The pretext which this relation affords to foreigners to scrutinize the
management of our domestic affairs, if not actually to intermeddle with
them, presents a subject for earnest attention, not to say of serious
alarm. Fortunately, the Federal Government, with the exception of an
obligation entered into in behalf of the District of Columbia, which
must soon be discharged, is wholly exempt from any such embarrassment.
It is also, as is believed, the only Government which, having fully and
faithfully paid all its creditors, has also relieved itself entirely
from debt. To maintain a distinction so desirable and so honorable to
our national character should be an object of earnest solicitude. Never
should a free people, if it be possible to avoid it, expose themselves
to the necessity of having to treat of the peace, the honor, or the
safety of the Republic with the governments of foreign creditors, who,
however well disposed they may be to cultivate with us in general
friendly relations, are nevertheless by the law of their own condition
made hostile to the success and permanency of political institutions
like ours.
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