...detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course [from Europe]" and asks "Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any...European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?"2 Thomas Jefferson agreed with Washington's assessment and as secretary of state (1792) he...

...combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. . . Why quit or own to stand upon foreign ground1? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any...and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, nvalship, interest, humor, or caprice. . . It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances...

...clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world." In the same speech he also said: "Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any...ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?" Two years later, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Thomas Lomax: "Commerce with all nations, alliance with...

...nations was disinclined, as George Washington put it in his farewell address of 1796, to "interweav[e] our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle...ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice." Instead, America should "steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."...