Republic from the anomaly and the ignominy of domestic servitude; we
have constitutionally fixed the equality of all races and of all men
before the law; and we have established, at the cost of a great civil
war--a cost, however, not beyond the value of such a result--the
indissoluble national unity of the United States.

In all these marked stages of national progress, from the Declaration
of Independence to the recent amendments of the Constitution, it is
impossible not to perceive a providential series and succession of
events, intimately attached one to the other, and possessed of definite
character as a whole, whatever incidental departures from such
uniformity may have marked, or seemed to mark, our foreign policy under
the influence of temporary causes or of the conflicting opinions of
statesmen.

In the time of Washington, of the first Adams, of Jefferson, and of
Madison the condition of Europe, engaged in the gigantic wars of the
French Revolution and of the Empire, produced its series of public
questions and gave tone and color to our foreign policy. In the time of
Monroe, of the second Adams, and of Jackson, and subsequently thereto,
the independence of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of America
produced its series of questions and its apparent modification of our
public policy. Domestic questions of territorial organization, of social
emancipation, and of national unity have also largely occupied the minds
and the attention of the later Administrations.

The treaties of alliance and guaranty with France, which contributed so
much to our independence, were one source of solicitude to the early
Administrations, which were endeavoring to protect our commerce from the
depredations and wrongs to which the maritime policy of England and the