The Empire of the Monroe Doctrine

Bryne, Alex

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-43431-1_2

Alex Bryne⁴

Part of the book series: Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World ((SCCCW))

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Abstract

Chapter One explores the ways in which the American anti-imperialist movement invoked the Monroe Doctrine to protest the annexation of the Philippines. Anti-imperialists used the doctrine to differentiate between a structure, practice, and policy of imperialism that they believed to be consistent with American traditions, and one that was akin to European colonialism and antithetical to foundational American ideals, presenting an idealised vision of the form the United States Empire ought to take. This prompted the architects of the United States’ overseas empire to reconceptualise the doctrine and view it as a flexible and malleable policy that could accommodate historic shifts in United States foreign relations, setting the stage for a wider debate over its meaning and application.

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Notes

1.
Although the war is typically referred to as the Spanish–American War, historians tend to agree that the term is problematic because of the emphasis it gives to the United States and Spain at the expense of Cuban and Filipino combatants. However, for reasons of brevity, it will be used throughout. Notable histories of the conflict include Thomas Schoonover, Uncle Sam’s War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization (Lexington, KT: University Press of Kentucky, 2003); Louis Pérez Jr., The War of 1898: The United States and Cuba in History and Historiography (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Thomas Paterson, “United States Intervention in Cuba, 1898: Interpretations of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War,” The History Teacher 29, no. 3 (1996): 341–361; Joseph Smith, The Spanish-American War: Conflict in the Caribbean and the Pacific, 1895–1902 (London: Longmans, 1995); David Trask, The War with Spain in 1898 (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1981); Philip Foner, The Spanish-American War and the Birth of American Imperialism, vols. 2 (New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 1972).
2.
Important scholarship on the anti-imperialists includes Ian Tyrrell and Jay Sexton, ed., Empire’s Twin: U.S. Anti-Imperialism from the Founding Era to the Age of Terrorism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015); Michael Cullinane, Liberty and American Anti-Imperialism: 1898–1909 (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Jim Zwick, “The Anti-Imperialist Movement, 1898–1921,” in Whose America? The War of 1898 and the Battles to Define the Nation, ed. Virginia Bouvier (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2001); Robert Beisner, Twelve Against Empire: The Anti-Imperialists 1898–1900, with a new foreword (Chicago, IL: Imprint Publications, [1968] 1992); Richard Welch Jr., Response to Imperialism: The United States and the Philippine-American War, 1899–1902 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979); Daniel Schirmer, Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1972); Berkeley Tompkins, Anti-Imperialism in the United States: The Great Debate 1890–1920 (Philadelphia, PN: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970); Fred Harrington, “The Anti-Imperialist Movement in the United States, 1898–1900,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 22, no. 2 (1935): 211–230.
3.
Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2011), 211–213.
4.
Morrison Swift, Imperialism and Liberty (Los Angeles, CA: Ronbroke Press, 1899), 194–196.
5.
Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny: American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 1995), 92–93.
6.
Sexton, Monroe Doctrine, 213–214; Beisner, Twelve Against Empire, 221–222; Schirmer, Republic or Empire, 7–8.
7.
Beisner, Twelve Against Empire, 220–221; Harrington, “Anti-Imperialist Movement,” 220.
8.
Zwick, “Anti-Imperialist Movement,” 171–192.
9.
Charles Francis Adams Jr. to James Bryce, May 31, 1900, Reel 69, Viscount James Bryce Papers, Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.
10.
Cullinane, Anti-Imperialism, 5–8, 179–180.
11.
