Beginnings of U.S. Foreign Policy
NFL 2000-2001 Policy Topic:
"Resolved: That the United States federal government
should establish a foreign policy significantly limiting the
use of weapons of mass destruction."
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John Quincy Adam's Warns "America Does Not Go Abroad Searching for Monsters to Destroy", 1821
...America, with the same voice
which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed
to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and
the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the
assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has
invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the
hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous
reciprocity.
She has uniformly spoken among
them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears,
the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of
equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a
century, without a single exception, respected the
independence of other nations while asserting and
maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in
the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for
principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop
that visits the heart.
She has seen that probably for
centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the
European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and
emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and
Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her
heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not
abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the
well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is
the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will
commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice,
and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows
that by once enlisting under other banners than her own,
were they even the banners of foreign independence, she
would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in
all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual
avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and
usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her
policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She
might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no
longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America's]
glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march
of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto
upon her shield is, Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has
been her Declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary
intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her
practice.
[Excerpted from 1821 address to
Congress on foreign policy.]
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