The Anglo-Saxon Century and the Unification of the English-Speaking People
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Title: The Anglo-Saxon Century and the Unification of the English-Speaking People
Author: John R. Dos Passos
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANGLO-SAXON CENTURY AND THE UNIFICATION OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE ***
THE ANGLO-SAXON CENTURY
AND
THE UNIFICATION OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
BY
JOHN R. DOS PASSOS
OF THE NEW YORK BAR
Author of "Stock Brokers and Stock Exchanges," "The Interstate
Commerce Act," "Commercial Trusts," etc.
SECOND EDITION
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
Knickerbocker Press
1903
{ii}
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY
JOHN R. DOS PASSOS
Published, June, 1903
Reprinted, August, 1903
Knickerbocker Press, New York
{iii}
ANALYSIS
CHAPTER PAGE
Introduction ..............................................vii
I. Two events which mark the close of the nineteenth century.1
I. By the Spanish War, the relations of the United States to
Europe and the East were suddenly transformed..............3
II. The effect of the war in Africa upon the relations and
power of England...........................................5
III. The present diplomatic and political map of the world.8
IV. Russia, China, France--their relations to each other and
to the world..............................................10
V. The Spanish and Portuguese people......................31
II. The origin and form of the suggested alliance between
England and the United States...48
I. How the suggestion arose...............................48
II. The indefiniteness of the form of the proposed
Alliance..................................................55
Definition of co-operation, alliance, union, or compact...61
III. The historical facts traced which have been gradually
leading to interfusion between the English-speaking
people....................................................69
{iv}
I. The different epochs which led to the development and
expansion of the English-speaking race..................71
_a_. The introduction of Christianity into England......71
_b_. The consolidation of the different kingdoms of
England into one......................................74
_c_. The influence of the Roman Law upon England's
Progress..............................................77
_d_. The Great Charters--the Petition of Right--the
Habeas Corpus Act, passed under Charles--the Bill of
Rights in 1688--and the Act of Settlement.............79
_e_. The union with Scotland............................80
_f_. Discovery of America...............................81
_g_. The independence of the colonies...................83
II. Résumé of the foregoing...............................96
IV. The inherent natural reasons or sympathetic causes
which sustain a union, and which support the historical
growth and tendency to the same end examined..............99
I. Union natural as to time and people.................100
II. Of the same national family.........................101
III. The same language...................................108
IV. The same literature.................................116
V. The same political institutions.....................124
VI. The same laws, legal customs, and general modes of
judicial procedure.....................................133
VII. The same tendency and methods of religious thought
and worship............................................137
VIII. Intermarriages.....................................138
{v}
IX. Other similarities between the two nations,
exhibiting the natural features of the alliance, such
as the drama, sports, pastimes, habits of living.......139
X. Resume..............................................140
V. The selfish causes which provoke and support an alliance
Examined.................................................142
I. The common interests of both countries demand
co-operation--identity of international action......142
Commercial relations.................................144
Financial relations..................................144
II. Self-preservation--protection--necessity............145
III. Duty................................................146
VI. The means by which a closer union may be created and
maintained...............................................152
Preliminary..............................................153
The three methods examined by which a union may be
established............................................154
By absorption of all into one nation.................154
By establishing a federation.........................154
By a treaty--regulating their conduct and intercourse
with each other....................................155
The reasons existing against the first two, and in
favor of the last method...........................156
VII. The subjects to be covered by a Treaty................159
I. The Dominion of Canada to become a part of the United
States of America....................................159
II. Common Citizenship...................................179
III. The establishment of freedom of commercial
intercourse and relations between the countries
involved, to the same extent as that which exists
between the different States constituting the United
States of America......................................202
{vi}
IV. Great Britain and the United States (I) to coin gold,
silver, nickel and copper money, not displaying the
same devices or mottoes, but possessing an equal money
value, and interchangeable everywhere within the limits
covered by the Treaty, and (2) to establish a uniform
standard of weights and measures.......................205
I. The same gold, silver, nickel and copper money...205
II. To establish a uniform standard of weights and
measures.......................................207
V. In case of any dispute hereafter occurring between
Great Britain, or any of her colonies, and the United
States, the same to be referred to a supreme court of
arbitration...........................................207
CONCLUSION. The state of public opinion upon the question
of Anglo-Saxon alliance..................................209
{vii}
INTRODUCTION
TO THE SECOND EDITION
I CANNOT but feel that the exhaustion of the first edition of
this book so quickly, indicates that the public is, at least,
interested in the questions it discusses.
I believe that the twentieth century is _par excellence_ "The
Anglo-Saxon Century," in which the English-speaking peoples may
lead and predominate the world. My mind recoils from any other
picture, because the failure of our people to assume the power
committed to their hands means the segregation of nations and
states, and the general disorganisation of society through
cruel, bloody, and fratricidal wars. The elimination of war and
the advancement of civilisation have been the motive of my book.
To effect this object I have seen no other way than to
concentrate power in the hands of the most worthy. If the
Anglo-Saxon peoples do not come within that denomination, what
other will?
The struggle for predominance, tacit or avowed, still goes on.
No one important nation, in our {viii} times, is more content to
remain in a second, or even an equal place, than at any former
period of history. Choice then, being necessary, what choice
shall be made? The answer of everyone who is likely to be within
the circle of my readers, and whose mind is not prepossessed by
some special and, as I must think, perverse influence, may be
confidently anticipated. It will be that which I have given.
I have opened up a plan which I consider feasible. I have set no
time for its adoption either in whole or in part. On the
contrary, I asserted (pp. 2 and 3) that "the question [of
unification], in the ordinary course of events, must pass
through the crucible of debate, tinctured and embittered by
prejudice, ignorance, and jealousy ... it may drag along through
years, the sport of every whirlwind of domestic and foreign
politics."
To compare small things with great, I recall that Lord Bacon
advocated, in his own powerful and masterly way, the union of
Scotland and England more than one hundred years before it was
actually accomplished.
In launching another edition of the book upon the great sea of
modern literature, I feel renewed confidence that it will
eventually attract a nucleus of readers sufficient in number and
influence to mould its suggestions into public issues, to be
argued and disposed of, in a manner commensurate with their
importance.
J. R. D. P.
August, 1903.
{ix}
INTRODUCTION
IN this book I advocate the union of all the English-speaking
peoples by steps natural and effective. Believing that the only
real obstacle to a complete and sympathetic _entente_ between
the Anglo-Saxon peoples may arise from the situation of Canada,
I urge her voluntary incorporation with the American Republic.
Upon broad principles, this incorporation ought not to be
difficult, seeing that the Federal idea, which has been so
happily developed in the existing Canadian institutions,
corresponds, in a large degree, with our own. As an offset, as
well as to soften, if not wholly eradicate, any sentiment
adverse to the surrender of a separate national existence, I
propose the establishment of a common, interchangeable,
citizenship between all English-speaking Nations and Colonies by
the abrogation of the naturalisation laws of the United States
and the British Empire, so that the citizens of each can, at
will, upon landing in the other's territory, become citizens of
any of the countries dominated by these Governments.
The proposition of the free admission of English {x} and
Americans to citizenship in the respective Governments of the
United States and the British Empire, without a previous
quarantine, is neither visionary nor impracticable; on the
contrary, as I show in Chapter VII, it is in entire harmony with
the spirit and purpose of the naturalisation laws, and it is,
moreover, sanctioned by the authority of history and of several
distinguished modern names.
To make the union permanent and indissoluble, I would introduce
free trade between the United States and the British Empire, the
same as exists between the several States of our Republic; and
to this I would add the adoption of the same standard of money
and of weights and measures. To render armed conflict impossible
in the event of any differences arising between us, I would
establish an Arbitration Court, with full jurisdiction to
determine finally all disputes which may hereafter arise.
By these means a real and permanent consolidation of the
Anglo-Saxon peoples will be accomplished, without the
destruction or impairment in the least degree of the political
autonomy of the individual governments of the United States or
of the British Empire, and without departing from any maxims of
the international policy of either.
I do not advocate, but deprecate, in common with those who have
given the subject serious study, a defensive and offensive
alliance, as this term is now used.
The events revealed in the history of the Anglo-Saxon peoples,
and the conclusions logically deducible {xi} therefrom, amply
justify the unification of the whole English-speaking family as
a wise and necessary step in their destiny and progress.
I hereafter endeavour to show that such an alliance is natural;
that, growing out of our mutual interests, it is necessary; and
that a true analysis of our duty to ourselves and our relations
to the outside world impresses it upon us as a sacred mission.
Upon these foundations I have built the structure of an enduring
Anglo-Saxon league. If I am wrong in the premises, the
international mansion which I have endeavoured to construct must
fall to the ground. If, on the other hand, I am correct, then
the two powerful motives which underlie all individual and
national action are present, for _sentiment_ and _selfishness_
alike demand its consummation.
The general subject of an alliance of some kind has already been
largely discussed in both countries, but it has taken no
tangible shape beyond the formation of a few societies whose end
has been to develop closer relations between the two peoples,
and whose success has been, alas! most indifferent.
The opening of the twentieth century reveals two great
conditions which must deeply and powerfully affect the acts of
individuals and nations, and compress events, which ordinarily
would take ages to mature, into a few years. First, there are no
more worlds to discover, and territorial absorption by purchase
or force of arms is the sole means by which the most powerful
nations can add to their {xii} possessions. Diplomatic eyes now
look inward and not outward. Second, all nations have become
near neighbours to each other; and the achievements of science,
conquering space and time, enable the newspapers, among other
things, to present each morning a full picture of the doings of
the whole world on the preceding day. The important acts of a
nation's life are laid bare daily, and the profoundest secret of
state can no longer be withheld from the lynx-eyed newsgatherer.
The motives, ambitions, and actions, of the nations are thus
constantly revealed to all who wish to read them in the
journals, for the price of a few pennies. Marvellous! Most
marvellous!
"High placed are we, the times are dangerous,
Grave things and fateful hang upon the least
In nice conjunctures."[1]
Obeying the course of general progress, political and diplomatic
events in this age must "therefore, take root and ripen quickly.
Each nation is armed to the teeth, or is ready so to arm, and
the expenditure of money for soldiers and sailors and the
equipment for war will not stop on this side of national
solvency and extermination. A complete justification of
Anglo-Saxon aggregation grows out of the fact that it can arrest
and destroy this dreadful modern tendency. But even if angels
advocated it, a step of such profound importance would
necessarily be preceded by much private and public argument, in
which the outside world would largely {xiii} participate, and
from whom, perhaps, much opposition might arise; yet it may
mature, forsooth, over night.
The suggestion of an Anglo-Saxon union will be looked upon with
disfavour by foreign nations, and the narrow view will be urged,
that by means of it, disproportioned power will be lodged in our
hands to their detriment. There is no weight, however, in the
objection: power lodged in the proper hands hurts no one.
Mistakes there may be here and there, but the course of this
great race cannot be retarded. It must go on. It must move
forward in the mission to spread Christianity and civilisation
everywhere, and to open up the undeveloped part of the world to
the expanding demands of commerce, and of all that commerce,
liberally conducted, implies.
Let us take up together the work so magnificently performed by
the United States and by England down to the commencement of
this century. Once for all let prejudices be cast aside. Let us
unite in a great English-speaking family. Let us be content to
learn from each other. And when the curtain of the twenty-first
century is raised, may the successful anglicisation of the world
be revealed; may the real spirit of our institutions and laws
prevail everywhere, and the English language have become the
universal dialect of mankind.
In the view I have given of English history, manners, and
institutions, and their relation to our own, I am aware that I
do not go beyond the merest sketch. I should, perhaps, have
paused {xiv} longer on that part of the subject,--it would have
been pleasant to do so,--but as it is practically inexhaustible,
it would have changed the character of the work and have swelled
it to undue proportions. I have said enough, I think, to point
out the path to every intelligent reader likely to be interested
in this question, and who has not heretofore made it a study.
Once accepted as a subject of interest, every kind of reading,
even to the most light and desultory which our copious
literature affords, may be made to cast an illumination upon it.
Thus, while mentioning the great leading facts of English
Constitutional development--those more obvious stepping-stones
upon which the race ascended in that difficult path--I have
found it impossible to detail all the influences, whether of
ancient or recent growth, which accompanied or produced the
respective movements. The least obtrusive causes are not
infrequently the most potent as well as the most interesting. I
firmly believe that the ultimate ascertainable causes in all
such cases will be found in the character of the people, however
that character may have been generated.
I wish to acknowledge publicly, and return my thanks for, the
substantial aid which I have received in the preparation of this
book from my dear and life-long friend, Theodore McFadden, Esq.,
of the Philadelphia Bar, the author of a most exquisite and
classic drama, _Madalena; or The Maids' Mischief_, and many
effective essays and articles. I have discussed every part of
this work {xv} with him, and in the course of its preparation,
he has made many valuable suggestions, some of which I have
incorporated herein in his exact language. While we are in
earnest agreement as to the main purpose of the book, namely,
the removal of prejudices and the approximation of the two
peoples for all great and beneficial objects, including their
mutual defence, our views are not always in accord as to the
methods of giving effect to that purpose. To differ with one of
the ripest scholars, one of the most profound and liberal
thinkers and eloquent writers of the day, even upon a trivial
point, is a matter of sincere regret, but convictions upon the
subjects discussed herein, at first light and eradicable, have,
by reflection and study, become strengthened and deepened, and I
shrink not from the responsibility and duty of giving them full
light.
May they bear ripe and wholesome fruit!
J. R. D. P.
NEW YORK, April, 1903.
[1] _Madalena; or The Maids' Mischief_, by Theodore McFadden.
{xvi}
{1}
THE ANGLO-SAXON CENTURY
CHAPTER I
TWO EVENTS WHICH MARK THE CLOSE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
WHEN the sun disappeared on the last day of the Nineteenth
Century, it left in the horizon vivid pictures of two unexpected
and incomplete events, whose influences will penetrate far into
the realm of future history and throw light upon the great
records which will be made in this new century. In one picture,
the United States of America was seen fighting in the
Philippines for the possession of a land which she claimed by
the double title of conquest and purchase. In the other, the
British Empire was battling with the Boers; sending her armies
over the seas into Africa, to answer the defiant and goading
challenge of that people.
Strange and unexpected history! The two powers the least
prepared for or anticipating war were forced into battle; while
Germany, France, {2} Austria, and Italy, armed to the teeth,
momentarily expecting strife, became spectators instead of
actors. We must prepare always for the unexpected.
Neither the acquisition by the United States of new territories,
conquered or purchased, from a weaker power, nor the subjugation
of the Boers by England and the enforcement of absolute
sovereignty upon their republics, are, _per se_, events of
supreme importance to the outside world.
The continental powers view with comparative complacency the
relinquishment of the sovereignty of Spain over the Philippines,
Cuba, and Puerto Rico; and while the subjugation of the Boers,
and the metamorphosis of their republics into colonies of the
British Empire, awakens keener interest and criticism, these
acts will, nevertheless, pass unchallenged, and eventually be
acquiesced in.
But the deep significance of these two historical incidents is,
that they have brought the English-American peoples into such
striking prominence that their present and future relations to
each other, and the aim and scope of their ambition, separately
or combined, must become an absorbing topic of international
thought and discussion.
A union of all the English-speaking peoples has become a
probability; and while the question, in the ordinary course of
events, must pass through the crucible of debate, tinctured and
embittered by prejudice, ignorance, and jealousy, a sudden
upheaval or unexpected revolution in international affairs might
cause its solution in a day. On the other hand, it may drag
along through years, the {3} sport of every whirlwind of
domestic and foreign politics.
The Anglo-Saxon people should only be concerned with the right
and wrong of the subject--absolutely fearless of the results to
which an inquiry based upon sound premises may lead. It is now
manifest that to this great race is entrusted the civilisation
and christianisation of the world.
Whether they will perform the duties of this sacred trust is the
problem of the Twentieth Century.
I shall proceed to state the grounds for this opinion, and to
unfold the reasons which should influence this great people to
act as one.
I.--BY THE SPANISH WAR, THE RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES TO
EUROPE AND THE EAST WERE SUDDENLY TRANSFORMED
This war reveals the United States in many aspects as _the_
leading power of the world. While her wonderful development,
progress, and marvellous wealth were freely talked about and
ungrudgingly acknowledged, she has, by this last war, leaped,
_per saltum_, into a position among nations which will force
her, _nolens volens_, to assume all the burdens and
responsibilities which her new rank demands. If we look the
actual situation in the face, it is impossible to escape the
consequences of this dénouement. The United States has suddenly
become a natural and necessary party to all great international
questions; and this fact, with her increasing commercial and
financial power, demands {4} that she should be ready to second
the interests of her people, who are now spreading out in all
directions in search of greater wealth and wider business
relations. The oceans which separate the United States from
Europe and the East were once supposed to be perpetual barriers
to her active participation in international questions. It was
assumed that she had quite enough to do, then and for all time
to come, to attend to the development of her own vast and
continuous country.
The victory of Dewey at Manila, however, combined with the
mighty change which has been wrought in human affairs by
science, electricity, and steam, struck the scales from the eyes
of the world, and, presto! she has leaped into the arena of
history as the most important factor of the new century. Can
this situation be made other than it is by the shibboleth of
party platforms, or individual opinion? Can her progress be
stayed? With as much reason we may command the flowers and the
trees not to grow--bid nature stand still, and her laws not
operate!
She did not seek the rank of an international power; it was
evolved out of a confluence of natural conditions. She can no
more cast it off than can our bodies the food of which we have
partaken after it has entered into our organisms. If history
teaches any lesson, it is that nations, like individuals, follow
the law of their being; that in their growth and in their
decline they are creatures of conditions, in which even their
own volition plays but a part, and that often the smallest part.
{5}
II.--THE EFFECT OF THE WAR IN AFRICA UPON THE RELATIONS AND
POWER OF ENGLAND
It has been boastingly said by her enemies, and reluctantly
acknowledged by some of her friends, that England has entered
upon her decline, and that a decay has set in which will destroy
her power and prestige. There is nothing more absurd than this
assertion. The same statements were circulated in reference to
her at various periods of her past history--notably at the close
of the Revolutionary War. Look into her history at that time;
consult the contemporaneous writers, and we shall find them
replete with gloomy and direful predictions. And yet how she
gathered herself together; and in a few years how resplendent
she was in military and civic glory! Her political edifice
cannot be destroyed so long as reason holds its sway, because it
is built upon the solid foundations of true civil liberty, which
it is the aim of all people to establish and conserve. Show me
anyone, not actuated by pure bigotry, who would deliberately and
maliciously wish to demolish such a government!
When men band themselves together in a revolutionary purpose, it
is to destroy tyranny and oppression. They do not begin
revolutions with edicts against liberty and free government.
England will decline, if ever she declines, when men assail
order and law, and seek to erect in their stead, as a basis of
government, chaos and confusion. Her literature can never be
destroyed; it will enlighten the world long after her government
{6} ceases to be. It will be the basis of a new civilisation
long, long after her people cease to act together. I will not
weary the reader with statistics of her material growth. They
show no real, permanent decline; but they do reveal that she has
fierce commercial competitors in the United States and Germany.
