The American Journal of International Law (Volume 1, PT. 2) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AMERICAN IDEALS OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Because of the many contributions made by America to the world's ideals of government, the nation has the feeling that it is quite adequate to work out its own principles on all other subjects without the aid of any other people. " What have we to do with abroad ? " said a United States senator from Ohio, only thirty years ago; and the word " un-American " covers a multitude of virtues. In fact the roots of American institutions of all kinds, social, economic, and political, are in the traditions of the English race; and American ideals have been modified by the experience of other European nations. Nor has the western hemisphere been separated from the great current of world affairs. Its destinies have been closely interwoven with those of Europe; and since 1895 the United States has awakened to the fact that it not only is a part of the sisterhood of nations, but is destined to be one of the half dozen states which will powerfully influence the future of all the continents. The world is no longer round about America; America is part of the world. The great disturbing element in modern history is the opening up of an unknown continent to European civilization. The conventional subdivisions of Europe were disturbed, the old-fashioned balance of powers was broken up, when Spain, chiefly through the wealth derived from America in the sixteenth century, rose to be the first military, naval, commercial, and territorial power in Europe; then the Protestant Reformation set England off as the enemy of France and Spain. That America was rich seemed to Drake a reason for plundering it; that his colonies were plundered led Philip II. to fit out the Invincible Armada of 1588; that the Armada was defeated caused Spain in 1604 to yield a peace i...