Before examining Professor whether or not the Monroe Doctrine was as benevolent as the anonymous professor seems. to suggest. Professor Yet the professor ignores the inherently imperialist subtext contained in the doctrine, and thus his comparison of the Monroe Doctrine to the Roosevelt Corollary misses a fundamental aspect of America's colonialist history. Monroe wrote that the efforts of Spain and Portugal "to improve the condition of the people of the [colonized countries of the Americas]" yielded disappointing results and suggests that the United States was better suited to assume the role of overseer. colonial given the nation's unique geographic, social, and political ties to the Americas. Monroe justified this right. to a benevolent imperialism, largely around the idea that American government "was obtained through the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured through the wisdom of its most enlightened citizens, [which produced ] an unexampled felicity [in all America].” Yet this utopian treatment of the American political system suggests that the American definition of “unexampled felicity” was universally applicable throughout the Americas. The United States suggests benevolent intent, the idea that America had indirect authority over its neighbors indicates an obstacle...... middle of paper ...... versatile definition of 'civilized nation', a notion first encountered in the Monroe Doctrine. The parallelism of textuality issues lends credibility to the claim that the Roosevelt Corollary was a natural political evolution of the Monroe Doctrine, of turn-of-the-century American militaristic power, coupled with the continuing dissipation of the institution of colonialism directly during this same century. This period produced an international landscape in which America no longer needed to rely solely on "ideological proliferation" to avoid entanglement with European imperialist interests in the Americas. While the Roosevelt Corollary expanded the scope of the Monroe Doctrine (both physically and ideologically), an understanding of the two documents' respective connections to a deeper embrace of imperialism reveals an evolutionary connection rather than corruption..