cipates in the national propensity, and adopts, through
passion, what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity
of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride,
ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often,
sometimes perhaps the liberty of nations, has been the victim.

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation to another produces
a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the
illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common
interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other,
betrays the former into a participation into the quarrels and wars of
the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also
to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others,
which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions, by
unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by
exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the
parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to
ambitions, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the
favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interest of their
own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding with
the appearance of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable
deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the
base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments
are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent
patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic
factions, to practice the art of seduction, to mislead public opinion,
to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small
or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the
satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to
believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be
_constantly_ awake, since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But
that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the
instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense
against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive
dislike fo