Constitution created a "system of United States courts extending
throughout the states, empowered to define the boundaries of federal
authority, and to enforce its decisions by federal power." This
omnipresent federal judiciary was undoubtedly the most important
creation of the statesmen who framed the Constitution. The closely-knit
relations which it established between the states contributed powerfully
to the growth of a feeling of national solidarity throughout the whole
country. The United States today cling together with a coherency far
greater than the coherency of any ordinary federation or league. Yet the
primary aspect of the federal Constitution was undoubtedly that of a
permanent league, in which each state, while retaining its domestic
sovereignty intact, renounced forever its right to make war upon its
neighbours and relegated its international interests to the care of a
central council in which all the states were alike represented and a
central tribunal endowed with purely judicial functions of
interpretation. It was the first attempt in the history of the world, to
apply on a grand scale to the relations between states the same legal
methods of procedure which, as long applied in all civilized countries
to the relations between individuals, have rendered private warfare
obsolete. And it was so far successful that, during a period of
seventy-two years in which the United States increased fourfold in
extent, tenfold in population, and more than tenfold in wealth and
power, the federal union maintained a state of peace more profound than
the _pax romana._
Twenty years ago this unexampled state of peace was suddenly interrupted
by a tremendous war, which in its results, however, has served only to
bring out with fresh emphasis the pacific implications of federalism.
With the eleven revolted states at first completely conquered and then
reinstated with full rights and privileges in the federal union, with
their people accepting in good faith the results of the contest, with
their leaders not executed as traitors but admitted again to seats in
Congress and in the Cabinet, and with all this accomplished without any
violent constitutional changes,--I think we may fairly claim that the
strength of the pacific implications of federalism has been more
strikingly demonstrated than if there had been no war at all. Certainly
the world never beheld such a spectacle before. In my next and
concluding lecture I shall return to this point while summing up the
argument and illustrating the part played by the English race in the
general history of civilization.
III.
"_MANIFEST DESTINY_."
Among the legends of our late Civil War there is a story of a
dinner-party given by the Americans residing in Paris, at which were
propounded sundry toasts concerning not so much the past and present as
the expected glories of the great American nation. In the general
character of these toasts geographical considerations were very
prominent, and the principal fact which seemed to occupy the minds of
the speakers was the unprecedented _bigness_ of our country. "Here's to
the United States," said the first speaker, "bounded on the north by
British America, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by the
Atlantic, and on the west by the Pacific, Ocean." "But," said the second
speaker, "this is far too limited a view of the subject: in assigning
our boundaries we must look to the great and glorious future which is
prescribed for us by the Manifest Destiny of the Anglo-Saxon Race.
Here's to the United States,--bounded on the north by the North Pole,
on the south by the South Pole, on the east by the rising and on the
west by the setting sun." Emphatic applause greeted this aspiring
prophecy. But here arose the third speaker--a very serious gentleman
from the Far West. "If we are going," said this truly patriotic
American, "to leave the historic past and present, and take our manifest
destiny into the account, why restrict ourselves within the narrow
limits assigned by our fellow-countryman who has just sat down? I give
you the United States,--bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on
the south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by the
primeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment!"
I offer this anecdote at the outset by way of self-defence, inasmuch as
I shall by and by have myself to introduce some considerations
concerning the future of our country, and of what some people, without
the fear of Mr. Freeman before their eyes, call the "Anglo-Saxon" race;
and if it should happen to strike you that my calculations are
unreasonably large, I hope you will remember that they are quite modest
after all, when compared with some others.
The "manifest destiny" of the "Anglo-Saxon" race and the huge dimensions
of our country are favourite topics with Fourth-of-July orators, but
they are none the less interesting on that account when considered from
the point of view of the historian. To be a citizen of a great and
growing state, or to belong to one of the dominant races of the world,
is no doubt a legitimate source of patriotic pride, though there is
perhaps an equal justification for such a feeling in being a citizen of
a tiny state like Holland, which, in spite of its small dimensions, has
nevertheless achieved so much,--fighting at one time the battle of
freedom for the world, producing statesmen like William and Barneveldt,
generals like Maurice, scholars like Erasmus and Grotius, and thinkers
like Spinoza, and taking the lead even to-day in the study of
Christianity and in the interpretation of the Bible. But my course in
the present lecture is determined by historical or philosophical rather
than by patriotic interest, and I shall endeavour to characterize and
group events as impartially as if my home were at Leyden in the Old
World instead of Cambridge in the New.
