it will be worthy of a free and enlightened and a great nation. to give to mankind the magnanimous and two novel example of a people always the experiment at least is recommended by every sentiment which ennobled human nature. alas is it rendered impossible by the vices? in the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential that permanent against particular nations and passion at attachment should be exclude and in place of them, just a feeling towards all should be cultivated. the nation which indulges towards another a hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. a slave to animosity or affection either of which is sufficient to lead it to duty or

interest. anti-pathy against another disposes each more readily to offer insult to injury. slight causes and indestructible -- hence frequent collisions and venom and bloody contests, the nation prompt bide ill will and resentment, sometimes em pails towards the government. contrary to the best calculations of policy. the government participates and adopts through passion what reason would reject. at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility by pride and ambition and another sinister and pernicious motives. sometimes the liberty of nations has been the victim. likewise a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.

sympathy for the favorite nation and facilitating the illusion of a common interest in places where no common interest exists and infusing into one the other betrays the former into a participation and the quarrels and wars of the latter with e without adequate inducements or justifications. it also leads to concessions for the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is doubly to injury the concessions by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained and exciting jealously, ill will and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are with held. it gives to ambitious corrupted citizens facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their

own country sometimes even with popularity with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation. a deference for public opinion or a we will have for public good. the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. as avenues to such attachments that are alarming to the truly enlightened patriot. how many opportunities to they afford to tamper with? to practice the arts of is seduction and mislead public opinion and influence or awe the public councils. such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great or powerful

nation dooms the former to be a satellite of the latter. against the insidial whiles of foreign influence, i conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens, the jealous of a free people should be awake since history and experience proves that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. that jealously to be useful must be impartial. or else is becomes the instrument of a very influence to be avoided instead of a defense against it. excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike for another cause those whom they see danger only on one side and serve to vail and even second the arts of influence on

the other. real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious wheel they usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests. the great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations to have with them as little political connection as possible. so far as we have formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect faith. here let us stop. europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a remote relation. hence she must be engaged in controversies, the causes of which are foreign to our concerns. hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties and the ordinary politics, but the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships. our detach and distant situation

invites and enables us to pursue a different course. if we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injuries from external annoyance and take an attitude as we may at any time resolve upon to be respected. when belligerent nations making acquisitions will not hazard the giving of provocation. when we may choose peace or war as the interest guided by justice shall counsel. why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation and why put on to stand on the foreign ground and interweave the destiny with any part of europe and entangle in the toil of ambition, rivalship, interest,

humor or caprice? it's our true policy to steer clear of alliance with any portion of the foreign world. so far i mean we are now at liberty to do it. for let me not be misunderstand to existing engagements. i hold the them no likely to private affairs that honesty is always the best policy. i repeat it therefore, let those engagements be disturbed in the genuine sense, but it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a suspectable defensive posture. we may trust a temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. >> harmony and a liberal intercourse with all nations are

recommended by policy, humanity and interest. even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand neither seeking or granting favor or preferences, consulting the initial course of things, diffusing and diversifying by means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing. establishing with power so disposed in order to give trade a stable course to define the rights of our merchants and enable the government to support them conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and opinion will permit. the temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied as experience and

circumstances shall tick tate. keeping in view that it is in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another and must pay with a portion of independence for whatever it shall accept by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given the lens for nominal favors and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. there can be no greater error than to exec or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. it is an illusion that experience must cure that adjusts pride ought to discard. in offering to you my country men, these council of an old and affectionate friend, i dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression i can

wish, they will control the usual current of the passions or prevent the nation from running the course that hithered to mark the destiny of nations. if i may flatter myself that they may be productive of a partial benefit, some occasional good they may now and then infuriate the party spirit to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue and guard against patriotism, this will be for the solicitude by which they have been dictated. how far in the discharge of my official duties i have been guided by the principals that have been delineated the public records and other evidence of my

conduct must witness to you and to the worth. to myself the assurance is that i have at least believed myself to be guided by them. in relation to the still subsisting war in europe, my proclamation of the 22nd of april, 1793 is the index to my plan. sanctioned by your approving voice and that was your representatives in both houses of congress, the spirit of that measure 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 our country under all the circumstances of the case had a right to take and was bound in duty and interest to take a neutral position. having taken it, i determined as far as should depend upon me to maintain it with moderation, perseverance and firmness. the considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct, it's not necessary to detail. i will only observe that according to my understanding of the matter, that right so far

from being denied by any of the belligerent powers has been virtually admitted by all. the duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred without anything more. from the obligation that justice and humanity imposed on every nation in cases in which it is free to act to maintain in violent relations towards other nations. the inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to your own reflections and experience.

