Lewis chose William Clark as his co-leader for the mission. The excursion lasted over The cowboy played an important role during the era of U. Though they originated in Mexico, American cowboys created a style and reputation all their own.
Throughout history, their iconic lifestyle has been glamorized in countless books, movies and Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. The Monroe Doctrine in Practice: U. Foreign Policy At the time Monroe delivered his message to Congress, the United States was still a young, relatively minor player on the world stage. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. James Monroe. The Eisenhower Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine. Marilyn Monroe on Fame.
James Monroe James Monroe , the fifth U. Eisenhower Doctrine On January 5, , in response to the increasingly tense situation in the Middle East, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered a proposal to a joint session of the U. Manifest Destiny Manifest Destiny, a phrase coined in , is the idea that the United States is destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.
Louisiana Purchase The Louisiana Purchase of brought into the United States about , square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams , however, vigorously opposed cooperation with Great Britain, contending that a statement of bilateral nature could limit United States expansion in the future.
He also argued that the British were not committed to recognizing the Latin American republics and must have had imperial motivations themselves. The bilateral statement proposed by the British thereby became a unilateral declaration by the United States. In exchange, the United States pledged to avoid involvement in the political affairs of Europe, such as the ongoing Greek struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire, and not to interfere in the existing European colonies already in the Americas.
In the late s, U. Menu Menu. Nevertheless, we must admit that we had rather live under the rule of France than in most of the states of South or Central America. From no point of view does France threaten to establish a tyranny over any of the populations in the New World. We hear of Italians in South America. They have emigrated to the Argentine Republic.
Does this fact make the slightest demand upon the United States to build iron ships to guard against the friendly government of Victor Emmanuel? On the contrary, the more Italians in the Argentine Republic the better we like it. They are more enterprising and industrious than either the Spaniards or the natives, and there is plenty of room for all who wish to go there. Is it conceivable that Italy, saddled with ruinous debt and with a fearful burden of European militarism, should undertake a war of conquest in South America?
The people of the United States cannot know Italy, or her political conditions, and feel the slightest apprehension, that she is capable of extending to our continent methods of government inimical to our peace. No other nation in Europe remains, about whose designs in our continent the American people have the need to lose a wink of sleep, except Germany.
Why indeed should we imagine mischief from Germany? To hear certain speakers and writers, one would suppose that Germany—instead of being a land of arts and laws, of universities and free institutions, with a vast network of world-wide trade—was overrun, as of old, by barbarous hordes breathing violence and robbery.
Germany, in fact, has no quarrel or enmity against the kindred people of the United States. Germany is richer every day by reason of the prosperity of our country. The export and import trade between the United States and Germany amounted in to over three hundred and ten millions of dollars, more than double our whole trade with South America in the same year, — a half more than our trade with all Asia. For what possible use? She could not conquer and enslave us, nor does she wish to.
We have no boundary lines on the planet to make friction between us. We may say again stoutly, as in the case of England, we are safer from any possible attack from Germany without a ship or a fort than we are with the largest navy that Captain Mahan could desire. It may be asked whether there is not grave risk that Germany may endeavor to plant colonies in South America, or to interfere in some way with the affairs of the South American people. We hardly need more than to repeat the paragraph touching this kind of contingency on the part of Italy.
Germans are doubtless coming in considerable numbers into the temperate countries of South America. They are a most desirable kind of immigrant. Wherever they go a higher civilization goes with them. Life and property are safer.
A more efficient type of government is demanded. All this is surely for the interest of the United States. We can only be glad for any influences which will tone up the character of the south and Central American states. If they were all Germanized, the whole world, including the United States, would be permanently richer.
In fact, the ties of trade and friendship between us and a possible Germanized state in South America would normally tend to be close than they seem likely to be with the Spanish-American peoples. Neither is there the slightest evidence that Germany would ever threaten to introduce tyrannical forms of government into South America, or to oppress the native peoples. Indeed, so far as it is good for the United States to govern the Philippine Islands for the betterment of their people, the same argument holds in favor of any reasonable method, for example, through purchase or by the final consent of the people, for the extension of German law and political institutions into ill-governed South American states.
I do not care to press this argument, which is only valid for those Americans who believe in our colonial experiment. But the argument is far stronger for possible German colonies than it is for the United States, inasmuch as South America is a natural and legitimate field for German immigration, being largely a wilderness, while no large number of Americans will ever care to settle in the Philippine Islands.
The time may naturally come when Germany would have the same kind of interest in the welfare of her people beyond the seas that England has in that of the Englishmen in South Africa. There can be no good reason why the United States should look upon such an interest with jealousy or suspicion. For we are unlikely to have any legitimate colonial interest in the southern half of our continent.
Meanwhile, the whole history of colonial settlements goes to show the futility of holding colonies with which the home government is not bound by the ties of good will. Thus Canada and Australia uphold the British Empire, because they possess practical freedom; while England has to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year, badly needed by her own poor people, merely in order to keep her hold over India.
All precedents go to show that the Empire of Germany would only weaken herself, in case she should endeavor to meddle in South America, against the interests and the good will of the people there. Let us ask another question, hitherto too little considered. On what ground of right is the United States justified in continuing to assert the Monroe Doctrine?
We may warn trespassers off our own land. Have we the right to bar our neighbors from lands to which we have no shadow of a title? Suppose that we may do this as the stronger people, for the sake of humanity, to protect weaker people from oppression.
It is surely a dangerous concession to permit a single state, however civilized it deems itself, to assume the right to become a knight-errant, to adjust wrongs in the world, and incidentally to be sheriff, judge, and jury on its own motion. But grant this concession for a moment in favor of the United States. While it may have been true eighty years ago that the American people were filled with sympathy for the republics which revolted from Spain, it would be hypocrisy to claim to-day that our people are seriously concerned over the troubles of their South American neighbors.
We are rather apt to say that they are unfit to govern themselves. The United States to-day holds eight millions of people on the other side of the globe, very like the South Americans, on the distinct ground that they are not yet fit for independence. Our own course, therefore, bars us from sensitiveness over the perils which South America suffers from the bare possibility of the interference of European states.
Moreover, we have shown that there is no state in Europe which has a mind to do any wrong to South America. So far as the promise of higher civilization goes, the planting of bona fide colonies in the vast areas of our southern continent signifies a good to humanity.
We must fall back upon a totally different line of reasoning in order to find the only legitimate defense of our Monroe Doctrine. The argument is this: that a nation has the right to safeguard herself against the menace of aggression. Concede that this might have been a sound argument when the Monroe Doctrine was first proclaimed.
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