If the American system can be made to stand for peace, just as the European system stands at present for war, then the United States will have an unimpeachable reason in forbidding European intervention.

European states would no longer have a legitimate ground for interference; it would be impossible for them to take any concerted action.

The American nation would testify to its sincere democracy both by its negative attitude towards a militant European system and by its positive promotion of a peaceful international system in the two Americas.
On the other hand, if a stable international system either is not or cannot be constituted in the two Americas, the Monroe Doctrine will probably involve this country in wars which would be not merely exhausting and demoralizing, but fruitless.

We should be fighting to maintain a political system which would be in no essential respect superior to the European political system.

The South and Central American states have been almost as ready to fight among themselves, and to cherish political plans which can be realized only by war, as the European states.