In order to become an active and knowledgeable citizen of our democratic system, one must be familiar with our nation's history and the institutions on which our government is founded. On a larger scale, a knowledge of world geography and global interdependence is necessary in understanding the forces that have shaped and continue to shape U.S. foreign policy.
To achieve this understanding, our Social Studies Program includes inquiry, in depth research, and creative problem solving. In order to build on the knowledge of history and geography, students are encouraged to make the world their classroom as they develop new perspectives about the future.
An example of this integrated approach, would be a scenario whereby students become statesman as they research the founding of our constitution. Following intense research of the Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians of the past, students participate in classroom debates . This historical information and interaction with individuals of the past becomes a foundation for them as they seek to understand our political and judicial system . The Bill of Rights is scrutinized in their attempts to examine contemporary issues facing individuals today. To round off the classroom learning experience, students attend a session in the local courtroom as they observe the principles of our constitution in action.
Throughout this unit of study, students use the computers, initially for information gathering and communication via the internet and then finally as a tool to create multi-media projects. When students come to understand their own physical, social, economic and political systems , they are in a better position to examine and conduct comparative studies of other systems throughout the world. As they reach beyond they are confronted with global issues ranging from those that affect our physical environment to those involving human rights.
In order to connect our students to such issues beyond our classroom, many guest speakers are invited in. We have had foreign students as well as those in our community who have traveled abroad and are willing to share their unique experiences. In addition to live interaction, the students are constantly communicating with others around the world via the internet.
Thus it is that the Cedar Community Social Studies Program attempts to guide our students as they become historically and geographically knowledgeable members of a global community.
An example of a local history project would be our award winning Community study:
"A Town of Our Own" Project Summary By: Laura Richter
This project involved our Cedar Community at the Skowhegan Area Middle School in a quest for adventure and discovery. The Standards and Guiding Principles outlined in the Maine State Learning results and the National Standards of Geography Education, served as a beacons for students as they attained knowledge and applied skills in math, science, language arts and social studies.
Students began by asking real-world questions as they sought to understand more about their town, Skowhegan, Maine. They became geographically and technically literate as they questioned, explored and analyzed specific data, and eventually applied it to their own creative product, a town which they created from scratch. All of this inquiry and discovery painted a picture for the students of the past, present, and future of their town. This project heavily involved many functions of town government. The students, themselves, were involved from day one in the planning of this project.
Phase 1 launched the "Scenario", which was as follows:
"Congratulations, students of the Cedar Community! You should be very honored to hear that you have been chosen to embark on a journey of discovery involving your town along the mighty Kennebec River, Skowhegan, Maine. You will become scientists, geographers and researchers as you ask many probing questions while trying to find out all that you possibly can about the town of Skowhegan. You will be using technology in many different ways to complete this special mission.
After completing this massive research, you will be creating a brand new town of your own. In order to understand how to do this, you will need to pay close attention to the jobs that you choose. This new town will need all the parts that exist in your town, such as, government, utilities, schools, businesses etc. Your Social Studies threads will guide you on your way, so keep them clear in your minds....Cultural, Economic, Physical , Historical, Political and International. So, keep your chin up and work hard, your efforts will be well rewarded!
After receiving their mission, students worked in cooperative groups to decide specific roles which they would assume . The roles included, city planners, architects, historians, business people, politicians, environmentalists, biologists, and geographers. Phase I of the project included their journal reflections on their town (what they, in fact, already knew) and questions they had concerning the town and the role they would be pursuing. This initial information served as an important tool for self assessment later on.
The students conducted research in many different ways as they used the internet, e-mail, Mac GIS,(geographical information system)primary sources, secondary sources, interviews, and visits to various organizations in the community. Their interview questions probed deeply as they asked such questions as 'how has technology changed this job over the years, what purpose does this office serve the community, what happened to the Abenakis, why was the Kennebec River log drive discontinued?? They contacted the people who could provide information and answers for them.
