Topic: Politics, International, Matches 14 quotes.

I hope the United States of America will be able to keep disengaged from the labyrinth of European politics and wars; and that before long they will, by the adoption of a good national government, have become respectable in the eyes of the world, so that none of the maritime powers, especially none of those who hold possessions in the New World or the West Indies, shall presume to treat them with insult or contempt. It should be the policy of the United States to minister to their wants without being engaged in their quarrels. And it is not in the power of the proudest and most polite people on earth to prevent us from becoming a great, a respectable, and a commercial nation if we shall continue united and faithful to ourselves.

Source: George Washington
before he became president, writing to a friend

Topics: Politics, International

I am decidedly of the opinion we should take no part in European quarrels, but cultivate peace and commerce with all, yet who can avoid seeing the source of war, in the tyranny of those nations who deprive us of the natural right of trading with our neighbors? . . . If the new government wears the front which I hope it will, I see no impossibility in the availing ourselves of the wars of others to open the other ports of America to our commerce, as the price of our neutrality.

Source: Thomas Jefferson
writing to George Washington

Topics: Politics, International

Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own. Our circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct. The principles of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with that quarter of the globe should be avoided if we mean that peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American societies.

Source: Thomas Jefferson to J. Correa de Serra, 1820. ME 15:285

Topics: Politics, International

Our first and fundamental maxim should be never to entangle ourselves in the broils of Europe. Our second, never to suffer Europe to intermeddle with cis-Atlantic affairs. America, North and South, has a set of interests distinct from those of Europe and peculiarly her own. She should therefore have a system of her own, separate and apart from that of Europe. While the last is laboring to become the domicile of despotism, our endeavor should surely be to make our hemisphere that of freedom.

Source: Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1823. ME 15:477

Topics: Politics, International

Europeans Plan To Have U. S. Pay For War

Notwithstanding the fact that our former associates in the World War owe us the money which we lent them amounting to over ten billions of dollars, and also owe us the great bulk of the interest which we, the people of the United States have been paying on that loan, and notwithstanding they took tremendous loot from Germany at the end of the War of which we did not, I am proud to say, take a cent, war loot, counting the German colonial possessions, many, many times greater than the money they owe us, nevertheless there is strongest reason for believing that some of the most skilled, astute, and shrewd diplomats, politicians, and statesmen of all Europe are now planning to have the people of the United States finance the next European war either before the war begins or during its progress.

Furthermore, certain of these same diplomats, politicians, and statesmen are planning to entice the United States into an offensive and defensive military alliance in order that we shall participate in that next world war by sending our young men to the battlefields of Europe. The argument they now plan to use to bring this about is that in this way only can the peace of the world be preserved. While this is a most profound fallacy, it will unfortunately find a sympathetic ear among many of the people of this country who do not fully understand international relations. It will require the wisest statesmanship on our part to prevent the United States from becoming again the victim of a world military catastrophe.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, April 1937

Topics: Politics, International

Obviously no great empire of conquest can sleep quietly and comfortably of nights if the have-nots swagger forth in search of more territory and are willing to fight for it.

Both in its declarations and in its joinders the present war in Europe has for its sole underlying purpose the secure establishment of the power or powers that, by sheer supremacy in arms, shall dominate Europe, and perhaps the world. This is not a righteous cause of war, and unrighteous war is unholy.

This is the very issue that, twenty years ago, we alleged we sent our young America to Europe to settle. It was our fighting there which gave to the Principal Allied and Associated Powers their victory. We got nothing out of the conflict but the ill-will of everyone—of our foes because they were our foes, and of each of our allies because of our unbounded generosity; and our naive, unsophisticated, unselfishness at Versailles. But we did not then settle the issue. It has risen again. We would not settle it now by joining in this conflict. This is one of those questions which can be settled only by the parties themselves by themselves.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: Politics, International; War

Washington in his Farewell Address declared we should have “as little political connection as possible” with Europe; that Europe had a “set of primary interests” with which we had “none or a very remote relation,” wherefore, “Europe must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign concern”; “Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?”

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1939

Topics: Politics, International

Grateful For Our Country

I am grateful, also, as I return to this country, for our country itself. I am grateful for its territorial aloofness from the rest of the world. Even with the most modern, destructive weapons of war, we are almost immune. I am grateful for our political international aloofness and I pray our Heavenly Father that we shall never lose the security which comes from minding our own business and remaining aloof from the quarrels and the pettiness of the politics of the world.

I am grateful for our economic sufficiency that we can, within our own borders, produce all that we need for our daily lives, and the most of what we need for our luxury. The need of other great powers for this sufficiency threatens to bring sometime in the future another devastating struggle.

I am grateful to my Heavenly Father for our free institutions, for the liberty which we have, the freedom of the press, the freedom of religion, freedom to do as we wish within the law. I am grateful that the great principle behind our system of government is that we may do anything which the law does not forbid. There are other systems in the world in which the individual may do that only which the law permits, and between those two great principles lies the difference between freedom and slavery. I am grateful for this, my brethren and sisters, far beyond my power to tell.

Source: President J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
General Conference, October 1937

Topics: Freedom; Politics, International

What is a covenant? If you will look at your dictionary you will find that it is defined as an agreement between two persons or parties. Sometimes those agreements are made between nations, and then they are called treaties, and they are usually entered into by being signed by the executive heads of those nations or governments and then ratified by their legislative bodies. Such are the treaties that are made with the nations. They are intended to be solemn pledges whereby they bind themselves with one another to make good the agreements they enter into with each other. What a terrible shock it was during the World War to hear the ruler of one great nation refer to his solemn treaty as “a mere scrap of paper,” but in these later days we are getting used to that, and these dictatorial rulers of many great and wonderful nations are treating their solemn treaties like mere scraps of paper; but they should not be so treated, they should be solemnly and truthfully and faithfully kept. Between individuals we draw up an instrument and we sign it, and have it signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of witnesses, and then go before a notary public or a justice of the peace and make oath in order to make it binding, and in order that it may be still more so, laws are passed imposing penalties for breach of contract. These are in the nature of covenants which men make with their fellow men.

What must we then think of a covenant where God himself is the party of the first part? Such a covenant God has made with every one of us. He has entered into an agreement with us. If you will do all things which the Lord your God shall command you; if you will do his will, you shall have glory added upon your heads forever and ever. That is the pledge, and God keeps his covenant and we should do the same.

Source: Elder Rulon S. Wells
General Conference, April 1936

Topics: Politics, International

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