This collection focuses on a broad array of foreign policy pronouncements over a remarkably lengthy epoch in American history: from a sermon by John Winthrop in 1630 to the emergence of the United States as the world’s premier economic power in the 1890s. Students seeking to label or define the basic precepts of American foreign policy during this era are confronted with a challenge due to the democratic nature of the American political order. The nation’s relations with the outside world fluctuated with changes in presidential administrations, sometimes dramatically so. While sharing a belief in the special place of the United States in the world, the nation’s leaders frequently differed as to the best means to preserve the nation’s security and advance its interests abroad. There were, however, some discernible threads that seemed to consistently emerge in debates over American foreign policy, including a tendency to assume that the people, if not the governments, of the world looked to the United States as a beacon, as the “last best hope” of mankind. Even American statesmen who opposed intervention abroad tended to see the United States as something of a “City upon a Hill.” This sense of America’s special place in the world was reinforced by its geographic isolation from the quarrels of Europe. The new nation was truly “set apart.” The downside to Americans’ pride in their exceptional regime was that it fostered a contemptuous view of nations that had yet to secure the blessings of liberty. Some Americans came to believe that these nations needed to be “civilized,” at the point of a bayonet if necessary. Two recurring issues confronted America’s leaders during this era. The first was whether the nation should support movements around the globe seeking to overthrow the crowned heads who still ruled much of the planet. The second focused on the propriety of territorial acquisition for a nation founded on the principle of self-government. In many ways the contours of the perennial debate over the course of American foreign policy were set within five years of  the nation’s founding. The disputes between Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 22, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to William Short, The Pacificus-Helvidius Debates, “Views on the French Revolution,” Farewell Address), while generally focused on questions of constitutional interpretation related to domestic matters, occasionally involved disputes over the correct course of action in the international arena. While that portfolio belonged to the secretary of state, Hamilton frequently contested Jefferson’s policies, much to the latter’s distress. Although both men were patriots, they held markedly different views regarding the principles and practices that should guide the new nation’s foreign policy. Both Jefferson and Hamilton considered the survival of the American experiment to be the foremost concern of the federal government. They differed as to which policies best served the national interest, with Hamilton embracing the idea of a world of sovereign nation-states competing for influence and wishing to see America takes its place in that existing system. Jefferson believed the new American order should leave the Old World’s conflict-ridden system on the ash heap of history. In Jefferson’s view, a world of self-governing republics was ultimately in America’s national interest, as such republics would pursue peaceful relations with one another. These self-governing republics would prosper economically, and consequently would see peace as the key to happiness and security. Its unique geographic circumstances permitted the United States to serve as a model for all man-kind and for all those eager to move beyond the perpetual slaughterhouse of European politics. One of the most bitter disputes between Hamilton and Jefferson concerned American policy toward the revolutionary government of France. This dispute occurred at a time when the tensions in President Washington’s cabinet were at the breaking point. According to Hamilton, the American Revolution was characterized by a devotion to liberty, the French Revolution by a passion for licentiousness. Hamilton was repulsed by the atrocities committed by the Jacobins in France and favored a foreign policy that tilted toward Great Britain. Hamilton found much to admire in Britain’s political and economic systems. This put him in an untenable position at times, since most Americans viewed Great Britain as an “evil empire.” One of the threads that emerges repeatedly throughout this collection of documents is the American disdain for all things British, as if this disdain were in the nation’s DNA—and arguably it was. Hamilton’s willingness to tolerate, if not embrace, aspects of British principles and practices thus put him and his policies at odds with many of his countrymen. Although he initially welcomed the French Revolution, Hamilton soon saw little to admire in it. He considered mankind to be deeply flawed and thought movements that spoke of creating a new man through political action were both futile and dangerous. Men, in Hamilton’s view, were “ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious,” and the same could be said for the conduct of nations. Thomas Jefferson had a more optimistic perspective. He thought mankind was progressing toward justice and enlightenment. Great Britain remained a major stumbling block to this progress. The French revolutionaries, while occasionally allowing their zealotry to get the best of them, were nonetheless on the cutting edge of history. Jefferson believed that the French Revolution was evidence that the principles of 1776 were taking root in Europe, and upon its success rested the fortunes of free men everywhere. The extent to which the United States should endorse or assist this revolution divided not only President Washington’s two key cabinet members but the American people as well. This dispute over American policy toward France was one of the key factors leading to the creation of the two-party system in the United States. In this debate two schools of thought emerged. The one strongly associated with Hamilton was realism. Members of this school tended to think in terms of the “national interest.” They believed that it was not in America’s interest to ally with an unstable revolutionary government and thereby alienate its largest trading partner, Great Britain. Hamilton was critical of a foreign policy governed by sentimentality or passion—or as he crudely put it, a “womanish” attachment to a foreign nation. Hamilton believed that Jefferson possessed such an attachment when it came to France. Jefferson, on the other hand, believed that a Revolutionary War–era treaty obligated the United States to come to the aid of its former ally. Additionally, Jefferson considered Great Britain to be the world’s foremost opponent of liberty and self government. These ideals animated Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence and set the American political order apart from the rest of the world. This more idealistic approach to American foreign policy considered the realist approach a betrayal of everything the “last best hope” of mankind represented. The contrast between realism and idealism, while somewhat simplistic and often overdrawn (even in the case of Hamilton and Jefferson), nevertheless provides some insight into the motives of