[The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) by John Marshall]@TWC D-Link bookThe Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) CHAPTER IV 27/137
Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.
The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy.
The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives .-- The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty of nations has been the victim. "So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.
Sympathy for the favourite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducements or justification.
It leads also to concessions to the favourite nation, of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld: and it gives to ambitious, corrupted or deluded citizens who devote themselves to the favourite nation, facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. "As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot.
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