with me, a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country and settle and mature the yet recent institutions and to progress without interruption to that after 45 years of my life dedicated to service with an upright we will have, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion. relying on kindness as in this and other things and the for vent love towards it which is natural to a man who views the native soil to himself and several generations, i anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in which i promise myself to realize the sweet enjoyment of partaking in the midst of my fellow citizens the benign influence of good laws under a free government. the ever favorite object of my heart and the happy reward as i trust of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. george washington, united states 17 september 1796. recently visited many sites in little rock, the capital of arkansa

on c-span 3, we feature some of the best-known history figures during the 150th anniversary of the civil war. visit college classrooms around the country during lectures of history. go behind the scenes at museums and historic artifacts and the president looks at legacies of past american presidents. view our complete schedule at c-span.org and have it e-mailed to you by pressing the c-span alert button. next, a look at our recent visit to little rock, arkansas.

you're watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span 3. >> the old statehouse museum tells the story of arkansas' history. we caught up for a preview of the upcoming visit there. >> we are located at the collection management storage facility for the old statehouse museum in little rock, arkansas. welcome. >> what do we have behind you? >> this is what we call our mobile unit. we have stacks. we have everything in our elects from an electric chair, two electric chairs to johnny cash's guilt tar. so this is where kind of the heart of our collection at any given time there's less than 2% of things on exhibit so this is where we keep them. it's a controlled environment. the temperature and humidity and

light levels are all controlled to make sure that the artifacts are safe and 166 inmates were executed in that chair and this one, only one was executed because lethal injection came in shortly after this one was constructed. so we have a large collection of our prison system and a few years ago we had a great exhibit called badgers, bandits, and bars. a colorful history. >> it is. >> so we have our first family, the things that are not on exhibit. we have everything from chelsea's dress when she was young to current governor b.b. things that we rotate out and we

have our paintings and artwork, a lot of textiles, quilts, and this is just the treasurer trove of where things live. >> now, we're here today to take a look and talk about your new exhibit on the civil war. >> yes, we have a new he can hikt that opens may the 4th and it's called wall of fire. what this exhibit will do is examine the scoop this by and one of the main feature of the exhibit will be our civil war collection. they are kept safe in this flag cabinet that was especially designed for them and there is a

charcoal air fewpurifying syste and the reason we keep them like this, the worst thing in the world is gravity. gravity, light, and dirt. and that will just destroy a textile over time. so what this cabinet does is it allows the flags to what we call rest. and so they are laying flat in this safe system and then we can just bring them out. so these will all go out on exhibit. we'll bring all of our flags out and they will be up for 11 months. and we're having special cases built where they will slant. >> uh-huh. >> because if they hang flat on a wall, gravity will pull it down and that's very hard on the flags. so we're having special cases built. the flags haven't been on

exhibit in about nine years. so this is -- this will be a great exhibit and very popular. >> interesting. and what is this one here? >> this particular flag is probably our most popular and there's a wonderful story behind this flag. in 1905, the united states government began to return flags captured in battle to southern states. this was kind of a goodwill gesture, in other words. and so as you can imagine, there were no computer database sis to keep keep up with these flags so a lot of flags were given a war department number, as you see up here. this one is 227. but they were miss i.d. this particular flag, this is an arkansas flag, eight units were under it but it was sent to alabama. so since 1905 it stayed in the

archives at alabama archives and history museum. curator bob bradley contacted me in 2000 and said, i and said i e finally i.d.'d through scholarly research this flag and it belongs in arkansas. so they went before their board, show all the work that they had done, the scholarly research, and very generously, they decided to donate the flag to us. so in october of 2001, i went and picked up this flag and brought it back to arkansas. this is the third confederate. we immediately, it had never been conserved, so we immediately began raising money to have the flag conserved. on the average, a flag of this size is probably going to cost around $12,000 to conserve. and in this economy and museums

in particular, that is just a very difficult amount of money to raise, but people were very generous, and we raised enough money tohave this conserved. and so this will be one of the centerpieces for our upcoming exhibit. >> you mentioned the third confederate. a little bit of a background on them? >> there were two units from mississippi, and eight units from arkansas that served under this flag. and if you'll see what they would typically do is they would put the battles that they fought in on the flags. so as you can see, this unit, or this command was -- the regiment was very very busy and they were at some very important, heavy heavy battles, murfreesboro, chickamauga and ringgold gap. this was actually captured in 1864, i believe it was an ohio

