ve marked, or seemed to mark, our foreign policy under
the influence of temporary causes or of the conflicting opinions of
statesmen.

In the time of Washington, of the first Adams, of Jefferson, and of
Madison the condition of Europe, engaged in the gigantic wars of the
French Revolution and of the Empire, produced its series of public
questions and gave tone and color to our foreign policy. In the time of
Monroe, of the second Adams, and of Jackson, and subsequently thereto,
the independence of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of America
produced its series of questions and its apparent modification of our
public policy. Domestic questions of territorial organization, of social
emancipation, and of national unity have also largely occupied the minds
and the attention of the later Administrations.

The treaties of alliance and guaranty with France, which contributed so
much to our independence, were one source of solicitude to the early
Administrations, which were endeavoring to protect our commerce from the
depredations and wrongs to which the maritime policy of England and the
reaction of that policy on France subjected it. For twenty years we
struggled in vain to accomplish this, and at last drifted into war.

The avoidance of entangling alliances, the characteristic feature of the
foreign policy of Washington, sprang from this condition of things. But
the entangling alliances which then existed were engagements made with
France as a part of the general contract under which aid was furnished
to us for the achievement of our independence. France was willing to
waive the letter of the obligation as to her West India possessions, but
demanded in its stead privileges in our ports which the Administration
was unwilling to concede. To make its refusal acceptable to a public
which sympathized with France, the Cabinet of General Washington
exaggerated the principle into a theory tending to national isolation.

The public measures designed to maintain unimpaired the domestic
sovereignty and the international neutrality of the United States
were independent of this policy, though apparently incidental to it.
The municipal laws enacted by Congress then and since have been but
declarations of the law of nations. They are essential to the
preservation of our national dignity and honor; they have for their
object to repress and punish all enterprises of private war, one of the
last relics of mediaeval barbarism; and they ha