The cause of the war is the pretension on the part of the Chinese that in all their intercourse with other nations, political or commercial, their superiority must be implicitly acknowledged, and manifested in humiliating forms.
Quincy identifies the root cause of the war as China's insistence on superiority in international relations.
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If its operation should turn out more advantageous to them, it will be more honorable for us; and I never can object to entering formally into an obligation to do that which, upon every virtuous principle, ought to be done without it.
This error has nowhere been more frequently repeated, nowhere been of more pernicious tendency, than in America itself.
Adams replied: "I well know this; but labor I shall not refuse so long as my hands, my eyes, and my brain, do not desert me.
But, if we go to war, what must be the effect of the peace that follows?
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