They began to think and act like historians, politicians and so forth. Keeping careful notes from interviews, primary sources, secondary sources and personal examination, they drew conclusions as to how and why Skowhegan came to exist. Research papers in many different areas such as Benedict Arnold's march to Quebec, the Abanakis of Norridgewock, logging and the Kennebec River log drive, famous historical figures such as Margaret Chase Smith, the day to day operation of local town governments, were written, edited, and later published for the community website.
Phase II involved the creating of a new and unique town by the students. They learned to read and develop scale drawings of Skowhegan, and examined the land forms of the area. Their direct experience with Skowhegan guided them as they debated issues such as, where the town should be located, what type of energy and water source would be available , what the economic base will consist of etc. A large model of this town was ultimately constructed by the students as they worked with a local town planner and an architect for Klienschmitz and Dutting, an engineering firm in Pittsfield, Maine. Thus, the students studied the known, and in so doing, created a town matching their vision for the future.
In addition to the town, final projects included a community project website designed by the students which displayed their historical research and their information about the functions of Skowhegan's town government. This website was attached to the official Skowhegan website by the town webmaster. Students also created multi media computer projects which made the topics really come alive with creativity. They used HyperStudio, a program which includes sounds, text, and graphics.
Field trips and on site interviews made this project come alive as the school walls reached into the surrounding community. We visited the historic home where Benedict Arnold and his troops picked up the bateaux used in the expedition, the Maine State Museum where we viewed many exhibits of early life in Maine, the Wyman and Skowhegan Hydro Dams, and the Margaret Chase Smith Library.
Other schools could easily emulate this project if teachers of different disciplines could work together to set goals both academically and socially for the students. We began with our local curriculum and the standards and principles established through the Maine State Learning Results as we attempted to guide the students as they learned to become 'effective communicators and good problem solvers'. We developed alternative performance assessment tools as we realized that we would be measuring knowledge not only by traditional paper pencil tests, but also through portfolios, hands-on projects and multimedia projects.
Maine State learning Results / Guiding Principles: Goals for a student to be: A Creative and Practical Problem Solver, A Responsible and Involved Citizen and an Integrative and Informed Thinker
Relevant Content Areas: Science and Technology/ Students will communicate effectively in the application of science and technology
Historical Inquiry, Analysis, and Interpretation / Students will learn to evaluate resource material such as documents, artifacts,maps, artworks, and literature, and to make judgements about the perspectives of the authors and their credibility when interpreting current historical events.Geography- Students will understand and analyze the relationships among people and their physical environment.Students will develp maps, globes, charts, models and databases to analyze geographical patterns on earth.
Mathematics/ Geometry/ Students apply geometric properties to represent and solve real life problems involving regular and irregular shapes.
The main interest in Hamilton's Republic is the commentary. As an editor, Michael Lind leaves much to be desired: the texts he selected are not as substantial and coherent as one would like, and sometimes his introductions are longer than the excerpts they introduce. But when he writes in propria persona, he gives a robust and cogent defense of American nationalism.
The book has five parts. The first is devoted to Alexander Hamilton himself and his legacy; the second, to American nationality; the third, to the Unionist -- as opposed to the "states' rights" or "compact" -- interpretation of the Constitution; the fourth, to defense and foreign policy; the fifth, to the role of government in general.
Lind introduces the book by contrasting today's liberal/conservative dichotomy with America's own, unique political traditions: the Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians, democratic localists and democratic nationalists. One tradition was passed down from Jefferson's Republicans, to the Democratic Republicans, and finally to Andrew Jackson's Democrats. The other tradition was passed down from the Federalists, to the National Republicans, to the Whigs, and finally to Abraham Lincoln's Republicans.
This simple dichotomy is complicated by another tradition, which Lind calls the "Northern moralists," who spawned abolitionism, Progressivism, and opposition to America's wars from 1812 to Vietnam. Considering how radically this tradition has mutated over the generations, it should now be called the Northern (and Left Coast) immoralists. The whole story of the transformation from Puritanism to Political Correctness is worthy of a book in itself. Suffice it here to say that Lind emphasizes Lincoln's nationalism, but I have read too much by and about him not to know that Lincoln had a strong moralist streak, tempered by prudence. This is why he is hated both by paleoconservatives and neo-Confederates on the far Right, and by anti-white racists on the far Left.
