The Monroe Doctrine, as usually stated, does give a dangerously militant tendency to the foreign policy of the United States; and unless its expression is modified, it may prevent the United States from occupying a position towards the nations of Europe and America in conformity with its national interest and its national principle.

It should be added, however, that this unwholesomely aggressive quality is only a tendency, which will not become active except under certain possible conditions, and which can gradually be rendered less dangerous by the systematic development of the Doctrine as a positive principle of political action in the Western hemisphere.
The Monroe Doctrine has, of course, no status in the accepted system of International Law.

Its international standing is due almost entirely to its express proclamation as an essential part of the foreign policy of the United States, and it depends for its weight upon the ability of this country to compel its recognition by the use of latent or actual military force.

Great Britain has, perhaps, tacitly accepted it, but no other European country has done so, and a number of them have expressly stated that it entails consequences against which they might sometime be obliged strenuously and forcibly to protest.

No forcible protest has as yet been made, because no European country has had anything to gain from such a protest, comparable to the inevitable cost of a war with the United States.
The dangerously aggressive tendency of the Monroe Doctrine is not due to the fact that it derives its standing from the effective military power of the United States.