I like to believe that people, in the long run, are going to do more to promote peace than our governments.

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind.

My country wants to be constructive, not destructive. It wants agreement, not wars, among nations. It wants itself to live in freedom, and in the confidence that the people of every other nation enjoy equally the right of choosing their own way of life.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.

These proposals spring, without ulterior motive or political passion, from our calm conviction that the hunger for peace is in the hearts of all people - those of Russia and of China no less than of our own country.

People want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.