To these indigenous traditions, one might add another political force: that of unassimilated ethnic groups, which has waxed and waned over time with the vagaries of our immigration and segregation policies. From the Irish Catholics of the 1800s to the blacks, Jews, and Hispanics of today, these have always strongly supported the Democratic party.
The Jeffersonian/Hamiltonian dichotomy lasted from the 1790s to the 1890s. After a generation or two of confusion and realignment, the contemporary Left/Right dichotomy emerged in the 1930s. Further realignment after the cultural revolution of the 1960s has left us with a more-or-less Jeffersonian Republican party based in the South and West, and a Northern/Left Coast immoralist Democratic party now dependent on mass immigration and racial separatism (euphemistically known as "multiculturalism") for its political survival.
The causes of this confusion and realignment were twofold: foreign and domestic. Immigrants brought with them the alien ideology of Marxism (an awkward fact ignored by those who see immigrants as nothing but cheap labor). Rural Jeffersonians of the South and West responded to industrialization, urbanization, and the rise of big corporations by creating a native equivalent of socialism: Populism. The "People's party," co-opted by the Democrats, mutated the Jeffersonian tradition by failing to make the distinction between wealth and power, so that the animus formerly directed against the federal government was now directed against "robber barons" and "economic royalists," while the federal government was looked to as a protector. Finally, the Northern moralists embraced a more genteel, paternalistic form of socialism.
These three groups eventually merged into the American Left, composed of the Roosevelt Democrats and explicitly socialist minor parties. In reaction, a purer breed of Jeffersonians gradually emerged to dominate the Republican party and the American Right.
Despite the absence of a Hamiltonian party to give it guidance and take the credit, 20th-century America was substantially what Hamilton had intended it to be: a great economic and military power -- indeed, the greatest. As Lind succinctly sums up, Hamilton's goal was "a strong, centralized national government promoting industrial capitalism and defending America's concrete interests abroad with an effective professional military" (p. 5). The momentum of the Hamiltonian policies of the Republican ascendancy was swerved from side to side, but not halted or reversed, by the push and pull of the new political alignment.
In the 21st century, however, the continued success of Hamilton's republic is far from guaranteed. Of all the dangers facing our country, the greatest are those that threaten the very existence of a united American nation: mass immigration, racial separatism, and the Leftist anti-culture.
On immigration, Hamilton (an immigrant himself) is worth quoting at length:
The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education, and family.
The opinion advanced in the Notes on Virginia is undoubtedly correct, that foreigners will generally be apt to bring with them attachments to the persons they have left behind; to the country of their nativity, and to particular customs and manners. They will also entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived; or, if they should be led hither from a preference for ours, how extremely unlikely is it that they will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism? There may, as to particular individuals, and at particular times, be occasional exceptions to these remarks, yet such is the general rule. The influx of foreigners must, therefore, tend to produce a heterogeneous compound; to change and corrupt the national spirit; to complicate and confound public opinion; to introduce foreign propensities. In the composition of society, the harmony of the ingredients is all-important, and whatever tends to a discordant intermixture must have an injurious tendency.
The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. It has been often likely to compromit the interests of our own country in favor of another. The permanent effect of such a policy will be, that in times of great public danger there will be always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone will weaken the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader. ("Lucius Crassus," 1802. Vol. VII, pp. 241-242)
Lind does not address immigration directly, but does an excellent job of arguing for national cohesion against its ideological enemies. He witheringly derides "multiculturalism" as bogus and racist, directing particular scorn at the five quasi-racial castes into which the "affirmative action" system divides us. At the same time, he rejects democratic universalism: the idea, popular among libertarians and all-too-many "conservatives," that America is defined solely by abstract principles and needs nothing but these principles to hold it together.
