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Foreign Relations
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The United States was a new
nation, founded on different principles than all other nations then existing. Because its
objectives were peace and prosperity, not conquest and domination, it should therefore
avoid involvement with other nations that could only deter it from those peaceful
pursuits.
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"I am for free commerce
with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplomatic
establishment. And I am not for linking ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of
Europe, entering that field of slaughter to preserve their balance, or joining in the
confederacy of Kings to war against the principles of liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to
Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:77
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"I have ever deemed it
fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe.
Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their
balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government,
are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in
the destruction of the labor, property and lives of their people." --Thomas Jefferson
to James Monroe, 1823. ME: 15:436
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"I sincerely join... in
abjuring all political connection with every foreign power; and though I cordially wish
well to the progress of liberty in all nations, and would forever give it the weight of
our countenance, yet they are not to be touched without contamination from their other bad
principles. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."
--Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Lomax, 1799. ME 10:124
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"We have a perfect horror at
everything like connecting ourselves with the politics of Europe." --Thomas Jefferson
to William Short, 1801. ME 10:285
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"Peace, commerce and honest
friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none, I deem [one of] the essential
principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its
administration." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:321
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"We wish the happiness and
prosperity of every nation." --Thomas Jefferson to Mme de Stael-Holstein, 1815. ME
14:333
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Peace and Justice for All
Nations
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"We wish to cultivate peace
and friendship with all nations, believing that course most conducive to the welfare of
our own. It is natural that these friendships should bear some proportion to the common
interests of the parties." --Thomas Jefferson to Rufus King, 1802. ME 10:329
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"It is our duty and our
interest to cultivate with all nations... a spirit of justice and friendly
accommodation." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Annual Message, 1802. ME 3:341
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"What is the price we ask
for our friendship? Justice, and the comity usually observed between nation and
nation." --Thomas Jefferson to James Maury, 1815. ME 14:313
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"It is in the power of
neighbor nations to contribute to mutual happiness and prosperity by faithfully using
their good offices wherever they can procure the peace and advantage of each other."
--Thomas Jefferson to de Viar and de Jaudenes, 1792. ME 8:339
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"I have ever cherished the
same spirit with all nations, from a consciousness that peace, prosperity, liberty and
morals have an intimate connection." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1813. ME
13:384
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"We wish not to meddle with
the internal affairs of any country, nor with the general affairs of Europe. Peace with
all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our
object." --Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1793. ME 9:56
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"I wish that all nations may
recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance
beyond safe measures of power; that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among
nations; and that our peace, commerce and friendship may be sought and cultivated by
all." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Leiper, 1815. ME 14:308
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"I know, too, that it is a
maxim with us, and I think it a wise one, not to entangle ourselves with the affairs of
Europe. Still, I think we should know them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington,
1787. ME 6:396
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"While there are powers in
Europe which fear our views, or have views on us, we should keep an eye on them, their
connections and oppositions, that in a moment of need, we may avail ourselves of their
weakness with respect to others as well as ourselves, and calculate their designs and
movements, on all the circumstances under which they exist." --Thomas Jefferson to
Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:396
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"Let the general government
be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of all
other nations except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more
they are left free to manage for themselves, and our general government may be reduced to
a very simple organization and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed
by a few servants." --Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, 1800. ME 10:168
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"I see... not much harm in
annihilating the whole treaty-making power except as to making peace" --Thomas
Jefferson to James Madison, 1796. ME 9:330
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"On the subject of treaties,
our system is to have none with any nation, as far as can be avoided... We believe that
with nations as with individuals, dealings may be carried on as advantageously, perhaps
more so, while their continuance depends on a voluntary good treatment as if fixed by
contract which, when it becomes injurious to either, is made by forced constructions to
