9 January 2025 — Current events flip my mind back 130 years, to an 1895 Punch cartoon, by Sir John Tenniel.

Master Johnny Bull asks, “Monroe Doctrine? What is the Monroe Doctrine?”

Master Jonathan (aka James Monroe) answers: “Wa-al — Guess it’s that everything everywhere belongs to us.”

In his December 2, 1823 address to Congress, President James Monroe articulated what was to be United States policy concerning the rest of the Americas.

“By the mid-1800s” — says the Office of the Historian, in its series Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations — “Monroe’s declaration, combined with the ideas of Manifest Destiny, provided precedent and support for U.S. expansion on the American continent…”