s stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to
us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence, she must be engaged in
frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to
our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise 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 any time 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;
so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be
understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements.
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs,
that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it; therefore, let
those engagements be observed in their genuine sense; but in my opinion
it is unnecessary, and would be unwise, to extend them. Taking care
always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, in a respectable
defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for
extraordinary emergencies." In a previous part of the same letter
Washington makes the following admirable and just remark: "The nation
which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual
fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to
its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its
duty and its interest."

The political conduct of Washington was always guided by these maxims.
He succeeded in maintaining his country in a state of peace whilst all
the other nations of the glo