They show that she must arouse herself to a real struggle to
support her people. But no matter how this war for commercial
supremacy may end, we must remember that the real greatness of a
nation, or people, does not wholly consist in mere material
wealth. We of North America are overlooking this important fact
in our sudden and marvellous development. We are to-day, and not
without some truth, called a purely "dollar nation." Our people
are struggling for money, as if that were the only desideratum
of life. We forget that religion, in its broad sense, liberty,
justice, equality, and virtue are more important than money;
they are the chains of steel which bind a free people together;
mere wealth without these qualities has no preserving power: and
if we lose our institutions, in their form or in their spirit,
of what use will money be to us, or how will it be protected?
The acquisition of wealth is legitimate, but it must not be the
sole aim of the people, else they will forget their duties as
citizens; and should that time come, and chaos and revolution
ensue, of what use will material advantages be, even if they
should survive the loss of freedom?
Remember that a government based upon gold, {7} wealth,
sordidness, must end unhappily. We must have other and higher
ideals for our people.
Do not misunderstand me; I do not decry individual, and, in
certain degrees, aggregate wealth. Let our citizens accumulate
money "beyond the dreams of avarice." Through the natural
channels open for its circulation, it will gradually flow back
to the community. And overlook not the difference between real
and fictitious values. Men often create paper values, which
disappear like snow before the summer sun when the operations of
true economic principles attack them. So long as individual or
combined wealth adheres to its legitimate functions, a State is
safe. When, however, it is used to corrupt or influence the
judiciary; when it seeks to interfere with, or affect
legislation; when it subsidises or controls the press; when it
severs instead of combines society; in fine, when it is used as
a _substitute for character_, the people must beware; they must
quickly intervene and crush it; for the pillars of all free
government will then be attacked, and they will experience an
oligarchy of wealth--the worst of all oligarchies and the most
destructive of individual liberty.
One word more on the subject of England's alleged material
decline. In less than one year she transported in her own ships
two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers to South Africa, without
the loss of a single life.
No other two existing nations could have accomplished the same
task; and, allowing for all drawbacks {8} and mishaps, when the
history of that war comes to be written, it will be found that,
under all the circumstances, it will not be the least of ancient
or modern achievements. And yet with what characteristic absence
of self-glorification it has been done!
In the last century, and under the glorious reign just closed,
she has been perfecting more and more her constitutional system;
the various classes composing her society have been thoroughly
interfused; political power has been extended to the masses,
education has been disseminated, benevolent enterprise has gone
hand in hand with the acquisition of wealth to an unparalleled
degree. These are to be set off against any possible decline in
her trade. It is hard to see how even that decline can be
permanent or anything more than accidental while she retains her
other possessions, and along with them the virile qualities
which called them into existence.
She commences the twentieth century with undiminished glory and
the prospect of increasing influence.
III.-THE PRESENT DIPLOMATIC AND POLITICAL MAP OF THE WORLD
In a little less than four years, the entire relations of the
nations of the world to each other have changed. Old maps have
become obsolete and valueless. The plans of diplomacy have been
upset. All international combinations have been {9} frustrated,
and the nice calculations and adjustments of European statesmen
are, by the unexpected results of the two, in some of their
aspects, insignificant wars, thrown into confusion and
perplexity, if not for ever destroyed. The diplomatic slate has
been sponged clean, and new alliances and international
copartnerships must be written on it.
Does it not seem plain, therefore, in the shifting of places and
combinations, that the British Empire and the United States are
to be the chief factors in the new historical scenes of the
twentieth century?
The world is now, in a practical sense, owned or controlled by
five nations: the British Empire, the United States of America,
Russia, Germany, and France. China, preliminary to an eventual
division of her territories, has become a ward of the preceding
powers, and unless, perchance by some miracle, she steals the
thunder of modern Jove, and arms her hordes with fashionable
artillery and ammunition,--a most unlikely prospect, except in
accord with and under the tutelage of Russia,--she can no longer
be numbered as a factor in international affairs. Japan,
Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland,
Belgium, Holland, Norway and Sweden, and the other small
sovereignties of the world are mere satellites, revolving around
these great political planets, and in due course of time
destined to be attached to one or the other of them, or at least
so close in sympathy with their principles {10} as to render
concert of action between them inevitable.
IV.--RUSSIA, CHINA, FRANCE--THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER AND TO
THE WORLD
The Russian and Spanish races will furnish two absorbing
problems of this century to Europe and the United States.
Let us take up the Russian question first.
There are to-day three great rivals in the commercial
world,--the United States, England and Germany. We might add
France in some branches of trade, and Japan in others. The
commercial ambition of the United States will be, and that of
England and Germany is, world-wide. What the natural rivalry
between these powers will result in I need not undertake to
predict. The laws of trade, however, are unerring, and the
cheapest and best seller will eventually secure the customer. As
the manufactories of England, Germany, and France close their
doors before the keen business genius and competition of the
Yankees, immigration to the United States will increase: a
hegira of foreign labourers and mechanics will set in, which
will greatly thin out, if not depopulate, the old countries of
Europe of their best manufacturing ability. This result is
inevitable under any conditions; but it must be regarded as
separate and apart from the considerations to which allusion is
hereafter made. The relations of Russia to this commercial
question and to the general status of European affairs, are
unique and of the deepest importance. Russia to-day is {11} in
the process of governmental and national development. She is not
yet, in any complete sense, an integral, sympathetic, national
whole, as are the United States, England, and Germany. Her
government is still experimental. She is not yet a firm, stable,
political unity, but is working with tremendous activity to
build up and operate a plan of internal policy. At the same time
she is developing a broad, well defined, ambitious, but not
unnatural external career. She is now, as ever, grasping for
contiguous territories. The _one_ policy is largely dependent
for success upon the _other_. If she overcomes the fires of
revolution that burn within her people; if she can, in spite of
the diffusion of education and the principles of liberty,
maintain the particular species of arbitrary government which
now exists; if she succeeds in continuing a despotism, and can
present an unbroken front to the civilised powers of the world,
maintaining peace and order _within_, while she asserts and
sustains her policy without,--in that event the external policy
of Russia may become the second, if not the first, great and
absorbing question of the century. If Russia does not succeed
with her people; if discontent and revolution ensue; if the
present dynasty is overthrown; if a new and different,
government is installed in that country, or it is split up into
different governments, her power as an international factor will
naturally be so weakened and reduced that she may be compelled
to agree to any territorial partition or adjustment which may be
eventually fixed upon by the other powers, {12} if they act
together. In shaping their commercial policies, however, it will
not be prudent for the United States, England, Germany, and
France to rely upon the weakness of Russia's internal
government, although its overthrow is an event by no means
unlikely, engaged as she is in building and sustaining a
political fabric contrary to modern tendencies and modern
thought, and inimical to those nations which possess them. But
the powers mentioned above must assume that her internal policy
will succeed, and the probabilities of such success, at least
for some years to come, make it important for them to act
conjointly and promptly in matters pertaining to China,
South-eastern Europe and Asia. No matter how they may diverge in
other questions, upon the subject of China their true interests
demand joint action. Under no circumstances, at least for many
years, will Russia be a general commercial rival to these four
powers. She has no ambition, for instance, in the direction of
Africa, now covered by England, Germany, and France; nor has she
any present intention of exploiting the fields of South America
or Mexico. The sphere of her external policy embraces
South-eastern Europe, Asia, and China, and in these fields she
has always met and been checked by Great Britain. It is an
absolute, indisputable fact of history, that but for the
predominating influence and power of England, Russia would
to-day be the complete master of China, Turkey, Persia, and
other parts of Asia--in fact, of all Asia. England, alone, might
still continue to check Russia's {13} designs on these
countries, but in so doing she would be acting not only for
Germany, but for the United States, hence the Eastern policy of
England must be radically changed, or she must act
co-operatively with the United States, France, and Germany, or
with one or two of these powers. She cannot for ever continue in
the unavowed invidious role of defender of Europe against this
gigantic, ever-advancing, all-absorbing antagonist. But eternal
gratitude is due to her from the United States and the other
powers of Europe for what she has already done in this
direction.
Unless some general check, such as is suggested in these pages,
be applied, the dream of Peter the Great would seem to be in a
fair way of fulfilment. That dream was, first, the acquisition
of all Asia; second, the conquest of all Europe--the latter by
the instrumentality of its own dissensions, and the playing off
of the rival interests, as Austria against France, afterwards
France against Germany--a state of things which has an approach
to realisation at the present moment. The royal dreamer did not
embrace America within the scope of his vision,--a very
important and ever-growing factor in the general problem,
whether for good or evil.[1]
{14}
In the new diplomatic advent, the United States, Germany,
England, and Russia, and, perhaps, France, must be the principal
factors. What shall their policy be? Undoubtedly England, the
United States, and Germany would never consent to allow Russia
to carry out her present ambition to become the owner of China
and the other Eastern possessions, which every one knows she
covets, and covets quite naturally, because her contiguity to
these territories makes it of vital importance for her to obtain
a predominating control there, when they pass from the weak
hands in which they now rest. Moreover, the strong, despotic
government {15} of Russia is suited to Chinese education and
intelligence, perhaps much more so than that which any European
power could establish there. But behold the proportions and
strength of the Russian Empire with China and the Chinese under
her control! Does any European power look with equanimity upon
such a picture? Naturally, Russia will hesitate long before she
will consent to relinquish her cherished dream of eventually
controlling these possessions.
It has been manifest for years that China could not take care of
herself, and what little diplomacy {16} exists in modern times
has been exercised in guarding the present and future integrity
of that country from the grasp of rival foreign powers. Until
the late war (if the anomalous events which recently transpired
in China can be correctly called a war) these diplomatic
questions had really involved only England and Russia. At
present, the situation is as follows: China and the East must be
opened to meet the increasing commercial growth of the United
States, England, Germany, and France. There are not enough
customers to go round; the domain of commercial activity is too
narrow; competition is becoming so close and hot, especially
{17} when the United States invades those grounds heretofore
exclusively occupied by England, Germany, and France, that new
territories must be found, and fresh fields of trade exposed.
The doors of China must be thrown wide open to the manufacturers
of all these countries, on terms of equality. The policy of
Russia is to delay the consummation of this event. She may at
some future time be in a situation where she can occupy the
disputed field against all comers. She is near the ground, and
is becoming more powerful every day, in proportion as her
internal policy is fixed, and her laws, religion, and government
are made satisfactory to her subjects.
If all these things turn out favourably for Russia, and she can
secure the co-operation of China, it is not unlikely or
improbable that she will one day say to the other powers, "Hands
off!" and be prepared to enforce her words.
Under these circumstances, it is the unquestionable policy of
England, the United States, Germany, and France, at least so far
as China is concerned, to have their relations with Russia
settled at once. If Russia can maintain the _status quo_ until
events are ripe for her to act aggressively, it is her plain
policy to do so. On the other hand, England, the United States,
France, and Germany can gain nothing by the delay, but
everything by quick, present, concerted action. The division of
China once made, Russian ambition and diplomacy are for ever
checked. Of course there is the Franco-Russian alliance. I pay
no attention to it. It is a {18} farce--a diplomatic paradox; so
suicidal to France's real interest that it is liable to drop to
pieces at any change in the French Ministry.
Another phase of the subject, _i.e_., the internal condition of
China.
In the aspect in which I am considering the subject, I do not
think I am wrong in saying that China bears the same relation to
the civilised world as the continent of America did to Europe in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There are, of course,
great differences--China has more people--she has a more
developed internal trade, her citizens have more intelligence
and certain inventive and business qualities, and there are
other very material features too obvious to mention, which
distinguish the Chinese from the American aborigines, but in the
sense in which I am speaking, the comparison is correct. China
has made no distinct advance for centuries, in a civilising
direction, in the sciences and arts, in commercial and
manufacturing pursuits, to say nothing of political, religious,
and moral improvements, schools and eleemosynary establishments.
She has stood dead-still, if she has not actually taken a step
backward. As a nation, China is oblivious to anything
progressive. In fact, so low is she in the scale of modern
civilisation, that the United States, whose commendable policy
has been to invite immigrants to her shores, has deliberately
shut her doors to China, and has unceremoniously refused to
receive the latter's subjects either as citizens or as
travellers. In ordinary circumstances, the estimation {19} of
independent thinkers, this policy of exclusion would be
intolerable, but its justification has been sustained upon the
ground that the Chinese are not regarded as fit associates for
American citizens, and no persons are wanted in this country who
do not meet this requirement. In a word, China is out of harmony
in her relations to the civilised powers. With but few
exceptions her policy has been to close her doors to the outside
world, to shut herself up in a shell upon the approach of
strangers. China, in respect to modern development, must be
opened by the corkscrew of progress. She does not respond with
effervescence to the approaches of civilisation. The massacre of
an ambassador of a great power, the altogether unjustifiable
slaughter of helpless missionaries, invited and induced to
reside there by treaty, and the turbulent confusion which reigns
inside of her borders, form complete evidence of the utter
incapacity of the nation for respectable, stable government. She
is old, childish, helpless, and if her territories are to be
opened and developed, if her people are to be educated,
enlightened and made prosperous, it must be by the strong hands
of the civilised powers. Of course, touching and effective
arguments may be made against the right of nations forcibly and
bodily to take possession of Chinese soil, and intelligent and
cultivated Chinese statesmen and gifted scholars like Wu
Ting-Fang, the late Chinese Ambassador to the United States, may
make pathetic appeals against such a movement, based upon the
superior moral and legal right of the {20} Chinese to their own
soil and government. But we must look the question fairly in the
face, undisturbed and unaffected by arguments which, ordinarily,
would have preponderating weight. The Indians who occupied the
soil of North America, the Britons who occupied the soil of
England, had the same arguments. Nothing is finer than the
pictured eloquence of the Indian chiefs as they spiritedly
protested against the invasion of their soil and the dispersion
and extinguishment of their tribal governments. But before the
march of progress and the underlying necessities of
civilisation, these cries of sentiment and sympathy will not
long be heard. The invincible spirit of progress must go on.
Like quicksilver, it will noiselessly run into every portion of
the globe where voids created by political weakness and
barbarism exist. Sympathy cannot be allowed for ever to block
human advancement. In the contest between the higher and the
lower order of things, it is impossible to adjust the details to
our liking. There is always an intermediate period of partial
injustice and confusion before the solution is reached. China
can prove no exception to this view. Railroads will eventually
appear in the highways of China in place of the ancient and
worn-out methods of transportation which now prevail;
manufacturing and mining pursuits will be established, her
fields will be opened, cultivated, and enriched by modern
methods and implements of agriculture. It will be in vain for
the Chinese to undertake to support their religion and methods
of thought and life by appeals {21} to Confucius and other
teachers. These must give way under the influence of modern
progress. Why? Because they have produced no fruit. A tree that
bears nothing is valueless. China's ethics, laws, religion, and
philosophy are barren. Primitively and simply beautiful they may
be, but they are without practical value except as historical
monuments marking the advance of nations. Her present condition
attests the value of her institutions: "By their fruits ye shall
know them."
In face of all these facts, it is hard to realise that the
allied powers should precipitately have left China. Yet the
reason is plain. England and the United States each had a war
upon its hands. The Chinese difficulty happened at a most
inopportune time, and when the United States inaugurated and
persisted in a movement of abandonment of China, England was
reluctantly forced to give up her convictions and to join in the
retrograde march. Had England been entirely free to act, no
doubt she would have forced a different settlement. The McKinley
administration exhibited a natural weakness in its policy. It
had to fight shy of the imperialistic cry, which had been dinned
in its ears _ad nauseam_ with respect to the Philippine
possessions; it feared another broadside from opposition
newspapers, which was imminent if it pursued a strong policy in
China, and hence one was hit upon of apparent magnanimity
towards the Chinese, but which was at once superficial, weak,
and misleading, and withal the worst measure for China which
could be imagined. The allied powers {22} entered China without
a studied or concerted plan, and they left it without a clear
solution or settlement of the questions involved. Their going in
was as their coming out--hasty, ill-conceived, and impolitic.
The commencement and the conclusion were both befogged. No
sooner were the allied troops removed than internal dissensions
appeared, and the weakness, wretchedness, and incompetence of
the Chinese government was soon more plainly revealed than ever.
By abandoning China, the United States played directly into the
hands of Russia. England and Germany must have seen this, but
they could not combat a plan of action which seemed on its face
so magnanimous to a fallen people, especially with France
co-operating with Russia.
The whole business must be gone over again. The weakness of
China will soon be revealed in plots and revolutions all over
the Empire; indignities will be again perpetrated upon
foreigners, and armed intervention will follow.
I cannot leave this question without a separate word about
France. The _real_ position of France should be
isolation--waiting, watching, improving. The figure which she
presents to-day as an ally of Russia is false and unnatural. Let
me speak of France with candour and without reserve. Her
national progress is stopped, and an internal decay has set in,
which will sooner or later seriously affect her influence as a
first-class power. The reasons which impel me to reach this
painful conclusion are the following: The effort to establish
{23} a republican government in France, while not a failure, is
far from being a success. No student who has conscientiously
studied the history of the past one hundred years can truthfully
say that she has made real progress in government. The attempt
to sustain a republic in France has been almost grotesque. The
great, central, pivotal point of any serious government is
stability, which she has never even approached. Ministries are
blown over like card houses, by the mere ebullition of political
passion, and not as the result of a principle. The people are
genuinely surprised if a ministry lasts six months. In the
effort to establish a republic, two great fundamental
mistakes--among others--are made. First, the French congress and
government are held and administered in Paris, the very centre
of boiling passions and the hotbed and school of every
conflicting "ism" that arises to confound the good sense and
prudence of mankind. The seat of government in a republic must
be located away from the cosmopolitan influences of large
cities. It must be held in a place where calmness--and quiet
prevail, and where the officials of the government, and the
legislators, are removed from the intimidating noises and the
unhealthy influences of metropolitan journalism.
In the second place, the Cabinet should not participate in the
proceedings of the legislative bodies.
A cabinet is chosen to aid the president. As the cabinet members
are his family council they ought {24} to be in sympathy with
his political views, and with his plans, as executive, and their
tenure should be consistent with his pleasure. To place them in
a position similar to the Ministry of England, in which nation
the House of Commons represents the immediate sentiments of the
English people; to take one important feature of a
constitutional monarchy as it exists in England, and place it in
the body of a republic like that created in France, is anomalous
and incongruous; utterly out of sympathy and in discord with the
real purposes of a republic.
In a republic, a cabinet represents the president, not the
_people_. The noise, froth, and confusion which characterise
every overthrow of a French ministry in the Chamber of Deputies
is not the _vox populi_; the change is the result of coalitions,
sentiment, or passion; it is a momentary variation in the temper
of the legislators, often brought about by events so trivial
that one is almost ashamed of legislative bodies. These
topsy-turvy movements are not aimed at the executive, but are
demonstrations against the cabinet, whose constant overthrow
shows the instability of the administration and brings it into
contempt. The frequent downfall of a cabinet weakens the
confidence of the people in their government, although in fact
it may be purely superficial.