First of all, I shall take sides with Mr. Freeman in eschewing
altogether the word "Anglo-Saxon." The term is sufficiently absurd and
misleading as applied in England to the Old-English speech of our
forefathers, or to that portion of English history which is included
between the fifth and the eleventh centuries. But in America it is
frequently used, not indeed by scholars, but by popular writers and
speakers, in a still more loose and slovenly way. In the war of
independence our great-great-grandfathers, not yet having ceased to
think of themselves as Englishmen, used to distinguish themselves as
"Continentals," while the king's troops were known as the "British." The
quaint term "Continental" long ago fell into disuse, except in the slang
phrase "not worth a Continental" which referred to the debased condition
of our currency at the close of the Revolutionary War; but "American"
and "British" might still serve the purpose sufficiently whenever it is
necessary to distinguish between the two great English nationalities.
The term "English," however, is so often used with sole reference to
people and things in England as to have become in some measure
antithetical to "American;" and when it is found desirable to include
the two in a general expression, one often hears in America the term
"Anglo-Saxon" colloquially employed for this purpose. A more slovenly
use of language can hardly be imagined. Such a compound term as
"Anglo-American" might perhaps be logically defensible, but that has
already become restricted to the English-descended inhabitants of the
United States and Canada alone, in distinction from Spanish Americans
and red Indians. It is never so used as to include Englishmen.
Refraining from all such barbarisms, I prefer to call the English race
by the name which it has always applied to itself, from the time when it
inhabited the little district of Angeln on the Baltic coast of Sleswick
down to the time when it had begun to spread itself over three great
continents. It is a race which has shown a rare capacity for absorbing
slightly foreign elements and moulding them into conformity with a
political type that was first wrought out through centuries of effort on
British soil; and this capacity it has shown perhaps in a heightened
degree in the peculiar circumstances in which it has been placed in
America. The American has absorbed considerable quantities of closely
kindred European blood, but he is rapidly assimilating it all, and in
his political habits and aptitudes he remains as thoroughly English as
his forefathers in the days of De Montfort, or Hampden, or Washington.
Premising this, we may go on to consider some aspects of the work which
the English race has done and is doing in the world, and we need not
feel discouraged if, in order to do justice to the subject, we have to
take our start far back in ancient history. We shall begin, it may be
said, somewhere near the primeval chaos, and though we shall indeed
stop short of the day of judgment, we shall hope at all events to reach
the millennium.
Our eloquent friends of the Paris dinner-party seem to have been
strongly impressed with the excellence of enormous political aggregates.
We, too, approaching the subject from a different point of view, have
been led to see how desirable it is that self-governing groups of men
should be enabled to work together in permanent harmony and on a great
scale. In this kind of political integration the work of civilization
very largely consists. We have seen how in its most primitive form
political society is made up of small self-governing groups that are
perpetually at war with one another. Now the process of change which we
call civilization means quite a number of things. But there is no doubt
that on its political side it means primarily the gradual substitution
of a state of peace for a state of war. This change is the condition
precedent for all the other kinds of improvement that are connoted by
such a term as "civilization." Manifestly the development of industry is
largely dependent upon the cessation or restriction of warfare; and
furthermore, as the industrial phase of civilization slowly supplants
the military phase, men's characters undergo, though very slowly, a
corresponding change. Men become less inclined to destroy life or to
inflict pain; or--to use the popular terminology which happens here to
coincide precisely with that of the Doctrine of Evolution--they become
less _brutal_ and more _humane_. Obviously then the prime feature of the
process called civilization is the general diminution of warfare. But we
have seen that a general diminution of warfare is rendered possible only
by the union of small political groups into larger groups that are kept
together by community of interests, and that can adjust their mutual
relations by legal discussion without coming to blows. In the preceding
lecture we considered this process of political integration as variously
exemplified by communities of Hellenic, of Roman, and of Teutonic race,
and we saw how manifold were the difficulties which the process had to
encounter. We saw how the Teutons--at least in Switzerland, England, and
America--had succeeded best through the retention of local
self-government combined with central representation. We saw how the
Romans failed of ultimate success because by weakening self-government
they weakened that community of interest which is essential to the
permanence of a great political aggregate. We saw how the Greeks, after
passing through their most glorious period in a state of chronic
warfare, had begun to achieve considerable success in forming a pacific
federation when their independent career was suddenly cut short by the
Roman conqueror.
