American Foreign Policy: Wars of the Early Republic
The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast
Hillsdale College
4.6 • 621 Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2025
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss the early foreign policy decisions of the American republic before introducing Michael Anton.
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.
American foreign policy remained fairly consistent throughout the first century of the republic. The early policies centered on growing into a strong nation and maintaining our unique position by preventing European powers from becoming powerful threats in the Western Hemisphere.
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'm Jeremiah Regan, and I'm Juan Dabalos, and we are back with American Foreign Policy, lecture number two, Wars of the Early Republic. Americans had to figure out how they were going to |
| 0:21.2 | protect their own lives, liberty, and property using their military. And there were some fits and |
| 0:25.5 | starts, the Great Lakes forts that were supposed to be vacated by the British after the Treaty of |
| 0:30.1 | Paris, which ended the American Revolution, were not vacated. There were threats from hostile |
| 0:34.6 | Indians and other European powers. And in this lecture, |
| 0:37.8 | Professor Anton explains how American foreign policy and its ability to actually do it by means |
| 0:43.1 | of diplomacy, the army, and the Navy developed and matured, and we became a real nation. This is |
| 0:50.4 | really exemplified by the publication of the Monroe Doctrine, which proclaimed America's view that it would not interfere with European colonies, and in exchange, Europe would not install any new colonies in North America. |
| 1:03.6 | Yeah, remember during this time in history, this is when America is really starting to form as a nation and starting to make decisions |
| 1:12.5 | on how it's going to deal with other nations, especially those European nations. |
| 1:17.1 | So that's when the Monroe Doctrine and things like that become really important for the future |
| 1:21.7 | of the nation and how we behave internationally. |
| 1:24.1 | If you'd like to read the Monroe Doctrine, we have posted it on our website along with this lecture. |
| 1:29.1 | We've done that with all of the primary sources that Professor Anton references. |
| 1:32.7 | So for lecture two, that includes John Quincy Adams' Independence Day address, |
| 1:36.3 | George Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality. |
| 1:38.8 | We referenced the farewell address in lecture one. |
| 1:41.3 | Those are all posted along with the American Foreign Policy course on |
| 1:44.8 | Hillsdale.edu slash course. That's Hillsdale.edu slash course. Enroll in the course to access |
| 1:51.6 | all of these primary documents. Now let's turn to Professor Anton in Lecture 2 of American |
| 1:57.3 | Foreign Policy Wars of the Early Republic. |
| 2:09.5 | We talked in the last lecture about the founder's principles that they derived from the laws of nature and of nature's God, how they set them forth in various documents, how they |
... |
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.