I cannot pursue the subject in detail. I leave much unsaid that
is important, but there are one or two more thoughts which press
upon me with force, and which still further illustrate the above
{25} views. France seems to be lacking the few great men who
could turn her course into better roads of national policy and
prosperity. She has no real leaders. Nor is the nation united in
its sympathies with a republican government. That form has no
great, genuine lovers in France. They love their country, but
not the political mantle which envelops it. Her leading men
doubt whether it is the best form for the government of her
people, or whether she should not be a monarchy. Democracies
thrive upon the love and enthusiasm of the people. If these
feelings are not present among the masses, the government is not
likely to be healthy. A fair proportion of Frenchmen are
socialists. What this means in France, no one has intelligently
defined or explained. So far as we can judge from a study of the
mass of stuff presented, called argument, it means a general
breaking up of society. Another class of Frenchmen favour a
monarchy; but perhaps the largest class is composed of true
republicans. These differences are vital and fundamental. They
go to the form and substance of government, not to its policy,
as in America, where every party cry, radical or conservative,
is attuned to the music of a republican federation, and which is
the _sine qua non_ to all political conclusions. How can a
nation progress until its people have chosen, or are competent
to choose, a stable form of government, and are satisfied with
certain organic political principles?
Nothing illustrates the vacillation of France and her utter want
of stability more than her {26} alliance with Russia. The extent
and nature of this alliance is now known to be of a
comprehensive character--offensive and defensive. After France
was released from the last obligation of the Prussian war by the
payment of the money indemnity, it became the fixed, resolute,
and unswerving purpose of her people to regain Alsace and
Lorraine from the Germans. Her recuperative power was wonderful.
In a few years she was in the full vigour of a new national
life. The defeat which the nation had suffered rankled in the
bosoms of her people, and for years they thought of nothing but
revenge against Germany. The truth is that the result of the
Franco-Prussian war casts no reflection upon the moral or
physical courage of the French. The fault was that of Napoleon
III: the nation was taken unawares, and before she was ready,
Germany had her brave people by the throat. The victorious
Germans took good care to strengthen their hold on territories
wrested from France, by forming the Triple Alliance. In the
meantime, the former provinces of France have become in a great
measure Germanised. The longings of the people of Alsace and
Lorraine to again become part of France grow weaker every day,
as do the feelings of the French people to possess them.
Separation and time are both acting to diminish the chances of
their recovery. On the one side the inhabitants of the
territories are becoming acclimated to their new national life;
and on the other, the French people have become less intense in
their original determination to recover {27} them. A new
generation of people has grown up which did not participate in
the original struggle, and which lack the enthusiasm of the
original actors. Whether French diplomacy could have avoided or
thwarted this result, or whether the situation has come from
natural or uncontrollable conditions; upon either assumption,
the cold, disagreeable fact stares the French people in the
face, and they should look at the situation boldly and
philosophically--the recovery of these provinces is now a remote
possibility.
For years after the Prussian war, France was without an external
policy. She knew not where to turn--to the right or left. She
glanced with longing, scanning eyes over Europe, and could not
select a friend, associate, or ally. She would make no overtures
to her historic and falsely assumed national enemy--England; and
Germany, Austria, and Italy were tightly closed against her.
Russia presented the only open door to her, and after a long
courtship she entered into a political matrimony with that great
power. A union more unnatural, more lacking in harmony, more
ill-advised, could not be imagined. It was a great step for
Russia. She could use France admirably in the event of European
trouble. French money, and a French army and navy, would make a
powerful addition to her own military and naval resources. But
what can France possibly gain from such an alliance? Has anyone
sufficient ingenuity to plan a campaign by Russia against any
power of Europe which would produce an eventual benefit to
France? {28} Make up any combination you please and the result
would be sure loss to France. Her true policy was to rest where
she was--isolated and independent,--quietly abiding the time
when the Triple Alliance would be dissolved, or other European
complications might enable her to resume control over her lost
territories, if ever that were possible. If not, her policy was
peace--peace with the world. The alliance with Russia, in
advance of conditions which actually demanded or justified it,
in form at least, arraigns all Europe against her, and it does
her no possible good. The alliance with Russia is meaningless
and fruitless. If it has any effect, it is hurtful. The two
nations are as far apart as the poles. Point out the incident
and page of history where a similar union has been beneficial.
It shows a decline in France's external policy, in her prudence
and good judgment. It reflects the influences of a weak and
declining internal condition. France has forgotten Bonaparte's
solemn, almost pathetic appeal to his nation--"Make friends with
England." The cultivation of an enmity for England is France's
curse. There should be a complete revulsion of national feeling
in favour of England--the centre and the source of civilisation.
A true friendship with her could not fail to benefit France.
The overwhelming pride of the French, however, hides from them
her real internal and external condition. Her only national
policy should be peace with all the powers of the world. She
should strive to become a purely commercial nation, {29}
augmenting the attractions of French life to draw into her bosom
the travellers and wealth of the world, and seek, by energy and
skill, to retain undiminished her commercial strength against
the powerful advances of the Americans.
France refuses to see or admit that since she has lost Alsace
and Lorraine much of her national prestige has gone, and while
still powerful in many ways, she is destined to second and
support, not to lead. Doubtless her people dearly love their
country, but they are indifferent to her institutions. They love
La belle France, but have no sympathy with her political
government. As their great writer, De Tocqueville, says in
another connection, they worship the statue, but forget what it
signifies. The French are brave and adventurous,--under the
inspiration of a great military or naval hero, they will go to
the extreme bounds of the earth in search of glory,--but they
will not immigrate or travel to found new colonies or foreign
homes. If a band of adventurous Frenchmen were to start
to-morrow on such a voyage, would it be earnestly coupled with
the desire to propagate the gospel of French republicanism? Half
of the army and the navy do not believe in republicanism: They
would be a sorry set of teachers to propagate the principles of
democracy among the natives of a new country. Expansion and
imperialism died with the great Napoleon. To-day France is
substantially sustained and held together by a species of
militarism. The great army moves like a machine to the wishes of
each temporary administration. {30} It eats up the vitals of the
people and compels them, at the same time, to enthusiastically
support it. The moment France gives birth to a great soldier or
sailor, he will capture the army and navy and change the form of
government into a monarchy or despotism. Deep love or respect
for existing administrations does not prevail. Instead of the
civil authority of sheriffs, constables, bailiffs, and
policemen, the military power is looked to as the real channel
for enforcing the decrees of government. The entire conception
and development of the army is contrary to true republican
principles.
In conclusion, France linked with Russia means nothing for her.
She might, with such an alliance, inflict serious damage on
England or Germany separately; but it would avail her naught.
She should speedily retire from the coalition. Remaining
isolated and independent, she can uphold her present prestige,
and through the mistakes of other nations she may add to her
territorial area, providing she maintains a stable government.
The thoughts, wishes, and energies of her statesmen should be
turned to the serious problem of making her people free,
prosperous, and happy; as a beginning towards which, let them
turn their attention to the eradication of the crying sin of
France, the seed that is ripening for her destruction--that evil
which Matthew Arnold calls "the worship of the goddess Aselgeia"
otherwise "Lubricity."
A final word. Remember, ye Anglo-Saxons, {31} that despite her
present condition, France is still, by reason of her large
internal resources and enormous wealth, her trained army and
modernly equipped navy, a great power in the world, and casting
her sword into the scale of events with one or more nations, she
can become an instrument of great good or evil. Friendship with
her should be cultivated, and her people should be made to see
that co-operation with you in your honourable efforts to help
mankind is the true line of her policy.
V.--THE SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE PEOPLE
The Spanish-speaking peoples, including the Portuguese, to-day
occupy or control 7,918,821 square miles of the territory of the
world, exclusive of 1,197,672 square miles in Spanish-African
islands, Portuguese Africa and Asia and the Philippines, which
would make a total of 9,116,493 square miles.
Their language is spoken in Europe, North, South, and Central
America, and in Cuba and Puerto Rico, by more than 80,000,000 of
people, which, added to the number of occupants of Spanish
African-islands, Portuguese Africa, Asia and the Philippines,
would bring the total who speak the Spanish and Portuguese
languages in excess of 97,000,000. The statistics are as
follows:
{32}
Population Square Miles
Spain 17,550,216 196,173
Portugal 5,428,659 36,038
22,978.875 232,211
Mexico 13,570,545 767,316
Guatemala 1,574,340 46,774
Salvador 915,512 7,228
Honduras 420,000 42,658
Nicaragua 420,000 51,660
Costa Rica 309,683 19,985
17,210,080 935,621
Cuba 1,600,000 41,655
Puerto Rico 953,243 3,600
19,763,323 980,876
Colombia 4,600,000 331,420
Venezuela 2,444,816 566,159
Brazil 18,000,000 3,218,130
Paruguay 600,000 145,000
Uruguay 840,725 72,112
Argentine Republic 4,800,000 1,095,013
Chili 3,110,085 256,860
Bolivia 2,500,000 472,000
Peru 3,000,000 405,040
Equador 1,300,000 144,000
41,195,626 6,705,734
Spanish Africa 437,000 203,767
Spanish Islands 127,172 1,957
Portuguese Africa 5,416,000 841,025
Portuguese Asia 847,503 7,923
Philippines 6,961,339 143,000
13,789,014 1,197,672
{33}
RÉSUMÉ.
Population Square Miles
In Europe 22,978,875 232,211
In North America and
Central America 17,210,080 935,621
In Cuba and Puerto
Rico 2,553,243 45,255
In South America 41,195,626 6,705,734
83,937,824 7,918,821
In Spanish Africa and
Islands. Portuguese
Africa and Asia and
Philippines 13,789,014 1,197,672
97,726,838 9,116,493[2]
What is the destiny of this numerous race? What relation do its
people hold to present and future international problems? What
influence will it have in the solution of these questions? As
long as the Spanish-speaking peoples remain scattered and
without a common purpose in view, its numbers will avail little
in the solution of the problems of this century. To be
effective, the Spanish and Portuguese people must act together--
as a whole.
Now, the striking feature of this race, to-day, is an absolute
want of political unity. It has no common and ultimate aim; in
fact, all its purposes seem to be discordant and inharmonious.
In numbers, the Spanish and Portuguese people exceed the
population of Germany and France combined, but their moral
influence, in an international sense, is imperceptible. Anything
like a real, determined {34} attempt to unite them has never
been made. In a word, they are disintegrated, without unity of
thought, action, or association.
I find it difficult, in discussing this subject, to separate my
feelings from my judgment. Sentiment, and some national pride
(for I am half Portuguese), struggle hard to impel me to paint a
glowing and radiant picture of the future of this race; but the
cold, hard facts of history confront me at every step, and it is
idle to attempt to distort or juggle with them. If we are to
judge the future by the present, the chances of the Spanish and
Portuguese people participating in the control of the world are
not the brightest. It seems but yesterday that Spain and
Portugal owned the greater part of the earth, and were its
dominating powers. By huge areas, their territory has vanished
from their possession and control until to-day Portugal hardly
attracts international attention, while Spain finds her dominion
almost shrunken to the proportions of her European peninsular
territory and plays a subordinate role in continental politics.
I know of no sadder picture in modern history. Let any one turn
for a moment to European literature of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, for the evidence of their preponderance.
In all international affairs Spain in particular is everywhere
seen as the first of powers. Her greatness, and the fear it
created, seem to start from every page. I cannot pause to go
into the causes of this or of the circumstances that favoured
it; they are well known. What have we since seen? Her
possessions, rights, {35} and powers have been wantonly
squandered--simply thrown away, as a result of policies and acts
which are utterly irreconcilable with rational principles of
true government.[3]
It is impossible not to admire and sympathise with the
individuals who comprise the Spanish and Portuguese people. They
are noble, warm, generous, brave, and honourable. Like the
Anglo-Saxons, they have been hardy rovers and adventurous
colonists. The discovery and exploration of new and unknown
fields have always been positive and prominent features of
Spanish and Portuguese ambition; and yet, when they have
acquired territories, they seem to have been utterly deficient
in the capacity of holding and uniting them into a great and
permanent empire. Individually, they possess all the qualities
which excite admiration and respect; aggregately, they seem to
lack those elements which so strongly typify the Anglo-Saxon
people, whose glory and solidarity now completely overshadow
them.
God forbid that I should make this statement in a spirit of
vainglory or boasting: I am merely recalling what is patent to
all who read history, even blindly. A comparison of the two
peoples shows that the dismemberment and decline of the Spanish
has been in an inverse ratio to the progress of the
Anglo-Saxons. As the one sank in the scale of national
prosperity, the other correspondingly rose in strength and
glory; and in candour it {36} must be added, the latter largely
at the expense of the former.[4]
Although physically disunited and scattered, and with no
definite, combined purpose of action, in numbers and individual
character the Spaniards and Portuguese are still a great people.
If they can be brought together they will be factors of the
highest importance. Can they, at this stage of their history,
cultivate a quality which they have hitherto
lacked--cohesiveness?
The age of territorial discoveries seems almost finished. New
fields, or new countries, are few. Everything that is to be
found has been laid bare to the eyes of the world, and the
telegraph gives us hourly pictures of the detailed life of the
remotest nations of the earth. With the exception of the poles
and the celestial bodies, the occupation of the explorer is
almost gone, and the diplomatists and publicists now turn their
eyes inward to a study of the possibilities of a division, or
separation, of present territorial ownership. The method of
acquiring title by occupancy can no longer be exercised, for
want of new territory; and the other methods of
acquisition--_i.e._, cession and conquest--now remain the sole
means of geographical aggrandisement. With no new fields to
explore, the scenes and events of history must be laid in old
places, and the diplomatic or political issues will be directed
to reapportioning, or redistributing, the old territories.
{37}
What part of this great international drama will be assigned to
the Spanish and Portuguese people? Can they dominate; or will
they be subordinate to one or more powers, and become absorbed
in the national life of the latter? Can there be a unification
of the Spanish and Portuguese people? Can they cure their
present political imperfections? Can they make a thorough
introspection of their condition, and follow the proper remedies
which it suggests? Can they turn their faces towards the common
goal of a free government? Is there a Moses among them, who can
lead this great people from the wilderness of political, moral,
and financial confusion into the broad plain of a free,
enlightened, and modern government?
I shall not undertake categorically to answer any of these
questions, but I shall briefly try to lay bare the general
existing conditions of the Spanish countries, from which proper
and fair deduction may be made. This study may enable us
correctly to determine--first, whether the Spaniards can unite;
and second, if united, whether they have the capacity to form a
permanent, federation, in time to anticipate the march and
progress of other nations, whose policy must be to absorb the
weaker races in their own political bodies.
I begin with Spain proper. In almost all the essentials of a
prosperous government, Spain is, at the present time, deficient.
Her treasury is depleted, and financial aid from the outside
world practically cut off, or obtainable only upon terms
humiliating or prohibitive.
{38}
Her army and navy are disorganised. The sources of wealth and
employment of the people are shrunken, and in some instances
absolutely gone.
Worse than all the above grave difficulties, her people are
disaffected with the government, thus giving countenance, on the
one hand, to open revolt against it by the advocates of
republicanism, and encouragement to the efforts and diplomacy of
the Carlists, on the other. Apart from this view, a determined
opposition to clericalism prevails, the success of which means
actual separation of State and Church, so long and unhealthfully
entwined in the operations and administration of the Spanish
government.
It will require a clear judgment and a skilful hand to extricate
the nation from all these entanglements. But I believe it can be
done, and that a wise and firm ruler can guide Spain into a
state of prosperity and internal peace, by the introduction of
radical reforms in her administration--reforms which will
demonstrate to her people that they are abreast with and enjoy
the blessings of the freest form of modern government. Whether
the boy-monarch who now governs Spain will be such a guide, I
cannot predict. But I believe that that country can thrive
better as a monarchy, conservatively administered, than as a
republic. That the people have felt the impulse existing in all
modern societies towards a government of laws combined with
freedom, we are assured by recent observers. As is natural, much
blindness and {39} indirection has hitherto attended their
efforts, but the spirit of the people, though overlaid,
survives, and along with it, a strong principle of fidelity and
sense of duty, making the best material out of which to build
institutions. These, with their noble and hitherto almost
impregnable territory, securing them in large measure from
foreign interference, constitute what may be called the capital
of their natural resources, moral and national. Drawn within
herself, self-depending, a new period of substantial greatness
may yet arise. Her patriotic fervour has other aliment than the
mere recollections of a never well-ascertained or well-founded
empire. She can recall that her race has never been subjugated;
that it defied for ages the power of the Romans and the
Saracens, and that Napoleon at the height of his power failed
utterly in the attempt.
If, however, owing to the weakness or inability of the present
King to sustain a monarchy, a republic must be tried by the
people; if one political experiment after another is to be added
to those of the past before a stable and satisfactory
government, of some kind, is inaugurated and established, the
influence of Spain, during such formative periods, as a party to
any consolidation or solidification of the Spanish people, will
be dissipated and become merely formal. She can and will
contribute nothing substantial to such a movement.
Moreover, if a monarchy is permanently continued in Spain and in
Portugal, the hereditary tendency and disposition will be
against a federation {40} of all the Spanish people, because
federation eventually means republicanism; and it is not natural
to believe that the families, in whose hands the monarchical
titles are now lodged, can be convinced that the good of the
whole Spanish and Portuguese people demands the relinquishment
and abandonment of their kingly titles and possessions. Monarchs
are sometimes forced to yield up their thrones, or are driven
therefrom, by the people; but the spectacle of a king
voluntarily surrendering his title for the benefit of his
subjects is a rare one. Besides, the indications are that the
Spanish people are at heart monarchical. France and her
unsatisfactory example may, as a determining cause, have much to
do with this tendency.
And in this instance the monarchs of Spain and Portugal can
point with considerable force to South and Central America to
show that the effort to establish republics among their branch
of the Latin race has not been thus far satisfactory, or at
least, successful.
But another party whose assent is essential to establish a
federation of the whole Spanish people is the United States of
America. What are her interests in the premises? What will she
say to the formation of a government of this kind, in which two
of the leading spirits would be European monarchies, _i.e._,
Spain and Portugal? What application would be made of the
"Monroe Doctrine" to such a condition? I conclude, therefore,
that neither Spain nor Portugal would or could be an {41}
influential factor in the consolidation of the people speaking
their languages.
Can such a federation be established between the republics of
South and Central America and Mexico? This would be a government
which could start with a population of about 58,500,000 and
7,600,000 square miles of territory.
A common cause and a common necessity drove the thirteen
original American States together. But no such force is
operating upon the republics of Central, and South America; and
they failed to utilise the opportunities presented to them in
the past. They are all, more or less, suffering from internal
dissensions, and the precariousness of their republican
governments is not calculated to impress independent observers
with their efficacy, strength, or permanency; yet these
republics have no common enemy in Europe or in this country. In
fact, from the former, if one existed, they would be protected
by the well-settled policy of the United States. Is the United
States likely, in any just sense, to become their enemy--an
enemy, not of the people, but of the form and method of
administering their government? Will not such a condition soon
exist in some, or all, of these republics, as will justify and
make intervention necessary, on the part of the United States,
as was made in Cuba? Could such a possibility drive these
republics into a federation, to anticipate what their leaders
might term "a coming danger"?
