Thinking metaphorically about the history of the United States, New Democrats conceived of themselves as the middle link between infancy and ripeness. Nations proceeded through life cycles just as human beings did, and now it was time for America to grow up. According to this symbolic vision, Young America's forefathers were children, and the New Democrats had grown to become adolescents. Their own offspring would mature to adulthood, and their progeny, to middle age. Each stage in the country's history mirrored that of a human life. The Founders and the Jacksonians appeared to them as originators of a grand experiment. Now that it was proven to work, the new cohort needed to fulfill its responsibilities by maintaining and cultivating it.

The two generations preceding Young America took George Washington's advice to heart. In his farewell address, Washington warned against “entangling alliances,” leading the Founders and the Jacksonians to isolate themselves. They certainly dealt with foreign policy when it required attention, as in the case of Jefferson's embargo or the purchase of Spanish Florida in 1819. But they usually pursued such measures in order to promote domestic security, not to acquire new territory or to bring their notions of democracy to people across the sea. The foreign policy of the Founders and the Jacksonians was defensive, sometimes preemptive, but typically not aggressive.

Young America Democrats self-consciously accepted a new era of foreign relations. They made no bones about the demands of a more internationally connected age.