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[[File:James_Monroe_Portrait.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|President James Monroe]]
In his December 2, 1823, address to Congress, President James Monroe articulated United States’ policy on the new political order developing in the rest of the Americas and the role of Europe in the Western Hemisphere. The statement, known as the Monroe Doctrine, was little noted by the Great Powers of Europe, but eventually became a longstanding tenet of U.S. foreign policy. Monroe and his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams drew upon a foundation of American diplomatic ideals such as disentanglement from European affairs and defense of neutral rights as expressed in Washington’s Farewell Address and Madison’s stated rationale for waging the War of 1812.
A hundred years later, President Theodore Roosevelt’s added onto Monroe's vision with an assertive approach to Latin America and the Caribbean that has often been characterized as the “Big Stick.” Roosevelt essentially strengthened to United States position vis a vis Latin America and it became to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
====The Principles of the Monroe Doctrine====
By the mid-1800s, Monroe’s declaration, combined with ideas of Manifest Destiny, provided precedent and support for U.S. expansion on the American continent. In the late 1800s, U.S. economic and military power enabled it to enforce the Monroe Doctrine. The doctrine’s greatest extension came with Theodore Roosevelt’s Corollary, which inverted the original meaning of the doctrine and came to justify unilateral U.S. intervention in Latin America.
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====The Roosevelt Corollary expands on US imperialism in Latin America====
[[File:682px-President_Theodore_Roosevelt,_1904.jpg|thumbnail|left|250px|President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904]]
Although the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was essentially passive (it asked that Europeans not increase their influence or recolonize any part of the Western Hemisphere), by the 20th century a more confident United States was willing to take on the role of regional policeman. In the early 1900s Roosevelt grew concerned that a crisis between Venezuela and its creditors could spark an invasion of that nation by European powers.
The Roosevelt Corollary of December 1904 stated that the United States would intervene as a last resort to ensure that other nations in the Western Hemisphere fulfilled their obligations to international creditors, and did not violate the rights of the United States or invite “foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations.”