Common jealousies and internal disorders will {42} for some time
keep the South American republics from consolidation; but the
people of the United States are coming closer and closer, each
year, to all of these Spanish republics, and will sooner or
later, unless avoided by delicate diplomacy, become actively
interested in the affairs of their governments. At that time
either one of two things will ensue: the formation of a Latin
American federation; or gradual annexation to the United States.
As a preliminary to either, or to any, event, would it not be
wisdom in this country to tender these republics absolute
freedom of commercial intercourse?
And how does Mexico stand? At present she occupies a peculiar
and wholly anomalous position. Although in form a republic,
Mexico is in fact a despotism. She is ruled by one man, whose
authority is unlimited. President Diaz is the absolute and only
power in the Mexican government. In theory he holds his title
from the people, but his will is omnipotent. And withal, the
thirteen millions of Mexicans who make up the population of the
different states of the so-called Mexican republic are well
governed: thus lending confirmation to the statement, often
made, that a despotism, when the despot is a patriot and a wise
and pure man, is the best form of government that can be
established. As long as President Diaz lives, Mexico will
probably continue to be well governed, because her ruler is
competent in every sense--honest, capable, strong; and ambitious
only to behold his country {43} develop and prosper. But when he
dies, what will ensue? Not the regime of another patriotic
despot. They do not come in succession, and they do not have
political heirs. "God makes not two Rienzis." Diaz's death will
reveal to the Mexican people--what they seem, notwithstanding
their theories, never clearly to have appreciated--that they
live under a republic which gives them the control of all
political power. When this period arrives, how many Mexicans
will be found capable of exercising the functions of citizenship
intelligently and patriotically? Will not a majority of them be
dupes or tools in the hands of designing political leaders? Who
can assume to rule as Diaz? Whom do they know but Diaz? Is not
the population of Mexico inferior, in general intelligence and
in the duties of citizenship, to that of any other South
American republic? What of the Mexican Indians? How far have
they been instructed in the duties of government? What kind of a
candidate would they favour? And what will be the outlook for
the people under an administration elected by popular vote? I
shall attempt to answer all these questions together. The mass
of the Mexican people have had no preliminary training for true
republican citizenship and government. Diaz's death will produce
revolution,--peaceable or armed,--and it will occasion such
trouble and turbulence, along the border lines of their
territories, that it will become the duty of the United States
to preserve order thereon. The interior of Mexico will be thrown
{44} into confusion, and the conservative people of the Mexican
republic will, in due course of time, appeal to and demand aid
from the American republic, as the Cubans did; they will ask for
protection, or perhaps annexation. This will not transpire
over-night, but it will be the inevitable outcome of history.
The difficulties in the way of consolidation of the Spanish and
Portuguese people, therefore, seem to me to be insurmountable. A
necessary party to any such federation of a part or all of them
is the United States of America; and her consent probably could
never be obtained. She is the great, dominating, absorbing
power, of the North and South American continents. Her policy
must be freedom, equality, and protection to all. She will
invade no territories, nor deprive any people, against their
will, of the government under which they live. What comes into
her family from Mexico will fall into her possession as a ripe
apple drops into the lap of earth, naturally, and because the
period of complete fruition has arrived.
I have endeavoured to sketch frankly, though briefly, the
conditions of the Spanish people and the relation which the
United States bears to them, especially to those of this
continent. I may be in advance of political thought and
judgment--I may have attempted to reveal too much of the future
horizon to suit the tardy progress of political calculations.
But in considering great international questions, frankness and
broad views are necessary. The future is generally of more
importance than the present. A policy of patching {45} up or
mending existing conditions is always misleading and dangerous.
This was seen in our treatment of the Chinese question. We are
already experiencing it in relation to Cuba. We started out with
a high-sounding proclamation of our intentions, which
overlooked, or ignored, the true and permanent interests of the
people of that island. "Fourth. That the United States hereby
disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty,
jurisdiction, or control over said island, except for the
pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that
is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the
island to its people."[5] Our hands ought to be free to act as
circumstances should disclose or dictate. We are now, or soon
shall be, confronted with conditions in Cuba which will require
us to retreat from our lofty premises and to violate our own
declaration. It is a crying evil that in the treatment of great
public questions our statesmen will not act with openness and
frankness, but constantly seek refuge behind false or
hypocritical explanations, or use subterfuges to conceal their
real thoughts and purposes. It was perfectly manifest that
without a preliminary or probative period, the Cubans would not
be in any condition to govern themselves, and that an experiment
of the present kind must end in misfortune to these people. To
put the tools or implements of a free government in their hands
and turn them loose to experiment among themselves was an act of
folly on our part, {46} and dissipated the advantages gained by
independence.
But one word more, apropos of the whole question of the
relations of the Anglo-Saxon race to the Russians, Chinese,
Spaniards, and Portuguese. Considered either separately or as a
whole, they furnish a subject of supreme interest and importance
to our people. To me they alone are sufficient and a full cause
for a prompt understanding between us. United and acting
sympathetically, we can more or less shape the events of the
future by a wise and truly beneficent policy. If the English and
American statesmen do not agree with me, but leave this question
to fate, as it were, there may come storms, cross-currents,
deflections, and all manner of unforeseen opposing forces, which
will render the unification of our people impossible or futile.
Perhaps this is our destiny--but I think not.[6]
And be it clearly understood that in all I have said, I merely
indicate what I believe to be the inevitable drift of
things--the handwriting upon the wall. With the public morality
and the intermediate questions of international law depending on
{47} that morality, I am not at present concerned. It is
impossible to regulate these questions in advance, and it is
assuredly true that such considerations, however well grounded,
have never long delayed a general tendency. History, in all its
stages, conjectural, traditional, and authentic, discloses with
almost painful clearness that there are underlying forces
governing the progress of the human race, which are made
manifest in successive ages only by their results, and with
which conscious volition seems to have but little to do. We in
this country only exemplify a general truth (a truth easily
ascertainable by a glance at our circumstances), which operates
none the less strongly because with our cultivated sentiments we
sometimes rebel against its necessary sequences. The only
question for me is, how can this truth be best applied--how best
utilised. If I am right in what I have said of the Anglo-Saxon
race in its two great branches, the inference becomes clear. To
that race primarily belongs in a preponderating degree the
future of mankind, because it has proved its title to its
guardianship. But it is in the firm union of that race, in its
steady co-operation, and in its undeviating adherence to its
common ideals, that the whole success of the experiment, or of
what remains of the experiment, now depends.
[1] I select in this connection an extract from an article in
the _North American Review_, June, 1898, by Hon. David Mills,
Canadian Minister of Justice, entitled "Which shall dominate,
Saxon or Slav?"
"Let us consider the aims of Russia, as shown by what she has
attempted and accomplished in modern times. The Russian
statesman loves conquest. With him it is a habit of mind. Russia
is a great Asiatic power, employing the resources of western
civilisation to further her ambitious designs. Her conquests are
not the outcome of industrial enterprise. They have not sprung
from the necessities of commerce. Her acquisitions have not
arisen from a desire to find a profitable investment for her
capital. They are due entirely to a love of dominion. In the
last century, she acquired all the territory lying between her
western border, and the Gulf of Bothnia, and the Baltic Sea. She
acquired the greater part of Poland and the whole of
Crim-Tartary. In this century she has obtained Finland from
Sweden, Bessarabia and a part of Armenia from Turkey. She has
acquired the Caucasus, Georgia, several provinces of Persia, and
the whole country from the Caspian Sea, on the west, to the
borders of China, on the east, including Samarcand, Bakhara,
Khiva, and Merv, besides a large section of North-eastern China.
Russia is the one great state of the world that pays no regard
to her treaty obligations longer than it is convenient for her
to do so. Her territories cover an area nearly three times as
large as the United States, and are being constantly extended.
If she finds resistance at any point upon her borders, she rests
there, and pushes forward her boundaries where those upon whom
she encroaches are not prepared to stay her march. What she
acquires is hers absolutely, the trade of the people no less
than her dominion over them. Not the slightest reliance can be
put upon her promises. She regards falsehood as a legitimate
weapon in diplomacy, as deceit is in war. In Afghanistan, which
she declared to be outside of the sphere of Russian diplomacy,
and within the sphere of diplomacy of England, she carried on
constant intrigues against English authority. Her
representatives sought to stir up rebellion. She endeavoured to
obtain the consent of its rulers for the construction of a road
that would lead to India, and for the purchase of supplies that
would support an army of invasion on their march. She never
gives up any purpose which she has once formed. More than eight
centuries ago she marched an army of 80,000 men to conquer the
Byzantine Empire, and to seize Constantinople. What she then
undertook, and failed to accomplish, she has never abandoned. It
has been from time to time postponed for a more fitting
opportunity. She lost six great armies in the march from the
Caspian to Samarcand, and two centuries elapsed from the time
when she contemplated this conquest before it was consummated.
If the Russian Empire holds together, she counts on the conquest
of Turkey, of Persia, of India, and of China.
"If Russia succeeds in the task to which she has set herself she
will hold seventeen millions of square miles of territory, and
she will have under her dominion nine hundred millions of
people. The fall of the British Empire is regarded by Russian
statesmen as essential to the realisation of her hopes. Let me
ask: What would be the position of the world, with so much
territory and so many people under one ruler, wielding the power
necessary to the realisation of his wishes? It is only necessary
to study the commercial and industrial policy of Russia to
discover that she would trample into the earth every people that
might aspire to better their position or to become in any way
her rivals. In every department of commerce, and in every field
in which greatness might be achieved, her rulers would regard
any attempt at success as an attack upon her supremacy.
"In the discussion of this question I embrace the United States
as a part of the Anglo-Saxon community. I do so because, in the
present position of the race, and of the work which obviously
lies before it, the loss of British supremacy in the world would
be scarcely less disastrous to the United States than it would
be to the British Empire. It is true that the United States,
under the present order of things, has room for further
expansion. But the present order of things rests upon
Anglo-Saxon supremacy. Even within her existing limits, she may
grow for many years to come; and if Turkey, Persia, India, and
China were added to the empire of Russia, the whole position of
the world would be completely changed; the condition of things
on this continent would be revolutionised. With the power thus
centred under Russian control and directed from St. Petersburg,
with the valley of the Euphrates occupied by Russians devoted to
agriculture, with the frontiers of that mighty Empire resting
upon the Indian Ocean; and with the whole commerce of Asia in
her possession, Russia would, as a natural consequence of these
tremendous additions, become the dominant sea power. The Pacific
Ocean would be a Russian lake, and her eastern frontiers would
rest upon the western shore of North America. The British
Islands would rapidly diminish in population, until the number
of inhabitants would be such as the product of the soil would
naturally support. The United Kingdom could no longer be a
market for the breadstuffs of this continent, and European
immigration to America would cease. Russia would rapidly grow in
wealth and in population, but no country in the Western
Hemisphere would do either; for the great markets of the world
would be in the possession of a power that would use them to
cripple the commerce of any state which would, in any degree,
aspire to become her rival.
"In the highest sense the United States has not, and cannot
have, an independent existence. Her fortune is inseparably
associated with the race to which she belongs, in which her
future is wrapt up, and in which she lives and moves and has her
being. The unity between the United States and the British
Empire is a matter both of race and growth. They touch each
other, and as peoples unite and great states arise, they must
be, for all great international purposes, one people."
[2] The World Almanac and Encyclopedia, 1903. p. 353.
[3] See in this connection an interesting article by Henry
Charles Lea, entitled "The Decadence of Spain," _Atlantic
Monthly_, July, 1898.
[4] In 1801, 20.9 per cent. of the people who spoke the European
languages were Spanish, and only 12.7 per cent. were English;
but in 1890 the ratio was changed to 13.9 per cent. Spanish and
27 per cent. English.
[5] Act of Congress, April 20, 1898.
[6] In this connection I call attention again to the article of
Hon. David Mills, Canadian Minister of Justice (heretofore
quoted from, ante, p. 13), _North American Review_, June, 1898:
"The interests of the world call for Anglo-Saxon alliance. Let
not the British Empire and the United States revive, after the
lapse of centuries, the old contest of Judah and Ephraim; but,
remembering that their interests are one, as the race is one,
let them stand together, to maintain the ascendency which they
will hold as long as Providence fits them to lead; which will be
as long as, in their dealings with those beneath them, they are
actuated by principles of justice and truth."
{48}
CHAPTER II
THE ORIGIN AND FORM OF THE SUGGESTED ALLIANCE BETWEEN ENGLAND
AND THE UNITED STATES
I.--HOW THE SUGGESTION AROSE
Out of the conditions and events to which I have first alluded
there arose what I call a desultory, scattered, but emphatic,
sentiment among many English-Americans for a closer union, a
feeling that a permanent relation of some kind should be
established between the United States and the British Empire.
There is a prevailing opinion that our race should be more
sympathetic, that we should live closer together, know each
other better, and think and act in unison on great questions
affecting our mutual progress and welfare; in other words, that
we should interfuse in our thoughts, acts, and exterior policy.
This sentiment for union came upon us suddenly and unexpectedly;
it was natural and spontaneous. It was not the creation of man's
ingenuity; it was not the invention of diplomacy; it was an
evolution. A continuity of a chain of organisms, extending from
{49} the lowest to the highest, is an evolution. "_Tous les ages
sont enchaînés par une suite de causes et d'effets que lient
l'état du monde à tous ceux qui l'ont précédé_."[1]
The existing feeling among the people calling for a nearer and
closer relationship of the English-speaking race is the
recognition of this evolution.
The belief that steps should be taken to put this feeling into
some practicable and tangible shape does not emanate from one
country, but it comes from both. It springs not from official or
diplomatic sources; it is the spontaneous utterance of the
people of both countries.
The peculiar, isolated fact which brought this question to
light, and to the attention of the two nations, was the
Spanish-American War. The _moral_ support which England gave to
America in that struggle caused it to develop, and brought about
its further propagation. England's position in that war was not
manifested in any official or recognised diplomatic manner, but,
by some kind of language, intimation, or action known and
understood in the courts of Europe, the continental powers were
made to understand that she would permit no interference with
the United States in the conduct of the war.
Spain also had her friends. At least two great continental
powers sympathised with her in the struggle she was making
against such enormous odds, and the current belief is that if
England's {50} position in this war had not been well known,
those powers, with others in the sphere of their attraction,
would have manifested their sympathy for Spain in a substantial
and combined way. In short, the United States would have had to
oppose a European combination. It is not claimed that any such
combination was actually formed. The prevailing feeling was that
one would have been formed if England's sentiments had not been
fully known and declared. Whether this be so or not is now
immaterial. I am simply tracing the history of the movement. I
am describing the situation as it then appeared.
I find, therefore, that it was a natural condition of affairs
which spontaneously brought to the surface this thought of an
alliance between England and the United States. In the course of
events, the situation of England and the United States, standing
_vis-à-vis_ to all, or several, of the continental powers, was a
strong possibility, and it set the English-speaking races
seriously thinking about their fate under such circumstances.
The political and military horoscope of Europe was laid bare to
them, and they were confronted, for the first time in their
history, with the possibility of a war in which they might find
themselves in armed opposition to two, or more, or all, of the
continental powers of Europe. In truth, many urgent and earnest
appeals were, and are, constantly made, in desultory newspaper
articles, and in various unofficial ways, in favour of a
coalition of the continental powers of Europe against what is
termed {51} the "Anglo-Saxon race." The usual arguments are used
and the usual epithets applied. They are accused, as race
attributes, of "greed," "rapacity," "brutality," and, what is
worse, of "hypocrisy." Engaged, as we of the United States were
at that period, in a war which we believed to be righteous, we
were for the first time in a position to estimate at their
proper value such accusations when applied to England herself,
and how far they might be considered as the product of senseless
fear and blind jealousy and envy.
Before the Spanish War began, no one seriously thought of, or
considered, an alliance. It is true that the reading classes
among us generally found that in proportion as their knowledge
extended beyond one or two given points, their respect and
admiration for England became increasingly great. But in
practice it was always with some difficulty that the ordinary
affairs of national intercourse and business could be adjusted
between her and the United States. Like members of the same
family, we became easily excited, and were always ready, under
such circumstances, to say disagreeable, intemperate, and biting
things of each other.
England's covert support and open sympathy with the United
States changed our feelings towards the mother country; it
awakened our gratitude, and aroused European fear and envy. When
Manila was captured by Dewey a new scene in international
history was unfolded. The event revealed to the full gaze of
astonished Europe the tremendous power and influence of the {52}
British Empire and the United States acting in concert.
While there was no actual compact or treaty between the English
and Americans, the diplomats of Europe were quick to imagine
one. A spectre is always more alarming, and often more
effective, than a reality. The situation of affairs was the same
as if a treaty had actually existed. The friction, the
misunderstandings, the fretfulness, which theretofore existed
between the United States and England, and which the other
powers of Europe relied upon as a sufficient barrier to prevent
any concerted policy between them, suddenly disappeared, and
they stood before the world as friends and allies. Here was a
new and undreamed-of combination. The cards of diplomacy must be
reshuffled, and in future deals the strong possibility of the
Anglo-Saxon race being found together, solidly unified, must be
considered and provided against.
It should be remembered, that the support given to the
Americans, in the Spanish War, was not merely formal, although
not sanctioned by treaty. It subjected England to the risk of
being involved in serious complications with the other nations
of Europe. She took all the risk and responsibility of allowing
an impression to prevail that her sympathy, and support, if need
be, were with the United States. All the moral force of an
actual treaty resulted to the United States from the situation.
The position of England, in fact, was precisely the same as if
she had openly avowed {53} herself as, and contracted to become,
an ally of the United States, and the Americans distinctively
gained by it. This episode cannot now be lightly brushed aside.
It should never be forgotten by the American people. It was a
generous act on the part of the British nation openly to tender
its sympathy to the United States. It was voluntary and
unsolicited. England did not stop to discuss and analyse the
causes of the war with Spain. She placed herself by our side on
the broad grounds familiar to her own people, and gave us full
credit for the rectitude of our intentions, as proclaimed by
ourselves.
There was no qualification attached to her sympathy. It would
have been an easy task for casuists and international lawyers to
have raised an argument in favour of Spain, but it was not heard
in England. There were no public meetings in the British Empire
to protest against our war with Spain: none of her orators, or
well-known public men, or high officials, denounced our conduct
as unjustifiable or unrighteous. Not a word of that kind was
heard from any respectable quarter. There was never an occasion
in history when national gratitude was more justly due from one
nation to another. The less we say as to how this debt has been
repaid the better our feelings and manners. We must, _at least_,
candidly admit that many American criticisms of England in the
Boer War have been in a very different spirit--sufficiently
ill-bred, harsh, and unfriendly. That may be passed by.
Difference of opinion on such subjects {54} is natural, and
language is generally exaggerated in proportion to ignorance of
the subject. But a more recently developed sentiment among us is
deserving of severer censure: a few of our people are disposed
to turn the sympathy and assistance of England at that critical
moment into a ground of complaint against her; not only is her
friendship denied and denounced, but she is accused of having
beguiled us into the paths of imperialism, and our rulers share
in the denunciation, as having succumbed to her blandishments--a
monstrous and wholly unique instance of political perversity.
It must not be assumed, however, that a feeling of gratitude, on
the part of the United States, should be manifested or repaid by
making an alliance with England. This would be mere
sentiment,--commendable but misplaced. An alliance based upon
such a foundation would be built upon quicksand. Gratitude is a
noble quality, but it is more dangerous than gunpowder when
applied to political affinities.
