se
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 anytime 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
ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances
with any portion of the foreign world."

President Washington. Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM AS DEFINED BY PRESIDENT
JEFFERSON

"I deem the essential principles of our government [to be]
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or
persuasion, peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all
nations, entangling alliances with none, the support of the
State Governments in all their rights, as the most competent
administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest
bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies, the
preservation of the General Government in its whole
constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at
home and safety abroad."

President Jefferson. First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801.

THE EXTENSION OF THE EUROPEAN SYSTEM TO THE WESTERN
HEMISPHERE DECLARED INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE AMERICAN SYSTEM,
BY PRESIDENT MONROE.

"The political system of the Allied Powers is essentially
different ... from that of America. This difference proceeds
from that which exists in their respective Governments, and
to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the
loss of so much blood and treasu