ortionate a
place they occupied when the government was founded. We were then a
new nation, and our attitude toward the rest of the world was wholly
undefined. There was, therefore, among the American people much
anxiety to discover what that attitude would be, for the unknown is
always full of interest. Moreover, Europe was still our neighbor, for
England, France, and Spain were all upon our borders, and had large
territorial interests in the northern half of the New World. Within
fifteen years we had been colonies, and all our politics, except those
which were purely local and provincial, had been the politics of
Europe; for during the eighteenth century we had been drawn into and
had played a part in every European complication, and every European
war in which England had the slightest share. Thus the American people
came to consider themselves a part of the European system, and looked
to Europe for their politics, which was a habit of thought both
natural and congenial to colonists. We ceased to be colonists when
the Treaty of Paris was signed; but treaties, although they settle
boundaries and divide nations, do not change customs and habits of
thought by a few strokes of the pen. The free and independent people
of the United States, as there has already been occasion to point out,
when they set out to govern themselves under their new Constitution,
were still dominated by colonial ideas and prejudices. They felt,
no doubt, that the new system would put them in a more respectable
attitude toward the other nations of the earth. But this was probably
the only definite popular notion on the subject. What our actual
relations with other nations should be, was something wholly vague,
and very varying ideas were entertained about it by communities and
by individuals, according to their various prejudices, opinions, and
interests.

The one idea, however, that the American people did not have on this
subject was, that they should hold themselves entirely aloof from the
politics of the Old World, and have with other nations outside the
Americas no relations except those born of commerce. It had not
occurred to them that they should march steadily forward on a course
which would drive out European governments, and sever the connections
of those governments with the North American continent. After a
century's familiarity, this policy looks so simple and obvious that
it is difficult to believe that our forefathers could even h