AMERICA THE CONTINENT OF THE FUTURE.
Emilio Castelar, one of Spain's most noted orators and statesmen. His masterly articles on Columbus in the Century Magazine alone would insure an international reputation. From a speech in the Spanish Cortes, 1871.
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. 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 co-operate with America in the grand work of universal civilization.