A moment's reflection will show why the nation cannot be defined in political terms. The American nation, acting through its leaders, could not choose among different governments -- the colonial governments under Great Britain, the loose confederation set up by the Articles of Confederation, and the federal nation-state established by the 1787 federal constitution -- unless the nation had an identity that was not affected by mere alterations of governments or constitutions. (p. 37)
Lind is less clear, however, when he tries to define a positive conception of American identity. He contrasts "nativism" with the "melting pot" theory, inconsistently ascribing a policy of assimilation to each in turn.
In the strict historical sense, nativism is the belief that that certain kinds of foreigners simply cannot be assimilated because of their religion or race. History has -- so far -- proven this belief wrong: be they Irish or Chinese or what have you, all have eventually merged in the "melting pot." (The Jews are a conspicuous exception, at least as measured by their voting pattern; but their rates of intermarriage are so high as to render that ultimately irrelevant.) In a more general sense, nativism may be defined as the principle that the interests of the native population should never be sacrificed to the interests of foreigners. The question to ask about immigration is not whether the immigrants will eventually assimilate, but whether it's good for native Americans.
The problem with the "melting pot" conception is that it threatens "amalgamation (the formation of a new culture and population from several), not assimilation (the conformity of all new groups to the standards of the previously dominant majority)" (p. 39). This is precisely what nativists have always been afraid of, and rightly so: we have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, from the amalgamation of our republican liberty with populations and cultures that have never known anything but despotism and servility.
It is hard to imagine a stronger rebuke to the amalgamation idea than that delivered by Theodore Roosevelt, who demanded
the Americanizing of the newcomers to our shores. We must Americanize them in every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking at the relations between church and state. We welcome the German or the Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who remains such. We do not wish German-Americans or Irish-Americans who figure as such in our social and political life; we want only Americans, and, provided they are such, we do not care whether they are of native or of Irish or of German ancestry....
It is an immense benefit to the European [or Asian or Latin American] immigrant to change him into an American citizen. To bear the name of American is to bear the most honorable of titles; and whoever does not so believe has no business to bear the name at all, and, if he comes from Europe [or Asia or Latin America], the sooner he goes back there the better. (pp. 62-63)
Assimilation, then, is the alternative to both nativism (in the strict sense) and the "melting pot" (in the amalgamationist sense). So what if frankfurters and hamburgers (for instance) are German in origin? If there's one thing democratic nationalists and democratic universalists can agree on, it's that republican liberty is far more important than such trivia. The problem is that democratic universalists ignore the fact that republican liberty is not an abstract principle applicable instantly and uniformly without regard to context, but a complex system of customs and institutions that had a specific origin among a specific people: the Anglo-Saxons.
Even among Anglo-Saxons -- even among Americans -- republican liberty has been far from uncontroversial. Seeing as how the very people who created it have fought -- with words and with bullets -- over its worth and meaning, why should we expect any other peoples to establish and practice it any better? We should only be surprised if the French (for instance) had not bungled their first four attempts to do so in their own country.
The essential point in dispute, between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians, is: which is the stronger bulwark of liberty -- the several states, or the Union? (It is worth noting that Jefferson was a slaveowner; so was Washington, but he freed his slaves in his will; Hamilton was a founder of the Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves.) Is America a confederacy of petty sovereignties, or "one nation, indivisible"?
This would seem to have been settled, once and for all, at Appomattox; but enough apologists for the Confederacy (disastrous failure though it was) are still running loose, that it is worthwhile to pause and refute them. What's more, Lincoln and the Confederacy have been bones of contention within the American conservative movement since the 1950s, and those who take the Emancipator's side may in turn be taken as Hamiltonians and nationalists.
Sometimes the neo-Confederates complain that Lincoln was a fanatical "Jacobin," determined to abolish slavery at any cost (an argument that would astonish his abolitionist critics: they were the Jacobins, he was a Whig). Sometimes they steal an argument from the anti-white racists of the Left, and declare that Lincoln was a "racist" who didn't really care about black slavery at all, but only wanted to preserve the Union at any cost. Of course these arguments only refute each other, and are the malicious opposite to the resounding affirmation of Daniel Webster: "Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!" (p. 112)
Lincoln both freed the slaves and saved the country from splitting into two (and who knows how many more, potentially) fragments, all of them together both poorer and weaker than the whole combined. For these achievements, he deserves the gratitude of a free, rich, and strong nation.