unit that captured this particular flag. and then it was turned over to the war department. >> what about this one over here? >> this one is what's called a hardee pattern and so is that one. this is a typical hardee pattern. they were white, usually had a white border around it with a blue field and then in the center, kind of a crescent moon or a moon shape was usually where the units, the sixth and seventh in this particular one, they would designate the units in there. and this one, once again, it, too, was at ringgold gap and at tunnel hill in tennessee, but more importantly it was at shiloh. another flag that has a very interesting history is this one. it's a hart's battery. first of all you can see it's a very very large flag. has some beautiful, beautiful

work on it. this flag was returned to missouri, but it was actually an arkansas flag. it's in the first national pattern. it has the two cross cannons, which indicate artillery. but if you'll notice something very interesting about this flag, this is the back of the flag. and that's the reason why people think, why did you do the flag that way? well, this is all that's left of the flag. it was the same on both sides, but unfortunately just age and wear and tear, the front side of the flag did not survive. now, in 2009, we came to an agreement with the state of missouri. we had one of their flags, and so we exchanged this flag for two arkansas flags. so in 2009, we brought home two flags of arkansas that hadn't been in the state since the war.

this, and then an arkansas sixth and seventh. it was very generous of missouri to go into this agreement with us. and we needed to raise money for two flags. and so people donated money. but we also applied for a grant from save america's treasures. and we were awarded a grant, and so we were able to conserve these two flags. and they just recently came back to the state from the conservation in west virginia. so when this exhibit opens in may, this will be the first time that the public will be able to see these flags on exhibit since the war. this is interesting. >> one of the questions i have for you as you pull it out is why are flags so popular? i mean, it seems to be something that a lot of people connect with. >> people are very connected to flags, because when these -- you have to stop and think. when these young men were out on

the battlefield, this was their honor. this was their badge of honor. and it was a great honor, actually, to be designated the flag carrier, the person that carried these flags into battle. and you hear all of these stories about, you know, the flag carrier was shot and fell and someone scooped up the flag to keep it from hitting the ground and to carry on. and that actually did happen. it was a great honor to carry the flag. it was very personal. some of these flags were made by women in their hometowns. and so it was a very personal, personal thing. this flag which is another first national pattern is a great example of what was going on. they used whatever material they had. we don't have any documentation. but if you look at the pattern in this flag, one has to wonder, okay, did that come from a bolt

of fabric or was this a drapery? was this a table linen? what did these women take to make this flag? and it's a great source of pride. and so today, that source of pride carries on. i always tell people that i have the best job in the world. because, as curator, my duty, my job is to care for these artifacts, to make sure that they're not only in the proper environment and maintained, but that we continue to do research to find out what about, give me a story, give me a story with this flag. or give me a story with something that we can tell the public. we can't put the artifacts all out at any given time, so we have an online database that we're real proud of that we continue to try and update and

people -- we have people in ireland that love our battle flag collection, so they can go online and see our flag collection. my job is the caretaker of this. it's the greatest job that anybody could want. i'm a history geek, and so it's just, it's wonderful. it really is. it's a big responsibility to be the caretaker of all of these items, but i have a great staff, a great crew, and a director that really understands artifacts and collection. and he has been supportive for us from day one. and, you know, if we need new equipment, if we need something conserved, he goes out there and tries to get the money for us to do it. so we're very fortunate with our director and dupty director and our entire staff. they get it. they get history. >> so what happens now, between now and when the collection goes

on display? >> what happens now, between now and when it goes on is insanity, is basically what it is. my staff is busy because we have already decided what artifacts will go on exhibit. and so they have to do paperwork. whenever you move an artifact from one place to another, we have to document it for insurance and just for our recordkeeping. so they're busy in the databases doing that. we have to take down an exhibit. we just had an exhibit on why commemorate the war. so that has to come down first, put those artifacts back into their home and let them rest. and then our maintenance crew will go in and paint and get the galleries ready, because it's five galleries. it's going to be a huge exhibit. and then about mid april, a

company will come in that will help us install the flags and they've built special frames for them. so we'll install the flags, and that's a big deal, to move the flags. because we can't just put them in a truck and do it. we have to do this proper and by museum standards and procedures. and what's best for the flags. so we've, we've hired someone to help us with that. and then the final week we'll install the other artifacts that will be on exhibit. and then we open. so there's a lot to do. we have text panels to proof and print. we have labels for all the artifacts. people love to see tons of artifacts on exhibit, but we have to have labels made for all of those. so there's a lot that goes into exhibits, and i don't think that people quite realize how much. >> well, good luck the next couple of weeks. >> thank