No Friend of Mine
The hosts further discuss what about the political climate of the 1790s helped drive the U.S. decision to ally with England, and whether it’s the government, or the people who decide who America’s enemies are.
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Note: Transcript is from an earlier broadcast and may contain some inaccuracies.
ED: So Peter, I’m a little confused. Maybe you can help me understand this. In the interview, the advocates of the French proclaimed that they are the voice of the people. They’re in the streets of Philadelphia protesting. But on the other hand, you have a 2/3 majority in the Senate, as well as George Washington, who seems to be pretty popular.
PETER: He’s the father of the country
ED: Exactly. Isn’t he representing the power of the people? It seems to me that popular support here is unclear.
PETER: Well, Ed, you win the jackpot. That is the big and the best question. What is the people? And how do we know what their will is? We might know now, in the 21st century, with opinion polling. But you don’t know that. So yes, George Washington is enormously popular. He has a lot of authority. One of the things that we don’t remember, it’s one of the dirty little secrets of American history, is that during his second administration, there was concerted opposition to him, and his reputation was tarnished.
He was seen to be a cryptomonarchist, if not a king himself, somebody who was sucking up to the Brits.
ED: Well, the Jay Treaty suggested that’s true, isn’t it?
PETER: That seemed to be definitive evidence.
ED: Yeah. So it’s not so clear who gets to define who our enemies are.
PETER: Right.
ED: Is it the people in the streets? Or is diplomats? Or is it presidents? Or is it Congress? A lot of American history, a lot of American foreign policy has been a fight over that. Who gets determined? And by the way, our enemies have something to say about. That they are not just sitting by and watching.
PETER: And you’re exactly right Ed. And it gets so the second big problem. And that is there is no clear distinction between foreign and domestic policy. We are our own enemy. And so that confusion, that inability for Americans to recognize their common interest against foreigners, well, that’s what we take for granted in the conduct of modern foreign policy. We don’t achieve that, but that’s the goal. Well, that’s anything but the reality in the 1790’s.
ED: And when we see a breakdown, as in the War in Vietnam, it’s one of most painful things of all, when you can see that we simply cannot come to an agreement among ourselves about who our enemies and friends are. Then the country tears itself apart.
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