America’s foreign policy practitioners during this era. Jefferson’s and Hamilton’s successors tended to fall somewhere along this realism–idealism continuum, although individuals might alter their position depending on the passions surrounding a particular issue. And one cannot dismiss the fact that for some political figures a foreign policy choice might depend on how it affected their electoral prospects. But again, the basic outline of the debate over American foreign policy through 1899 was set by Jefferson and Hamilton. Many textbooks argue that the era from the founding to 1899 was characterized by American isolationism. While the United States did not engage with the rest of the world to the extent that it would in the twentieth century, where it arguably became the “world’s policeman,” this era was hardly one of isolationism. The United States intervened abroad in a variety of ways from the beginning of its existence, especially when it came to Latin America (President James Madison to Secretary of State Robert Smith, Annual Message (Monroe Doctrine), Selected Dispatches, Correspondence Between Anthony Butler and President Andrew Jackson). Using America’s growing economic power—and their penchant for covert operations—a series of American presidents, for better and for worse, began a battle for the soul of the Americas by spreading the gospel of self-government, often accompanied by calls for opening economic markets or ceding territory to the United States. And sadly, for some American leaders during this time, expansion was motivated by a desire to extend the “peculiar institution” of slavery. During this era the United States fought three of its five declared wars: the War of 1812, the War with Mexico, and the Spanish-American War. These conflicts were all justified as necessary to defend the nation’s “honor” and expand the “empire of liberty.” Some policymakers adopted a literal interpretation of “empire” and concluded that the acquisition of new territory was essential to the success and survival of liberty. Opponents of these wars believed that the United States betrayed its principles when it engaged in territorial acquisition either through force or through economic coercion; it should instead avoid war and attract adherents to the sacred cause of liberty by leading through example. The War of 1812 concluded in something of a standoff, while the latter two wars were see —at least in raw political and military terms—as great successes. But all three conflicts generated considerable opposition on the home front and raised serious questions about whether in its drive for expansion the nation was abandoning its founding precepts, or putting it more bluntly, was acting in a manner consistent with the practices of the Old World. The reader will note the inclusion in this collection of several documents related to the use of secret operations (President James Madison to Secretary of State Robert Smith, Selected Dispatches, Correspondence Between Anthony Butler and President Andrew Jackson, Hon. Francis O. J. Smith to Secretary of State Daniel Webster, Ambassador Henry Shelton Sanford to Secretary of State William Seward, The Acquisition of Hawaii). Many Americans assume that American reliance on such operations is something of a twentieth-century phenomenon, beginning with the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War, or perhaps with the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947. That is not the case. Prominent American statesmen of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries considered clandestine operations to be an important tool in their foreign policy arsenal; in fact, many seemed to believe that these operations were superior to any overt use of force. It is important to note that the operations discussed in this collection were conducted by emissaries hired by the Department of State. In most instances, clandestine operations were directed by the American ambassador to the host country. The high wall of separation between diplomacy and secret operations that became commonplace in the twentieth century did not yet exist. All of the major world powers operated in this fashion, and in this sense there was nothing exceptional about America’s use of these operations. It is interesting to note, however, that during this era the United States took its first steps toward creating separate bureaucratic entities devoted to clandestine operations. The secretary of the navy established the Office of Naval Intelligence in 1882, and the Army followed suit with its Military Information Division in 1885. Clandestine operations were used from the earliest days of the republic. General Washington employed such tactics throughout the Revolutionary War, and upon becoming president under the new Constitution sought to incorporate them as a permanent part of the president’s portfolio (First Annual Message to Congress). While Washington agonized over the need to deal with individuals of dubious character who were part of the “business of intelligence,” he believed that necessity dictated their use. His request for a “Secret Service Fund” in January 1790 marked the beginning of presidential recourse to these operations. Clandestine operations were attractive to American leaders in general because they allowed the nation to project force short of war and served as a substitute for a large standing military. They were cheaper than conventional uses of force in terms of sparing both American blood and treasure. And they allowed the nation to secretly project force and occasionally acquire territory while preserving the notion that republics do not covet other nations’ territory or employ the heavy-handed tactics of monarchies. Nevertheless, it is important to note that there is no intention to equate the significance of the dispatch of a secret operative to a foreign land with something like the Monroe Doctrine or the three declared wars that occurred during this time. The Americans who lived during this era were blessed with a protective moat separating them from much of the globe. Long before the advent of aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles, this moat set Americans apart from the violence and political instability of the Old World. While this sense of security had its benefits, it also fostered a fear of foreign lands and foreigners. Americans approached foreign interactions with some trepidation, fearing a loss of republican virtue through any interaction (or “entanglements”) with corrupt foreign regimes. That angst persists to this day, as the repeated resonance of campaign slogans such as “Come Home, America” and “America First” reveals. Nonetheless, during this remarkable era in its history, the United States emerged as a major player on the world scene, however reluctantly. Its global interactions would lead the nation down paths many wished it did not have to travel. One member of the founding generation, Chancellor Robert Livingston of New York, negotiated the treaty with Napoleon that led to the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory. Livingston noted that “we have lived long but this is the noblest work of our whole lives. . . the United States take rank this day among the first powers of the world.” But even at this triumphant moment, Livingston likely recalled the words Napoleon uttered when the two men met: “You have come to a very corrupt world.”