That policy has been traced here in its
various branches, but it is worth while to look at it as a whole
before leaving it, in order to see just what the President aimed at
and just what he effected. The guiding principle, which had been with
him from the day when he took command of the army at Cambridge, was to
make the United States independent. The war had achieved this so far
as our connection with England was concerned, but it still remained to
prove to the world that we were an independent nation in fact as well
as in name. For this the neutrality policy was adopted and carried
out. We were not only to cease from dependence on the nations of
Europe, but we were to go on our own way with a policy of our own
wholly apart from them. It was also necessary to lift up our own
politics, to detach our minds from those of other nations, and to make
us truly Americans. All this Washington's policy did so far as it was
possible to do it in the time given to him. A new generation had to
come upon the stage before our politics were finally taken out of
colonialism and made national and American, but the idea was that
of the first President. It was the foresight and the courage of
Washington which at the outset placed the United States in their
relations with foreign nations on the ground of a firm, independent,
and American policy.
His foreign policy had, however, some immediate practical results
which were of vast importance. In December, 1795, he wrote to Morris:
"It is well known that peace has been (to borrow a modern phrase)
the order of the day with me since the disturbances in Europe first
commenced.
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