Foreign rule

“ It is impossible to foresee all the various changes in the posture, relations, and power of different nations, which might affect the prosperity and safety of our own. We may have formidable foreign enemies. ”

“ The foreign state is the true and real owner of its public vessels of war. The reigning Emperor, or National Assembly, or other actual person or party in power, is but the agent and representative of the national sovereignty. ”

“ But the ill effects of a mutable government are still more strongly felt in the intercourse with foreign nations. It forfeits the respect and confidence of foreign nations, and all the advantages connected with national character. [43] It not only lays its measures open to the silent operations of foreign intrigue and management; but it subjects its whole policy to be counteracted by the wiser and more stable policy of its foreign rivals and adversaries. ”

“ Our demeanour towards foreign governments should be on all occasions frank and conciliatory; we should treat all nations alike, whether great or small, with due respect and consideration, equally in acts, in words, in conduct. ”

“ In the freest of republics as well as in the most tyrannical of Empires, all foreign policy, the diplomatic negotiations which produce or forestall war, are equally the private property of the Executive part of the Government, and are equally exposed to no check whatever from popular bodies, or the people voting as a mass themselves. ”

“ The same account is applicable to most cases of foreign dominion over a people with any organised common life of their own. The foreign power is not sovereign in the sense of being a maker or maintainer of laws. ”

“ I first give you, gentlemen, what I think the right principles of foreign policy.
The first thing is to foster the strength of the empire by just legislation and economy at home, thereby producing two of the great elements of national power—namely, wealth, which is a physical element, and union and contentment, which are moral elements,—and to reserve the strength of the empire, to reserve the expenditure of that strength, for great and worthy occasions abroad. Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. ”

“ In 1872 he moved a resolution to the effect that we should, as soon as possible, extricate ourselves from all treaties with foreign powers, by which we bound ourselves to fight for them and their dominions. ”

“ From this admission of the equality of nations came the need for the observance of public law. "There is no duty so sacred, incumbent upon any Government in its foreign policy, as that careful and strict regard to public law." ”

“ Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world. ”

“ The general principle that we ought not to interfere in the affairs of foreign nations, unless there is a clear necessity, and that, generally speaking, it ought to be held a political dogma that the people of other countries should SETTLE THEIR OWN AFFAIRS without the introduction of foreign influence or foreign power, is one which I trust the House ... ”

“ Convinced that the conduct of the government has been just and impartial to foreign nations, that those internal regulations which have been established by law for the preservation of peace are in their nature proper, and that they have been fairly executed, nothing will ever be done by me to impair the national engagements, to innovate upon principles which have been so deliberately and uprightly established, or to surrender in any manner the rights of the government. ”

“ I cannot remember any head of a state in history who could exercise so powerful and persuasive an influence not only upon foreign peoples, but upon foreign Governments, as you now can, not by armies and navies, but by your extraordinary record as a peacemaker, by the universal confidence in the unselfishness of your purposes in international dealings and by the character of the great Republic you represent. ”

“ In the management of our foreign relations it will be my aim to observe a careful respect for the rights of other nations, while our own will be the subject of constant watchfulness. Equal and exact justice should characterize all our intercourse with foreign countries. ”

“ Our Imperial Government should now definitely change our dependent foreign policy which is being directed by others into an independent foreign policy which shall direct others, proclaiming the same with solemn sincerity to the world and carrying it out with determination. ”

“ Sir, if you are in earnest, as I cannot doubt, to cultivate those relations of peace and good-will with foreign nations which are in themselves a cheap defence, you must avoid all legislation which can be misinterpreted, especially everything which looks like menace. ”

“ There is scarcely anything which has more astonished me than the fact—that, for the last thirty-seven years, almost every Christian nation has shared the great fault of not caring much about what are called foreign matters, foreign policy. Precisely the great nations, England, France, America, which might have regulated the course of their governments for a very considerable period, abandoned almost entirely that part of their public concerns, which with great nations is the most important of all, because it regulates the position of the country in its great national capacity. ”

“ You may be acquainted with the principles which the provisional government of the Republic has universally adopted in its foreign policy. In case you are not, let me recapitulate them: The Republic is undoubtedly republican, and she openly proclaims it to the world; but the Republic is not at open or secret war with any nation or existing government so long as these nations and governments do not declare themselves at war with her. ”

“ If, indeed, we are to try the novel, not to say absurd experiment in politics, of tying up the hands of government from protective and offensive war, founded upon reasons of state, we ought certainly to be able to compel foreign nations to abstain from all measures, which shall injure, or cripple us. ”

“ Years ago, indeed, our foreign policy was of far more consequence to the country than our domestic policy, although we still had to struggle, if not for our existence, at least for our position and our national rights. ”

“ It is pertinent to observe that any policy toward aliens is vitally and intricately interwoven with contemporaneous policies in regard to the conduct of foreign relations, the war power, and the maintenance of a republican form of government. ”

“ But when formalities are attacked with a view to change principles, and to introduce an entire independence of foreign agents on the nation with whom they reside, it becomes material to defend formalities. ”

