The Ever-Expanding Scope of Presidential Doctrines (opens in new tab)

U.S. President James Monroe, addressing Congress amid a wave of Latin American independence movements in 1823, declared that the Western Hemisphere was off-limits to further European colonization and interference. The famous Monroe Doctrine. At the time, the United States was still fragile after the War of 1812, and Monroe feared that European monarchies, fresh from defeating Napoleon, might try to reclaim their lost colonies.