Speaking in the House of Commons on March 1, 1848, Henry John Temple, better known as Lord Palmerston, Britain’s foreign secretary and later prime minister, said: “I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” Fifty-two years before Palmerston’s speech, President George Washington in his Farewell Address advised his countrymen that, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world . . .” Instead, if the United States maintained a “respectably defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.”
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