Monroe’s recall was the last act, however, in the long contest of the Jay treaty, and it was also, as it happened, the last important act in Washington’s foreign policy.  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.  My policy has been, and will continue to be while I have the honor to remain in the administration, to maintain friendly terms with, but to be independent of, all the nations of the earth; to share in the broils of none; to fulfill our own engagements; to supply the wants and be carriers for them all; being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so.  Nothing short of self-respect and that justice which is essential to a national character ought to involve us in war; for sure I am, if this country is preserved in tranquillity twenty years longer, it may bid defiance in a just cause to any power whatever; such in that time would be its population, wealth, and resources.”

He wanted time, but he wanted space also for his country; and if we look for a moment at the results of his foreign policy we see clearly how he got both.  The time gained by peace without any humiliating concessions is plain enough.  If we look a little further and a little deeper, we can see how he compassed his other object.  The true and the first mission of the American people was, in Washington’s theory, the conquest of the continent which stretched away