But to return to the main subject; the _thought_ of an alliance
between the English-speaking people grew out of the
Spanish-American War, and speculations, at first limited to a
purely military view, of an offensive and defensive treaty
between the two nations, for temporary purposes, have gradually
grown and enlarged, until they have led to conjecture concerning
the whole future of the English-speaking nations, their wealth
and resources, their religious, moral, and political growth and
destiny: they have also led to researches into {55} the history
of the past; thus embracing both a backward and forward view.
Happily, the thought of an alliance has sunk deeply into the
minds of many serious people, who realise that in a seemingly
accidental, certainly unpremeditated, way, a great historical
truth has been uncovered, which, in its full growth and
maturity, may lead to the greatest epoch in the history of the
English-speaking race. The Spanish-American War, lamentable as
it was in some of its aspects, inevitable in others, surprising
in all, may hereafter be regarded as an event of supreme
importance in the history of England and the United States, just
as the accidental discovery of the _Corpus Juris Civilis_ was to
the world of that period, in enabling it to form new conceptions
of law, and through these conceptions to advance many steps in
its progress from barbarism to civilisation; or, to bring the
illustration closer home to us, as the accidental assembling of
a few enterprising men in a London inn gave rise to the
undertaking of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and that, in its indirect
results, to the enormous possibilities inherent in the fact of
the establishment of the Anglo-Saxon race on this continent.
II.--THE INDEFINITENESS OF THE FORM OF THE PROPOSED ALLIANCE
Although much has already been said and written upon this great
subject in the United States and England, the suggestions
respecting closer relationship have been most general and
indefinite; and, {56} with a single exception,[2] so far as I
can discover, no one has ventured to outline a plan by which a
tangible result can be reached. It is agreed that a "better
feeling," a "better understanding," a "better knowledge" of each
other, a "closer union," more "intimate relations," an
"_entente_," should exist between the people of the two
countries.
But what is meant by these terms, or, when defined, how to carry
them into practical effect, is left in total darkness. It is
impossible to make any real progress in the discussion of the
question, unless some accurate landmarks are made; a
starting-point must be fixed, from which arguments I may
proceed, and upon which conclusions may be established.
To an intelligent discussion of any subject, a definition is a
_sine qua non_. What is meant by "alliance," "union," a "better
understanding," a "closer relationship," "interfusion," an
"_entente_," and terms of like import? It is in vain that the
citizens of both countries may _wish_ or _hope_ for a better
understanding, or that a better feeling, or a closer relation,
or union, should exist between them. It is said that idle wishes
are the most idle of all idle things.
In what does closer relationship consist? And how shall it be
brought about and cemented? What is the thing to be
accomplished? What are the reasons for its accomplishment? And
by what {57} methods can it be accomplished? These are the
salient inquiries.
In search of light upon this question, I have taken as a basis
of discussion a resolution adopted by the "Anglo-American
League," a society formed in London in the summer of 1898,
consisting of representative individuals, chosen from all grades
of social, political, civil, and commercial life, which was as
follows[3]:
"I. Considering that the peoples of the British Empire and of
the United States of America are closely allied in blood,
inherit the same literature and laws, hold the same principles
of self-government, recognise the same ideals of freedom and
humanity in the guidance of their national policy, and are drawn
together by strong common interests in many parts of the world,
this meeting is of the opinion that _every effort should be
made, in the interest of civilisation and peace, to secure the
most cordial and constant co-operation between the two
nations_."
Here is a clear and well-defined presentation of the subject:
first, the _postulate, i.e., _the people of the two countries
are closely allied in blood, inherit the same literature and
laws, hold the same principles of self-government, recognise the
same ideals of freedom and humanity in the guidance of their
national policy, and are drawn together by strong common
interests in many parts of the world; second, the _motive, i.e.,
_in the interest of civilisation and peace; third, the
_conclusion, i.e., _every effort should be made to secure the
most cordial and constant co-operation.
{58}
This resolution crystallises the combined thought of all the
orators and writers who have contributed to this subject; and
furnishes a clear text for a full discussion of the whole
question. The facts contained in the resolution, that we are
"closely allied in blood, inherit the same literature and laws,
hold the same principles of self-government, recognise the same
ideals of freedom and humanity, . . . and are drawn together by
strong common interests in many parts of the world," are
sufficiently serious to justify and support the conclusion that
"every effort should be made . . . to secure the most cordial
and constant co-operation between the two nations,"--especially
as the high and noble motive which impels this effort is "in the
interest of civilisation and peace." Here is a "motive and a
cue" which should enlist, not the Anglo-Saxon race alone, but
the sympathy of the whole Christian world.
But how, when, and by whom are such "efforts" to be made, to
secure this "most cordial and constant co-operation between the
two nations "? The resolution, speeches and articles referred to
give little or no light on these important points. No plan is
laid down; no ways or means suggested by which objects so highly
extolled and so important, shall be accomplished. The public men
of both countries advocate an _entente_, a "cultivation of
better relations" between the two peoples. They shudder at the
mere suggestion of a written treaty or executed alliance. In
these respects their advice and acts are conservative. But is it
{59} safe to leave the subject in this indefinite condition?
Should we not advance another step or two in the direction of a
real national fraternity? The question should not be allowed to
remain in this doubtful and unsatisfactory state. The noble
purposes of this resolution cannot be attained by _mere words.
Acts_ must follow the _wishes_ and _declarations_. Every
assertion of this resolution should be clearly and explicitly
proven; the objects to be accomplished by co-operation
demonstrated; and the plans by which they shall be carried into
effect determined, and, if practicable, enforced.
At present we have advanced no farther in the question than
this: It appears that many persons on both sides of the Atlantic
have a wish, a feeling, a sentiment, a belief, a conviction,
that it is for the mutual benefit of the British Empire and the
United States that co-operation, interfusion, union, should be
permanently established between the two countries.
This is the first step in the movement. Discussion, argument,
controversy, properly precede acts. A spirit of scepticism, as
Buckle says,[4] certainly a spirit of inquiry, must arise
previous to actual steps being made in any great movement. But,
if the statements contained in this resolution are correct, it
is the duty of every citizen of England and the United States,
in fact, the duty of citizens of all countries, to commence the
agitation of the question; to bend their energies to its
solution, and to {60} aid in the quick and complete consummation
of co-operation. If the purpose of co-operation is to secure
"civilisation and peace" to the inhabitants of the world, it is
not merely the business of Englishmen and Americans to see that
it succeeds, but it is a matter in which all mankind is
interested. The question is not limited to those of the
English-speaking family; it is as broad as humanity itself.
No reason has been assigned why the consummation of this
important subject should be postponed or evaded. On the
contrary, existing conditions require that it should be pushed
to a solution. It has come to stay--to be solved. Great events
cannot be ripped, untimely, from the womb of history. They are
born at regular periods of political gestation, and when thus
ushered into the world, become ripe for discussion and action.
They cannot be smothered. They must be met and settled. Of
course, the professional politicians, especially those of the
United States, will not touch this great subject of "union."
They will await events. They will gauge its popularity. They
will study its effect and influence upon the Irish and German
vote. They will play with it until it becomes a burning,
absorbing, national topic, and when the wind of popular approval
blows that way, they will outrival each other in its advocacy.
The politicians are born for the hour. A learned, thoughtful,
and dispassionate advocacy of any public question, by a
professional politician, would be a _rara avis_ in national
life. The inherent strength, reason, and justice of great public
questions, are never considered {61} by these nimble
gentlemen--in fact, perhaps they never were. The business of
politics involves only the present. The motto of the politicians
is "Policy," "Expediency"; not "Truth," "Reason," and
"Stability." In the primitive stages of this discussion,
therefore, it is left in the hands of the independent,
non-partisan thinkers. This class must mould it into tangible,
practical shape, before it can be brought into the realm of
ordinary politics.
III.--DEFINITION OF CO-OPERATION, ALLIANCE, UNION, OR COMPACT
Our first aim, therefore, is to discover what kind of
co-operation should be established between the two nations. And
this may be accomplished by stating what is _not_ meant to be
included in the term.
I take it that the sincere advocates of co-operation, union,
interfusion, do not mean, by these or kindred terms, an
"offensive and defensive" treaty, or alliance, between the
United States and the British Empire, for the mere temporary
purpose of commercial or material aggrandisement, or conquest,
or for military or naval aggression, or defence. If that be the
scope and limit of this movement, it might as well be dropped,
as utterly and wholly impracticable. In fact, an offensive and
defensive treaty, in its common acceptation, has already been
discarded by the advocates of union. The great end and purpose
of the resolution, to "secure civilisation and peace," cannot be
attained {62} by such means. To ascertain the source from which
co-operation and interfusion between the English-speaking people
arises, to distinguish Anglo-Saxon union from other forms of
international alliance, it seems a necessary prelude to the
discussion of the subject to recall the primary ends of
government. In whatever form it exists, its ends may all be
summed up in the idea of benefit, or advantage. It is so in the
most arbitrary despotism that ever existed among men; it is so
in the most enlightened free system; the difference being that
through progressive development in the several succeeding
conditions of society, the free government confers greater
benefit and advantage. We need not now consider the former; we
have to do with the latter only. As it is, in the modern sense,
its _raison d'etre_ is the harmonious blending of all classes of
society; the preservation of the essential interests, wisely
understood, of the people; the preservation of an open field for
the exercise of every virtue and every talent, and, subject to
these, the performance of every duty enjoined by good
neighbourhood, and the encouragement of every tendency and
impulse which points to the amelioration of mankind, at home or
abroad. Such is the idea of a commonwealth, constructed on true,
liberal principles, and sanctified by Christianity.
As an individual is endowed with intellectual, moral, and
physical functions for the purpose of ennobling his own
existence, benefiting his fellow-men, and reaching by these
means a higher plane of moral and religious life, so government,
{63} as we now understand it, is organised to place it within
the power of men to enjoy to their fullest extent, religious,
civil, and political liberty; or, to express it in another way,
to give an individual those rights, privileges, and liberties
which the true and purest thoughts of the past ages have
determined as the best rule for his real happiness.
The peculiar and striking characteristic, or virtue, of the
Anglo-Saxon people is, that they understand the objects for
which governments are instituted more directly, and apply them
more successfully and broadly than other peoples. They keep more
closely in view the origin and aim of political society in its
relation to individuals, and to other nations--to the world at
large. Montesquieu frankly made this admission in 1748, when he
said: "They know better than any other people upon earth how to
value at the same time those three great advantages, _religion,
commerce,_ and _liberty._"[5] And Mommsen made the same
admission when, with evident reference to the English race, he
said, it knows how to combine "a love of freedom with a
veneration for authority."
And Mr. Webster uttered the same thought:
"I find at work everywhere, on both sides of the Atlantic, under
various forms and degrees of restrictions on the one hand, and
under various degrees of motive and stimulus, on the other hand,
in these branches of a common race, the great principle _of the
freedom of human thought, and the respectability of individual
character_. I find, everywhere, an elevation of the character of
man as man, an elevation of the individual as a component part
of society. I find everywhere a rebuke {64} of the idea, that
the many are made for the few, or that government is anything
but an _agency_ of mankind. And I do not care beneath what zone,
frozen, temperate, or torrid; I care not what complexion, white
or brown; I care not under what circumstances of climate or
cultivation, if I can find a race of men on an inhabitable spot
of Earth whose general sentiment it is, and whose general
feeling it is, that government is made for man--man as a
religious, moral, and social being--and not man for
government--there I know, I shall find prosperity and
happiness."[6]
In the foregoing we have the motive and justification for a
combination of the Anglo-Saxon people.
The words "to advance civilisation" have been very frequently
used in the discussion of this topic as a motive for alliance or
relationship. This word "civilisation" is an easy word to invoke
to cover false policies, and is often flippantly applied without
a real idea of its scope. It is important therefore, to have a
clear understanding of its meaning. It means, primarily, _to
reclaim from a savage or semibarbarous state_. This, then,
presents the first step in the efforts of a nation--I may say
its first duty--to those within and without the fold of its
sovereignty--to reclaim mankind from a barbarous and savage
state. The conquests of savage tribes and nations have been many
times justified upon this broad principle; such historical
events as the conquest of America and of British India can
perhaps only be supported on these grounds. The {65} attainment
and diffusion of civilisation is not accomplished without much
suffering and loss, but this is as natural as the growth of a
plant from the seed. Pain and suffering are the inevitable
concomitants of birth and growth. Man is ushered into the world
through the travail of his mother, and the birth of civilisation
is not excepted from the rule which applies to particular
individuals.
To _introduce order and civic organisation_ among those
reclaimed from a savage or barbarous state is the secondary
meaning of the term "civilise." Order is a necessary element in
the formation and development of society. To understand and
apportion among men their respective positions in society; to
define all the rights and duties of individuals and put them in
their proper places, is the great aim of government; and as
order is "Heaven's first law," so it is the corner-stone of
human association. As nothing is more pleasing and striking to
the human eye than a well-regulated and orderly household,
everything in its place, clean, refined, and harmonious, so
nothing is so necessary to a good government as simple, proper,
well-defined, orderly rules of conduct for its citizens. A
nation which invades and conquers a savage tribe, or uncivilised
nation, and in place of the chaos, confusion, and at times
unspeakable cruelties which there prevail, introduces order,
civic government, and humanity, is creditably fulfilling its
ambition and national purposes.
In the noble words of Cicero "nothing earthly is more acceptable
to that first and omnipotent {66} God who rules the universe,
than those Councils and assemblages of men (duly ordered) which
are called States."
But following the reign of law, the profound significance of
which I will not now pause to dwell on, there is a third meaning
attached to "civilise": it means to _refine_ and _enlighten;
elevation in social_ and _individual_ life. In the second and
third meanings of this term, we have the guarantees of liberty,
justice, equality, fraternity. After the first step, therefore,
of conquest, reclaiming people from a semi-barbarous or savage
state, there comes the second state of civilisation,--order and
civic government,--followed by the third degree,--refinement and
enlightenment, elevation in social and individual life. These
different stages of national growth are all illustrated in the
progress of civilisation.
Now, the history of the English-speaking race shows a constant
advance from a semi-barbarous state to a high degree of
civilisation. It has never gone backwards in its march from one
degree of civilisation to another. At times, it is true, it has
been diverted; at other times, generally from the pressure of
external causes, it has apparently paused, and it has seemed as
if its mission were at an end; but it soon resumed the forward
movement, until to-day it leads the van of civilisation; _i.e._,
barbarism has disappeared to give way to order and civic
government, and refinement and enlightenment pervade, create,
and elevate social and individual life. One can trace the
progress of the English nation as plainly as the {67} growth and
development of a human being; from weak, puerile infancy into
strong and sturdy manhood; suffering all the diseases that flesh
is heir to, but eventually overcoming them, and advancing with
renewed vigour and health in the march of its destiny.
I mean no offence to other nations--all modern European
governments have shared in a general way in the same movement;
all may have their specific excellences, but we know our own
best, and are justified in thinking that it is more indigenous,
better built and better founded, follows surer methods, and is
more conspicuously entitled to gain the applause and fulfil the
expectations of mankind.
I therefore lay it down as a basis of an alliance, or union,
that the British. Empire and the United States mean, in all
sincerity and good faith, when they establish co-operation, to
work for civilisation and peace; to move harmoniously and
sympathetically together for the accomplishment of this great
object--namely, the benefit of mankind. This, then, is the
central, true, deep, absorbing purpose of their alliance, an
interfusion of ideas, principles, sympathies and thoughts of the
people of both countries; acting, working together, and
co-operating to accomplish a common purpose, mission, and end.
We must mingle together in thought, and in sentiment; we must be
allies in the noblest sense of the word; not friends merely in
aggressive and selfish enterprises, but locked together in a
common thought and common purpose to achieve the {68} great and
glorious object of civilisation. And let this purpose be
broadly, clearly, and comprehensively stated, in some
declaration, _in some writing, perpetuating the compact of
union--let us write a second Magna Charta, or a second
Declaration of Independence; commemorate our joint purpose in
some imperishable instrument, upon which may be written
declarations so clear and convincing that the world can never
mistake our purposes or misconstrue our motives_.
[1] Second Discours en Sorbonne in _Œuvres de Turgot_, vol. ii.,
p. 52. Quoted in Buckle's _History of Civilisation in England_,
vol. i, p. 597.
[2] See article of Professor Dicey, _The Contemporary Review
Advertiser_, April, 1897, p. 212, recommending the establishment
of a common citizenship.
[3] The Chairman of this League was the Rt. Hon. Jas. Bryce,
M.P.; the Hon. Treasurer, Duke of Sutherland; the Hon.
Secretaries, T. Lee Roberts, Esq., R. C. Maxwell, Esq. LL.D.,
Sir Fred. Pollock, Bart.
[4] Vol. ii., _History of Civilisation_, etc., p. 1, note.
[5] _Spirit of Laws_, vol. ii., p. 6.
[6] From speech delivered on the 22nd of December, 1843, at New
England Society of New York, on the Landing of Pilgrims at
Plymouth, Webster's _Works_, vol. ii., p. 214.
{69}
CHAPTER III
THE HISTORICAL FACTS TRACED WHICH HAVE BEEN GRADUALLY LEADING TO
INTERFUSION BETWEEN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLE
ARE we the chosen race of Israel? Are we the peoples of the
earth, elected to lead the van of civilisation and peace?
Let our competency and integrity of purpose be judged by our
present lives, by our civilisation and government, and by our
past history. When we discuss the ability, competency, and
fitness of an individual for a public or private trust, we begin
by examining into his character, his mental and intellectual
acquirements, his business capacity; his experience, his past
life and conduct. We gauge and weigh every element of his moral
and intellectual nature, and our judgment is formed by the
results, good or bad, which flow from the examination.
Now, a state or government has a character precisely like an
individual. To analyse it, understand and appreciate it, we must
search the records of history; we must examine and weigh {70}
every important epoch of its national life to determine its
fitness, its trustworthiness, and its ability to be charged with
the great mission of civilisation and peace. We must sum up its
influence upon its own people, as well as consider the effect of
its national life and character upon other nations.
Before I proceed, then, to examine into the motives and reasons
which operate on the English and American nations to justify a
union, it is well to inquire into their national character. In
the light of history, how do the Anglo-Saxon people stand?
Guided by such, how should the outside world estimate us? Is the
compact we are contemplating a false or unholy one? Is it for
the present and future interest of the English-speaking people
to make it? Will this union militate against the interests of
the other nations of the world?
I do not propose to attempt to recall the history of
England--not even in the briefest form. I will simply bring to
notice certain salient epochs, which I will use as monuments to
mark the progress of the Anglo-Saxon race, as it journeyed from
its primitive, formative condition to a state of enlightenment.
I do not stop to dwell upon intermediate history, or attempt to
explain, palliate, or justify acts which of themselves may seem
to deviate from the general character of the people. Such acts,
indeed, were part of the conditions of their growth. I take my
readers to a high vantage-ground, and point out to them the long
pilgrimage of the nation from its untutored infancy to the
shrine of its full manhood. And I shall hereafter {71} consider
the subtle, all-pervading influences which their institutions,
laws, language, and literature have had upon the formation of
national and individual character.
