provided a link to www.JeffersonLeadership.com is included.
Category Archives: Foreign Policy
Thomas Jefferson on separation from Europe
Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own. Our circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct, the principles of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with that quarter of the globe should be avoided if we mean that peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American societies … [This] would be a leading principle with me, had I longer to live.
To J. Correa de Serra, 1820, 5665
Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Jefferson had little admiration for the governments of Europe, which he saw in varying degrees as being in opposition to the “self-evident” republican principles of America. He believed the Atlantic separated us from Europe for the purpose of modeling peace and justice as our national anchors. That purpose would be undermined by European alliances.
America was 44 years old, and Jefferson was 77 when he wrote this.
Today, he might extend that warning against “entanglements” to include the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and perhaps, South America.
Thomas Jefferson on the nations of Europe
Should American be involved in the fate of
European nations?
It ought to be the very first object of our pursuits to have nothing to do with the European interests and politics. Let them be free or slaves, at will, navigators or agriculturists, swallowed into one government, or divided into a thousand, we have nothing to fear from them in any form.
Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1801, 304
Patrick Lee’s Explanation
This was written in the first year of his Presidency.
Jefferson spent five years in France, 1784-1789, as America’s ambassador. He traveled throughout Europe, seeing some nations firsthand and studying others closely. Little he saw there in politics, governance, cities, society, or manufacturing appealed to him. Protected by an ocean, he was content to let America pursue agriculture and republican government and let European nations do whatever they wanted.
