“The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers….

with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States…”

In 1821, Russia claimed control of the Pacific coast from Alaska to Oregon and closed the area to foreign shipping. At the time, Spain and its European allies were rumored to have been planning to reconquer former Latin American colonies, and the U.S. still feared intervention in Florida. In 1823, the British Foreign Minister proposed that the U.S. and Britain jointly announce their opposition to further European intervention in the Americas. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams convinced President Monroe to make a unilateral declaration – since known as the Monroe Doctrine – announcing that the Western Hemisphere was closed to further European colonization, while pledging that the U.S. would not to interfere in internal European affairs.

See Related Documents

★ Cheraw Intelligencer, December 12, 1823, Southern newspaper printing sent to John Quincy Adams #21077.99