I.--THE DIFFERENT EPOCHS WHICH LED TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND
EXPANSION OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING RACE
_(a) The Introduction of Christianity into England_
The English race began its outward and more apparent national
life as a band of marauders, rovers, and pirates, by chasing, in
a large measure, the original Celtic inhabitants of Britain from
their soil, and taking possession of it. The exact motives which
induced them to make these excursions to that island, or the
circumstances which surrounded them, are lost in the darkness of
the past. Probably they were prompted by mere rapacity and the
gratification of the spirit of enterprise. The tribes which are
now distinctly marked, as the Engle, Saxon, and Jute, belonged
to the same Low German branch of the Teutonic family, and were,
as it is said by the historians, at the moment when history
discovers them, _being drawn together by the ties of a common
blood, common speech, common social and political institutions_.
There is perhaps no ground for believing that these three tribes
looked on themselves as one people, or that they adopted the
name of Englishmen when they first settled in England, but each
of them was destined to share in the conquest of that island,
and it was from the {72} _union of all of them, when its
conquest was complete, that the English people has sprung_.[1]
The real national life of the people, however, commenced in the
sixth century, when Gregory (597) sent the Roman abbot
Augustine, at the head of a band of monks, to preach the Gospel
to them; and, as among the Greeks, the religious tie thus
created, became the strongest tie.
The flood of new thoughts and new purposes which Christ had
opened to the Eastern world began, by this time, to permeate
Europe. The distinctive features of Christ's precepts and life,
considering Him as a pure teacher alone, were that He instructed
men how to make the best use of their mental, physical, and
spiritual faculties. Consequently, as individual character is
the real basis of human society, Christianity became a necessary
part of government. At first, it was a plant of slow growth in
English soil, but the seed, once sown, took firm hold, and
to-day, in England, North America, and in the colonies of the
British Empire, Christianity, avowedly or essentially, is
strongly and healthfully entwined in all its constitutions and
governments,--a strong principle of cohesion, yet yielding to
the people an unrestrained freedom of religious opinion and
worship of the most unqualified character.
Of course, I do not overlook the immense benefits of
Christianity common to all the nations among which it was
introduced; it made the great distinction between ancient and
modern civilization--between {73} ancient and modern life. But,
in England, it was so far peculiar, that its ready and peaceful
acceptance, and the purposes of political homogeneity to which
it was turned, indicate a distinct national characteristic. All
the subsequent religious history of the country, even after
diversities arose, bears evidence of the same general truth. In
the contests through which society sought its amelioration, we
can discover always that "intimate connection between personal
liberty and the rights of conscience and the development of
public liberty so peculiar to the English race."[2]
I take the introduction of Christianity into England to be the
_first great step_ in her natural and national progress--the
first span in the bridge which led from barbarity to
civilisation. Its influence upon the people can be profitably
studied in the typical Englishman, King Alfred.[3]
Of Liberty, the poet Shelley sings with equal truth and beauty:
"And then the shadow of thy coming fell
On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow."
We have recently celebrated the millennium of this illustrious
ruler. It should be made an occasion for the advancement of the
purposes I am {74} here opening. These purposes would have been
Alfred's.
_(b) The Consolidation of the Different Kingdoms of England into
One_
Although from the time of the landing of the Jutes, Saxons, and
Engles (449), their history is jejune and scanty, and the
occurrences of four centuries have been condensed by an
accomplished historian[4] into a few pages of history, yet
sufficient appears to show that the several governments
established by them in England were engaged in many bloody and
bitter intestine contests, and that the consolidation of the
people was first effected by Egbert (about 827). This union
lasted only five years, and we are told that it was brought
about, "for the moment, by the sword of Egbert." It was a union
of sheer force, which broke down at the first blow of the sea
robbers--the Northmen--who, about this time, invaded England.
But the very chance which destroyed the new England was destined
to bring it back again, and to breathe into it a life which made
its union real. _"The peoples who had so long looked on each
other as enemies found themselves confronted by a common foe.
They were thrown together by a common danger, and the need of a
common defence. Their common faith grew into a national bond, as
religion struggled, hand in hand, with England itself; against
the heathen of the North._"[5] They recognised a common king, as
a common struggle {75} changed Alfred and his sons from mere
leaders of West Saxons into leaders of all Englishmen in their
fight with the stranger, and when the work which Alfred set his
house to do was done; when the yoke of the Northmen was lifted
from the last of his conquests, Engle, Saxon, Northumbrian, and
Mercian, spent with the battle for a common freedom and a common
country, knew themselves, in the hour of their deliverance, as
an English people.[6]
The work of Alfred was to save the Saxon name and
existence--that he accomplished. His conquest, on the other
hand, was never complete. His wars ended in compromise, the
Danes retaining large settlements in the North and East of
England. Subsequently, their invasions were renewed. In Canute's
reign, they were the prevailing people. In all these
life-and-death struggles, there is nothing that detracts. The
Danes should be considered as a cognate people, alternating with
the Saxons, and finally blending with them; quite as often
defenders of the soil as invaders, and contributing largely to
the formation of the national character. In the struggle against
the Norman king, they were the last to succumb.
The union which each several tribe within the nation had in turn
failed to bring about was realised from the pressure of the
Northmen. It seems that at the close of the eighth century, the
drift of the English people towards national unity was utterly
arrested. The work of Northumbria had {76} been foiled by the
resistance of Mercia; the effort of Mercia had broken down
before the resistance of Wessex; and a threefold division had
stamped itself upon the land. So completely was the balance of
power between the three realms which parted it, that no
subjection of one to the other seemed likely to fuse the English
tribes into an English people; yet the consolidation of the
several kingdoms of England into one was eventually reached.[7]
It was the _second step_ in its national progress.
What brought it about? Mark this well. The instinct of
self-preservation, of which the ambition, more or less
enlightened, of the several petty kings, was the instrument; the
external force in the ravages of the Northmen; the marriages and
alliances between the tribes; in fine, all of the same causes
which to-day are operating with greater force towards the
unification of the English-speaking peoples.
Compare England in this connection with the Grecian cities. The
unhappy destiny of the latter was complete before they realised
the benefit of consolidation, and when it was at last advocated,
and in some small degree adopted, it was too late. We read of
the Ætolian League and the Achaian League, but only as studies
to the political thinker of an idea to which there was always
wanting the power of fulfilment. Where lies the difference? Not
in intellect, surely, for no race has ever surpassed the Greek
in intellect. In what then? Simply, as I understand, in
_character_--in that especial endowment by which the Anglo-Saxon
{77} race so moulds itself, in its civic and social relations,
as to attain the highest purposes of political wisdom,
moderation, the subordination of self, the rejection of false or
impossible ideals, together with a kind of innate perception of
the value of time and occasion, in combination with persistency,
stability, and courage--these are the qualities which have made
its institutions at once models for the rest of the world, and
the subjects of its envy. The fatal disease of small political
entities ran through all the Grecian states, and they were
doomed. Consolidation, with the Greeks, was never more than a
faintly formed idea; with the English, like all other political
conceptions, it soon became a fact.
_(c) The Influence of the Roman Law upon England's Progress_
A civilising influence of the highest importance was the
absorption of the Roman law into their legal, ecclesiastical,
and political systems. It is an epoch in the progress of the
English, which, although impossible to say at what precise
period its influence was the greatest upon their people, I call
the _third_ span in the bridge from an immature to a civilised
state.
It is certain that the Romans had establishments in England from
the time of Claudius (A.D. 43) until the year A.D. 448. During
the greater part of these four centuries they governed it as a
Roman province in the enjoyment of peace and the cultivation of
arts. The Roman laws were {78} administered as the laws of that
country, and at one time under the prefecture of their
distinguished ornament, Papinian.[8]
To estimate its influence upon the progress and development of
England, one must be prepared to accept the now generally
recognised opinion, that the Roman Law permeated every branch of
jurisprudence--property, procedure, criminal law--all. It was
ubiquitous, and even the feudal system, whose origin was
attributed, by most of the common-law writers, to the time of
William the Conqueror, is shown to have existed long anterior to
that reign; and was, probably, the creation of the Romans.
The jurisprudence of Rome was, and has ever been, an unfailing
fountain, whence the English people have drawn copious draughts
of wisdom and knowledge.
I do not mean by these observations to detract from the common
law--crude as it may have been as a science--for, in all that
relates to the principles and protection of civil liberty, it
was infinitely in advance of the Roman Law.
As a political system, the Roman Law was framed to be the
instrument of the despotism, under which it was perfected. As in
everything else, the English Law reflected the political genius
of the people. They extracted and preserved the good, and
rejected the evils, of the Roman system, the absorption of which
exhibits keen power of assimilation.
{79}
_(d) The Great Charters; The Petition of Right; The Habeas
Corpus Act, Passed under Charles, The Bill of Rights in 1688,
and The Act of Settlement_
The Great Charter of King John contained very few new grants,
but, as Sir Edward Coke observes, was mainly _declaratory of the
fundamental laws of England_.
But from his reign (1199) until the end of the reign of William
III. (1700), a period of almost exactly five hundred years, the
English nation was engaged in enlarging, deepening, and
strengthening the forms of a constitutional monarchy. Thus, the
Great Charter was confirmed in Parliament by Henry III., the son
of John. In the next reign of Edward I., by statute called
_confirmatio cartarum_, the Great Charter was directed to be
allowed as the common law. And by a multitude of statutes
between the last-named reign and that of Henry IV., its
principles were again declared and corroborated. Hume enumerates
these statutes as being thirty in all.
Then, after a long interval, and much backward and forward
movement, thrillingly interesting to the student, came the
parliamentary declaration of the liberties of the people,
assented to by Charles I., in the beginning of his reign, and
celebrated as the Petition of Right. Subsequently, the Habeas
Corpus Act was passed in the reign of Charles II. To the above
succeeded the Bill of Rights, delivered by the Lords and Commons
to the Prince and Princess of Orange in 1688. Lastly, the {80}
liberties of the people were again asserted at the commencement
of the eighteenth century in the Act of Settlement, whereby some
new provisions were added for the better securing of religion,
laws, and liberties, which the Statute declares to be "the
birthright of the people of England," according to the ancient
doctrine of the common law.[9]
I take this great struggle for laws and liberty as marking
another distinct and remarkable epoch in the history of
England--the _fourth_ span in the bridge of her growth and
development.
I am travelling rapidly through the ages of English history; but
not going so fast as not to be able to see that the nation and
her people are constantly progressing.
_(e) The Union with Scotland_
The _fifth_ great epoch in the History of England, is the union
with Scotland; by which the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, on
the 1st day of May, 1707, became united as one under the name of
Great Britain. The Act which created this union did not
constitute between the two nations a _federal alliance_, but an
"incorporated union," the effect of which was that the two
contracting states, in their dual condition relatively to each
other were totally annihilated, and they became, thereafter, one
political entity, without any power of revival.
It is not essential to trace the history, anterior and
subsequent, which bears upon this great event; {81} yet we may
profitably reflect, that, arising out of centuries of hostility
and mutual injury, here also were the most inveterate prejudices
to be overcome, upon the one hand; on the other, partial
similarity of race, language, and institutions, and, in the view
of statesmen, the most _enormous advantages_. Under wise and
skilful management, the latter were at last made to prevail. It
is, however, notorious, such was the perverse opposition,
particularly in Scotland, the nation most to be benefited, that
notwithstanding the preparation for the event by a long train of
antecedent causes, had the measure been referred to a
plebiscitum, it could not have been carried. Can we now do other
than smile at such wilful blindness, such well-intentioned
folly? It is a most interesting page in history, and in the
present connection it carries with it the force of an authority.
_(f) Discovery of America_
I now turn to another epoch closely connected with the progress
of the English-American people.
In the fifteen centuries which followed the birth of Christ,
many important and profoundly serious historical events are
chronicled, but the sublimest fact of them all, after the
introduction of Christianity, is the discovery of America. The
intelligence, ambition, courage, influence, and progress of the
English race are nowhere more strongly illustrated than in the
events which follow this portentous event: it constitutes the
_sixth_ great epoch in the history of the English-speaking
people. {82} Originally controlled by the Spanish and French,
this great North American Continent, little by little, but by
sure and regular steps, at length came completely under the
domination of the Anglo-Saxon race. I do not dwell upon this
epoch as a mere spectacle of military and material conquest. I
point to the great results which have flowed from it. Every acre
of ground they acquired, either by conquest or purchase, they
have retained, planting in its soil deep and indestructibly the
seeds of their policy, religion, and government. No revolution,
no time, no partial infusion of other races, has been able to
eradicate the English-American principles from the ground in
which they were originally sown.
There is a marked and impressive similarity between the conquest
of Britain by the Engles, Saxons, and Jutes, subsequently
consolidated into England, and the conquest or absorption of the
North American Continent by the English-American people. The
original Britons, as such, have almost entirely disappeared. And
where are the aborigines of North America? A few bands of
Indians constitute the vestige of the race which peopled the
North American continent when the hand and power of the
Anglo-Saxon people were laid upon it. Pause and reflect upon
this conquest: how it was accomplished; the principles which
justified the invasion of the country, and the acquisition of
the territory of the Indians. It was not merely greed and
conquest that actuated the settlers. Granted that they were not
always above {83} the ordinary motives which actuate humanity,
still in the main, it was the spirit of discovery, the
inextinguishable thirst for enterprise, so marked a
characteristic of the race, which impelled them. And, as we so
well know, these qualities were often combined with the noblest
motives;--the desire of finding absolute freedom for their
religious opinions and worship, which the necessities of the
political situation at home denied them. Go back to the aim and
purpose of government for a justification of these acts,
preliminary to the introduction of order and civic government in
the midst of a savage and barbarous country. Behold the
introduction of English principles, laws, literature, into the
great North American continent. While with heartfelt sympathy we
deplore the sufferings and extinction of the earlier possessors
of the soil, do we not clearly see that it affords a conspicuous
instance of that Providence which shapes our ends, rough hew
them how we will?
_(g) The Independence of the Colonies_
The _seventh_ great epoch in the progress of the
English-speaking people, conceiving them as a whole in their
growth and expansion, is the separation of the colonies from the
mother country and the establishment of the Republic of the
United States. It constitutes one of the most important links in
the chain of circumstances which makes up the history of this
people. It is perhaps the greatest expansion of a kindred race
that history {84} has ever recorded. It has been accompanied by
such a fecundity of population; such marvellous personal and
aggregate wealth; such phenomenal development of individual and
national prosperity; such wonders of science, art, mechanical
invention, and commercial greatness; such enormous discoveries
of mineral treasures; such superabundance of agricultural
resources, as to amaze the very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet
it is said by some persons, because of the revolution of 1776,
that this phenomenal offspring of England, whose similarity of
speech, laws, literature, customs, complexion, manners, in fine,
of everything vital, is so striking, should shrink from a closer
union with her maternal ancestor; that overtures to push farther
their onward march towards civilisation and peace should be
treated either with indifference or positive scorn and contempt!
And this revolution of 1776, which was in reality but a further
expansion and propagation of the English race, and the
principles of English liberty, laws, and government, we
Americans are advised by a certain class to look upon as a
barrier to closer ties between kindred people! This argument is
so unnatural, so unchristianlike, so contrary to the laws of
human affection; so opposed to our mutual interest and progress;
so antagonistic to the good of mankind; so utterly unfounded in
reason and history, that I doubt whether it does not fall by its
own inherent weakness.
The Revolutionary War, in its outward form, commenced as a
struggle for the right of representation, {85} and was
afterwards extended to a demand for absolute liberty and
independence. But, inherently, it really was the struggle of
natural laws in aid of future growth. Although the immediate
contest grew out of what was, in effect, an infraction of
political rights and liberties, beyond all this were these
natural causes operating to produce separation. The peculiar
situation of the colonies, the immensity of their possessions,
their remoteness from the mother country, the enormous
difficulties of intercommunication, produced such isolation in
space, notwithstanding much love of the "old home" and pride of
ancestry, that an eventual parting between the two countries was
simply inevitable.
The War of 1776 was a family quarrel, and bitter, as all family
quarrels are. It had been brewing for at least ten years before
open war was resorted to, and the history of those ten years,
when closely studied, shows that natural conditions were
accelerating and encouraging the formal demands which the
colonies were to make of the mother country. There is no reason
to believe that if the demands had been adjusted, the union of
the countries would have been long preserved.
The truth is, that the son had arrived at full, mature age. The
maternal mansion was too small for his energy and ambition, and
could not accommodate his growing demands and wants. He threw
off his allegiance to the mother country, and set up for himself
in a separate establishment. It is doubtless true that the
maternal rule, by being, in {86} some particulars, narrow,
rigid, and unjust, accelerated the eventual demand for that
broader national life which was opening in the domains of the
new world, and I do not mean to deny that the arguments used by
the colonists to justify their separation were not sound. Weaker
reasons than those advanced, however, would, as circumstances
were, have amply justified the steps they took to establish
their independence. The inherent necessities were present, and
reasons were easily found to warrant extreme measures. On this
side of the Atlantic, in our historical treatment of the
subject, we have confined ourselves in the main to the immediate
causes and events of the unhappy quarrel, and it is a singular
evidence of the candour and conciliatory spirit of the English,
that their writers have, in most instances, accepted our version
of them, and even enhanced upon them; nay, have even glorified
in them as affording another example of the keen-sighted love of
liberty inherent in the race.[10] Nothing is more complete than
the national self-abnegation (if the expression may be allowed)
with which the subject is treated by English authors. Might not
we Americans at this time of day, in a spirit of equal fairness,
find some apology for our then antagonist? As thus: that the
struggle was conceived and precipitated by a handful of
infatuated politicians and a narrow-minded King; that the
pretext turned upon a point {87} of pure _legality_, such as has
always been found to have a tyrannous influence over minds so
constituted--a point, however, to which none of our warmest
defenders were able to find a legal answer; that at every stage
of the question it was contested by an opposition in Parliament
composed of men of exalted talent and purity of purpose, whose
speeches and writings on the subject are among the most precious
gifts of political eloquence and wisdom, and who were willing to
sacrifice their own political existence in proof of the
sincerity of their advocacy of our cause; that a similar
powerful opposition existed in the country, where the name of
Pitt was still a charm to conjure by; that if we had been
content to wait for a brief time, that opposition must have come
into power, and, as in the case of similar reactionary movements
in England herself, the broader doctrine must then have
prevailed, and every vestige of tyranny, and every cause of
disagreement, been swept away. We might ask ourselves whether,
being human, we were altogether impeccable! England under the
government of Chatham had valiantly come to our aid, and, after
a vast expenditure of blood and treasure, secured this continent
for her sons; and the subject of the partial reimbursement, in
behalf of which she taxed us, was the staggering debt incurred
in our defence. There was a measure of truth in this, and narrow
and inexpedient as was the attempt at coercion, in the eyes of
statesmen, it was just one of those errors into which ordinary
mortals are most apt to fall. {88} The quarrel once begun had,
of course, the usual tendency to aggravate itself by intemperate
speech and action. As to _antecedent conditions_, let comparison
be made between English, and French, and Spanish methods of
colonial government. In them Mr. Burke, our most ardent and
enlightened advocate, could find nothing to condemn. He commends
the wisdom of the general system and "the wise neglect" of
previous administrations. No one who has read the speech on
"Conciliation," can ever forget the magnificent tribute to the
rising greatness of the colonies, and to that "Liberty" which we
possessed, and which made that greatness. Even the Navigation
Laws, ugly blemish as they were, were strictly in accordance
with the economic ideas of the time, and as such were introduced
and accepted. Compare them, again, in their practical operation,
with those of France and Spain. Mr. Burke deplores them, but "as
our one customer was a very rich man" he remarks that, until a
very recent period, they had been scarcely felt as a
disadvantage. That seems really to have been so. Franklin, in
that inimitable examination before the Committee of the House of
Commons, admits as much, and says further, that, in his opinion,
those laws would not of themselves justify the resistance of the
colonies. Upon the whole subject, in a conversation with Burke,
Franklin confessed his fear that the condition of the colonies,
in the new order of things, would be less happy and prosperous
than in the old. It was about this time that the doctrines of
Adam Smith were beginning {89} to take root, and it is certain
that in less than half a generation the whole restrictive
system, as applied to the colonies, would, notwithstanding the
selfish opposition of the mercantile classes, have vanished like
a dream. As to the kinds of government bestowed on the colonies,
they were mostly of their own choosing, and in advance of the
times. Mr. Lecky remarks of them that "it cannot with justice be
said that they were not good in themselves, and upon the whole,
not well administered." Locke, the friend of all liberal
government, gave his genius and virtue to the elaboration of one
of them. Penn's model of government was in advance of his times
and in the forefront of ours, and it is believed that the
Calverts sought to embody the ideal perfections of Sir Thomas
Moore's Utopia in the Constitution of Maryland.