mean what suits them and becomes a cause of war instead of a bond of peace... It is
against our system to embarrass ourselves with treaties, or to entangle ourselves at all
with the affairs of Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, 1804. ME 11:38
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"In national as in
individual dealings, more liberality will, perhaps, be found in voluntary regulations than
in those which are measured out by the strict letter of a treaty, which, whenever it
becomes onerous, is made by forced construction to mean anything or nothing, engenders
disputes and brings on war." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander, Emperor of Russia,
1804. ME 19:143
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"An injured friend is the
bitterest of foes." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on French Treaties, 1793. ME 3:235
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"We had better have no
treaty than a bad one. It will not restore friendship, but keep us in a state of constant
irritation." --Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1807. ME 1:467
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"Observations on the
expediency of making short treaties are most sound. Our situation is too changing and too
improving to render an unchangeable treaty expedient for us." --Thomas Jefferson to
Edward Rutledge, 1790. ME 8:60
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"We wish to let every treaty
we have drop off without renewal... The interest which European nations feel as well as
ourselves in the mutual patronage of commercial intercourse is a sufficient stimulus on
both sides to ensure that patronage. A treaty contrary to that interest renders war
necessary to get rid of it." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1801. ME 10:287
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A Separate System from the
European
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"Nothing is so important as
that America shall separate herself from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her
own. Our circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct. The principles of our
policy should be so also. All entanglements with that quarter of the globe should be
avoided if we mean that peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American
societies." --Thomas Jefferson to J. Correa de Serra, 1820. ME 15:285
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"It ought to be the very
first object of our pursuits to have nothing to do with the European interests and
politics. Let them be free or slaves at will, navigators or agriculturists, swallowed into
one government or divided into a thousand, we have nothing to fear from them in any
form." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1801.
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"Our nation has wisely
avoided entangling itself in the system of European interests, has taken no side between
its rival powers, attached itself to none of its ever-changing confederacies."
--Thomas Jefferson to Baltimore Baptists, 1808. ME 16:318
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"To take part in [the
European] conflicts would be to divert our energies from creation to destruction. Our
commerce is so valuable to them that they will be glad to purchase it when the only price
we ask is to do us justice. I believe we have in our hands the means of peaceable
coercion, and that the moment they see our government so united as that they can make use
of it, they will for their own interest be disposed to do us justice. In this way [we]
shall not be obliged by any treaty of confederation to go to war for injuries done to
others." --Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1801.
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"The successful example of
recalling nations to the practice of justice by peaceable appeals to their interests, will
doubtless have salutary effects on our future course." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to
Tammany Society of Baltimore, 1809. ME 16:366
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"Separated by a wide ocean
from the nations of Europe and from the political interests which entangle them together,
with productions and wants which render our commerce and friendship useful to them and
theirs to us, it cannot be the interest of any to assail us, nor ours to disturb them. We
should be most unwise, indeed, were we to cast away the singular blessings of the position
in which nature has placed us, the opportunity she has endowed us with of pursuing at a
distance from foreign contentions the paths of industry, peace and happiness; of
cultivating general friendship and of bringing collisions of interest to the umpirage of
reason rather than of force." --Thomas Jefferson: 3rd Annual Message, 1803. ME 3:359
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"Our distance enables us to
pursue a course which the crowded situation of Europe renders perhaps impracticable
there." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis, 1803. ME 10:405
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"Distant as we are from the
powers of Europe, and devoted to pursuits which separate us from their affairs, we still
look with brotherly concern on whatever affects those nations, and offer constant prayers
for their welfare." --Thomas Jefferson to the King of Holland, 1807. ME 11:161
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"The fundamental principle
of our government [is] never to entangle us with the broils of Europe." --Thomas
Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:481
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"Our first and fundamental
maxim should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to
suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North and South, has a
set of interests distinct from those of Europe and peculiarly her own. She should
therefore have a system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe. While the last
is laboring to become the domicile of despotism, our endeavor should surely be to make our
hemisphere that of freedom." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1823. ME 15:477
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"Exhortations to avoid
taking part in the war... raging in Europe... were a confirmation of the policy I had
myself pursued, and which I thought and still think should be the governing canon of our
republic." --Thomas Jefferson to Mme de Stael-Holstein, 1815. ME 14:331