Yale’s William Graham Sumner was the most notable anti-imperialist critic of the Monroe Doctrine. He argued that it was imperial in nature and referred to it as the “Monroe fetish”: “Earth Hunger or the Philosophy of Land Grabbing,” in William Graham Sumner, Earth-Hunger and Other Essays, ed. Albert Keller (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1913), 59; William Graham Sumner, Conquest of the United States by Spain (Boston, MA: Dana Estes and Co., 1899), 31. Stanford’s David Starr Jordan expressed similar views, but he nonetheless invoked the doctrine for the anti-imperialist cause: David Starr Jordan, Imperial Democracy (New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1899), 19–20.
12.
The Republic, September, 1900, 1.
13.
John Chetwood, Manila or Monroe Doctrine? (New York, NY: Robert Lewis Weed, 1898), 3.
14.
New York Times, October 2, 1898, 22.
15.
Letter from Thomas Livermore, In the Name of Liberty: Anti-Imperialist Meeting, Tremont Temple, April 4, 1899: Protest Against the Philippine Policy (Boston, MA: The Anti-Imperialist League, 1899), 24. See also Charles Francis Adams Jr., Imperialism and the Tracks of Our Forefathers (Boston, MA: Dana Estes & Company, 1899), 12–13; Erving Winslow, “The Anti-Imperialist Faith,” North American Review 175, no. 553 (1902): 815; Jordan, Imperial Democracy, 107–108.
16.
John Parker, “What Shall We Do With the Philippines?” The Forum, February, 1902, 669.
17.
“Criminal Use of the Monroe Doctrine,” The Advocate of Peace, June, 1900, 125.
18.
Adlai Stevenson, “A Republic Can Have No Subjects,” in Republic or Empire?: The Philippine Question, ed. William Jennings Bryan (Chicago, IL: The Independence Company, 1899), 270–271. See also Geo Seward, The Philippine Question, Montclair, New Jersey, October 21, 1898, Reel 23, John Hay Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Untitled speech delivered at Omaha, Nebraska, June 14, 1898, Box 50, William Jennings Bryan Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
19.
Adams, Imperialism, 35–36.
20.
Chetwood, Manila or Monroe Doctrine? 18–19.
21.
Carl Schurz, “Our Future Foreign Policy,” August 19, 1898, Reel 97, Carl Schurz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
22.
Andrew Carnegie, “Americanism versus Imperialism,” North American Review 168, no. 506 (1899): 1–5; Andrew Carnegie, “Distant Possessions: The Parting of the Ways,” North American Review 167, no. 501 (1898): 242.
23.
Howard Taylor, “The Creed of the Flag,” Box 22, Bryan Papers.
24.
On United States–Hawaiian relations prior to annexation see Tom Smith, “History, ‘Unwritten Literature,’ and U.S. Colonialism in Hawai’i, 1898–1915,” Diplomatic History 43, no. 5 (2019): 813–839; Walter Hixon, American Settler Colonialism: A History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 146–150; Thomas Osborne, Empire Can Wait: American Opposition to Hawaiian Annexation, 1893–1898 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1981); Merze Tate, The United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom: A Political History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968).
25.
For statements of opposition to the annexation of Hawaii based on the Monroe Doctrine see The Nation, June 23, 1898, 470; U.S. Congress. Senate. Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Congressional Record, June 30, 1898, 6517–6544; U.S. Congress. House. Proposed Annexation of Hawaii, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Appendix to the Congressional Record, June 14, 1898, 633–637; U.S. Congress. House. Annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Appendix to the Congressional Record, June 15, 1898, 714–719.
26.
Beisner, Twelve Against Empire, 221.
27.
U.S. Congress. House. Proposed Annexation of Hawaii, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Appendix to the Congressional Record, June 11, 1898, 496–502.
28.
Sexton, Monroe Doctrine, 112.
29.
U.S. Congress. House. Proposed Annexation of Hawaii, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Appendix to the Congressional Record, June 11, 1898, 560–562.
30.
U.S. Congress. House. Proposed Annexation of Hawaii, 55th Congress, 2nd Session, Appendix to the Congressional Record, June 14, 1898, 648–652.
31.
