When our interests matched, the Americans have been good to us, and when the interests differed, they wanted us to mold ourselves to them, which we refused.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think you have to remember that Americans saw their purpose as so innately good that they could excuse the pain they would inflict on others to carry out those purposes. Because the purposes were so good, they would justify this pain we were inflicting on other people.
Then as now, whatever disagreements over policies existed among Americans - and there were many such bitter policy disputes - the purposes and goals for which Americans fought were clearly understood.
The American Way is an amalgam of our compassion, our strengths, our failings and our attempts to build a better world, a more perfect union.
At no period of our political existence had we so much cause to felicitate ourselves at the prosperous and happy condition of our country.
The United States of America became the envy of the world because we welcomed the best and brightest minds from anywhere on the planet and gave them the opportunity to succeed.
In comparison with other men of their time, the Americans were distinguished by the possession of new political and social ideas, which were destined to be the foundation of the American commonwealth.
American life is based on a reassurance that we like one another but won't violate one another's privacies. This makes it a land of small talk.
We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.
We thought that whatever we wanted to do was right and good, simply because we were Americans, and we would succeed at it because we were Americans.
Our struggle was political, ideological and economic, and we felt we couldn't make something of ourselves unless we bettered society. We saw the two together.