To me, this quote makes me think about viewing humanity as a whole and not paying any attention to country lines.  We have a higher duty to our fellow human beings, regardless of the country.  This can be interpreted as internationalism, but to me that sounds more like cooperation with different countries.  This quote is about humans as a whole, and how we need to look out for fellow humans regardless of country.

I have to agree with your friends as well, the quote is internationalist in sentiment. The only qualifier I would give is that the quote was from Oscar Straus, one of Theodore Roosevelt's cabinet, and certainly Roosevelt would have subscribed to the views described in Post 4, believing that white Anglo-Saxons had a duty to spread and protect civilization. But Straus also worked in support of a League of Nations after World War I, and while I have been unable to ascertain the date of this quote, this sounds like it must have come from that effort. To make a larger point, I would like to emphasize as a history person that you often need to think about context when you try to characterize what a quote means.

Here is a link to a bit of information about Straus:

http://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/essays/cabinet/1799

The only way to see this as ultranationalism is if you are going to say that "the trust of civilization" is something that only your kind of people could handle or protect.  This would be like Hitler saying that he needed to be true to the ethnically Aryan people rather than to the state of Germany.  But overall, I agree with the others that this is a statement of internationalism.

This looks like internationalism to me. Internationalism looks beyond state boundaries for cooperation and the benefit of more than just one country. This statement speaks of a patriotism that does not focus on just one country. It calls for a duty to "mankind," rather than "country."

I am sorry to say this, but I would agree with your friends.  The phrase "not limited by the boundaries of one's country" seems to take any form of nationalism out of the equation in my eyes.  Safeguarding civilization above your own nation would fall under internationalism in my opinion.

"There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by..." Is the quote talking about ultranationalism?The full quote is  "There is a higher form of patriotism than nationalism, and that higher form is not limited by the bondaries of one's country, but a duty to mankind to safeguard the trust of civilization" Is the speaker talking about internationalism or ultranationalism?

This quote, which came from Oscar Straus, a member of Theodore Roosevelt's cabinet, is closest to being an example of internationalism. Ultranationalism is usually associated with extreme right-wing movements such as fascism that appeal to hyper-patriotism, usually associating the nation with racial or ethnic boundaries. Internationalism  involves working together across political boundaries to achieve ends that benefit people around the world. After World War II, internationalism usually involved institutions like the United Nations and the IMF. During Straus's time, however, while some were interested in these types of institutions, the idea of internationalism was usually more closely associated with what we would recognize today as imperialism, with the United States using its wealth and power to "help" people around the world.