On the racial dimensions of the debate over Philippine annexation see Paul Kramer, The Blood of Government: Race, Empire, the United States, and the Philippines (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Walter Williams, “United States Indian Policy and the Debate over Philippine Annexation: Implications for the Origins of American Imperialism,” Journal of American History 66, no. 4 (1980): 810–831; Christopher Lasch, “The Anti-Imperialists, the Philippines, and the Inequality of Man,” The Journal of Southern History 24, no. 3 (1958), 319–331.
32.
George Hoar, The Conquest of the Philippines: Extracts from the Speech of Hon. George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, in the United States Senate, Thursday, April 12, 1900 (Washington, DC: s.n., 1900), 2.
33.
George Hoar, Our Duty to the Philippines (Boston, MA: New England Anti-Imperialist League, 1900), 3–9.
34.
Sexton, Monroe Doctrine, 219.
35.
“Imperialism,” in William Jennings Bryan, Speeches of William Jennings Bryan, vol. 2, ed. Mary Bryan (New York, NY: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 46–47.
36.
Carnegie, “Americanism versus Imperialism,” 12.
37.
“For Truth, Justice and Liberty,” September 28, 1900, in Carl Schurz, Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6, ed. Frederic Bancroft (New York, NY: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913), 248–249.
38.
George Boutwell, “Address by the President,” in Annual Meeting of the Anti-Imperialist League, Now the New England Anti-Imperialist League, at Wesleyan Hall, Boston, Saturday, November 25, 1899 (Boston, MA: New England Anti-Imperialist League, 1899), 22.
39.
Carl Schurz, “Thoughts on American Imperialism,” The Century, September 1898, 783–784.
40.
Charles Page Bryan to John Hay, June 9, 1899, Reel 66, Despatches from United States Ministers to Brazil, 1809–1906, Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
41.
William Merry to John Hay, November 20, 1900, Reel 86, Despatches from United States Ministers to Central America, 1824–1906, Records of the Department of State, Record Group 59, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
42.
“Former President Harrison,” May 20, 1898, Reel 41, Benjamin Harrison Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Benjamin Harrison to R. W. Gilder, May 20, 1898, Reel 41, Harrison Papers; Benjamin Harrison to John Foster, March 10, 1900, Reel 42, Harrison Papers.
43.
George Baker Jr., “Benjamin Harrison and Hawaiian Annexation: A Reinterpretation,” Pacific Historical Review 33, no. 3 (1964): 296; Beisner, Twelve Against Empire, 188.
44.
“The Status of Annexed Territory and of Its Free Civilized Inhabitants,” Reel 121, Harrison Papers.
45.
Andrew Carnegie, Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920), 358.
46.
Horace Chilton to William Jennings Bryan, December 31, 1898, Box 22, Bryan Papers.
47.
James Brown Scott, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, vol. 2 (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press, 1909), 210.
48.
“Message of the President,” December 3, 1901, in United States Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States 1901 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902), xxxii–xxxvi.
49.
“No European Interference,” Harper’s Weekly, July 23, 1898, 707.
50.
Whitelaw Reid, “The Territory with Which We Are Threatened,” The Century, September 1898, 793.
51.
Whitelaw Reid to C. M. Gayley, April 14, 1899, in Whitelaw Reid, “Rise to World Power: Selected Letters of Whitelaw Reid 1895–1912”, ed. David Contosta and Jessica Hawthorne, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 76, no. 2 (1986): 59–61. See also William Peffer, “A Republic in the Philippines,” North American Review 168, no. 508 (1899): 316–317; Charles Turner, “The American Primacy,” The Sewanee Review 12, no. 2 (1904), 237; Washington Post, November 28, 1898, 6; New York Times, October 4, 1898, 8.
52.
New York Times, October 22, 1899, 15.
53.
Ernest Huffcut, The Philippine Problem in the Light of American International Policy (Utica, NY: s.n., 1902), 14. For United States relations with Samoa see Paul Kennedy, The Samoan Tangle: A Study in Anglo-German-American Relations, 1878–1900 (New York, NY: Barnes and Nobel, 1974).
54.
Horace Fisher to John Davis Long, July 15, 1898 in John Davis Long, Papers of John Davis Long 1897–1904, ed. Gardner Allen (Boston, MA: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1939), 156–159.
55.
