"At sea, which has hitherto been our prerogative element, they [the
United States] rise against us at a stupendous rate; and if we
cannot return to our old mutual hospitalities toward each other, a
very few years will show us a most formidable hostile marine,
ready to join hands with any of our enemies."
Count d'Aranda, one of the first of Spanish statesmen, in 1783 thus
wrote of this republic:--
"This Federal Republic is born a pygmy, so to speak. It required
the support and forces of two powers as great as Spain and France
in order to attain independence. A day will come when it will be a
giant, even a colossus formidable in these countries."[1]
[1] These quotations are from an article by Hon. Charles Sumner,
entitled, "Prophetic Voices about America," published in the _Atlantic
Monthly_ of September, 1807.
Of these prophecies, some are now wholly fulfilled, and the rest far on
the road to fulfillment. This infant of yesterday stands forth to-day a
giant, vigorous, active, and courageous, and accepts with dignity its
manifest destiny at the head of powers and civilizations.
Such, in brief, is the answer to the question proposed at the opening of
this chapter. Another question immediately follows: Does the prophetic
pen which has so fully delineated the rise and progress of all the other
great nations of the earth, pass this one by unnoticed? What are the
probabilities in this matter? As the student of prophecy, in common with
all mankind, looks with wonder upon the unparalleled rise and progress
of this nation, he cannot repress the conviction that the hand of
Providence has been at work in this quiet but mighty revolution. And
this conviction he shares in common with others.
Gov. Pownal, from whom a quotation has already been presented, speaking
of the establishment of this country as a free and sovereign power calls
it
"A revolution that has stronger marks of _divine interposition,_
superseding the ordinary course of human affairs than any other
event which this world has experienced."
De Tocqueville, a French writer, speaking of our separation from
England, says:--
"It might seem their folly, but was really their fate, or, rather,
the providence of God, who has doubtless a work for us to do, in
which the massive materiality of the English character would have
been too ponderous a dead weight upon our progress."
Geo. Alfred Townsend, speaking of the misfortunes that have attended the
other governments on this continent (New World and Old, p. 635), says:--
"The history of the United States was separated by a beneficent
Providence far from this wild and cruel history of the rest of the
continent."