Primary Source
Read and analyze the excerpt from Washington's farewell address. Then answer the questions.
"Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation.
Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially
foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by
artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and
collisions of her friendships or enmities..... Our detached and distant situation invites and
enables us to pursue a different course." -George Washington, 1796
1. Rewrite the excerpt in your own words.
2. Why do you think Washington expressed these ideas as he left office?