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"I hope we may still keep
clear of [the broils of Europe],... and that time may be given us to... find some means of
shielding ourselves in future from foreign influence, political, commercial, or in
whatever other form it may be attempted. I can scarcely withhold myself from joining in
the wish of Silas Deane that there were an ocean of fire between us and the old
world." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1797. ME 9:385
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"I hope [all will see and]
promote... the advantages of a cordial fraternization among all the American nations, and
the advantage of their coalescing in an American system of policy, totally independent of
and unconnected with that of Europe. The day is not distant when we may formally require a
meridian of partition through the ocean which separates the two hemispheres, on the hither
side of which no European gun shall ever be heard, nor an American on the other; and when,
during the rage of the eternal wars of Europe, the lion and the lamb within our regions
shall lie down together in peace... The principles of society there and here... are
radically different, and I hope no American patriot will ever lose sight of the essential
policy of interdicting in the seas and territories of both Americas the ferocious and
sanguinary contests of Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 1820. ME 15:262
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"[Our] object [in this
hemisphere] is to introduce and establish the American system, of keeping out of our land
all foreign powers, of never permitting those of Europe to intermeddle with the affairs of
our nations." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1823. ME 15:478
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"We begin to broach the idea
that we consider the whole Gulf Stream as of our waters, in which hostilities and cruising
are to be frowned on for the present, and prohibited so soon as either consent or force
will permit us. We shall never permit another privateer to cruise within it, and shall
forbid our harbors to national cruisers. This is essential for our tranquillity and
commerce." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1806. ME 11:111
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"When our strength will
permit us to give the law of our hemisphere, it should be that the meridian of the
mid-Atlantic should be the line of demarkation between war and peace, on this side of
which no act of hostility should be committed, and the lion and the lamb lie down in peace
together." --Thomas Jefferson to John Crawford, 1812. ME 13:119
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"We aim not at the
acquisition of any of [Europe's American] possessions,... we will not stand in the way of
any amicable arrangement between them and the Mother country; but... we will oppose, with
all our means, the forcible interposition of any other power, as auxiliary, stipendiary,
or under any other form or pretext, and most especially, their transfer to any power by
conquest, cession, or acquisition in any other way." --Thomas Jefferson to James
Monroe, 1823. ME 15:479
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"Distance and difference of
pursuits, of interests, of connections and other circumstances prescribe to us a different
system having no object in common with Europe but a peaceful interchange of mutual
comforts for mutual wants." --Thomas Jefferson to Mme de Stael-Holstein, 1815. ME
14:331
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"The European nations
constitute a separate division of the globe; their localities make them part of a distinct
system; they have a set of interests of their own in which it is our business never to
engage ourselves. America has a hemisphere to itself. It must have its separate system of
interest, which must not be subordinated to those of Europe. The insulated state in which
nature has placed the American continent should so far avail it that no spark of war
kindled in the other quarters of the globe should be wafted across the wide oceans which
separate us from them." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:22
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"I hope no American patriot
will ever lose sight of the essential policy of interdicting in the seas and territories
of both Americas the ferocious and sanguinary contests of Europe." --Thomas Jefferson
to William Short, 1820.
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The American Union Above
Foreign Ties
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"Do what is right, leaving
the people of Europe to act their follies and crimes among themselves, while we pursue in
good faith the paths of peace and prosperity." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe,
1823.
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"The politics of Europe
render it indispensably necessary that, with respect to everything external, we be one
nation only, firmly hooped together." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1786. ME
5:278
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"The first object of my
heart is my country. In that is embarked my family, my fortune and my own existence. I
have not one farthing of interest nor one fibre of attachment out of it, nor a single
motive of preference of any one nation to another but in proportion as they are more or
less friendly to us." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78
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"I have been happy... in
believing that... whatever follies we may be led into as to foreign nations, we shall
never give up our Union, the last anchor of our hope, and that alone which is to prevent
this heavenly country from becoming an arena of gladiators." --Thomas Jefferson to
Elbridge Gerry, 1797. ME 9:384
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"Our attachment to no nation
on earth should supplant our attachment to liberty." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration
on Taking Up Arms, 1775. Papers 1:201
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"Much as I abhor war, and
view it as the greatest scourge of mankind, and anxiously as I wish to keep out of the
broils of Europe, I would yet go with my brethren into these, rather than separate from
them." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1797. ME 9:385
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