Freedom Fighting
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [the United States'] 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 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. . . . She might become the dictatress of the world. She would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.
--John Quincy Adams, the USA's "greatest secretary of state" according to my American Foreign Policy textbook
Posted by Randy at September 12, 2005 12:46 PM
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