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.

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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.

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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.

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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]

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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 barbarisms. The effects upon its character would soon be traced. I believe, from certain indications, that it will rest with us in the frequent fluctuations of changing style, to vindicate our {120} title of depositories of the permanent models of the literature and language, by becoming also its preservers--in other words, to oppose a barrier to evident tendencies towards overgrowth, obscurity, and corruption. If so it be, the influence will be felt as a reflex one, extending backward to the shores where the language originated, and so again illustrating the invisible and indivisible tie that binds us together, "Old Ocean" to the contrary notwithstanding.

Our original Saxon tongue was not conquered by the Greek and Roman, as were those of the nations of the South of Europe; _it appropriated them_--leading them, as it were, in a kind of magnificent triumph. Out of the interfusion, such as it was, came a dialect and afterwards a literature, wholly _sui generis_. We find the same characteristic in the assimilation of the Roman civil law by our own common law. Our legal system did not become Latinised--but whatever was good, sound, and relevant in the civil law became incorporated and was Anglicised. In dwelling upon our literature for a moment, I shall not, as is usually done, glorify particular names--Spenser, Shakespeare, the dramatists, Milton, Bacon, Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, Burke, the classicists so-called. All the long array of great thinkers, eloquent preachers, exquisite poets, and novelists will occur at once to everyone. Let me rather dwell, as more germane to our present purpose, upon certain traits common to all, notwithstanding the diversities of styles and epochs. I would mention, then, as one such {121} trait, a certain solidity of thought--a something derived from the actual experience of life and close experimental contact with nature. This is visible at all times, and impresses one as quite in keeping with that other something in the character of the people (if the two can be at all separated), which has led to the creation and preservation of their political institutions. It is certainly a native quality, being equally characteristic of the very loftiest and most fervent productions of English genius, and of those which have no other claim upon us than sober good sense. Carrying the thought a little farther, these observations of man and nature become a positive force in the formation of individual character, and, of course, of society. It is this sure, well-grounded, _homelike_ quality which, among all the other literatures of the world, peculiarly distinguishes the English, united as it may be and has been in many instances, with the utmost perfection of art. It is to detract from an almost universal characteristic to cite instances, but what other literature has productions like the _Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe_, or poetry in this respect like Cowper's _Task?_ What is Shakespeare but a revelation of familiar thought and feeling sublimed by genius? What is Milton, classicist as he is, in the garden scenes of Paradise, but the painter of an English home? The very flowers of _his_ Paradise seem made to bloom there. Addison and all the essayists,--in what does their charm consist, but in their communion with daily life and thought? So, too, as to their legitimate successors, the great {122} novelists. The new world they have given us--what is it but an accurate representation of the men and women we have known, and a delightful participation in all their experiences? Truly we have a rich and ever-abiding inheritance in this literature. The inheritance itself is a positive gift, but it is more. It points out infallibly the direction our minds should take in dealing with those from whom we have derived it. With such a genuine emanation before us of the mental, moral, political, and religious life of a people, shall we go amiss in extending to them our sympathies and establishing a mutual friendship? In this way we know them--know them as we can in no other way--not through the obscuring haze of momentary passion, and the disturbance of abnormal aberrations, but through a medium deep as the life of nations and of universal binding efficacy. If language and literature have made us one, by what unhallowed process shall we be "put asunder"?

I have used the word "English" in reference to literature following the common style; of course I include our own. In all that is best, it shows the common origin. Franklin, the Federalist; the great indigenous Webster, who knew so well "what blood flowed in his veins";[8]

"I am happy to stand here to-day and to remember that, although my ancestors, for several generations, lie buried beneath the soil of the Western Continent, yet there has been a time when my ancestors and your ancestors toiled in the same cities and villages, cultivated adjacent fields, and worked together {123} to build up that great structure of civil polity which has made England what England is."