Liberty cannot simply be wished into existence: it has to be established and defended, by force if necessary. No nation can rely for its security on the benevolence of other nations, or on international agreements, but only on its own power. Hamiltonians recognize these facts, and consistently base their policies on them; Jeffersonians and Northern moralists have often recoiled from them, preferring fantasies of a world in which the necessity of force can be wished away.
Until the beginning of the Cold War, America's defense rested on a synthesis of Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian principles: a tiny professional military was maintained that, in time of war, was rapidly expanded into a mass army of citizen-soldiers, and just as rapidly disbanded afterwards. The new situation, a perpetual conflict short of all-out war, was unprecedented for the United States; we were finally, permanently drawn into the old world of power-rivalries, spheres of influence, alliances, large navies and standing armies. Both parties reached a Hamiltonian consensus on national defense -- mixed up, however, with democratic-universalist flapdoodle, exemplified by our involvement in the United Nations.
The Northern/Left Coast Democrats' support for this consensus collapsed during the Vietnam War as that section of the party merged with the radical, anti-American Left. The Republicans, supported by the dwindling number of conservative Democrats, stayed on the Hamiltonian course of containing Soviet power as best they could; when Ronald Reagan led them back into the White House, they went on the offensive and finally won the Cold War.
After a dozen years of drift and confusion in our foreign policy, the Republicans are back the White House under a new President Bush. Conservatives have hotly debated America's proper role in the post-Cold War world, and are far from reaching a new consensus. What does an updated Hamiltonian foreign policy have to offer? Never sacrificing America's national interests for "humanitarian" ends; keeping America the strongest power in the world; shutting down the grotesque charade of the United Nations; acting unilaterally as far as possible, and otherwise in concert with allies who are ready, willing, and able to pull their own weight, for clearly-defined and limited ends; neither trying to rule the world and remake it in our image, nor trying to ignore it and hope it will leave us alone.
Hamiltonian economic policy is a means to these ends: securing political independence through economic development and unification. In the "American System" of the 19th century, the federal government levied protective tariffs to promote native industry and sponsored internal improvements (roads, canals, railways, etc.) knitting the country more tightly together. Today, shifting the tax burden back from domestic incomes to foreign imports would unite the interests of upper-income taxpayers and lower-income wage-earners. However, in an age of interstate highways, jet airliners, telephones, television, the Internet, etc., basic infrastructure is no longer an issue. How else, then, should the federal government "promote the general welfare"?
This final issue is the one that Lind gets entirely wrong. After a few quibbles and qualifications, in the end he asserts that the Progressives and the New Deal/Great Society Democrats were actually Hamiltonians. They were, in truth, democratic socialists, not democratic nationalists.
Theodore Roosevelt is a kind of Janus-figure, looking simultaneously backward to Hamilton and the American System, and forward to Franklin Roosevelt and the welfare state. Although he still endorsed the principle of equal opportunity (as opposed to equal results), he had the Northern moralist's disdain for commerce, which leads to suspicion of free enterprise, dissatisfaction with its unequal results, and willingness to resort to government to change those results. He was guilty of uttering this most quintessentially socialist of sentiments: "We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life with which we surround them" (p. 280) -- with its implicit premises that men's conditions of life are the responsibility of society as a whole, not of individuals, and that society has unlimited power to change those conditions.
Hamiltonians advocate strong government, not big government -- i.e. government that is effective in performing the limited tasks assigned to it, of which the first and foremost is "to provide for the common defense." If Hamiltonian economic policy is defined by its contribution to this end, then the most Hamiltonian President in living memory was Ronald Reagan. Through tax cuts and deregulation, he revived the economy and made it possible for America to rearm and face down the Soviets. This was the latest triumph of American capitalism mobilized for America's defense -- hopefully, not the last.
Instead of natural barriers to travel and communication, it is artificial barriers to enterprise and productivity that need to be overcome: those raised by decades of liberal-Democratic over-government. This is something that Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians can finally agree on.
