The Making of the Monroe Doctrine

326 Pages·1975·8.486 MB·English

by  Ernest R. May

Harvard Historical Studies, 110
Published under the auspices
of the Department of History
from the income of the
Paul Revere Frothingham Bequest
Robert Louis Stroock Fund
Henry Warren Torrey Fund
The White House in 1823
of the
Monroe Doctrine
Ernest R. May
Harvard University Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
and London, England
Copyright © 1975 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 43
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 1992
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
May, Ernest R.
The making of the Monroe doctrine.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. United States—Politics and government—
1817-1825. 2. Presidents—United States—Election—
1824. 3. United States—Foreign relations—1817-
1825. 4. Monroe doctrine. 1. Title.
ЕЭ71.М38 327.73 75-11619
ISBN 0-674-54340-8 (cloth)
ISBN 0-674-54341-6 (paper)
to
William L. Langer

Preface
At latest count, the Library of Congress card catalogue had
359 entries under "Monroe Doctrine." The bibliography in-
cludes some of the best works in diplomatic history—among
them Samuel Flagg Bemis's John Quincy Adams and the Foundations
of American Foreign Policy, Bradford Perkins's Castlereagh and Adams,
Dexter Perkins's The Monroe Doctrine, 1823-1826, Harold W. V.
Temperley's The Foreign Policy of Canning, and Arthur P. Whitaker's
The United States and the Independence of Latin America. Why, then,
another study?
My answer has to start autobiographically. About ten
years ago, I went through some of the John Quincy Adams
manuscripts in the Massachusetts Historical Society. The super-
visor of the Adams Papers project had invited me to edit a
definitive edition of John Quincy Adams's diary. In con-
sidering the proposal, I examined what the archive contained
for the period, 1817-1825, when Adams was secretary of
state—his diary, his calendar, his wife's diary, his letterbooks,
and his incoming correspondence. Although I decided not to do
the editing, I learned a good deal about the man and the period.
Not long afterward, I started to write a short account of the
making of the Monroe Doctrine. It was to be for nonscholarly
readers, simply recounting the decision. I could not write it.
Trying to do so, I found that I could not explain even to my-
self why the Monroe administration had acted as it did.
Books on the doctrine analyzed the principles which had
vin
PREFACE
been announced: European powers should not help Spain
regain her former colonies; European monarchies should not
impose their ideology on nations in the New World; and there
should be no future European colonization in the Americas.
Dexter Perkins made a convincing case that the dangers en-
visioned had been unreal. To the extent that statesmen on
the continent contemplated aiding Spain, overturning Ameri-
can republics, or establishing new colonies in the Western
Hemisphere, they were deterred by fear of Britain, not by
concern about the United States.
It was clear from the record, however, that the American
doctrine had been developed in large part because Monroe and
his advisers faced issues which seemed to require decisions. They
had an invitation to join Britain in resisting the alleged European
threat to Latin America. Everyone recognized that acceptance
would mean abandonment of the posture previously held and,
as Monroe put it, entanglement "in European politicks, & wars."
On the other hand, Monroe, and most of those whom he
consulted, saw the offer as so advantageous that it should not
be turned down. Except for the maxim that there should be no
future colonization, the Monroe Doctrine expressed general agree-
ment with British positions.
Coincidentally, the administration faced the question of
whether to recognize or aid Greeks who were fighting for inde-
pendence from the Ottoman Empire. There was loud public
demand to do so. The argument for resisting this demand was
again to avoid entanglement in European politics. Daniel Webster
summarized a popular view, however, when he asked how the
United States could defend liberty in Latin America and ignore
the same cause in Europe.
In the upshot, the British alliance did not materialize, and
the United States did not lead in recognizing Greece. These
decisions, even more than the rhetoric that accompanied them,
reaffirmed a policy of nonentanglement. But why?
The literature on the Monroe Doctrine did not answer this
question—at least not to my satisfaction. Among those who
knew of the British alliance overture, everyone except Secre-
IX
PREFACE
tary of State Adams favored acceptance. Adams was the only
member of the administration consistently to oppose recogni-
tion of Greece. Explaining why the outcomes were victories
for Adams, Bemis says simply that his "views by the force of
their reason had prevailed over everybody." (p. 390) The same
explanation appears in other accounts. In fact, however, there
is no evidence that Adams changed anyone's opinion. His own
diary records that his colleagues held much the same views at
the end as at the beginning. Yet Adams got what he wanted.
When puzzling about what besides Adams's persuasive
powers might have produced this outcome, I remembered what
had struck me when poring through his manuscripts—the
quantity of diary entries and especially correspondence that
had to do with the approaching presidential election. It was a
preoccupation in his household. His wife characterized the
coming contest as "a mighty struggle which arouses alike all the
passions and most ardent feelings of mankind." And, as it
happened, most of his rivals were in one way or another
participants in the foreign debate. William H. Crawford and
John C. Calhoun were fellow members of Monroe's cabinet.
Henry Clay was the speaker of the house. Andrew Jackson, who
had just begun to be talked of as a candidate, was a newly elected
member of the Senate. None of the existing accounts of the
Monroe Doctrine makes more than passing reference to the
"mighty struggle" which filled the mind of Mrs. Adams. Yet the
more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that the
struggle for the presidency might provide a key to understanding
why the foreign policy debates came out as they did.
In this book I explore three hypotheses. The first is that
the positions of the various policymakers were largely deter-
mined by their ideas of national interest and their personal
interplay—in other words, that Adams's convictions were more
definite and firm and he more stubborn and forceful than the
others. The second is that the outcomes are best understood
as products of international politics. The hypothesis is that,
in view of what other governments were doing, the range of
options open to Americans was very narrow, and the choices
PREFACE
actually made were those which would have been made in the
same circumstances by almost any reasonable men. The third
hypothesis is that the whole process was governed by domestic
politics. The positions of the policymakers were determined
less by conviction than by ambition. They had different stakes
riding on the outcomes, and Adams had a greater stake than the
others.
No one of these hypotheses seems to me inherently the
more plausible. In a study of American foreign policy during and
after World War II, I concluded that convictions about "les-
sons" of history were a controlling force. Examining in more
detail the China policy of that period, I found the strength of
character of Secretary of State Marshall a critical determinant.
In analyzing American policy during World War I, I was most
impressed by the extent to which international politics con-
strained decision-makers in Washington. In the case of the
Monroe Doctrine, however, my conclusion is that the out-
comes are best explained in terms of domestic politics.
This is not to say, of course, that individual convictions and
personalities were of no consequence or that the international
system did not limit Americans' freedom of action. Nor is it even
to assert that the evidence is conclusive. Indeed, the direct
evidence of connections between the foreign policy debates and
the presidential contest is sparse and ambiguous. It is not at all
surprising that scholars have overlooked it. American states-
men have always had an aversion to admitting, even to them-
selves, that their opinions on foreign policy could be affected
by private interest. This aversion has been stronger in Wash-
ington than in any other major capital, not excepting the Vati-
can. Hence the conclusion argued here is based chiefly on
inference from circumstantial evidence, and because this is
so, I would urge readers to review the evidence in their own
minds before uncritically accepting my verdict.
If a reader finds my reconstruction plausible, however, I
hope he will be driven to more wide-ranging reflection. If the
Monroe Doctrine was actually a by-product of an election
campaign, one may wonder if some shortcoming in methodology