What We've Forgotten

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She well knows that by one enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom. — JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (1821)