the President, and had afterwards repeated to himself, the assurance of the German Emperor that the imperial government had no purpose or intention to make even the smallest acquisition of territory on the South-American continent or the adjacent islands; and in view of this circumstance, and of the further assurance given in the memorandum, Mr. Hay declared that the President, while "appreciating, the courtesy of the German government in making him acquainted with the state of affairs referred to," did not regard himself "as called upon to enter into the consideration of the claims in question." The coercive measures contemplated by the German government were postponed for a year, and were then taken in conjunction with the British government, which also made to the United States, on November 13, 1902, a frank communication of its purposes. To this communication Mr. Hay replied that "the government of the United States, although it regretted that European powers should use force against Central and South American governments, could not object to their taking steps to obtain redress for injuries suffered by their subjects, provided that no acquisition of territory was contemplated." In the hostilities with Venezuela that ensued the assurances of the powers were honorably kept, but peaceful relations were eventually restored through the frank exercise of the friendly offices of the United States.
In popular discussions the position has sometimes been urged that it is a violation of the Monroe Doctrine for a European power to employ force against an American republic for the purpose of collecting a debt or satisfying a pecuniary demand, no matter what may have been its origin. For this supposition, which is discredited by the declarations and the acts of President Roosevelt and Mr. Hay, there appears to be no official sanction. It is true that in Wharton's International Law Digest, under the head of the "Monroe Doctrine," two alleged manuscript instructions by Mr. Blaine to the American minister at Paris, of July 23 and December 16, 1881, are cited as authority for the statement that "the government of the United States would regard with grave anxiety an attempt on the part of France to force by hostile pressure the payment by Venezuela of her debt to French citizens." The citation, however, is wholly inadvertent. Both instructions are published in the volume of Foreign Relations for 1881; and they refer, not to "hostile pressure," but to a rumored design on the part of France of "taking forcible possession of some of the harbors and a portion of the territory of Venezuela in compensation for debts due to citizens of the French Republic." Even in regard to this they nowhere express "grave anxiety," but merely argue that such a proceeding would be unjust to other creditors, including the United States, since it would deprive them of a part of their security; while they avow the "solicitude" of the government of the United States "for the higher object of averting hostilities between two republics for each of which it feels the most sincere and enduring friendship."
In 1861 the United States formally admitted the right of France, Spain, and Great Britain to proceed jointly against Mexico for the satisfaction of claims. "France," said Mr. Seward on that occasion, in an instruction to the American minister at Paris, of June 26, 1862, "has a right to make war against Mexico, and to determine for herself the cause. We have the right and interest to insist that France shall not improve the war she makes to raise up an anti-republican or anti-American government, or to maintain such a government there." In a similar vein, Mr. Seward, writing to the American minister in Chile, on June 2, 1866, with reference to the hostilities then in progress between Spain and the republics on the west coast of South America, and particularly to the bombardment of Valparaiso by the Spanish fleet, declared that the United States did not intervene in wars between European and American states "if they are not pushed, like the French war in Mexico, to the political point"; that the United States had "no armies for the purpose of aggressive war; no ambition for the character of a regulator."
A tendency is often exhibited to attach decisive importance to particular phrases in President Monroe's message of 1823, or to the special circumstances in which they originated, as if they furnished a definitive test of what should be done and
