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Monroe decided that the time had come for the U.S., on its own, to warn the Old World to let the New World alone. Adams thoroughly approved of the idea of a unilateral declaration. "It would be more candid as well as more dignified," he said, "to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France than to come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war." For All the World to Heed. Adams wanted to communicate the U.S. declaration to France and Russia through the normal channels of diplomacy, but Monroe decided to incorporate it into his year-end message to Congress on the state of the Union. In doing so, he made his doctrine an openly announced national policy—for all the world to heed.
The text of the Monroe Doctrine consists of two distinct parts that were separated in Monroe's message by several paragraphs dealing with other matters.
The first part, basically the work of Secretary Adams, mentioned the Russian claims on the Pacific Coast, and then declared: "The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." The second part, the heart of the doctrine and largely from Monroe's own mind and pen, dealt with the threat of European intervention in Latin America.
The "political system of the allied powers" is "essentially different" from that of America, said Monroe, and the U.S. is devoted to the defense of its own system. "We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety . . . It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference."
The Best Bit of Paper. The old Marquis de Lafayette, friend of freedom and hero of the American Revolution, hailed the Monroe declaration as"the best little bit of paper that God had ever permitted any man to give to the world." But most European reaction was hostile. Prince Metternich, Chancellor of Austria and guiding spirit of the Holy Alliance, called the declaration "a new act of revolt, more unprovoked, fully as audacious, no less dangerous than the former" (meaning the Revolution of 1776). Czar Alexander I said that Monroe's message "enunciates views and pretensions so exaggerated, establishes principles so contrary to the rights of the European powers, that it merits only the most