Horace Fisher, “The Development of our Foreign Policy,” The Atlantic, October 1898, 553.
56.
Theodore Roosevelt, “The Monroe Doctrine,” The Bachelor of Arts, 2, no. 4 (1896): 437.
57.
Theodore Roosevelt to Cecil Spring-Rice, July 24, 1905, in Theodore Roosevelt, The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 4, ed. Elting Morison (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951), 1283–1287. See also Theodore Roosevelt to Elihu Root, May 20, 1904, in Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 4, 801–802; Untitled Speech, Chautauqua, Aug. 11, 1905, in Theodore Roosevelt, Presidential Addresses and State Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 4 (New York, NY: Colliers, 1905), 439–441.
58.
Albert Bushnell Hart, “The Monroe Doctrine and the Doctrine of Permanent Interest,” American Historical Review 7, no. 1 (1901): 82–83.
59.
Alfred Thayer Mahan, “The Monroe Doctrine,” National Review, February 1903, 871–889. An extended version of this article was later published as “The Monroe Doctrine: A Consistent Development,” in Alfred Thayer Mahan, Naval Administration and Warfare: Some General Principles with Other Essays (Boston, MA: Little Brown and Company, 1908), 355–409.
60.
David Milne, Worldmaking: The Art and Science of American Diplomacy (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), 21. Mahan’s influential work included The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1890) and The Interest of American in Sea Power, Present and Future (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1897).
61.
William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, [1959] 2009); Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860–1898 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963); Thomas McCormick, “Insular Imperialism and the Open Door: The China Market and the Spanish-American War,” Pacific Historical Review 32, no. 2 (1963): 155–169. See also Joseph Fry, “From Open Door to World Systems: Economic Interpretations of Late Nineteenth Century American Foreign Relations,” Pacific Historical Review 65, no. 2 (1996), 277–303; Michael Cullinane and Alex Goodall, The Open Door Era: United States Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017).
62.
Charles Conant, “The Economic Basis of ‘Imperialism’,” North American Review 167, no. 502 (1898): 340; Mayo Hazeltine, “What Shall Be Done about the Philippines?” North American Review 167, no. 503 (1898): 389–390; Mark Dunnell, “Our Policy in China,” North American Review 167, no. 503 (1898): 393–409.
63.
Walter LaFeber, The Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, vol. 2, The American Search for Opportunity, 1865–1913 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 157–158; William Widenor, Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1980), 93–98.
64.
Salvatore Prisco III, John Barrett, Progressive Era Diplomat: A Study of a Commercial Expansionist, 1887–1920 (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1973), 38. Examples of praise for Barrett’s expertise include H. W. Lawton to John Barrett, October 6 1899, Box 18, John Barrett Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Henry Kent to John Barrett, February 1, 1900, Box 18, Barrett Papers.
65.
John Barrett, “The Problem of the Philippines,” North American Review 167, no. 502 (1898): 259–267; John Barrett, “The Cuba of the Far East,” The North American Review 164, no. 483 (1897): 173–180.
66.
Barrett, “The Problem of the Philippines,” 263.
67.
Undated Notebooks, Box 2, Barrett Papers. Emphasis in original.
68.
Barrett, “The Problem of the Philippines,” 263–264.
69.
Madison Jayne, The Monroe Doctrine (Bay St. Louis: s.n., 1900).
70.
John Kasson, The Evolution of the Constitution of the United States of America and History of the Monroe Doctrine (Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1904), 255.
71.
Antony Hopkins, American Empire: A Global History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 380.

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Bryne, A. (2020). The Empire of the Monroe Doctrine. In: The Monroe Doctrine and United States National Security in the Early Twentieth Century. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43431-1_2

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43431-1_2
Published: 20 May 2020
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