I thank Mr. Dreier for his response to my article. Unfortunately, he
is inaccurate in both of his contentions about it.First, I didn't say that Washington was a utilitarian. I characterized his views on policy as "utilitarian aloofness" because Washington was not advocating isolation for America, but rather a self-interested desire to nurture a young nation's soverignty and protect it from the European political conflicts and machinations of the time ("aloofness") and to also gain the necessary trade and commerce for its growth from those same nations. That's where the "utility" of foreign relations comes in. When Mr. Dreier notes that " the new Republic embraced a passion for the strict observance of national sovereignty for all nations," he proves that he can twist Washington's words, but that he cannot wring sense from them. Of course the "new republic"-encroached upon on all sides by colonial powers-would embrace the concept of "sovereignty." This new republic's own soverignty was barely recognized at its conception, contested on more than one occasion by these same powers, and not finally secured until well into the 1820s.
As far as Dreier's second point, one can argue the "morality" of American foreign policy almost endlessly. It's not my contention that America should impose a moral test for its allies, but rather that it should endeavor to promulgate its more widely imitated and embraced principles-freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, universal sufferage, seperation of governmental powers-rather than waive them out of concerns of Realpolitik or mere convenience. It's Buchanan who wants to brush those principles aside.
This is one of the primary contradictions to be found in Buchanan as a candidate: he would waive such "moral tests" or principles of foreign policy for nations which play the sycophant to the United States, and yet he would seek to subject America's citizens to his own moral tests and principles on issues ranging from abortion rights to education to mass media. As I concluded in my article, it is both chilling and forbidding.
(Richard Byrne
Editor, St.Louis Magazine
Associate Editor, Biblioteka Alexandria, Belgrade)
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