The truth is, that but for the natural causes impelling to
separation, the whole contention might, and should, have been
treated as a domestic one, in which, by virtue of the underlying
principles of the British Constitution, all that was wisest and
best would have triumphed, and there would have arisen out of
it, for both countries, an edifice stronger and more beautiful
than any which had gone before it. It was not to be. What
remains to us now is the fervent wish that all that was evil in
the controversy may for ever perish from the memories of men,
and in aid of that wish, the consideration that, as we were the
_victors_, to the _victors belongs magnanimity_, especially when
the _victory was over our own kith and kin._
{90}
And in this temper of mind we may reflect that the War of the
Revolution was to us, in certain vital aspects, unmistakably a
blessing--it brought Union and the Constitution. Every student
of our history knows how deeply seated were the diversities
between the States, and what slight causes might have inflamed
them into enduring antagonisms; how embarrassing such conditions
were to Washington and the statesmen of the period; how, as a
consequence, through what opposing forces the ideas afterwards
ripening into the Constitution made their way. The Union and the
Constitution, as we have them today, were, then, the direct
products of that struggle. Without its impelling influence, it
is more than doubtful whether they would have been realised at
all. I can recall no instance in history where such peculiar
results have been reached, and permanently maintained, where
opposing passions existed and have been left to their natural
operation. There has been some active countervailing
impulse--some determining motive. We had such a motive in that
war and reached the result, but even then only after "difficulty
and labour huge." More fortunate, or more virtuous than the
Grecian communities, after their heroic defence against Persia,
we found in our successful resistance the means of security
against internal dangers infinitely greater than any external
ones, and along with them the opportunities of our highest
achievements in the field of political wisdom.
In this capacity for turning to account a situation fraught with
immense danger, do we not recognize {91} that _our_ ancestors
were in accord with _their_ ancestors in similar situations? Do
we need to be again reminded of the _history_ of Magna Charta,
of Representation and the House of Commons, of the Petition of
Right, and of the English Constitutional System dating from
1688?
One other thought in this connection. The war which broke out in
1754 between France and England, was, in relation to us, a war
essentially for the control of North America, and England
unfalteringly sustained the colonists in that struggle. If
France had been successful in that war, and had established her
supremacy in the North American Continent, what would have been
the fate of Americans? How long would have been deferred the
establishment, by them, of a separate republican government?
Would it ever have been established in its present form? The
narrow escape the colonists had from the domination of French
power can now be clearly seen by those who read the history of
that time. The French driven out, there was nothing to
counterbalance the drift towards independence.
I am sure that there are few, if any, Englishmen who, however
much they may deplore the animosities which have been evoked out
of that episode in our common history, would now wish to undo
the results of the American Revolution. France looks with
envious and covetous eyes upon her ancient provinces, Alsace and
Lorraine, wrenched from her by a foreign power, but England
regards with pride the development, accomplishments, and wealth
{92} of her offspring, and, with genuine regret for the past,
turns yearningly towards it.
In thus restoring the subject to its historical integrity, so
far from weakening, we strengthen our side of the question. Why
should we sacrifice any fraction of the truth when we have so
little need to do so? Nakedly, under the circumstances, and free
from all legal and metaphysical abstractions for or against, it
was plain that the claims of the English Parliament did,
practically, involve consequences that we might well regard as
fatal to liberty, and, constitutional remedies failing, as
justifying an appeal to arms. The conviction of our ancestors
that nothing less than this was at stake rightly superseded all
other considerations, and was as profound and sincere as similar
convictions for similar principles, recorded in the annals of
the race. The more clearly we obtain a view of the subject in
its simplicity, the less will we be disposed to conceal,
exaggerate, or distort its contemporary aspects, either of facts
or morals. "It was against the recital of an Act of Parliament,
rather than against any suffering under its enactments, that
they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble."[11]
And yet we are likely to be told that one of the barriers
against any present alliance between the two nations grows out
of this Revolutionary War. If that event constitutes no
impediment to England, why should it cause embarrassment to the
United States? England was defeated and the colonists {93}
established their government. Is this event, now shown to be a
natural step in the expansion and development of the
English-speaking people, to be used as an argument against their
further progress? If so, why? The English nation does not put
forth such a claim. Why should we Americans allow a spirit of
hatred or prejudice to grow out of our own triumphs? In a sense
England fought for union with us, and if the war of 1776
furnishes any ground against the present establishment of a
union of feeling and interest between ourselves and her, how
much more forcible would be the argument when applied to the
present and future relations of the North and South? The results
of that fratricidal struggle, by which the latter people sought
to separate from the Union, have been fully acquiesced in. The
animosities and prejudices which were engendered by it have
disappeared, and the relations of the people of the North and
South are solidified by new feelings of deep and sincere
friendship, union, interest, and patriotism. The results of that
struggle, unhappy, dreadful as it was, have proved to be of
profound moral and material benefit to the people of both
sections. The results of the Revolution of 1776 have been of
like great advantage to both England and the United States.
History is full of civil wars, of family quarrels among kindred
peoples, in which the result has been, not separation of the
parts of the community, but their better integration. Look at
England herself; all her internal dissensions grew out of the
same {94} principle, which, when established, left the people
more firmly united, and on a higher plane than before. Indeed,
as all national systems are based upon an association of
families, it would be impossible to form any political society
if past wars and animosities between them were not forgotten;
and the same principle applies to communities homogeneously
related, although technically separated. Look again at England
and Scotland before and after the union!
The motive and reason for the unification of the
English-speaking people is manifest, and certainly nothing is
more unsound, nothing is more vain, than to search in the
closets of history to find skeletons of past quarrels, battles,
hatreds, and conquests, to frighten them away from their true
duty and interests.
Examine the history of England before the time when the separate
kingdoms into which she was divided were consolidated, and what
do we find? Constant and bloody wars between them! And yet, the
instant a union was established, and these different people
became one, how quickly the old spirit of prejudice and hatred
was buried in the grave of the past, and how joyously the people
entered upon a new era of progress and national success! Assume
that King George and the English Ministry bitterly tried to
prevent our independence; take it for granted that England
compelled us to go to war with her in 1812; admit that a portion
of her people sympathised with (and gave substantial support to)
the South in the {95} Rebellion of 1861. What then? Does it
follow that these events, buried in the vaults of the past,
should be brought out as arguments against the accomplishment of
acts clearly for our present interest, conducive, if not
necessary, to our future security and peace? The individuals who
composed the British Empire when all the above facts transpired,
are no more, and the causes which then operated upon them have
also long since disappeared. A learned historian has said: "The
God of History does not visit the sins of the fathers upon the
children."[12] Shall men be less liberal--less forgiving? Why
should we then reject the proffered and sincere friendship of
our own kindred? Is it only among nations, and such nations,
that "no place is left for repentance, none for pardon"?
England to-day, in respect to the individuals who compose it, is
not the England of yesterday. She recognises the independence of
the United States as the work of her own offspring; that which
she once sought to prevent she now hails as a blessing. The past
is buried; a new era is ushered in; new light illumines our
purposes, motives, and acts. Through the instrumentality of a
closer and quicker communication, we have become better
acquainted, our mutual wants and necessities are better
understood, the relations of each nation to the other are more
clearly defined, and out of all these conditions we can plainly
foresee that we have a common purpose and destiny to
fulfil--which can only be {96} accomplished by a genuine fusion
of the whole people.
Let the words of a poet, which have become a household
possession of the English race, be applied in letter and spirit
to the situation.
"I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widening with the process of
the Suns.[13]
These truths are happy "prologues to the swelling act of the
imperial theme." The sublimest is now before us. The unification
of the English-American people in the glorious mission of
civilisation and peace is the next great preordained step in
their national life. Diplomacy might have laboured in vain to
create it; but neither prejudice nor demagogism can now thwart
or prevent it. Who will stand forth to challenge or prohibit the
banns of such a national matrimony? Let him show cause in the
Court of Civilisation why the doctrines of religion, liberty,
humanity, and peace should not control the result.
II.--RÉSUMÉ OF THE FOREGOING
I pause a moment to look back upon the ground I have covered--to
sum up conclusions. I have endeavoured briefly to point out in
the preceding observations the great historical landmarks which
have been made by the English-speaking people in their march
towards the twentieth century; I have shown the _seven_ spans
which make up the bridge from their infancy to manhood.
{97}
We find them starting life at first as rovers and pirates,
crude, unlettered, barbarous; great sailors; great soldiers;
indefatigable, full of courage, adventure, and hope. They
established separate governments in England, the Jutes here, the
Angles there, and the Saxons everywhere. They absorbed into
their own free system of common law all the abstract principles
and the forms of procedure of the Roman law, which system had
had a growth of several centuries in England before the Romans
evacuated the island. We behold these tribes adopting
Christianity. Then comes union between the kingdoms, with all
the benefits which the consolidation of discordant and warring
states produces; the growth of commercial power; the
encouragement and development of their internal interests; the
entry of the people into enlightened national life; the creation
of England itself. Then follow centuries in which the nation at
times seemed to go backwards, at other times to stand still, or,
again, at others, to leap forward, with, on the whole, a steady
social advance, until the consummation of the union between
England and Scotland, so long retarded. From that period we
behold the people making steady and sure progress in their
national life. But long before this last-named event, England
had started in the great work of colonisation, in spreading her
people over the earth, with the consequent advancement of her
commercial interests, and the dissemination of her laws,
institutions, language, habits of religious thought, and
manners. America was discovered, and she soon {98} claimed and
held a commanding position on the American Continent, from which
she and her children were never to be dislodged. Then followed
the Revolutionary War, and the subsequent establishment of the
American Republic--that marvellous political progeny of England.
A separate government was created, with English laws,
institutions, language, literature--everything.
What is more instructive than the review of the progress of this
great race of which I have sketched the outlines, but of which,
as I have said, the details are innumerable? Are the
Anglo-Saxons to be trusted? Are they worthy of belief when they
assert that their purpose in fusion is to secure the
establishment of civilisation, and the maintenance of all the
best interests of mankind? Are they the proper custodians of
liberty and happiness, of "peace and good will"? Do not judge
them by any single, isolated fact in their history, but,
adapting your views to a philosophical consideration of the
subject as a whole, ask yourself, upon your moral
responsibility, what other or better guarantee for the
attainment of the ends proposed is afforded you than the history
of their race.
[1] Green's _History of the English People_, vol. i., pp. 7-8.
[2] See Article on "William Penn," by Theodore McFadden, in the
_Magazine of the Pennsylvania Historical Society_, for December,
1883.
[3] "England felt the full heat of the Christianity which
permeated Europe and drew, like the chemistry of fire, a firm
line between barbarism and culture. The power of the religious
sentiment put an end to human sacrifices, checked appetite,
inspired the crusades, inspired resistance to tyrants, inspired
self-respect, founded liberty, created the religious
architecture, inspired the English Bible."--Emerson's _English
Traits_, p. 164.
[4] Green's _History of the English People_, vol. i., p. 89.
[5] _Ibid._, p. 90.
[6] Green's _History of the English People_, vol. i., p. 90.
[7] Green's _History of the English People_, vol. i., p. 90.
[8] Reeves, _History of the English Law_, Finlason, vol. i., p.
161.
[9] Blackstone's _Com._, vol. i., p. 128 _et seq._
[10] A recent instance is Sir George Otto Trevelyan's _American
Revolution_. Still later, however, is the work of Edmund Smith,
_England and America after Independence_, a strong and bold
defence of English policy after the separation.
[11] See Mr. Webster's speech on the Presidential Protest,
_Works_, vol. iv., p. 109.
[12] Mommsen.
[13] Tennyson--Locksley Hall.
{99}
CHAPTER IV
THE INHERENT NATURAL REASONS OR SYMPATHETIC CAUSES WHICH SUSTAIN
A UNION, AND WHICH SUPPORT THE HISTORICAL GROWTH AND TENDENCY TO
THE SAME END EXAMINED
I RECUR again to the resolution of the Anglo-American League:
"_Considering that the people of the British Empire and of the
United States of America are closely allied in blood, inherit
the same literature and laws, hold the same principles of
self-government, recognise the same ideals of freedom and
humanity in the guidance of their national policy, and are drawn
together by strong common interests in many parts of the world_,
this meeting is of the opinion that every effort should be made
in the interest of civilisation and peace to secure the most
cordial and constant co-operation between the two nations."
An inquiry into the practicability of forming a more perfect
union between the English-speaking people involves the
consideration, first, of their _internal_ relations; and,
second, their _external_ relations to the other nations of the
world.
What are the motives, influences, and causes which operate to
induce the English-speaking {100} nations and colonies to form a
closer union than that which now exists between them?
Of what real advantage is interfusion-brotherhood--union?
I shall endeavour to take up the subjects in their natural
order:
I.--UNION NATURAL AS TO TIME AND PEOPLE
In the first place, then, the union is a _natural_ one, both as
to the time of its taking effect, and as to the people embraced
in it.
In respect to the _time_: the question of a union has not been
forced upon the race or dragged into public light at an unseemly
period by the artificial influences of diplomacy or official
negotiation. It has come before the people in a perfectly
natural way--unexpectedly, and unaccompanied by any strained or
superficial influence. It is the inevitable result of primary
and natural causes, which have been ripening and developing,
noiselessly and slowly, to this end. In a word, it is an
evolution.
Passing from the question of time, the union of the Anglo-Saxon
people is a _natural_ one. It is an alliance of nations of one
"clime, complexion, and degree,
Whereto we see in all things nature tends."
It is not a union between nations speaking different languages,
possessing different characteristics, laws, sympathies, or
religious, moral, or political institutions. It is not a union
between the English and {101} Chinese, or the American and
Japanese. It is not discordant, grating upon the senses or
feelings--unnatural. Nor is it an alliance for temporary
purposes and gains, or for purely selfish motives or interests,
or for offence or defence. Neither, on the other hand, is it a
union of mere sentiment, a dangerous quality except when under
the control of reason both in nations and individuals. It is a
union which has become necessary in order to fulfil the destiny
of the race--it is as natural as marriage between man and woman.
It consummates the purposes of the creation of the race.
II.--OF THE SAME NATIONAL FAMILY
What are the different elements which constitute, or make up a
natural alliance?
We belong to the same _national family_.
It is true that we do not live in the same land, but are more or
less scattered over the world.
It is also true that we do not exist under the same form of
political government. We are, nevertheless, one family,
descended from the same stock, and attached to each other by the
inseparable chain of political, religious, and moral sympathies.
We are inspired by the same conceptions of truth, justice, and
right. We are living separately, as families live apart who are
too great, or too numerous, to exist under the same roof; or who
have separated to extend or enlarge their wealth, influence, and
power; and we have scattered ourselves over the face of the
globe, faithfully carrying {102} with us all the original ideas
and sentiments which we imbibed from the mother bosom.
I give first place to this element of family nationality when
inquiring into the natural conditions which impel a union
between the English-speaking people. England is the mother
country; the United States, Canada, Australia, and the other
colonies are her legitimate offspring. We are direct descendants
of England. We, citizens of the United States, are her greatest
and most direct offspring. When we separated from her, we took
her language, her laws, her morals, her religion, her
literature, with us; in fact, we left nothing of value behind
us. In a word, we are so strongly marked with her lineaments,
that it is impossible, if we wished, to deny her maternity. No
matter whom our remote ancestors were previous thereto, it is
certain that since the time of Alfred, we have a direct and
uncontrovertible lineage. Our national pedigree from that epoch
can be clearly, even vividly traced. But however interesting in
other connections, I see no good or profit to be derived from
entering into ethnological or philological discussions as to who
constituted our direct or remote ancestors, or to spend time in
tracing the origin and course of our language. Neither is it
worth while to advert to the contention, that there can be no
English-American alliance while we have among us so large an
infusion of a nondescript foreign element. The same reasoning
could have been equally applied to the union between England and
Scotland. Such blending gives force to {103} the contention in
favour of the mission of the dominant stock race, abroad and at
home. The reasons for an alliance do not rest upon a correct or
technical decision of these points. It is an undeniable fact,
that previous to the reign of William the Conqueror, and for a
limited time thereafter, the English nation was composed of
heterogeneous elements, and that a great admixture of foreign
blood was injected into the veins of her people. In truth, the
vigour, character, and virtue of the English nation is largely
attributable to the influences which this admixture of outside
and alien blood has had upon it. To-day she opens her doors to
foreign immigration with fewer restrictions than we do. The
nations which have erected a barrier against the outside world,
refusing to mix or mingle with strangers and foreigners, have
sunk into final decay or ruin. Admixture of blood, within due
limits, is an indispensable element to a strong, lasting,
vigorous, national life. It is, besides, one of the duties
imposed upon the highest civilisation, and necessary to its
diffusion.
"The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture,
the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune
and hastened the ruin of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius
of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition and deemed it more prudent
as well as honourable to adopt virtue and merit for her own,
wheresoever they were found, among slaves or strangers, enemies
or barbarians."[1]
In respect to the United States of America, it has been well and
often said that her population is {104} largely made up of
foreign elements, and that she is in this respect the most
heterogeneous of all nations. The remarkable fact, however, is
that this foreign element disappears, almost like magic, in the
bosom of American nationality, and assimilates itself almost
immediately with the laws, habits, manners, and conditions of
the country. The foreigners who have immigrated to this country,
and embraced, through the naturalisation laws, American
citizenship, have come here, for the most part, to make this
their permanent abode. In assuming this citizenship, their
foreign prejudices, thoughts, and habits have become absorbed in
their new political life and duties. As rain, falling upon banks
of sand, leaves no trace of its existence, so these foreigners,
swallowed up in the immense and busy life of this country, soon
pass unnoticed and undistinguished, into the walks of American
citizenship. This great faculty of absorbing and assimilating
the heterogeneous and foreign admixture of blood, contributes to
the wonderful success of the American Republic. All that remains
of the foreigner's country, after he becomes naturalised, is a
memory of the past. In one or another harmless form, through
social, fraternal, musical, and other societies, he keeps alive
the sentiments of his childhood and youth, and reproduces the
images of old homes and old friendships. But his new political
and social convictions are as fixed and immovable as rocks.