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Jeffersonian economics
Jeffersonians have also held that the economy of the United States should rely more on agriculture for strategic commodities, than on industry. Jefferson specifically believed “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for genuine and substantial virtue."
However, Jeffersonian ideals are not opposed to all manufacturing. The belief was that unlimited expansion of commerce and industry would lead to the growth of a class of wage laborers that relied on others for income and sustenance. Such a situation, they feared, would leave the American people vulnerable to political subjugation and economic manipulation (Which is what happened through the industrial revolution and Gilded Age)
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"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson
"The principles of Jefferson are the axioms of a free society." ~ Abraham Lincoln
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was no ordinary Founding Father. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses (1769), a delegate to the Continental Congress (1775), the governor of Virginia (1779), minister to France (1785), the first Secretary of State (1789), the vice president of the United States (1796), and finally, the president of the United States (1801). He also established the University of Virginia (1810).
Although most high school students are probably taught that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, very few are probably also taught that he wrote the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and the Kentucky Resolutions, which were written in response to the original Patriot Act – the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson also wrote hundreds of letters on a wide variety of subjects. Because most of what he wrote has been published, Jefferson is one of the most quoted persons in history.
Perhaps the most famous quote from Jefferson is that oft-repeated one from his first inaugural address, delivered on March 4, 1801: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none."
This quote is part of Jefferson’s annunciation of what he deemed "the essential principles of our government." The quote in its context reads as follows:
About to enter, fellow citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper that you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; 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; a jealous care of the right of election by the people – a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of the revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority – the vital principle of republics, from which there is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia – our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and the arraignment of all abuses at the bar of public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trail by juries impartially selected – these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.
This often-cited statement by Jefferson ("Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none") was not just empty rhetoric like that which bellows from the lips of all modern politicians – of both parties. The principles embodied in this succinct statement can be found throughout Jefferson’s writings.
Peace
I hope France, England and Spain will all see it their interest to let us make bread for them in peace, and to give us a good price for it.
Peace is our most important interest, and a recovery from debt.
Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.
We ask for peace and justice from all nations.
We love and we value peace; we know its blessings from experience.
The happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace.
The state of peace is that which most improves the manners and morals, the prosperity and happiness of mankind.
Our desire is to pursue ourselves the path of peace as the only one leading surely to prosperity.
Always a friend to peace, and believing it to promote eminently the happiness and prosperity of nations, I am ever unwilling that it should be disturbed, until greater and more important interests call for an appeal to force.
We are yet at peace, and shall continue so, if the injustice of the other nations will permit us. The war beyond the water is universal. We wish to keep it out of our island.
I hope that peace and amity with all nations will long be the character of our land, and that its prosperity under the Charter will react on the mind of Europe, and profit her by the example.
Peace is our passion, and the wrongs might drive us from it. We prefer trying ever other just principles, right and safety, before we would recur to war.
We have great need of peace in Europe, that foreign affairs may no longer bear so heavily on ours. We have great need for the ensuing twelve months to be left to ourselves.
I pray for peace, as best for all the world, best for us, and best for me, who have already lived to see three wars, and now pant for nothing more than to be permitted to depart in peace.
That peace, safety, and concord may be the portion of our native land, and be long enjoyed by our fellow-citizens, is the most ardent wish of my heart, and if I can be instrumental in procuring or preserving them, I shall think I have not lived in vain.
Twenty years of peace, and the prosperity so visibly flowing from it, have but strengthened our attachment to it, and the blessings it brings, and we do not despair of being always a peaceable nation.
It is impossible that any other man should wish peace as much as I do.
Commerce
Agriculture, manufactures, commerce and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are the most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise.
My principle has ever been that war should not suspend either exports or imports.
Our interest [is] to throw open the doors of commerce and to knock off all its shackles, giving perfect freedom to all persons for the vent of whatever they may choose to bring into our ports, and asking the same in theirs.
Our people have a decided taste for navigation and commerce. They take this from their mother country, and their servants are in duty bound to calculate all their measures on this datum: we wish to do it by throwing open all the doors of commerce and knocking off its shackles.
