The relations of Latin America with the United States are chiefly connected with those tendencies of United States policy which are associated with the name of Monroe. A survey of the Monroe Doctrine would here be out of place: but the main points bearing on the present situation may be indicated. The injunction imposed in 1823 by President Monroe upon European interference in America was intended to meet certain European designs which at that time seemed to endanger the "peace and safety" of the United States. But Monroe's declaration, although its immediate purpose was self-defence, involved a permanent protest against any European aggression in Latin America, and thus set up the United States as self-constituted champion of those countries. Such a position involves a certain superiority of attitude and cannot be very clearly distinguished from protection; and protection is apt to merge by gradual steps, often only half perceived and not deliberately intended, into Protectorate. Thus, the development of the Monroe Doctrine has followed two parallel lines of policy, protection against Europe and national self-assertion. This latter more positive aspect has impressed itself upon the public mind. The advances in the Caribbean region, which have been mentioned in the first chapter, were undertaken not in order to satisfy any doctrine or theory, but to satisfy the irresistible needs of a vigorous growing Power. But since, for a generation past, it has been expected of American statesmen that they should justify their orthodoxy as adherents of this doctrine, these steps towards protectorate or dominion have been explained in a series of public pronouncements as developments or examples of the doctrine. Naturally, therefore, the term "Monroe Doctrine" is popularly understood as connoting an imperial policy, a movement towards supremacy or hegemony.