Part 5

President Washington. Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM AS DEFINED BY PRESIDENT JEFFERSON

"I deem the essential principles of our government [to be] Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, 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."

President Jefferson. First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801.

THE EXTENSION OF THE EUROPEAN SYSTEM TO THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE DECLARED INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE AMERICAN SYSTEM, BY PRESIDENT MONROE.

"The political system of the Allied Powers is essentially different ... from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective Governments, and to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those Powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety....

"It is impossible that the Allied Powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness."

President Monroe Annual Message of December 2, 1823

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM DECLARED TO HAVE EXTENDED ITSELF TO THE WHOLE WESTERN HEMISPHERE, BY PRESIDENT JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

"Among the inquiries which were thought entitled to consideration before the determination was taken to accept the invitation [to the proposed Congress of the American Republics at Panama], was that whether the measure might not have a tendency to change the policy, hitherto invariably pursued by the United States, of avoiding all entangling alliances and all unnecessary political connections.

"Mindful of the advice given by the Father of our Country in his Farewell Address, that the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible, and faithfully adhering to the spirit of that admonition, I can not overlook the reflection that the counsel of Washington in that instance, like all counsels of wisdom, was founded upon the circumstances in which our country and the world around us were situated at the time when it was given that the reasons assigned by him for his advice were that Europe had a set of primary interests which to us had none or a very remote relation, that hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which were essentially foreign to our concerns, that our detached and distant situation invited and enabled us to pursue a different course, that by our union and rapid growth, with an efficient Government, the period was not far distant when we might defy material injury from external annoyance, when we might take such an attitude as would cause our neutrality to be respected, and, with reference to belligerent nations, might choose peace or war, as our interests, guided by justice, should counsel."

Compare our situation and the circumstances of that time with those of the present day and what, from the very words of Washington then, would be his counsels to his countrymen now? Europe has still her set of primary interests, with which we have little or a remote relation. Our distant and detached situation with reference to Europe remains the same. But we were then the only independent nation of this hemisphere, and we were surrounded by European colonies, with the greater part of which we had no more intercourse than with the inhabitants of another planet. These colonies have now been transformed into eight independent nations, extending to our very borders, seven of them Republics like ourselves, with whom we have an immensely growing commercial and must have, and have already, important political connections, with reference to whom our situation is neither distant nor detached, whose political principles and systems of government, congenial with our own, must and will have an action and counteraction upon us and ours to which we cannot be indifferent if we would.

The rapidity of our growth, and the consequent increase of our strength, has more than realized the anticipations of this admirable political legacy. Thirty years have nearly elapsed since it was written, and in the interval our population, our wealth, our territorial extension, our power--physical and moral--have nearly trebled. Reasoning upon this state of things from the sound and judicious principles of Washington, must we not say that the period which he predicted, as then not far off, has arrived, that America has a set of primary interests which have none or a remote relation to Europe, that the interference of Europe, therefore, in those concerns should be spontaneously withheld by her upon the same principles that we have never interfered with hers, and that if she should interfere, as she may, by measures which may have a great and dangerous recoil upon ourselves, we might be called, in defence of our altars and firesides, to take an attitude which would cause our neutrality to be respected, and choose peace or war as our interest guided by justice, should counsel?

"The acceptance of this invitation, therefore, far from conflicting with the counsel or the policy of Washington, is directly deducible from and conformable to it. Nor is it less conformable to the views of my immediate predecessor, as declared in his Annual Message to Congress of the 2d December, 1823."

President John Quincy Adams. Communication to the House of Representatives, in answer to their Resolution of Inquiry, regarding the proposed Panama Congress, March 15, 1826.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE REDEDICATED TO THE PRESERVATION OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM, BY PRESIDENT LINCOLN, AT GETTYSBURG.

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

President Lincoln. Address at the Dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863.

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM APPLIED IN THE EXTERNAL JUSTICIARY RELATIONS OF THE AMERICAN UNION, BY PRESIDENT MCKINLEY.

"In order to facilitate the most humane, specific, and effective extension of authority throughout [the Philippine Islands], and to secure with the least possible delay the benefits of a wise and generous protection of life and property, I have named Jacob G. Schurman, Rear-Admiral George Dewey, Major-General Elwell S. Otis, Charles Denby, and Dean C. Worcester to constitute a Commission to aid in the accomplishment of these results....

"The Commissioners will endeavor,... to ascertain what amelioration in the condition of the inhabitants and what improvements in public order may be practicable, and for this purpose they will study attentively the existing social and political state of the various populations particularly as regards the forms of local government, the administration of justice, the collection of customs and other taxes, the means of transportation and the need of public improvements.

"They will report to the State Department according to the forms customary or hereafter prescribed for transmitting and preserving such communications, the results of their observations and reflections, and will recommend such Executive action as may from time to time seem to them wise and useful....

"It is my desire that in all their relations with the inhabitants of the Islands the Commissioners exercise due respect for all the ideals, customs, and institutions of the tribes and races which compose the population, emphasizing upon all occasions the just and beneficent intentions of the Government of the United States.'

"It is also my wish and expectation that the Commissioners may be received in a manner due to the honored and authorized representatives of the American Republic, duly commissioned, on account of their knowledge, skill and integrity, as bearers of the good will the protection, and the richest blessings of a liberating rather than a conquering nation."

President McKinley--Instructions to the Secretary of State regarding the First Philippine Commission, January 20, 1899.

THE DEFINITION OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM AS APPLIED BOTH TO THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL RELATIONS OF THE AMERICAN UNION--BY PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.