The refined and genial Irving--and all our later names are classed together in thought;--a noble republic free from enmity and faction, in which they march under one banner and shed a single influence. An English boy recites _The Song of Marion's Men_, with as much enthusiasm as an American. Longfellow is a household name in England as with us; Emerson was received in Oxford and Cambridge as a "new light" along with Newman and Carlyle. The time is not far distant, if we will be true to ourselves, when America will be classic ground to the Englishman, as, long since, Irving declared, England was to America. _I have not been able to perceive that there lingers in the English mind one trace of the old-time disparagement of American books, things, and manners_. Candid and just criticism they may employ towards us, as to themselves; that right is inalienable and it has its uses; but their praise is more frequent than their censure, and being accompanied by discernment, has more value. English criticism has sometimes made a classic reputation for our authors--as in the case of Poe and Hawthorne. Walt Whitman is more curiously and tolerantly read there than among ourselves. As we have developed, the disposition has grown to accord us a full appreciation. At no time whatever, though half-serious, half-humorous badinage may have existed, has there ever been a particle of envy.

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I thus place before the English-American people some of the influences of a common literature. Pursue the subject as we may, through all its ramifications, the stronger becomes the conviction of its power to unite us for good and noble purposes.[9]

V.--THE SAME POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

In the formation of the Constitution of the United States the theory and spirit, substance and form, of the political institutions of England were most strikingly followed. Here is another natural bond of sympathy, fellowship, and nationality, of the strongest nature between these countries.

A brief review of the cardinal points in the political development of the English-speaking people seems an essential feature of this aspect of the question.

More than eight centuries elapsed between the reign of Alfred the Great, and the "Bill of Rights," in the reign of William and Mary (875 to 1688), In all this time, the English people were steadily and constantly engaged in building and perfecting their present system of government.

It was a fabric of slow and often unconscious growth, and many times when it seemed to be on {125} the verge of completion, the storms of rebellion, of kingly usurpations, of foreign wars, swept fiercely through its walls and blew them to the ground. These very storms were instruments in regular and organic development; and, nothing discouraged or disheartened, the people bravely set to work, and commenced again the task of rebuilding and finishing the great governmental edifice, which they were to leave to the world as an imperishable monument of their courage, hardihood, love of freedom and justice, and which should, in all time, prove a refuge and an asylum for the oppressed and liberty-loving people of the world.

The foundations of this government were not completed in the reign of Alfred--when the different kingdoms which prevailed in England were fast approaching consolidation.

The germs of an executive power are faintly foreshadowed in the personal influence of the reigning King, whose authority vacillated as the King himself was strong or weak. But the war with the Northmen raised Alfred and his sons from tribal leaders to national kings, and the dying out of other royal stocks left the house of Cerdic the one line of hereditary kingship.[10]

The seeds of parliamentary birth were steadily growing in the form of a Witenagemote, in the "great meeting" of the Assembly of the wise--which represented the whole English people, as the wise moots of each kingdom represented the {126} separate peoples of each, its powers being as supreme in the wider field as theirs in the narrower, all developing from the people as they were arranged in their local Assemblies or Hundreds.[11] For to it belonged the higher justice, the power to impose taxes, the making of laws, the conclusion of treaties, the control of wars, the disposal of public lands, the appointment of great officers of state, and, finally, it could elect or depose a king.[12]

It is not within the limits or sphere of my purpose to go into the details, but when Alfred died the fundamental principles of a sound and substantial government existed, illustrated in an executive, legislative, and judicial department clearly defined.

Besides this feature of his reign, a commercial activity began to be developed, and literary tastes and education encouraged and cultivated.

The free institutions of Alfred survived under the Norman tyranny or conquest. No substantial change was made in law or custom by William.[13]

The germs of the famous Magna Charta were laid in the reign of Henry I., and almost one of the first acts of this monarch was to grant a charter which was calculated to remedy many of the grievous oppressions which had been committed during the reigns of his father, William the Conqueror, and his brother, William Rufus.

