But There Are Other Causes Which Operate In The Same Direction, And
Which Have Hitherto Enabled The Presidents Of The United States,
With Their Ministers, To Maintain Their Positions Without Much
Knowledge Of Statecraft, Or The Necessity For That Education In
State Matters Which Is So Essential To Our Public Men.
In the first
place, the United States have hitherto kept their hands out of
foreign politics.
If they have not done so altogether, they have so
greatly abstained from meddling in them that none of that thorough
knowledge of the affairs of other nations has been necessary to them
which is so essential with us, and which seems to be regarded as the
one thing needed in the cabinets of other European nations. This
has been a great blessing to the United States, but it has not been
an unmixed blessing. It has been a blessing because the absence of
such care has saved the country from trouble and from expense. But
such a state of things was too good to last; and the blessing has
not been unmixed, seeing that now, when that absence of concern in
foreign matters has been no longer possible, the knowledge necessary
for taking a dignified part in foreign discussions has been found
wanting. Mr. Seward is now the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the
States, and it is hardly too much to say that he has made himself a
laughing-stock among the diplomatists of Europe, by the mixture of
his ignorance and his arrogance.
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