It is a wholesome trend that The New Republic is reprising editorials from its early days. The latest entry, containing Walter Lippmann's case for Woodrow Wilson's re-election in 1916, shows why "neo-Wilsonian" is a most inappropriate name for the neoconservative doctrine that we are justified in imposing democracy through force. (TNR Online, 7.17.04) The near universal consensus among today's commentariat is flat wrong regarding Wilson's supposed embrace and legitimation of that doctrine. Wilson, as the Lippmann essay illustrates, took the opposite view, and had reasons that bear closely on the illegitimacy and imprudence of the war against Iraq.

Lippmann held Wilson far-seeing about Mexico, despite various inconstancies, because Wilson "understood that the problem of order in Mexico was deeper than the question of armed protection of American property and lives, that permanent stability and progress could never be attained by intervention, and that Mexico would never be a good neighbor until the Mexicans had achieved a measure of self-government. Conquest would merely mean decades of insurrection against the American conqueror, and a perversion not only of Mexico's life but our own. There was no peace to be had by intervention or by the establishment of Huerta."

Wilson had departed from the old recognition policy of the American government in his refusal to recognize Huerta, who had come to power in a 1913 coup sponsored by the resident American ambassador, whom President Wilson repudiated. Though Wilson certainly meddled in Mexican affairs, he also understood that there were strict limits to U.S. intervention. He wanted Mexico to have self-government but also believed that the form of self-government it achieved would have to be an indigenous growth, not something imposed by outside forces. Certainly he had no idea of imposing democracy through force or liberating Mexico from its armed marauders; on the contrary, his philosophy of foreign affairs stood in direct opposition to any such scheme.

Lippmann's characterization of Wilson's outlook shows also that Lawrence Kaplan is wrong in attributing opposition to such misguided ventures as proceeding necessarily from "realism"-that is, from the exclusive appeal to the national interest ("Springtime for Realism," 6.21.04) There are, to be sure, excellent reasons for realists to oppose the doctrine of democratic liberation, but the doctrine is obnoxious in equal measure because it violates a central moral and legal principle regarding the self-determination of peoples-one which liberal internationalists used to champion. Democratic liberationists (a.k.a. "neo-Wilsonians") need to stop pretending that they have cornered the market in the appeal to moral principle, especially considering that they urge us to blast away at what Wilson, their supposed patron saint, viewed as a central pillar of a just and peaceful international order.

David Hendrickson is a professor of political science at Colorado College and a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy. He is the author of numerous books and articles including Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding (University Press of Kansas, 2003); and The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America’s Purpose (co-authored with Robert W. Tucker) (Council on Foreign Relations, 1992).