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Page 27
The difference of conditions between the United States of to-day and
of the beginning of this century illustrates aptly how necessary it is
to avoid implicit acceptance of precedents, crystallized into maxims,
and to seek for the quickening principle which justified, wholly or in
part, the policy of one generation, but whose application may insure a
very different course of action in a succeeding age. When the century
opened, the United States was not only a continental power, as she now
is, but she was one of several, of nearly equal strength as far as
North America was concerned, with all of whom she had differences
arising out of conflicting interests, and with whom, moreover, she was
in direct geographical contact,--a condition which has been recognized
usually as entailing peculiar proneness to political friction; for,
while the interests of two nations may clash in quarters of the world
remote from either, there is both greater frequency and greater
bitterness when matters of dispute exist near at home, and especially
along an artificial boundary, where the inhabitants of each are
directly in contact with the causes of the irritation. It was
therefore the natural and proper aim of the government of that day to
abolish the sources of difficulty, by bringing all the territory in
question under our own control, if it could be done by fair means. We
consequently entered upon a course of action precisely such as a
European continental state would have followed under like
circumstances. In order to get possession of the territory in which
our interests were involved, we bargained and manoeuvred and
threatened; and although Jefferson's methods were peaceful enough, few
will be inclined to claim that they were marked by excess of
scrupulousness, or even of adherence to his own political convictions.
From the highly moral standpoint, the acquisition of Louisiana under
the actual conditions--being the purchase from a government which had
no right to sell, in defiance of the remonstrance addressed to us by
the power who had ceded the territory upon the express condition that
it should not so be sold, but which was too weak to enforce its just
reclamation against both Napoleon and ourselves--reduces itself pretty
much to a choice between overreaching and violence, as the less
repulsive means of compassing an end in itself both desirable and
proper; nor does the attempt, by strained construction, to wrest West
Florida into the bargain give a higher tone to the transaction. As a
matter of policy, however, there is no doubt that our government was
most wise; and the transfer, as well as the incorporation, of the
territory was facilitated by the meagreness of the population that
went with the soil. With all our love of freedom, it is not likely
that many qualms were felt as to the political inclinations of the
people concerning their transfer of allegiance. In questions of great
import to nations or to the world, the wishes, or interests, or
technical rights, of minorities must yield, and there is not
necessarily any more injustice in this than in their yielding to a
majority at the polls.
While the need of continental expansion pressed thus heavily upon the
statesmen of Jefferson's era, questions relating to more distant
interests were very properly postponed. At the time that matters of
such immediate importance were pending, to enter willingly upon the
consideration of subjects our concern in which was more remote, either
in time or place, would have entailed a dissemination of attention and
of power that is as greatly to be deprecated in statesmanship as it is
in the operations of war. Still, while the government of the day would
gladly have avoided such complications, it found, as have the
statesmen of all times, that if external interests exist, whatsoever
their character, they cannot be ignored, nor can the measures which
prudence dictates for their protection be neglected with safety.
Without political ambitions outside the continent, the commercial
enterprise of the people brought our interests into violent antagonism
with clear, unmistakable, and vital interests of foreign belligerent
states; for we shall sorely misread the lessons of 1812, and of the
events which led to it, if we fail to see that the questions in
dispute involved issues more immediately vital to Great Britain, in
her then desperate struggle, than they were to ourselves, and that the
great majority of her statesmen and people, of both parties, so
regarded them. The attempt of our government to temporize with the
difficulty, to overcome violence by means of peaceable coercion,
instead of meeting it by the creation of a naval force so strong as to
be a factor of consideration in the international situation, led us
into an avoidable war.
The conditions which now constitute the political situation of the
United States, relatively to the world at large, are fundamentally
different from those that obtained at the beginning of the century. It
is not a mere question of greater growth, of bigger size. It is not
only that we are larger, stronger, have, as it were, reached our
majority, and are able to go out into the world. That alone would be a
difference of degree, not of kind. The great difference between the
past and the present is that we then, as regards close contact with
the power of the chief nations of the world, were really in a state of
political isolation which no longer exists. This arose from our
geographical position--reinforced by the slowness and uncertainty of
the existing means of intercommunication--and yet more from the grave
preoccupation of foreign statesmen with questions of unprecedented and
ominous importance upon the continent of Europe. A policy of isolation
was for us then practicable,--though even then only partially. It was
expedient, also, because we were weak, and in order to allow the
individuality of the nation time to accentuate itself. Save the
questions connected with the navigation of the Mississippi, collision
with other peoples was only likely to arise, and actually did arise,
from going beyond our own borders in search of trade. The reasons now
evoked by some against our political action outside our own borders
might have been used then with equal appositeness against our
commercial enterprises. Let us stay at home, or we shall get into
trouble. Jefferson, in truth, averse in principle to commerce as to
war, was happily logical in his embargo system. It not only punished
the foreigner and diminished the danger of international
complications, but it kept our own ships out of harm's way; and if it
did destroy trade, and cause the grass to grow in the streets of New
York, the incident, if inconvenient, had its compensations, by
repressing hazardous external activities.
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