This last example introduces us to a fresh consideration, of very great
importance. It is not only that every progressive community has had to
solve, in one way or another, the problem of securing permanent concert
of action without sacrificing local independence of action; but while
engaged in this difficult work the community has had to defend itself
against the attacks of other communities. In the case just cited, of the
conquest of Greece by Rome, little harm was done perhaps. But under
different circumstances immense damage may have been done in this way,
and the nearer we go to the beginnings of civilization the greater the
danger. At the dawn of history we see a few brilliant points of
civilization surrounded on every side by a midnight blackness of
barbarism. In order that the pacific community may be able to go on
doing its work, it must be strong enough and warlike enough to overcome
its barbaric neighbours who have no notion whatever of keeping peace.
This is another of the seeming paradoxes of the history of
civilization, that for a very long time the possibility of peace can be
guaranteed only through war. Obviously the permanent peace of the world
can be secured only through the gradual concentration of the
preponderant military strength into the hands of the most pacific
communities. With infinite toil and trouble this point has been slowly
gained by mankind, through the circumstance that the very same political
aggregation of small primitive communities which makes them less
disposed to quarrel among themselves tends also to make them more than a
match for the less coherent groups of their more barbarous neighbours.
The same concert of action which tends towards internal harmony tends
also towards external victory, and both ends are promoted by the
co-operation of the same sets of causes. But for a long time all the
political problems of the civilized world were complicated by the fact
that the community had to fight for its life. We seldom stop to reflect
upon the imminent danger from outside attacks, whether from surrounding
barbarism or from neighbouring civilizations of lower type, amid which
the rich and high-toned civilizations of Greece and Rome were developed.
When the king of Persia undertook to reduce Greece to the condition of a
Persian satrapy, there was imminent danger that all the enormous
fruition of Greek thought in the intellectual life of the European world
might have been nipped in the bud. And who can tell how often, in
prehistoric times, some little gleam of civilization, less bright and
steady than this one had become, may have been quenched in slavery or
massacre? The greatest work which the Romans performed in the world was
to assume the aggressive against menacing barbarism, to subdue it, to
tame it, and to enlist its brute force on the side of law and order.
This was a murderous work, and in doing it the Romans became excessively
cruel, but it had to be done by some one before you could expect to have
great and peaceful civilizations like our own. The warfare of Rome is by
no means adequately explained by the theory of a deliberate immoral
policy of aggression,--"infernal," I believe, is the stronger adjective
which Dr. Draper uses. The aggressive wars of Rome were largely dictated
by just such considerations as those which a century ago made it
necessary for the English to put down the raids of the Scotch
Highlanders, and which have since made it necessary for Russia to subdue
the Caucasus. It is not easy for a turbulent community to live next to
an orderly one without continually stirring up frontier disturbances
which call for stern repression from the orderly community. Such
considerations go far towards explaining the military history of the
Romans, and it is a history with which, on the whole, we ought to
sympathize. In its European relations that history is the history of the
moving of the civilized frontier northward and eastward against the
disastrous encroachments of barbarous peoples. This great movement has,
on the whole, been steadily kept up, in spite of some apparent
fluctuation in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era, and
it is still going on to-day. It was a great gain for civilization when
the Romans overcame the Keltiberians of Spain, and taught them good
manners and the Latin language, and made it for their interest hereafter
to fight against barbarians. The third European peninsula was thus won
over to the side of law and order. Danger now remained on the north. The
Gauls had once sacked the city of Rome; hordes of Teutons had lately
menaced the very heart of civilization, but had been overthrown in
murderous combat by Caius Marius; another great Teutonic movement, led
by Ariovistus, now threatened to precipitate the whole barbaric force of
south-eastern Gaul upon the civilized world; and so it occurred to the
prescient genius of Caesar to be beforehand and conquer Gaul, and
enlist all its giant barbaric force on the side of civilization. This
great work was as thoroughly done as anything that was ever done in
human history, and we ought to be thankful to Caesar for it every day
that we live. The frontier to be defended against barbarism was now
moved away up to the Rhine, and was very much shortened; but above all,
the Gauls were made to feel themselves to be Romans. Their country
became one of the chief strongholds of civilization and of Christianity;
and when the frightful shock of barbarism came--the most formidable blow
that has ever been directed by barbaric brute force against European
civilization--it was in Gaul that it was repelled and that its force was
spent. At the beginning of the fifth century an enormous horde of yellow
Mongolians, known as Huns, poured down into Europe with avowed intent to
burn and destroy all the good work which Rome had wrought in the world;
and terrible was the havoc they effected in the course of fifty years.
