ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 discusses the tenets of the Monroe Doctrine. In his Annual Message to the Congress on December 2, 1823, President Monroe advanced the United States view that the Western Hemisphere was no longer an area where European political systems were welcome. He presented two distinctive ideas that, inclusively, became known as the Monroe Doctrine. The first, the non-colonisation clause, sought to foreclose the European powers from future colonial adventures in the Americas. The second, the non-interference principle (framed on two time-honoured themes in American foreign policy – unilateralism and neutrality), builds on the first and emphasises to the European powers that they should not contemplate any move to implant their political systems in the Americas or to threaten the integrity of the newly independent states. The doctrine sought to maintain American primacy on the North American Continent amid the contending European claims of rights to territory and to defend the rights of the South American colonies to national independence.
