This thesis is a study of the foreign policy of the United States in Latin America from the end of the American Civil War in 1865, until the close of the peace negations to end the First World War. It contends that Woodrow Wilson refined the policies and strategies of his predecessors to maintain and extend American influence in Latin America. Wilson employed both formal methods, such as military interventions, and informal methods, such as treaties and trade agreements, to insure American dominance in the hemisphere.
The thesis contends that Wilson’s prime motivation was the spread of constitutional democracy. Wilson’s vision of ideal democratic institutions was informed by his racism. His belief in the inferiority of non-whites allowed him to reconcile his policies of defending and exporting “democracy” when millions of African-Americans and women were denied the franchise and other basic rights in the United States. Wilson’s most important contribution to the foreign policy of the United States was the introduction of the insistence on democratic institutions
