Being one nation in a world of states, the US has had to engage in diplomacy with other governments. The Founders recognized that America's values must be reflected in its international ties. Diplomacy was not just a tool for bargaining America's interests for them. It was also a means of promoting liberty.
Liberty has always been America's defining value, not just a political inclination. As a result, the United States dispatched some of its greatest minds and most fervent patriots overseas as ambassadors to represent the American people and the nascent republic's extraordinary ideas—Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams.
Episode 2: The American Experiment