The exercise of a free trade with all parts of the world [is] possessed by [a people] as of natural right, and [only through a] law of their own [can it be] taken away or abridged.
An exchange of surpluses and wants between neighbor nations is both a right and a duty under the moral law.
Nature . . . has conveniently assorted our wants and our superfluities, to each other. Each nation has exactly to spare, the articles which the other wants. . . . The governments have nothing to do, but not to hinder their merchants from making the exchange.
That the persons of our citizens shall be safe in freely traversing the ocean, that the transportation of our own produce in our own vessels to the markets of our choice and the return to us of the articles we want for our own use shall be unmolested I hold to be fundamental, and that the gauntlet must be forever hurled at him who questions it.
War is not the best engine for us to resort to, nature has given us one in our commerce, which, if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice.
I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.
It [is] for our interest, as for that also of all the world, that every port of France, and of every other country, should be free.
Instead of embarrassing commerce under piles of regulating laws, duties and prohibitions, could it be relieved from all its shackles in all parts of the world, could every country be employed in producing that which nature has best fitted it to produce, and each be free to exchange with others mutual surpluses for mutual wants, the greatest mass possible would then be produced of those things which contribute to human life and human happiness; the numbers of mankind would be increased and their condition bettered. Would even a single nation begin with the United States this system of free commerce, it would be advisable to begin it with that nation; since it is one by one only that it can be extended to all.
Honest Friendship with All Nations
War has been avoided from a due sense of the miseries, and the demoralization it produces, and of the superior blessings of a state of peace and friendship with all mankind.
The desire to preserve our country from the calamities and ravages of war, by cultivating a disposition, and pursuing a conduct, conciliatory and friendly to all nations, has been sincerely entertained and faithfully followed. It was dictated by the principles of humanity, the precepts of the gospel, and the general wish of our country.
My hope of preserving peace for our country is not founded in the greater principles of non-resistance under every wrong, but in the belief that a just and friendly conduct on our part will produce justice and friendship from others.
To preserve and secure peace has been the constant aim of my administration.
Peace has been our principle, peace is our interest, and peace has saved to the world this only plant of free and rational government now existing in it. However, therefore, we may have been reproached for pursuing our Quaker system, time will affix the stamp of wisdom on it, and the happiness and prosperity of our citizens will attest its merit. And this, I believe, is the only legitimate object of government, and the first duty of governors, and not the slaughter of men and devastation of the countries placed under their care, in pursuit of a fantastic honor, unallied to virtue or happiness; or in gratification of the angry passions, or the pride of administrators, excited by personal incidents, in which their citizens have no concern.
We wish to cultivate peace and friendship with all nations, believing that course most conducive to the welfare of our own.
I have ever cherished the same spirit with all nations, from a consciousness that peace, prosperity, liberty and morals, have an intimate connection.
From the moment which sealed our peace and independence, our nation has wisely pursued the paths of peace and justice. During the period in which I have been charged with its concerns, no effort has been spared to exempt us from the wrongs and the rapacity of foreign nations.
Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy; and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
Peace with all nations, and the right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.
Peace, justice, and liberal intercourse with all the nations of the world, will, I hope, characterize this commonwealth.
The interests of a nation, when well understood, will be found to coincide with their moral duties. Among these it is an important one to cultivate habits of peace and friendship with our neighbors.
During the wars which for some time have unhappily prevailed among the powers of Europe, the U.S. of America, firm in their principles of peace, have endeavored by justice, by a regular discharge of all their national and social duties, and by every friendly office their situation admitted, to maintain, with all the belligerents, their accustomed relations of friendship, hospitality and commercial intercourse. Taking no part in the questions which animated these powers against each other, nor permitting themselves to entertain a wish, but for the restoration of general peace, they have observed with good faith the neutrality they assumed, and they believe that no instance of departure form its duties can be justly imputed to them by any nation.