If Attila had carried his point, it has been thought that the work of
European civilization might have had to be begun over again. But near
Chálons-on-the-Marne, in the year 451, in one of the most obstinate
struggles of which history preserves the record, the career of the
"Scourge of God" was arrested, and mainly by the prowess of Gauls and of
Visigoths whom the genius of Rome had tamed. That was the last day on
which barbarism was able to contend with civilization on equal terms. It
was no doubt a critical day for all future history; and for its
favourable issue we must largely thank the policy adopted by Caesar five
centuries before. By the end of the eighth century the great power of
the Franks had become enlisted in behalf of law and order, and the Roman
throne was occupied by a Frank,--the ablest man who had appeared in the
world since Caesar's death; and one of the worthiest achievements of
Charles the Great was the conquest and conversion of pagan Germany,
which threw the frontier against barbarism eastward as far as the Oder,
and made it so much the easier to defend Europe. In the thirteenth
century this frontier was permanently carried forward to the Vistula by
the Teutonic Knights who, under commission from the emperor Frederick
II., overcame the heathen Prussians and Lithuanians; and now it began to
be shown how greatly the military strength of Europe had increased. In
this same century Batu, the grandson of Jinghis Khan, came down into
Europe with a horde of more than a million Mongols, and tried to repeat
the experiment of Attila. Batu penetrated as far as Silesia, and won a
great battle at Liegnitz in 1241, but in spite of his victory he had to
desist from the task of conquering Europe. Since the fifth century the
physical power of the civilized world had grown immensely; and the
impetus of this barbaric invasion was mainly spent upon Russia, the
growth of which it succeeded in retarding for more than two centuries.
Finally since the sixteenth century we have seen the Russians, redeemed
from their Mongolian oppressors, and rich in many of the elements of a
vigorous national life,--we have seen the Russians resume the aggressive
in this conflict of ages, beginning to do for Central Asia in some sort
what the Romans did for Europe. The frontier against barbarism, which
Cæsar left at the Rhine, has been carried eastward to the Volga, and is
now advancing even to the Oxus. The question has sometimes been raised
whether it would be possible for European civilization to be seriously
threatened by any future invasion of barbarism or of some lower type of
civilization. By barbarism certainly not: all the nomad strength of
Mongolian Asia would throw itself in vain against the insuperable
barrier constituted by Russia. But I have heard it quite seriously
suggested that if some future Attila or Jinghis were to wield as a unit
the entire military strength of the four hundred millions of Chinese,
possessed with some suddenly-conceived idea of conquering the world,
even as Omar and Abderrahman wielded as a unit the newly-welded power of
the Saracens in the seventh and eighth centuries, then perhaps a
staggering blow might yet be dealt against European civilization. I will
not waste precious time in considering this imaginary case, further than
to remark that if the Chinese are ever going to try anything of this
sort, they cannot afford to wait very long; for within another century,
as we shall presently see, their very numbers will be surpassed by those
of the English race alone. By that time all the elements of military
predominance on the earth, including that of simple numerical
superiority, will have been gathered into the hands not merely of men of
European descent in general, but more specifically into the hands of the
offspring of the Teutonic tribes who conquered Britain in the fifth
century. So far as the relations of civilization with barbarism are
concerned to-day, the only serious question is by what process of
modification the barbarous races are to maintain their foothold upon the
earth at all. While once such people threatened the very continuance of
civilization, they now exist only on sufferance.