In Search Of Monsters To Destroy

Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, in an address on foreign policy on July 4, 1821:

...Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...

Read it in its entirety at
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/repository/she-goes-not-abroad-in-search-of-monsters-to-destroy/


If we, the present citizens and society thereof in this present day United States did truly believe in that which the Founding generation fought for, we would not be ranging about the world in a rage, seeking for acts of war to inflict from afar.

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