was in a position to dictate affairs beyond its borders, but Monroe argued that it was necessary to do so for defensive reasons.
To establish this foreign policy, President Monroe needed to maintain a reasonable balance of power in terms of the European influence on the continent. It is important to mention that the Indigenous groups that inhabited the Americas did not factor into this equation. The key European players relevant to the United States were Britain in present-day Canada, Russia in Alaska, and Spain in Latin America. However, at this time, Spain had been embroiled in the Spanish American Wars of Independence (1808-1833), as one country after another attained independence through a series of bloody conflicts. Chile’s independence process began in 1810 and was completed in 1826. Likewise, Columbia declared independence in 1810. Between 1811 and 1824, Venezuela, Mexico, and Peru, each separated from the Spanish Empire. Monroe mentions appointing ambassadors (ministers) to Chile and Columbia. It was in part due to Spain’s weakness that the US was able to acquire Florida in 1819. The US, Monroe calculated, would do better to align itself with its newly independent neighbors than with a distant, moribund empire: “If we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and those new Governments, and their distance from each other, it must be obvious that she can never subdue them” (23).
The US relationship with Britain remained unstable. The parties had gone to war twice in the past half-century, first in the American Revolutionary War and then in the War of 1812. Monroe spends some time discussing the Treaty of Ghent (1814) that ended this latter war, some of which was in dispute. He also mentions access to the St. Lawrence River and the bodies of water it connects:
It appearing from long experience that no satisfactory arrangement could be formed of the commercial intercourse between the United States and the British colonies in this hemisphere by legislative acts while each party pursued its own course without agreement or concert with the other, a proposal has been made to the British Government to regulate this commerce by treaty, as it has been to arrange in like manner the just claim of the citizens of the United States inhabiting the States and Territories bordering on the lakes and rivers which empty into the St. Lawrence to the navigation of that river to the ocean (13-14).
Unlike Britain, Russia was largely seen as a US ally in the late 18th to early 19th century. Russia had helped the US diplomatically during its revolutionary struggle and acted as an arbiter in resolving issues linked to the Treaty of Ghent in the US’s favor. However, President Monroe was concerned by Russia’s 1821 decree claiming the land north of the 51st parallel for itself. In the American view, the expansion of Russian settlements in the Pacific Northwest would have also disrupted the European balance of power in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, this announcement was one of the catalysts for the Monroe Doctrine:
At the proposal of the Russian Imperial Government, made through the minister of the Emperor residing here, a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interests of the two nations on the North West coast of this continent (14).
Overall, President Monroe’s foreign policy toward Britain, Spain, and Russia is cognizant of each country’s power in relation to the US. He stresses defensiveness and amicable relations with each European player. At the same time, the President is aware of the rapid territorial growth the US has undergone and foresees additional frontier exploration and expansion. Thus, in his policy toward these three European Countries, Monroe prioritizes existing and future US interests and territorial claims in North America.
Government Transparency and Accountability
In the field of domestic politics, Monroe is chiefly concerned with government transparency and accountability to the public. He explains that public servants must show devotion “to their respective duties, or for virtue, patriotism, and union in our constituents” (13). As the American system of government is built on the concept of popular sovereignty, Monroe emphasizes that the people must have full and accurate knowledge of what their elected representatives are doing.
The American Enlightenment—an 18th-century intellectual movement that provided the philosophical framework for the American Revolution—was explicitly critical of the hereditary monarchies and aristocracies of Europe. Both European and American thinkers of the Enlightenment challenged this hierarchical political system, and the government that arose in the US after the revolution was one of many experiments in representative democracy during this period. The framers of the US constitution drew on ideas first articulated by European Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau—chief among which was the concept of popular sovereignty, which held that the government's authority ultimately rests not with any single leader or governmental body but with the people, who cannot be governed without their consent. In the view of the framers, popular sovereignty requires governmental transparency—since the people cannot meaningfully consent to government actions they don’t know about. Like his predecessors, Monroe holds that this emphasis on transparency distinguishes the US from the European imperial powers, in which monarchs rule by fiat and need not consult the people. It’s important to note, however, that this ostensibly democratic idea was also used throughout much of American history to restrict the vote based on the claim that certain classes—women, people of color, the poor—lacked the intelligence or education needed to exercise informed sovereignty.
