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.
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