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This article analyzes the role played by the Monroe Doctrine in the disagreements that took place between Spain and the United States in Latin America during the 1880s. Based on diplomatic sources preserved in archives in the United States and Spain, the article argues that these apparently peripheral incidents reveal that the Monroe Doctrine was a lasting, although flexible, principle of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. Specifically, the evidence suggests that the motor behind the evolution of the doctrine was U.S. domestic policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]