Modern Age - Fall 2014 - 23

PROMISED LAND

special not because of anything it was doing
in other lands but because of what it was
becoming at home. To be sure, the Founders
were by no means convinced the American
people would sustain sufficient republican
virtue; but if they did "seek ye first the king-
dom of God," the Founders imagined that
"all this shall be added unto you" and the
United States would become a land of liberty
under law, populous, prosperous, united,
and utterly sovereign-which by the way is
what the word empire meant to eighteenth-
century Britons.10 George Washington gave
eloquent voice to that in his last general
orders to the Continental Army on April 18,
1783: "For, happy, thrice happy, shall they be
pronounced hereafter, who have contributed
anything, who have performed the meanest
office; in erecting this stupendous fabric of
freedom and empire on the broad basis of independency; who have assisted in protecting
the rights of human nature, and establishing
an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all
nations and religions."11
To be sure, the Continental Congress
briefly imagined that John Adams's Model
Treaty of 1776 would suffice to win for-
eign recognition just by offering free trade.
Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Rob-
ert Morris knew better. They waged dogged
and deceptive espionage, war, diplomacy,
and finance in order to realize the Glorious
Cause. Nor was anybody abashed because
power politics were employed to protect
what was truly sacred: liberty at home.
Nor is it in the least surprising that the
strategic principles informing American
statecraft included the very ones by which
Britain secured her own spectacular rise.
First, unshakable unity, which in Britain's
case had meant suppressing particularism
on the part of the Scots, Irish, and Welsh
so foreign powers could not meddle and
the energies of a United Kingdom could be

mobilized for expansion. Hence the Parlia-
mentary Acts of Union in 1707 were a pow-
erful precedent for the American Federalist
movement. Second, pursuit of a favorable
peace by remaining aloof from the European
powers when possible and permitting only
temporary alliances in emergency. That
enabled the British to play offshore balancer
while pursuing expansion and commerce
in the wide world. In fact, a maritime
grand strategy was even more promising
for the United States than it had been for
the United Kingdom and Dutch United
Provinces, because America was so much
larger, remoter, and more richly endowed.
Third, the fiscal prudence needed to sustain
a floating national debt and so finance the
wars that became necessary. Needless to
say, the Bank of England was the model for
Alexander Hamilton's Bank of the United
States, the purpose of which was to make
wars possible but never attractive.

G

eorge Washington always stressed, as
strongly as he knew, that peace was the
path to national greatness. Everyone knows
his Farewell Address, but few know that he
drafted the first "National Security Strategy"
as early as May 1783. He began by describ-
ing the potential threats to the United
States posed by Britain's and Spain's North
American empires and hostile Indians on the
frontier. (So much for the myth of isolation-
ism.) Moreover, the Atlantic Ocean wasn't
a moat but a potential avenue for attack
against America's lengthy, exposed coastline.
Accordingly, Washington proposed that
Congress provide for a standing army to
garrison forts on the frontiers and coasts; a
well-trained militia in every state; arsenals
stocked with weapons and ammunition in
case of emergency; a military academy; and
a permanent navy. He titled the document
"Sentiments on a Peace Establishment."12
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Modern Age - Fall 2014

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