We have seen with sincere concern the flames of war lighted up again in Europe, and nations with which we have the most friendly and useful relations engaged in mutual destruction. While we regret the miseries in which we see others involved let us bow with gratitude to that kind Providence which, inspiring with wisdom and moderation our late legislative councils while paced under the urgency of the greatest wrongs, guarded us from hastily entering into the sanguinary contest, and left us only to look on and to pity its ravages.
It should be our endeavor to cultivate the peace and friendship of every nation, even of that which has injured us most.
Entangling Alliances with None
We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country, nor with the general affairs of Europe.
Believing that the happiness of mankind is best promoted by the useful pursuits of peace, that on these alone a stable prosperity can be founded, that the evils of war are great in their endurance, and have a long reckoning for ages to come, I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.
The satisfaction you express, fellow citizens, that my endeavors have been unremitting to preserve the peace and independence of our country, and that a faithful neutrality has been observed towards all the contending powers, is highly grateful to me; and there can be no doubt that in any common times they would have saved us from the present embarrassments, thrown in the way of our national prosperity by the rival powers.
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.
Since this happy separation, 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. Their peace is desirable; and you do me justice in saying that to preserve and secure this, has been the constant aim of my administration.
No one nation has a right to sit in judgment over another.
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.
I am decidedly of opinion we should take no part in European quarrels, but cultivate peace and commerce with all.
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.
At such a distance from Europe and with such an ocean between us, we hope to meddle little in its quarrels or combinations. Its peace and its commerce are what we shall court
Determined as we are to avoid, if possible, wasting the energies of our people in war and destruction, we shall avoid implicating ourselves with the powers of Europe, even in support of principles which we mean to pursue. They have so many other interests different from ours, that we must avoid being entangled in them.
In the course of this conflict, let it be our endeavor, as it is our interest and desire, to cultivate the friendship of the belligerent nations by every act of justice and of incessant kindness; to receive their armed vessels with hospitality from the distresses of the sea, but to administer the means of annoyance to none; to establish in our harbors such a police as may maintain law and order; to restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in which their country takes no part.
We ask for peace and justice from all nations; and we will remain uprightly neutral in fact.
No nation has strove more than we have done to merit the peace of all by the most rigorous impartiality to all.
We have produced proofs, from the most enlightened and approved writers on the subject, that a neutral nation must, in all things relating to the war, observe an exact impartiality towards the parties.
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
I have used my best endeavors to keep our country uncommitted in the troubles which afflict Europe, and which assail us on every side.
Conclusion
Jefferson was not alone in holding these principles of peace, commerce, and friendship with other nations, while having no entangling alliances with them. Many men before and after him held the same views. Two notable examples are George Washington and Jefferson Davis.
In addition to his warning in his Farewell Address against "permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world," George Washington also said: "Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all."
Jefferson Davis, in his Inaugural Address delivered in Montgomery, Alabama, in February of 1861, stated that he was "anxious to cultivate peace and commerce with all nations," and that "our policy is peace, and the freest trade our necessities will permit."
The modern Democratic and Republican parties may like to think that they are the ideological successors of the Jeffersonians who made up the old Democratic-Republican Party, but they are as far removed from the principles of Thomas Jefferson as the east is from the west. Instead of peace, they crusade for continual wars. Instead of commerce, they give us massive government intervention in the economy that stifles commerce. Instead of honest friendship with all nations, they display a belligerent attitude toward any country that refuses to recognize American hegemony. Instead of entangling alliances with no one, they promote American intervention into the affairs of almost every country on the face of the globe.
Thomas Jefferson was certainly not perfect, but a return to his principles would work wonders in government and society.
[These quotations from Jefferson have been taken from a variety of sources. Most are from the now out-of-print volume, The Complete Jefferson, edited and assembled by Saul K. Padover. However, other similar volumes of Jefferson’s writings are available, and much is now available online, such as thiscollection of Jefferson’s letters.]
September 1, 2004
Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting and economics at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL. Visit his website.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) was no ordinary Founding Father. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses (1769), a delegate to the Continental Congress (1775), the governor of Virginia (1779), minister to France (1785), the first Secretary of State (1789), the vice president of the United States (1796), and finally, the president of the United States (1801). He also established the University of Virginia (1810). 
