Here Tocqueville describes the way the United States’ government tends to external affairs or foreign reaction issues. He refers to the two people that in his view had the greatest impact on foreign policy in the United States at the time, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. It is definitely interesting to see the comments that Tocqueville sees as being so virtuous, in the light of the United States today.
For example where Tocqueville quotes Washington where Washington says that the United States’ relations with other countries, particularly in Europe, should be limited to commercial or economic avenues, keeping the political interactions and commitments to a minimum. He defends this by saying that this political isolation would allow for a neutrality that would allow the country to pursue its own course without the constraints that political allies or enemies
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In today’s world, that kind of self-imposed isolation would be unthinkable, especially for a country like the United States which has created such a pivotal role for itself in the world political order.Tocqueville then introduces Jefferson’s proposition that the United States never ask for privileges from other countries in order to be able to deny the same request for privileges from other countries. Again, while it may have seemed like a good way to remain above the petty politics of what Tocqueville refers to as the ‘Old World’, today much of the power that the United States holds manifests itself in the privileged position it holds in the eyes of both other countries and in international organizations, allowing it to maintain the security that isolation previously provided. Also, Tocqueville further says that maintaining mainly