I have at last learned that true primacy, the only useful and reasonable kind, the sole primacy that befits free and enlightened men, is to be master in one's own house and never to entertain the absurd notion of being master in another's. I have learned, a little late no doubt, that for states as well as individuals real wealth consists not in seizing or invading the lands of another but in increasing the worth of one's own. I have learned that all territorial expansion, all usurpation by force and guile- those things by which our old and illustrious prejudices have measured rank, primacy, strength and superiority among countries- are merely cruel games of political unreason, false calculations of power that end by increasing government costs and problems and diminishing the happiness and security of the governed."
1792
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