Washington's farewell address
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"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations. cultivate peace and harmony with all.
In carrying out such a plan, nothing, is more essential than that permanent habitual hatred against particular nations and passionate attachments for other should be excluded. In place of them, just and friendly feelings towards all should be cultivated. Hatred of one nation for another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of anger, and to be haughty and headstrong when accidental or minor occasions of dispute occur. So likewise a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation helps create the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists. It introduces into one the hatreds of the other. And it betrays the former into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate cause. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) an easy chance to betray, or sacrifice the interests of, their own country without hatred, sometimes even with popularity. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have no or a very remote relation. "Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Therefore, it must be unwise for us to involved ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary relationships or hatreds." |