* * * * *
History shows that the civilization to which we belong is
subject to a general law which makes it advance with halts, in
the manner of armies, in the direction of the Occident, making
the sceptre pass successively into the hands of nations more
worthy to hold it, more strong and more able to employ it for
the general good.
So it seems that the supreme authority is about to escape
from Western and Central Europe, to pass to the New World. In
the northern part of that other hemisphere offshoots of the
European race have founded a vigorous society full of sap,
whose influence grows with a rapidity that has never yet been
seen anywhere. In crossing the ocean, it has left behind on
the soil of old Europe traditions, prejudices, and usages,
which, as _impedimenta_ heavy to carry, would have embarrassed
its movements and retarded its progressive march. In about
thirty years the United States will have, according to all
probability, a hundred millions of population, in possession
of the most powerful means, distributed over a territory which
would make France fifteen or sixteen times over, and of the
most wonderful disposition.…
Vainly do the occidental and central nations of Europe
attribute to themselves a primacy, which, in their vanity,
they think sheltered from events and eternal: as if there were
anything eternal in the grandeur and prosperity of societies,
the works of men!--MICHEL CHEVALIER, _Rapports du Jury
International: Exposition Universelle de 1867 à Paris_, Tom.
I., Introduction, pp. DXIV-DXVI.
* * * * *
America, and especially Saxon America, with its immense
virgin territories, with its republic, with its equilibrium
between stability and progress, with its harmony between
liberty and democracy, is the continent of the Future,--the
immense continent stretched by God between the Atlantic and
Pacific, where mankind may plant, essay, and resolve all social
problems. [_Loud cheers._] Europe has to decide whether she
will confound herself with Asia, placing upon her lands old
altars, and upon the altars old idols, and upon the idols
immovable theocracies, and upon the theocracies despotic
empires,--or whether she will go by labor, by liberty, and
by the republic, to coöperate with America in the grand work
of universal civilization.--EMILIO CASTELAR, _Speech in the
Spanish Cortes_, June 22, 1871.