Things We Read Today (What Did They Know Back Then Anyway Edition)
From “John Quincy Adams,” a short biography by Robert V. Remini:
American neutrality was a cardinal doctrine to [then-Secretary of State] Adams, and to emphasize the point he used the occasion of a Fourth of July oration in 1821 to establish it as forcefully as he knew how… Staring intently at the crowd seated before him, he declared that the United States would always be “the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all” nations but tha tit must not go “abroad in search of monsters to destroy” …That, to him, would inaugurate America’s search for “dominion and power” in the world and would ultimately result in the loss of our own “freedom and independence.”
Yeah, Johnny, about that…
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 10:56 pm and is filed under The Political Mindscape, Things We Read Today. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.






December 15th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Nice find. We’re now addicted to the slaying of monsters.