tude toward foreign relations maintained during this period, says Professor Fish,

was recognized by the intelligent to be as essential to the establishment of our national existence as arms; diplomats were as carefully chosen as generals; the news of the negotiations of Franklin, Adams, and Jay was as anxiously awaited as that from the army, and their success brought almost as great a reward of popular acclaim as did those of commanders in the field.1

THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRINCIPLES AND POLICIES IN THE CONDUCT OF FOREIGN RELATIONS

The Isolation Policy.-The signing of the treaty of peace at Paris, when the United States commissioners broke faith with France as the ally of the United States and entered into separate negotiations with Great Britain, was regarded as a diplomatic triumph. It was the beginning of a somewhat selfish policy, which was later formulated into the noted American "isolation theory." When in the course of the French Revolution France became involved in a general European war, she called upon the United States to fulfill the terms of the treaty of alliance of 1778 and to come to the aid of the French cause. American opinion was greatly divided. Washington submitted the question to his chief advisers in the Cabinet, Hamilton and Jefferson. Hamilton contended that the changes in the government of France and other changes in conditions since the treaty of 1778 was signed released the United States from any obligation to aid France. Jefferson, on the other hand, regarded the treaty of 1778 as in full force and effect, and advised that it was the duty of the United States to furnish aid to France. Washington, regarding the treaty as purely defensive in character, followed the advice of Hamilton, and in his neutrality proclamation announced a policy which later became known as the isolation policy. In his proclamation Washington declared it as the intention 1 C. R. Fish, American Diplomacy (Henry Holt & Co., 1915), p. 1.

of the United States to remain "friendly and impartial toward the belligerents." Citizens were warned to remain neutral and not to trade with the warring powers in articles which in the usage of international law were regarded as contraband. The Genêt incident and the retirement of Jefferson from the Cabinet rendered difficult the enforcement of the neutrality proclamation. Finally, in 1794, Congress came to the support of the President with the enactment of the first neutrality law. This act made liable to a fine and imprisonment all persons entering the service of a foreign state, and also prescribed penalties for fitting out or augmenting the equipment of any foreign ship within the territorial waters of the United States.

The policy of isolation first announced in Washington's neutrality proclamation was later put into definite language in his farewell address, in which he stated that

the greatest rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

During the formative period of our nation, interests which were of primary importance to Europe were of very little concern to us. Naturally, Europe, from time to time, would be engaged in controversies the causes of which would be essentially foreign to our interests. It would have been inexpedient, therefore, for us to assume obligations which would involve us in the changing policies of European nations, in their friendly combinations, and in their disruptions among themselves. It appeared to Washington that the best policy was "to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

Jefferson, too, expressed this idea in his first inaugural address in these terms: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." It became the conviction of our first Presidents and those

in charge of our foreign affairs that the United States ought to keep out of the contests of European nations. Nevertheless, although this policy announced by our early statesmen has throughout influenced the international affairs of the United States, and has generally served to keep our foreign relations free from foreign entanglements,1 the connection between the American government and foreign nations has become steadily closer.

At the same time that the United States entered upon her policy of "entangling alliances with none," she sought to safeguard her commercial interests. So far as commercial interests are concerned, the United States has been a world power from the beginning of her history as a nation. The treaty of 1778 with France secured to the United States certain commercial privileges. In 1803, in the affair with Tripoli, a difficulty arising from the Pasha's demand for tribute, the United States government sent armed cruisers to the Mediterranean and conducted a short but effective war, which brought speedy peace between this country and the Barbary States. In 1815 Congress passed an act to protect American commerce against Algerian cruisers, and another squadron soon secured a treaty stipulating that no further tribute should be demanded from the United States. The United States in 1843 sought to obtain from China commercial privileges and advantages similar to those which China had granted to Great Britain, and a little later, in 1854, the United States demanded of Japan "those acts of courtesy which are due from one civilized nation to another." The same attitude was maintained with regard to the Hawaiian Islands and Cuba. Thus the United States, while professing to avoid political alliances, has, from the beginning, protected her commercial interests. It was the fear of entering political alliances and the desire

For three quarters of a century after Monroe's declaration the policy of isolation was more rigidly adhered to than ever, the principal departure from it being the signature and ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty in 1850. J. H. Latané, From Isolation to Leadership (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1919), p. 44.

to protect American commerce that resulted in the wellknown neutrality policy of the United States.

Neutrality Policy.-When the machinery of our government was actually put into operation in 1789 and the country was forced to decide the question as to the part we should take in the conflicts between European governments, it was thought necessary and expedient to avoid, as Washington expressed it, "entangling alliances." Hence, the United States took the position of reserving the right to protect its sovereignty, to refuse permission to arm vessels and raise men to assist foreign countries, and to assure a condition of neutrality. Thus, in her foreign relations the United States adopted in the early years of her history a policy of neutrality which is said to have been "identical with the standard of conduct adopted by the community of nations."" It was the Dutch or continental view rather than the English view that was adopted in the first American commercial treaties. The United States and the continental European countries made common cause against England because of her control of the sea. By these treaties the belligerent right of search was definitely limited, contraband was narrowly interpreted, and neutral ships were to be permitted to carry enemy goods.

The United States not only laid down certain principles of neutrality, but protested against infringement upon neutral rights, met instances of interference with embargoes and non-intercourse acts, and finally, in the case of Great Britain, went to war. Says Professor Hall:

. . . the policy of the United States in 1793 constitutes an epoch in the development of the usages of neutrality; . . . it represented by far the most advanced existing opinions as to what these obligations [incumbent upon neutrals] were; and in some points it even went farther than authoritative international custom has up to the present time advanced.?

The principle of the maintenance of neutral rights was put to the test in the controversies between the United

1 W. E. Hall, International Law (Fifth Edition), (Oxford Press, 1904), P. 503. 2 Ibid., p. 503.

States and the bandits of Tripoli, in which it was declared by Jefferson to be the doctrine of the United States "to prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form. Not to stoop to dishonorable condescension for the protection of our rights to navigate the ocean freely." In applying this principle the United States insisted on the impossibility of allowing the right of search of American vessels, and the position of the United States was eventually accepted by England and other European countries. The recent declaration of war by the Congress and President of the United States to support the freedom of commerce is directly in line with the principles maintained and supported by the leaders in international affairs in the history of American diplomacy.

On the importance of the contribution of the United States in this line Professor Moore writes:

The principle of the freedom of the seas has lost neither its vitality nor its importance. It may indeed be said that the exemption of vessels from visitation and search on the high seas in time of peace is a principle which grows rather than diminishes in the estimation of mankind; for in the light of history its establishment is seen to mark the progress of commerce from a semibarbarous condition, in which it was exposed to constant violence, to its present state of freedom and security. Nor is there any page in American history more glorious than that on which the successful advocacy of this great principle is recorded.1

The questions as to what is meant by the freedom of the seas and how far such freedom may be curtailed in time of war have been raised anew. The Great War has rendered necessary a re-definition of the term. Not only has the freedom of the seas been one of the fundamental principles of American diplomacy, but the United States has also given its encouragement and support to the effort to liberate commerce from the restrictions that confined it under the system of colonial and national monopolies prevailing at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The principle for which the United States has stood was first 1 John Bassett Moore, American Diplomacy (Harper & Brothers, 1905),

p. 81.