Dangers lurked for Americans who were too close to the wilderness, or for those too enamored with the commercial luxuries of the Old World. In one of his dreamier moments in 1785, he wrote of the hope that America would be like China, completely cut off from European commerce and manufacturing and other entanglements: “We should thus avoid all wars, and all our citizens would be husbandmen.” He wished for a middle zone, between the two extremes.23
