From Isolation to Leadership, Revised | Page 3

the World War that many of the diplomatic notes prepared by Jefferson and Madison might, with a few changes of names and dates, be passed off as the correspondence of Wilson and Lansing. Washington's administration closed with the clouds of the European war still hanging heavy on the horizon. Under these circumstances he delivered his famous Farewell Address in which he said:
"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.
"Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
"Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
"Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambitions, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
"It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But in my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.
"Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies."
It will be observed that Washington warned his countrymen against permanent alliances. He expressly said that we might "safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies." Further than this many of those who are continually quoting Washington's warning against alliances not only fail to note the limitations under which the advice was given, but they also overlook the reasons assigned. In a succeeding paragraph of the Farewell Address he said:
"With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes."
The expression "entangling alliances" does not occur in the Farewell Address, but was given currency by Jefferson. In his first inaugural address he summed up the principles by which he proposed to regulate his foreign policy in the following terms: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
During the brief interval of peace following the treaty of Amiens in 1801, Napoleon undertook the re?stablishment of French power in Santo Domingo as the first step in the development of a colonial empire which he determined upon when he forced Spain to retrocede Louisiana to France by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800. Fortunately for us the ill-fated expedition to Santo Domingo encountered the opposition of half a million negroes and ultimately fell a prey to the ravages of yellow fever. As soon as Jefferson heard of the cession of Louisiana to France, he instructed Livingston, his representative at Paris, to open negotiations for the purchase of New Orleans and West Florida, stating that the acquisition of New Orleans by a powerful nation like France would inevitably lead to friction and conflict. "The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low water mark. It seals the union of two nations who in conjunction can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. We must turn all our attentions to a maritime force, for which our resources place us on very