The loyalty of these new citizens to existing republican
institutions is fervid and genuine, and {105} once here, there
is no effort on their part to introduce or propagate the
political habits of thought, or the institutions, of their
mother country. They are not only content with the liberty and
political conditions which prevail; but they become the most
ardent supporters and advocates of our Democracy. In comparison
to the number of immigrants who reach our shores, few of them,
as I have said, ever permanently return to their own countries.
But notwithstanding the great mass of foreigners who help to
make up our population, it is very evident that the
predominating element of the country traces its ancestry back to
the British Isles; that there is more of her blood in the veins
of Americans than that of all other nations combined.
Illustrations of the strength of this remark can be found in all
the walks of the political, civic, military, naval, religious,
scientific, commercial, and literary life, of the people. What
is it but another triumph of the race and its civilisation? It
is not without interest to trace the ancestry of our Presidents,
and of some of our prominent statesmen, military and naval
officers, financiers, merchants, writers, and scholars. The
latter classes I have picked out at haphazard--without invidious
distinction.
PRESIDENTS
1. GEORGE WASHINGTON.....English.
2. JOHN ADAMS............English.
3. THOMAS JEFFERSON......English.
4. JAMES MADISON.........English.
5. JAMES MONROE..........Scotch.
6. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.....English.
{106}
7. ANDREW JACKSON........Irish, of probably Scotch descent.
8. MARTIN VAN BUREN......Dutch.
9. W. H. HARRISON........English.
10. JOHN TYLER...........English.
11. JAMES K. POLK........Irish.
12. ZACHARY TAYLOR.......English.
13. MILLARD FILLMORE.....English.
14. FRANKLIN PIERCE......English.
15. JAMES BUCHANAN.......Scotch-Irish.
16. ABRAHAM LINCOLN......English, probably.
17. ANDREW JOHNSON.......English, probably.
18. U. S. GRANT..........Scotch.
19. JAMES A. GARFIELD....English.
20. CHESTER A. ARTHUR....English.
21. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES..Scotch.
22. GROVER CLEVELAND.....English.
23. BENJAMIN HARRISON....English.
24. WILLIAM McKINLEY.....Scotch-Irish.
25. THEODORE ROOSEVELT...Dutch-Irish-Scotch.
STATESMEN
1. DANIEL WEBSTER........English.
2. HENRY CLAY............English.
3. JOHN C. CALHOUN.......Scotch-Irish
4. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.....English.
5. SAMUEL ADAMS..........English.
6. PATRICK HENRY.........Father-Scotch descent. Mother- English
descent.
7. JOHN RANDOLPH.........English (some accounts say Scotch).
8. SALMON P. CHASE.......English.
9. WILLIAM H. SEWARD.....Father--Welsh descent. Mother--Irish
descent.
10. CHARLES SUMNER.......English.
11. JEFFERSON DAVIS......Father--Welsh descent.
Mother--Scotch-Irish descent.
{107}
JURISTS
1. JOHN MARSHALL.........Welsh.
2. JOHN JAY..............Father--French descent.
3. OLIVER ELLSWORTH......English.
4. JAMES KENT............English.
5. JOSEPH STORY..........English.
6. ROGER BROOKE TANEY....English.
7. WILLIAM M. EVARTS.....English.
8. RUFUS CHOATE..........English.
9. SAMUEL J. TILDEN......English.
SOLDIERS
I. NATHANAEL GREENE......English.
2. WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN..English.
3. WINFIELD SCOTT........Scotch.
4. PHILIP H. SHERIDAN....Personal memoirs (autobiography) says
parents were born and reared in Ireland.
5. ROBERT EDWARD LEE.....English.
6. THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON..Scotch-Irish. (STONEWALL)
7. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON....Scotch.
8. GEORGE HENRY THOMAS...Father--Welsh descent. Mother--French
Huguenot descent.
9. NELSON A. MILES.......Father--Welsh descent.
SAILORS
1. EDWARD PREBLE.........English.
2. OLIVER H. PERRY.......English.
3. ANDREW HULL FOOTE.....English.
4. WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE....English.
5. DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT..Father--Spanish descent.
Mother--Scotch descent.
6. STEPHEN H. DECATUR....French descent.
7. RAPHAEL SEMMES........French descent.
8. GEORGE DEWEY..........English descent.
{108}
FINANCIERS
1. ROBERT MORRIS.........English.
2. ALEXANDER HAMILTON....Scotch descent.
3. ALBERT GALLATIN.......He was descended from an ancient
patrician family of Switzerland.
4. J. PIERPONT MORGAN....Father--Welsh descent. Mother--English
descent.
WRITERS AND SCHOLARS
1. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL..His stock was distinctly of English
origin.
2. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES..Dutch and Puritan ancestry.
3. EDGAR ALLAN POE........From his father he inherited Italian,
French, and Irish blood. His mother, Elizabeth Arnold, was
purely English.
4. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW....English descent.
5. RALPH WALDO EMERSON....English descent.
6. JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER..He was of Quaker and Huguenot
descent.
7. WASHINGTON IRVING......Scotch descent.
8. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE....English descent.
III.--THE SAME LANGUAGE
I now come to consider the _third_ element which goes to make up
the _natural_ character of the alliance.
We have the same language. The inhabitants of the United States
of America, and of Great Britain, not only speak the same
language, but it is their _native_ tongue. How can we overrate
in this respect the enormous value of a common language--an
{109} influence which, according to the use made of it, may be
either healing and remedial, unifying and progressive--the
source of all that is most beneficial and delightful, or else
jarring, discordant, retroactive, and pernicious. Ought it ever
to be forgotten that to the mother country belongs the glory of
originating and forming this great language?
It is one thing to speak and understand a language; but it is
quite a different thing to have inherited it, to have been born
with it; or even to have acquired it, as a necessary concomitant
and auxiliary to citizenship. One may acquire a language as a
traveller, linguist, or as an accomplishment; or from the
temporary necessity of office, occupation, or livelihood; but
language acquired, for either of these latter purposes, no
matter how perfectly, is merely formal and incident to
education, and creates no sentiment of country, home,
patriotism, or national pride. An Englishman speaking French, or
a Frenchman speaking English, has no sympathy with the customs,
laws, manners, morals, legends, literature, or drama of the
foreign country beyond the acquired one of scholarship. The
range, influence, and effect of the native tongue, however, is
that of the air. We cannot see it or touch it. We cannot
transcribe, or limit, its scope or power. We only know that it
was born with us; that it is our constant, ever-present
companion. It is with us in our sleep, in our dreams. It is
omniscient, and omnipresent. It is a heritage that no time,
influence, or condition can take away {110} from us. He who
would describe the influence and importance of language upon
those who are born with it, must be able to encompass the air
which we breathe, and say what are its limits and effects upon
human life.
The intercommunication of ideas between people who use the same
native tongue is a source of pleasure and joy, of pain and
sorrow, of love and hatred. It brings to the surface from the
innermost depths of the soul, from the hidden recesses of the
mind, the sensations of home and country. It draws from the
perennial and inexhaustible fountains of memory, genius, and
inspiration the mysterious accumulations of thought harboured
there, and sends them floating through the world to distinguish
men from beasts. In some languages the same word expresses both
speech and reason, and therefore conveys the distinctive idea of
man.
The sands of the seashore, the drops of the ocean, are few when
compared to the mighty current of words which are poured into
the world by millions upon millions of human tongues. It is the
tie of a common language which indefinably and inexpressibly
knits together all those who have inherited it. "The tie of
language is perhaps the strongest and most desirable that can
unite mankind."[2] The English language is a synonym of English
thought, passion, pleasure, pain, suffering. It expresses all
our intimate and fundamental ideas of law, religion and
politics. It means home, {111} parents, relatives, and friends.
It conveys to the mind all the hopes, wishes, aspirations, and
emotions of the English-speaking races.
When an Englishman and an American meet, no matter how casually,
their common tongue furnishes, immediately, a means of
communication which makes them "Native to the manner born." A
few spoken words, a few lines of correspondence, open up, if
need be, the whole life of each nation: its politics, its forms
and principles of justice, its religion, its domestic interests
and feelings, its science, its drama, its literature, its past,
present, and future. It establishes a sympathy and bond in all
common things. If they discuss a question of municipal law, they
know without explanation the principles and proceedings
applicable to it. If literature, they immediately refer to some
common standard. Details are understood and employed without
comment or explanation. Their common sympathies, their common
methods of thought, their common judgments, are substantially
the same. They may differ in form of expression and thought, and
in other superficial outward methods, but ideas of the
principles of a free constitutional government, of justice,
right, truth, liberty, and religion, are cast in the same
uniform mould in English and American breasts. If confronted
with one of another race, their language in these respects would
at once evince their common origin. Despite individual prejudice
and personal dislikes, there is a substantial groundwork of
sympathy between an American and an Englishman as to what is
fundamentally {112} right and wrong, and as to how the right
should be asserted and the wrong redressed and punished, even to
the minutest degree of assimilation or repugnancy. And this is
so, even where there may be a difference of opinion as to the
merits of the immediate subject of controversy.
An Englishman and a Frenchman, meeting for the first time,
although capable of expressing themselves in one or both
languages, have no common ideas or sympathy in questions of law,
religion, politics, history, or literature. Such questions, even
among cultivated people, are only treated of in the abstract.
One word, which would open a fountain of sympathy between
Englishmen and Americans when speaking to each other; would be a
dry well of thought to a Frenchman, German, or Russian,
involving long and intricate explanations, even where there was
more than average intelligence and knowledge on both sides. That
indefinable and untranslatable perception of English and
American manners, customs, and tastes--which, Mr. Burke says,
are stronger than laws--can never be conveyed or understood
except by the native English tongue, to a native Englishman or
American.
It is impossible to enhance the importance of this uniformity of
language, in holding the race together and in rendering the
genius of its most favoured members available for the
civilisation of all.
As Mr. Grote says of the Greeks,[3] "Except in {113} the rarest
cases, the divergences of dialect were not such as to prevent
every Greek from understanding and being understood by every
other Greek." Language, therefore, made in all its widely spread
settlements the bond and badge of the Greek race. Without it,
other instrumentalities of co-operation, such as religion, would
not have been available.
It is due to their common language that all the Greeks come to
us as one people; yet Homer was Scian; Anacreon, Teian; Pindar,
Bœotian; Sappho and Alcreus, Lesbian; Herodotus, Carian;
Aristotle, Stageirean. Language dissolved all differences
between them. Notwithstanding the invincible political obstacles
which kept them apart, by virtue of language, they all gloried
in the name of Hellas, and eagerly disputed who was best
entitled to that name, and who had best illustrated its
greatness. A stimulating and fruitful rivalry!
The same thought is elaborated in other relations by Professor
Freeman.[4]
"Primarily, I say, as a rule, but a rule subject to exceptions,
as a prima facie standard, subject to special reasons to the
contrary, we _define the nation by language_. We may at least
apply the test negatively. It would be unsafe to rule that all
speakers of the same language must have a common nationality;
but we may safely say that when there is not community of
language there is no common nationality in the highest sense. It
is true that without community of language there may be an
artificial nationality, a nationality which may be good for
political purposes, and which may engender a common national
feeling. Still this is not quite the same thing as that {114}
fuller national unity which is felt where there is community of
language. In fact, mankind instinctively takes language as the
badge of nationality."
Pursuing the thought and reverting to the Greeks, I am tempted
to take an example from Herodotus of what Athens could do in her
nobler moods. Secretly dreading her power of resistance after
Marathon and Salamis, but after all Attica had been overrun and
devastated, Mardonius sought to detach her from the alliance of
those communities which still remained faithful to the common
cause. Fearful that the bribes and flatteries of the Persian
might prevail, Sparta sent her ambassadors who met at the same
moment with those of Mardonius, and their respective interests
were openly debated in the presence of Athenians. After hearing
both, the Athenians replied, first to the Persians, or their
representative ally, Alexander of Macedon:
"We know as well as thou dost that the power of the Mede is many
times greater than our own; we did not need to have that cast in
our teeth. Nevertheless we cling so to freedom that we shall
offer what resistance we may. Seek not to persuade us into
making terms with the barbarians; say what thou wilt, thou wilt
never gain our assent. Return rather at once and tell Mardonius
that our answer to him is this: So long as the sun keeps his
present course we will never join alliance with Xerxes. Nay, we
shall oppose him unceasingly, trusting in the aid of those gods
and heroes whom he has lightly esteemed, whose houses and whose
images he has burnt with fire. And come not thou again to us
with words like these, nor, thinking to do us a service,
persuade us to unholy actions. Thou art the guest and friend of
our nation; we would not that thou shouldst receive hurt at our
hands."[5]
{115}
And then, turning to the Spartans, they went on as follows:
"That the Lacedemonians should fear lest we should make terms
with the barbarian was very natural; yet, knowing as you do the
mind of Athenians, you appear to entertain an unworthy dread,
for there is neither so much gold anywhere in the world, nor a
country so pre-eminent in beauty and fertility by receiving
which we should be willing to side with the Mede and enslave
Greece. For there are many and powerful considerations that
forbid us to do so, even if we were inclined. First and chief,
the images and dwellings of the gods, burnt and laid in ruins:
this we must needs avenge to the utmost of our power rather than
make terms with the man who has perpetrated such deeds.
Secondly, the Grecian race being of the _same blood and the same
language_ and the temples of the gods and sacrifices in common,
and our customs being similar--for the Athenians to become
betrayers of these would not be well. Know, therefore, if you
did not know it before, that so long as one Athenian is left
alive, we will never make terms with Xerxes. Your forethought,
however, which you manifest towards us, we admire, in that you
offer to provide for us whose property is thus ruined, so as to
be willing to support our families, and you have fulfilled the
duties of benevolence; we, however, will continue in the state
we are without being burdensome to you. Now, since matters stand
as they do, send out an army with all possible expedition; for,
as we conjecture, the barbarian will in no long time be here
again to invade our territories as soon as he shall hear our
message that we will do none of the things he required of us.
Therefore, before he has reached Attica, it is fitting that we
go out to meet him in Bœotia."[6]
The passage and its application need no comment. It thrills our
blood to-day, as it must have done those who spoke, and those
who listened, two thousand four hundred years ago. Would {116}
that Greece could have always remained true to her grander
instincts and motives!
IV.--THE SAME LITERATURE
In all the articles which we may examine upon the subject of
alliance, the existence of a common literature is ranked as one
of its main moving causes. I have not found that any of the
advocates of Anglo-Saxon co-operation have elaborated this
thought. They have rested with a mere statement of the
proposition. Strongly self-evident as this seems, I am not
satisfied to pass it over without some elaboration. I want to be
certain that we all understand and appreciate the nature and
degree of the influence of literature upon this proposed union.
Why is literature an important, _natural_ factor, in the
proposed alliance? As I take it, it is because we gather most of
our knowledge and mental training from the same intellectual
fountainhead. English literature tells us how the
English-American people think; it shows what their process and
basis of reasoning and feeling are, upon all subjects, small and
great. If we are the same in our ideas, we behold its reflection
in this vast mirror of thought and opinion; if we are divergent,
we know the reason; and as one of the most ordinary functions of
literature is to state, explain, examine, and discuss,
eventually we are brought to a closer basis of common thought.
Besides all this, our literature marks course of national
life--retrogressive or progressive. {117} It holds up in the
widest sense the "glass of fashion and the mould of form."
Certainly, if a proposition were made to establish an alliance
between France and the United States of America, or between
Germany or Russia and the United States, the literature of these
countries could not be appealed to, to establish a common tie or
natural bond of sympathy between them. The Americans, as a
people, know as little of French literature as the French,
German, or Russians know of English literature. The literature
of each of these countries is as a sealed book, except to those
who have the leisure and inclination for special studies.
Different causes and motives would therefore have to be sought
for, to support a proposition of union. In the case of the
Anglo-Saxon people, however, it is otherwise; they read the same
books, magazines, and papers; they feed on the same intellectual
food. Words perish as soon as they are spoken. Literature never
dies, but is transmitted from generation to generation without
end or limit. The literature of a country is the expression not
only of its actual knowledge, but also of its genius and natural
character; and this is diffused through all channels of
publication, by means of books, magazines, and papers. Whenever
this manifestation finds a lodgment in the minds of its readers,
it is again transmitted by language. Literature, therefore,
becomes a prolific source of instruction and education, and, as
we drink from the same fountain of knowledge and inspiration,
our tastes, habits, and modes of [118] thought necessarily
approximate to each other. An individual reads for pleasure or
instruction, and what he receives of either or both combined, he
again readily imparts by speech or pen to whomsoever he meets;
hence literature acts directly upon some, and indirectly upon
all. The Anglo-Saxon people, through the medium of literature,
are continuously _en rapport_ with each other. Everything
published in the English language becomes common property to the
whole English-speaking world; giving rise, according to its
degree of merit, to the same impressions; calling into exercise
the same faculties and sensibilities. The influence of
literature may be considered in direct connection with language,
of which it is the growth, and which in its turn it amplifies,
strengthens, and embellishes. But let us consider the matter a
little more closely.
In point of quantity, the publications in the English language
are said to exceed those of all the other nations of the earth
combined. In point of scholarship, art in writing, eloquence,
spirit, research, and knowledge, English literature is certainly
second to none. It may be natural partiality arising from the
native use of the language and more intimate acquaintance with
the originals, but it is a conviction deeply rooted in the mind
of the English reader, even the most scholarly, that his own
literature is, upon the whole, the greatest that the ages have
yet produced.
In its composite form, it is a link in the chain, binding
together the present and the past. I do {119} not now refer to
the past of our own race, when we were all participating in its
formation, but to what is properly known as antiquity. With many
of the words and phrases, and much of the syntax and prosody of
the ancient tongues, we have also imbibed much of their
spirit--of what is properly designated the "classic." I am not
one of those who belittle the classic; far from wishing to see
it eliminated, I would wish to see it cultivated. With all the
native strength of the "English," there was ample room for the
infusion of the graces and proprieties of the Greek and
Latin.[7]
Out of the development of the languages so blended sprung
variety, harmony, style, and, as a consequence, taste in
composition. In every epoch of our literature, in each of its
manifestations, from Gower and Chaucer to Tennyson and
Longfellow, we find the presence of this classic attribute,
first dim and struggling, then actual and triumphant, forming,
moulding, beautifying, and perfecting. The benefits which our
civilisation has derived from this process are incalculable. It
would be a sorry day for us on both sides of the Atlantic when
the common standards depending on taste in writing should be
lost. Those of speech would soon follow, and the language would
become a confused mass of barbari
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