The idea which is most likely to lead them astray is the idea which
vitiates the Monroe Doctrine in its popular form,--the idea of some
essential incompatibility between Europeanism and Americanism. That idea
has given a sort of religious sanctity to the national tradition of
isolation; and it will survive its own utility because it flatters
American democratic vanity. But if such an idea should prevent the
American nation from contributing its influence to the establishment of
a peaceful system in Europe, America, and Asia, such a refusal would be
a decisive stop toward American democratic degeneracy. It would either
mean that the American nation preferred its apparently safe and easy
isolation to the dangers and complications which would inevitably attend
the final establishment of a just system of public law; or else it would
mean that the American people believed more in Americanism than they did
in democracy. A decent guarantee of international peace would be
precisely the political condition which would enable the European
nations to release the springs of democracy; and the Americanism which
was indifferent or suspicious of the spread of democracy in Europe would
incur and deserve the enmity of the European peoples.
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