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The example of Henry, in granting a charter favourable to the liberties of the people, was followed by Stephen, who renewed the grant, which was confirmed by Henry II. But the concessions of these princes were one thing and their actions another. They still continued to exercise the same unlimited authority.

The charter of John, Magna Charta, culminated the people's expressions of their wrongs. That its provisions were not novel or startling, that the people knew exactly what they wanted, is strongly manifest from the asserted fact that this great and famous _constitution_ was finally discussed and agreed to in a _single_ day.[14]

I say "constitution," for the Magna Charta was in form and substance as much a constitution as that which the thirteen States of North America adopted in 1789. It defined and limited the power of the Executive; it provided for the constitution and assembling of a legislative body in a general council--a Parliament; it regulated the general principles of judicial power; and, finally, it was, from beginning _to_ end, a bill of rights for the people of England high and low--of all classes. It is interesting in this connection to draw a parallel:

_First_: The Charter names the _parties_ between whom it was made. John, the party on the _one side_, and his Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justiciaries, Foresters, Sheriffs, Governors, Officers, all Bailiffs, and his _faithful subjects_, the parties on _the other side._

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The Constitution of the United States with more brevity, but with equal comprehensiveness, proclaims that its provisions are for the _people_ of the United States.

_Second_: Magna Charta was a grant from a King--or, more correctly, an acknowledgment ok deed of confirmation from a King--clearly enumerating the rights of the people, and the nature of the compact between them. It was accordingly sealed by John, and attested by a cloud of attending witnesses. It was coerced from him by an aroused people--at their risk, with arms in their hands.

The Constitution of the United States was an agreement between thirteen independent States, establishing a federative nation, and duly signed by the representative of each State on behalf of the people.

_Third_: The Charter of John deals with the rights to things and the rights of persons. Many of these rights, being regulated by the laws of the States of the Union, do not appear in the Constitution of the United States, but are reserved by the States.

_Fourth_: Article First of the Constitution of the United States creates, apportions, and regulates the legislative power of the Government with clearness and precision. A paragraph of Magna Charta provides for the holding of the general Council consisting of Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, and greater Barons of the realm to be summoned "singly by our letters." This, however, as well as Alfred's Witenagemote, answered {129} rather the idea of a great council--it was an aristocratic body--the origin of the House of Lords: all that was possible at that day.

It further provides for the summoning generally, by "our sheriffs and bailiffs, all others who hold of us in chief (tenants _in capite_) forty days" before their meeting at least, and to a certain place, the cause of the summons being declared, and the business to proceed on the day appointed.

Henry III., in 1258-59, called together the Barons in Parliament, who in turn ordered that four Knights should be chosen of each county; that they should make inquiry into grievances of which their neighbourhood had reason to complain, and should attend the ensuing Parliament, in order to give information to that Assembly of the state of their particular counties. This is a nearer approach to the present Parliament than had been made by the Barons in the reign of King John, and was the beginning of the House of Commons.[15]

By paragraph XII. of the Great Charter it was further provided that no scutage or aid (in other words, taxation) should be imposed, unless by the General Council of the Kingdom. This principle was strongly reiterated in the Petition of Right (1628).

_Fifth_: Magna Charta was a limitation of kingly power by the aristocracy, but distinctively in favour of the people. The "Barons' War" in Henry Third's reign, resulted in the full establishment of the representative system of government, _i.e._, the House of Commons.

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The separation from the Church of Rome, as an instrument of government, quite independent of any religious point of view, secured laws, liberty, government, and freedom from foreign domination.

The approach to a popular system under the House of Lancaster, and the reaction towards despotism under the Tudors, growing out of their peculiar historical situation, was again followed by a powerful reaction towards liberty under the Stuarts. The expulsion of the latter was followed by the establishment of a constitutional system under William III., embracing, among other things,

a. The declaration of rights.

b. Religious toleration (in the main).

c. The distinct recognition of the _habeas corpus_ act enacted under Charles II.