THE UNITED STATES AND SAMOA 207 



his annual message of 1851, pithily characterized the nation's 

 maxim, " Friendly relations with all, but entangling alliances 

 with none." 



Frequent temptations have been held out to the people 

 of the United States to depart from their traditional policy, 

 and especially when the sympathies of the country were 

 aroused by appeals from weak nations suffering impositions, 

 or when neighbors of the Western world were struggling to 

 obtain their independence, and asked for aid or moral sup- 

 port. But every appeal to assume an interest or to share a 

 responsibility in the domestic concerns of alien nations has 

 been consistently refused by the government. 



Mr. Seward, when Secretary of State, in declining an invi- 

 tation from France to join in the exercise of a moral influ- 

 ence upon the Emperor of Russia, said : 



Our policy of non-intervention, straight, absolute, and peculiar as 

 it may seem to other nations, has thus become a traditional one 

 which could not be abandoned without the most urgent occasion, 

 amounting to a manifest necessity. 



Mr. Frelinghuysen, Secretary of State, instructing a diplo- 

 matic representative in Chili (January 9, 1882), said: 



The President wishes in no manner to dictate or make any 

 authoritative utterance to either Peru or Chili as to the merits 

 of the controversy existing between those republics. . . . Were 

 the United States to assume an attitude of dictation towards the 

 South American republics, even for the purpose of preventing 

 war, the greatest of evils, or to preserve the autonomy of nations, 

 it must be prepared by army and navy to enforce its mandate, and 

 to this end tax our people for the exclusive benefit of foreign 

 nations. 



This fundamental principle of the American government 

 was observed for nearly a century. 



It is true that in its earlier history there are numerous 

 instances when the government sent out military expeditions 

 to attack bands of pirates, or to redress wrongs committed 

 upon the rights of American citizens. Several naval demon- 

 strations were made in the Mediterranean in the first part 



