THE GENERAL FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES.

THE foreign policy of the United States was in its earliest stages largely shaped by the dread of foreign interference.

A conservative and neutral policy was undoubtedly the part of wisdom. There were, however, many influences which tended to draw us into dangerous foreign connections. There was a party in the country which, at the close of the war of independence, sought the establishment of a monarchy under the sovereignty of Washington, and plans were afoot for offering the crown to Prince Henry of Prussia, even after the adoption of the Constitution of 1789.

The wealth and intelligence of its members gave this faction greater strength than its mere numerical numbers indicated, and it was long feared that it might invite foreign interference for the accomplishment of its purpose.

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The weakness of the executive branch of the national government, not only under the Confederation but even under the Constitution, with respect to the administration of foreign affairs, was peculiarly felt. The power of declaring war was vested in Congress alone, and the treaty-making power in the President and Senate jointly; and the government found it difficult to act in the conduct of its foreign affairs with the promptness and vigor of powers whose executives were not so restricted. The inconveniences of these constitutional provisions are now less felt than at a time when the open hostility and secret intrigues of foreign powers were a source of constant apprehension to us.

Our weakness in this respect was made evident during the commotions produced by the French Revolution, and especially during the difficulties which grew out of the war between England and France. The condition of our country at that period is graphically described by Wharton:

"To draw the American people from their neutrality, first by coaxing, then by bullying, had been the object of each of the belligerent powers. Provocations to war, as well as solicitations for alliance, had been given on both sides, and as alliance with both, or war with both seemed impracticable, the question was which to choose. Of all questions by which a country can be agitated, that as to which

of two foreign alliances is to be accepted is the most demoralizing; and to the worst type of this dangerous disease the temperament of the American people rendered them susceptible." *

The efforts of French emissaries to force upon us an alliance with France form a familiar and humiliating chapter in the history of the country.

M. Genet, the first minister of the French Republic to the United States, on landing at Charleston, S. C., in April, 1793, forthwith opened a correspondence with American citizens, urging a determined opposition to the policy of Washington's administration. This purpose he vigorously pursued in the face of the proclamation of neutrality, and by direct appeals to the passions of the populace; privateers were fitted out at Charleston, to cruise against vessels of nations at peace with the United States; hostile expeditions were projected against Florida and Louisiana, the provinces of Spain. Insulting and domineering as was the course pursued by Genet, a large party in the country was actually willing to see the nation thus humiliated to promote the interests of a foreign power.

On the other hand, there was a party scarcely less submissive to English interests. It was composed chiefly of those whose latent loyalty to England had survived the war which separated the colonies from

* Wharton's American State Trials, p. 7.

the mother country, and who had never lost their fondness for the land which in childhood they had been taught to regard as their home. These rival foreign attachments produced very disastrous consequences. To use the language of a foreigner, quoted by Tucker in his "Life of Jefferson," "the year 1800 found many French and many English, but few Americans." *

So utterly wanting in national pride and spirit were our countrymen thought to be, that in 1791 the Spanish governor of New Orleans made a proposition to Judge Innis, a leading citizen of Ohio, looking to the secession of the western territory from the Union, the inducement to this step being the free navigation of the Mississippi.

Under such circumstances the Farewell Address of Washington was issued, and the foreign policy of the United States dates from its promulgation. Its wisdom and its applicability to the internal condition and foreign relations of the country, at the time, justifies the following extract from its statesmanlike and philosophical expositions of our duty as a people.

"A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real com

* 2 Tucker's Life of Jefferson, p. 19.

mon interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It

gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, who devote themselves to the favorite nation, facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity.

66 'An attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."

It was the language of devoted and exalted patriotism addressed to a people whose zealous party complications in the strife of France and England had suppressed, almost destroyed, the sentiment of attachment to their own country. Equally applicable to the relations then existing between the United States and European powers are these words, in which the elementary principles of our foreign policy are declared:

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Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have no or a very remote relation.

Hence, therefore, it must be unwise for us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations of her friendships or enmities. Why quit

our own to stand upon foreign ground?