The Panama Congress on which he built his hopes failed, and for fifty years the project lay dormant.
Under the popular name of the Monroe Doctrine, however, Adams's policy has played a much larger part in world affairs than he expected.
Without the force of law either in this country or between nations, this doctrine took a firm hold of the American imagination and became a national ideal, while other nations have at least in form taken cognizance of it.

The Monroe Doctrine has survived because Adams did not invent its main tenets but found them the dominating principles of American international politics; his work, like that of his contemporary John Marshall, was one of codification.

But not all those who have commented on the work of Adams have possessed his analytical mind, and many have confused what was fundamental in his pronouncement with what was temporary and demanded by the emergency of the time.
Always the American people have stood, from the first days of their migration to America, for the right of the people of a territory to determine their own development.

First they have insisted that their own right to work out their political destiny be acknowledged and made safe.
For this they fought the Revolution.

It has followed that they have in foreign affairs tried to keep their hands free from entanglements with other countries and have refrained from interference with foreign politics.