In Monroe’s view, another distinction between the US and Europe is that Americans focus on military defense rather than wars of invasion. Monroe briefly mentions this difference in his speech: “It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. […] The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America” (22). Monroe seeks here to reassure the European powers that the US is not interested in conquest. Here again a caveat is needed, as this claim only makes sense if one ignores the existence of the Indigenous nations standing in the path of westward expansion.
For Monroe, the concept of transparency and accountability takes on different forms. In many cases, it is practical, as the President highlights “the efficiency of the present system of accountability in relation to the public expenditure” (20). This system of accountability helps avoid government corruption or excessive and unnecessary spending. The President goes into some detail when examining the questions of public spending—for instance, when it comes to postal communication or road construction, specifically, or the federal budget, in general. After all, elected officials must be impartial and provide sufficient information to those they represent. Providing adequate, accessible information is a cornerstone of a sound government:
The people being with us exclusively the sovereign, it is indispensable that full information be laid before them on all important subjects, to enable them to exercise that high power with complete effect. If kept in the dark, they must be incompetent to it (13).
After all, even a qualified and experienced public servant is “liable to error” (13). Furthermore, “those who are engaged in the management of public affairs are more subject to excitement and to be led astray by their particular interests and passions than the great body of our constituents” (13). Thus, keeping the public up to date with the fullest information is another way of ensuring objectivity and fairness in government: “To the people every department of the Government and every individual in each are responsible, and the more full their information the better they can judge of the wisdom of the policy pursued and of the conduct of each in regard to it” (13).
The US Relationship With Indigenous Peoples
The relationship between the United States government and the Indigenous peoples of North America is an important domestic issue for President Monroe in his 1823 address. Monroe briefly refers to the Arikara War that began in the summer of 1823, when members of the Arikara tribe (whom Monroe calls the “Ricaree”) attacked fur traders in present-day South Dakota. At the time of Monroe’s speech, this conflict was only a few months in the past, and he describes it as a brief skirmish that was swiftly put down by the US Army:
With a detachment of the regiment stationed at [Council] Bluffs he [Colonel Leavenworth] successfully attacked the Ricaree village, and it is hoped that such an impression has been made on them as well as on the other tribes on the Missouri as will prevent a recurrence of future hostility (17).
In reality, Colonel Leavenworth had negotiated a treaty with the Arikara after two days of inconclusive fighting, but this brief conflict would turn out to be just the beginning of what would come to be known as the Plains Wars—a conflagration that by mid-century would engulf the region. Monroe could not have known the full significance of these events in 1823, but his statements provide a glimpse of the US government’s callous attitude toward Indigenous people, and they foreshadow the broader conflicts to come.
The President interprets the Arikara’s behavior from the standpoint of US expansion across the continent, frontier order, and the US’s ability to pursue its commercial interests, all of which he takes for granted as good and just causes. It is important to understand the broader framework of relations between the US government and Indigenous peoples at this time. When Colonel Leavenworth launched his retaliatory attack on the Arikara, he had Sioux warriors as allies, and he understood it as his mission to protect trade between the US and the Sioux. The conflict was as much an intertribal one as it was a conflict between the US and Indigenous people writ large. However, as the US moved westward, inspired by Manifest Destiny and the frontier drive, it began to view all Indigenous people as an obstacle. The Plains Wars developed into a campaign of subjugation and extermination, carried out by the US government, against all the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. At the same time, the 1830 Indian Removal Act forced Indigenous people out of their ancestral lands in the American Southeast, while white squatters overtook their lands with tacit government support or explicit approval. The infamous Trail of Tears began in 1831, pushing tens of thousands of people from the Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Muscogee nations out of their homes in the southeast and into the newly designated Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. As westward expansion continued through the middle of the 19th century, that designated territory continued to shrink, fueling the Plains Wars and further immiserating these already dispossessed peoples. Thus, behind President Monroe’s statements about peaceful trade and order on the frontier were government policies that systematically and forcibly removed the continent’s Indigenous populations from their homelands as the US expanded across the continent and ignored their territorial claims.
