544
Interpreting and Preserving the Constitution
instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives.
The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the
victim.—
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the
illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common
interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the
former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without
adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the
favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions, by unnecessarily parting with
what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and
a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are
withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who
devote themselves to the favored nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the
interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a
commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public
good, the base of foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments
are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic
factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak,
towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite
of the latter.
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence
is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of
the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive