A pity it takes an
Englishman to mention this, but in the words of sixth
President of the USA,
John Quincy Adams:
The true America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy... She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the powers of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition which assume the colours and usurp the standards of freedom...
She might become the dictatress of the world; she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.
4th July, 1821