Excerpt from The Growth of Our Foreign Policy The characteristic of the foreign re lations of the United States at the outbreak of the late Spanish war was isolation. The policy was traditional, originating at the very birth of the Re public. It had received the sanction of its founders - of Washington preemi nently had been endorsed by most if not all of the leading statesmen of the country, and had come to be regarded with almost as much respect as if incor porated in the text of the Constitution itself. What the policy enjoined in sub stance was aloofness from the political' affairs of the civilized world in general and a strict limitation of the political activities of the United States to the concerns of the American continents. It had been distinguished by two salient features which, if not due to it as their sole or chief cause, had certainly been its natural accompaniments. One of them was the Monroe doctrine, so-called, directly affecting our relations with for eign Powers. The other was a high protective tariff aimed at sequestering the home market for the benefit of home industries and, though legally speaking of merely domestic concern, in practical results operating as the most effectual of obstacles to intercourse with foreign peoples. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.