Note 296 — Chapter XXX · THE UNITED STATES AS A WORLD POWER

Washington was well aware that the United States might have to take a hand in European quarrels if they should assume an extraordinary importance. Notice the exact wording of the passage in his Farewell Address. “It would be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her (Europe’s) politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.” Washington was not in the habit of wasting words, and he did not twice insert the limitation “ordinary” without good reason. By the way, he did not use the phrase “entangling alliances”. That expression was first used by Jefferson in his inaugural address (March 4, 1801).