John Quincy Adams: Diary Entries on the Monroe Doctrine

The career of John Quincy Adams had three distinct phases: diplomat, president, and congressman; the documents that best reveal his thinking and accomplishments are different for each time period. As a diplomat, Adams often expressed his goals in conversations with his superiors, fellow cabinet officers, and foreign diplomats meticulously recounted in his diaries. His diary entries of 1823, for example, shed light on the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine—a policy authored by Adams under the administration of President James Monroe and stating that any further efforts made by the nations of Europe to colonize or otherwise intervene in the internal affairs of North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression and would not be tolerated.