“ Under the complex American system of government, in which the Federal Union and the several States each claim sovereignty and independent action within certain limitations, it became the theory and practice that towards each other the several States occupied the attitude of foreign nations, which relation was governed by international law, and that the principle of comity alone controlled the recognition and enforcement by any State of the law of any other State. ”

“ The work is an established and indispensable authority for an understanding of the diplomacy of the times of which it treats. It contains much that is of value bearing on internal politics both in Britain and in Continental States, and on the influence of the constitutional system and of domestic politics upon the conduct of foreign policy. ”

“ Local affairs will be handled by local governments; national affairs, by national governments; international affairs will be administered by global government.
World peace cannot be maintained by treaties, diplomacy, foreign policies, alliances, balances of power, or any other type of makeshift juggling with the sovereignties of nationalism. ”

“ To render themselves valuable, that is, eventually dangerous, was their first and most pressing object, and their subjects could not but feel that at a time when a consistent treatment of foreign policy was the supreme need of their country, the monarch and his counsellors justly claimed absolute power. ”

“ While I thankfully acknowledge and will ever acknowledge the sympathy of other Powers or their subjects, and the conduct of the last named has, in the light of the trials recently passed through, on the whole offered a favourable contrast to that of British subjects, there is nevertheless nothing further from my thoughts than to strive for the protection of a foreign power, which I will never even seek. ”

“ Let candid men judge, then, whether the division of America into any given number of independent sovereignties would tend to secure us against the hostilities and improper interference of foreign nations. ”

“ This power, he held, unlimited by the constitution, and he held, too, that in its nature, to the extent he had mentioned, it was illimitable. Did a serious difference exist with a foreign nation, in determining on the nature and extent of the stipulations which might be necessary to adjust it, the cause of injury, national rights and honor, the evils of war, and all circumstances of relation between the two countries, must be taken into account. In forming alliances, the threatened pressure, your own and your enemy's relative strength, the objects of acquisition or defence, must be considered. ”

“ Thus monarchs and their ministers of state cannot examine with too great care the natural or acquired qualities of those citizens whom they despatch on missions to foreign states to entertain there good relations with their masters, to make treaties of peace, of alliance, of commerce or of other kinds, or to hinder other Powers from concluding such treaties to the prejudice of their own master ”

“ This propensity to imitate foreign nations is absurd and injurious. It is absurd, for we have never yet drawn on our mental resources that we have not found them ample and of unsurpassed excellence; witness our constitutions of government, where we had no foreign ones to imitate. It is injurious, for never have we followed foreign examples in legislation ”

“ It is a well-known fact that in our intercourse with foreign nations we occasionally say or do things which, if they were done or said by any other government, would be quickly resented by the powers interested, but which, coming from this republic, are submitted to with remarkable meekness. ”

“ The time may come, when even foreign nations will look to this republic for cordage and duck; at all events, we should not depend upon them for articles necessary for domestic purposes, and especially for those which may with propriety be classed "among the sinews of war." ”

“ It is possible, my lords, for a very small part of the people to form just ideas of the motives of transactions and the tendency of laws. All negotiations with foreign powers are necessarily complicated with many different interests, and varied by innumerable circumstances, influenced by sudden exigencies, and defeated by unavoidable accidents. ”

“ The nature of foreign intervention by recognition, with the principles applicable thereto, illustrated by historic instances, showing that by the practice of nations, and especially by the declared sentiments of British statesmen, there can be no foreign recognition of an insurgent power, where the contest for independence is still pending. ”

“ The chief danger to be averted in the conduct of foreign policy is, as has already been said, that of allowing diplomacy to outrun preparations and the strength on which success in diplomacy must ultimately depend. If we turn our view inward upon the nation itself, we shall translate that formula without violence into the expression, that a nation must not acquire a reputation for inconstancy and caprice. ”

“ It is evident, for example, that force and the threat of force can no longer and should not be instruments of foreign policy. ”

“ At the beginning of the twentieth century, civilized nations acknowledge certain rules of national conduct called international law, but at the end of the eighteenth nothing of the kind had any real weight in regulating international affairs. ”

“ What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances? But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble. ”

“ When our power and national standing have come to be recognized, we should take the lead in punishing the nation which may act contrary to the principle of international interests; and in so doing, we should join hands with the nations whose principles may be found identical with those of our country. ”

“ They demand an Odyssean capacity for discovering the riddle of a foreign Government's intentions and for reading rightly the face of events. The diplomatic eye must, where necessary, see through the most authoritative of denials'—ch. ”

“ But we ought to remember that the supreme executives in Europe have amassed power by having diplomatic relations in their hands, that thus the nation may become involved in war against its will, and that the prevention of evils must lie, if there be any, with the men who have been educated in the principles of international justice. ”

“ Morel endeavours to simplify a problem which still remains complicated and obscure to the general public. He shows us “foreign policy” as an influence working in our everyday lives. He brings “diplomacy” into our homes, and serves it up as a dish upon the breakfast table. He depicts us as helpless automata moving blindfolded in a world of make-believe until we secure an effective democratic control over the management of our foreign relations.
1008THE NEW LABOUR OUTLOOK, by Robert Williams. ”