A ship that arrived in Dover, England, on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 22, 1793, brought some bloody news from France.
The Wednesday edition of the London Evening Mail told the story in detail. It carried a simple headline: “Execution of Louis XVI.”
“At six o’clock on Monday morning, the King went to take a farewell of the Queen and Royal Family,” said the story. “After staying with them some time, and taking a very affectionate farewell of them, the King descended from the tower of the Temple, and entered the Mayor’s carriage, with his confessor and two Members of the Municipality, and passed slowly along the boulevards which led from the Temple to the place of execution.”
“Louis mounted the scaffold with composure, and that modest intrepidity peculiar to oppressed innocence, the trumpets sounding and the drums beating during the whole time,” it said.
“He made a sign of wishing to harangue the multitude, when the drums ceased, and Louis spoke these few words. ‘I die innocent; I pardon my enemies; I only sanctioned upon compulsion the Civil Constitution of the Clergy’ —
“He was proceeding, but the beating of the drums drowned out his voice,” the report said. “His executioners then laid hold of him and an instant after, his head was separated from his body; this was about a quarter past ten o’clock.”
When a ship that sailed from Portugal arrived in Baltimore in the second week of March 1793, it brought uncertain news of the king’s beheading.
The Maryland Gazette reported it in one paragraph: “Yesterday arrived here from Oporto, Portugal, which place he left the 10th of February, captain Pell, of the ship Eagle, who informs, that the day previous to his departure the post had brought intelligence that the King of France was beheaded, and that the report was current there, and generally believed.”
On March 20, the Pennsylvania Herald published a story confirming for Americans that the king of France had been beheaded. “As soon as the execution was effected,” said this report, “three huzzas were given by the spectators, hats thrown in the air, and it is said, the executioners and many near the scaffold, dipt their buttons in the King’s bloods, as marks of victory and triumph.”
Just 10 days after the news had arrived in Britain that France had beheaded Louis XVI, France declared war on Britain and Netherlands.
How did the United States respond to this expanding European war?
On April 22, 1793, President George Washington — who had commanded the Continental Army to victory in the American Revolution — issued a “Neutrality Proclamation.” It stated that the United States “should with sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers.”
Washington further stated: “I have given instructions to those officers, to whom it belongs, to cause prosecutions to be instituted against all persons, who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the Law of Nations, with respect to the powers at war, or any of them.”
Three years later, in his Farewell Address, Washington proudly stood by his decision to keep America out of this European war in which no American interests were seriously threatened.
“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all,” Washington said. “Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it?”
“Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation,” said Washington. “Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
“Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course,” said Washington.
“Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?” he said. “Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?”
“In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my Proclamation of the 22d of April 1793, is the index to my plan,” Washington said. “Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by that or your Representatives in both Houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.
“After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position,” said Washington. “Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with moderation, perseverance, and firmness.”
Washington was right to make America’s national interest the guiding star of our foreign policy — especially when the issue was war or peace.
On this issue, he should be the role model for all American presidents.
