Olney Proclamation

The Olney Proclamation was a statement by United States Secretary of State Richard Olney in 1895 that "the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition." The statement reinforced the original purpose of the Monroe Doctrine, that the U.S. had the right to intervene in its own hemisphere and foreshadowed the events of the Spanish-American War three years later.