history of our external policy, and of vital bearing on the navy, in
the enunciation of the Monroe doctrine. That pronouncement has been
curiously warped at times from its original scope and purpose. In its
name have been put forth theories so much at odds with the relations
of states, as hitherto understood, that, if they be maintained
seriously, it is desirable in the interests of exact definition that
their supporters advance some other name for them. It is not necessary
to attribute finality to the Monroe doctrine, any more than to any
other political dogma, in order to deprecate the application of the
phrase to propositions that override or transcend it. We should beware
of being misled by names, and especially where such error may induce a
popular belief that a foreign state is outraging wilfully a principle
to the defence of which the country is committed. We have been
committed to the Monroe doctrine itself, not perhaps by any such
formal assumption of obligations as cannot be evaded, but by certain
precedents, and by a general attitude, upon the whole consistently
maintained, from which we cannot recede silently without risk of
national mortification. If seriously challenged, as in Mexico by the
third Napoleon, we should hardly decline to emulate the sentiments so
nobly expressed by the British government, when, in response to the
emperors of Russia and France, it declined to abandon the struggling
Spanish patriots to the government set over them by Napoleon: "To
Spain his Majesty is not bound by any formal instrument; but his
Majesty has, in the face of the world, contracted with that nation
engagements not less sacred, and not less binding upon his Majesty's
mind, than the most solemn treaties." We may have to accept also
certain corollaries which may appear naturally to result from the
Monroe doctrine, but we are by no means committed to some propositions
which lately have been tallied with its name. Those propositions
possibly embody a sound policy, more applicable to present conditions