American Foreign Policy: The Founding
The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast
Hillsdale College
4.6 • 621 Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan introduce the course "American Foreign Policy."
We often treat foreign policy as a mystery that can only be understood by an enlightened few who have committed their lives to understanding the complexities of international life. This view is dangerous because it encourages citizens to ignore a critical aspect of American political life that it’s our duty to understand. And it’s false because the basics of foreign policy are commonsense and a joy to learn. For the Founders, the basic premise of foreign policy is simple—we must make every decision with a view towards securing the equal, natural rights of American citizens. This understanding requires that America’s leaders remain accountable to the people, and it places essential limits on our interventions abroad. Yet, for over a century, this traditional understanding of American foreign policy has been challenged by new and more ambitious doctrines that argue for increased American involvement and leadership abroad.
The Founders believed that sovereign nations, like individuals, cannot be ruled without their consent. The aim of American foreign policy is to secure the nation, the rights of our citizens, and our national honor.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast. I am Jeremiah Regan. |
| 0:12.8 | And I'm Juan D'Avalos. We are onto a new course today, American Foreign Policy. A lecture number one today, The Founding. |
| 0:19.9 | In this course, Professor Anton explains American |
| 0:22.2 | foreign policy. From the beginning at the founding, which is the subject of this lecture, through |
| 0:27.0 | the present day, how that has changed along with the changes to American government in general, |
| 0:32.3 | and provides examples of how this policy has taken form in practice throughout our history. |
| 0:37.8 | And if you remember nothing from this course, other than this, the first point that's made in the course, you will have gained a lot, which is, the first purpose of all foreign policy is to protect the physical territory and people of a nation. |
| 0:52.9 | That's right. The Declaration of Independence says |
| 0:55.1 | the purpose of government is to secure these rights, which they have just named as life, liberty, |
| 0:59.5 | and the pursuit of happiness. And the view of the founders was that for government to perform |
| 1:04.0 | its role of protection, it will have to take some of the property of Americans in the form of taxes, |
| 1:10.4 | some of the liberty of Americans in the form of taxes, some of the liberty of Americans |
| 1:11.6 | in the form of laws, and potentially the lives of Americans who will have to fight for the |
| 1:16.0 | defense of the nation. It has to take these things, things that it's supposed to protect. |
| 1:20.3 | So it should only do it when the lives, liberty, and property of Americans in general are |
| 1:25.7 | actually being injured or are at imminent risk of danger. |
| 1:29.8 | That's what I love about what we do here at Hillsdale. When you start from first principles, |
| 1:35.3 | it just clarifies things a lot. So, okay, what is the first principle of foreign policy or of government |
| 1:41.1 | in general to protect the rights of citizens? Okay, then everything should comport to that first principle. |
| 1:47.1 | That's right. |
| 1:47.8 | It follows that as the Declaration of Independence says that no man has the right to rule another |
| 1:52.9 | without his consent, no nation has the right to rule another without that nation's consent. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Hillsdale College, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Hillsdale College and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.