Do unto others. Washington
believed that honesty and fairness were not only
consistent with religion and morality; they were
"good policy." To statesmen of the Old
World, this was a radical concept. Yet it was not
naive idealism. Washington was convinced that
treating other nations equally and fairly would
ultimately redound to the well-being of the United
States--perhaps even inspiring other nations to
follow suit. "Who can doubt," said
Washington, "that, in the course of time and
things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay
any temporary advantages which might be lost by a
steady adherence to it?"
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Americans realized
from the beginning, however, that virtuous behavior
and open commerce with other nations would not
suffice. The encroachments of European powers in the
New World threatened not only the nation's
territorial integrity but also its hemispheric
interests. In an 1823 address to Congress, President
James Monroe issued a clear warning to other
nations: no new colonies in the Americas.
Like
other key foreign-policy documents, the Monroe
Doctrine has been interpreted both narrowly and
expansively. John Quincy Adams, for one, saw it as
the embodiment of a wish that other parts of the
Americas become, like the United States, free and
democratic republics. Yet supporters of Manifest
Destiny--a phrase coined by journalist John
O'Sullivan in 1839--took the doctrine as
justification for extending "the great
experiment of liberty and federated
self-government" by making the United States
itself a larger nation.
Even bolder in their
interpretation of the doctrine were the assorted
quasi-imperialistic statesmen and
politicians--Theodore Roosevelt foremost among
them--who nudged President William McKinley into
declaring war on Spain in 1898. As a result of that
war, the United States for the first time joined
other world powers in planting its flag on foreign
lands, from Puerto Rico to the Philippines. Later,
in documents such as the Platt Amendment of 1903,
which established a special relationship with Cuba,
and Roosevelt's 1904 Corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine, the American expansionists cast their
overseas ambitions in idealistic terms. The United
States would intervene in the affairs of other
American states only as a last resort, Roosevelt
said, and only if "it became evident that their
inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and
abroad had violated the rights of the United States
or had invited foreign aggression to the detriment
of the entire body of American nations." In
extending American power abroad, Roosevelt
continued, "we have acted in our own interest
as well as in the interest of humanity at
large."
Many skeptics have insisted that
all this was no more than a fig leaf covering naked
imperialism. Yet at a time when other powers were
establishing colonies and spheres of interest in
Africa and Asia, America's modest adventure in
territorial acquisition was partly a prudent
defensive measure and partly an attempt to keep the
world relatively open for commerce. And that
commerce included not just goods but ideas, ideals,
and values.
Woodrow Wilson is often derided as
the most naively idealistic of American statesmen.
But his 14 Points--intended to promote peace and
equity through, among other means, open
negotiations, arms reductions, and a "general
association of nations"--were only a somewhat
exaggerated expression of the idealist tradition in
American foreign policy. The Senate ultimately
rejected Wilson's bid for membership in the
League of Nations, fearing it would require
abandoning too much sovereignty--a lesson Franklin
D. Roosevelt took to heart a quarter of a century
later when he insisted on the creation of the
Security Council (with crucial veto powers for each
member) within the United Nations as a precondition
for America's entry.
