These strong and confident words, so early in date, were followed by others more remarkable. At the conclusion of his admirable work “De la Littérature des Nègres,” first published in 1808, where, with equal knowledge and feeling, homage is done to a people wronged and degraded by man, he cites his prediction with regard to the sun shining only upon freemen, and then, elevated by the vision, declares that “this American Continent, asylum of Liberty, is on its way towards an order of things which will be common to the Antilles, and the course of which all the powers combined will not be able to arrest.”[619] This vigorous language is crowned by a prophecy of singular extent and precision, where, after dwelling on the influences at work to accelerate progress, he foretells the eminence of our country:—
“When an energetic and powerful nation, to which everything presages high destinies, stretching its arms over the two oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific, shall dispatch its vessels from one to the other by a shortened route,—whether by cutting the Isthmus of Panama, or by forming a canal of communication, as has been proposed, by the River St. John and the Lake of Nicaragua,—it will change the face of the commercial world and the face of empires. Who knows if America will not then avenge the outrages she has received, and if our old Europe, placed in the rank of a subaltern power, will not become a colony of the New World?”[620]
Thus resting on the two oceans with a canal between, so that the early “secret of the strait” shall no longer exist, the American Republic will change the face of the world, and perhaps make Europe subaltern. Such was the vision of the French Abolitionist, lifted by devotion to Humanity.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1824.
Small preface is needed for the testimony of Jefferson, whose life belongs to the history of his country. He was born 2d April, 1743, and died 4th July, 1826.
Contemporary and rival of Adams, the author of the Declaration of Independence surpassed the other in sympathetic comprehension of the Rights of Man, as the other surpassed him in the prophetic spirit. Jefferson’s words picturing Slavery were unequalled in the prolonged discussion of that terrible subject, and his two Inaugural Addresses are masterpieces of political truth. But with clearer eye Adams foresaw the future grandeur of the Republic, and dwelt on its ravishing light and glory. The vision of our country coextensive and coincident with the North American Continent was never beheld by Jefferson. While recognizing that our principles of government, traversing the Rocky Mountains, would smile upon the Pacific coast, his sight did not embrace the distant communities there as parts of a common country. This is apparent in a letter to John Jacob Astor, 24th May, 1812, where, referring to the commencement of a settlement by the latter on Columbia River, and declaring the gratification with which he looked forward to the time when its descendants should have spread through the whole length of that coast, he adds, “covering it with free and independent Americans, unconnected with us but by the ties of blood and interest, and employing, like us, the rights of self-government.”[621] In another letter to Mr. Astor, 9th November, 1813, he characterizes the settlement as “the germ of a great, free, and independent empire on that side of our continent,”[622] thus carefully announcing political dissociation.
But Jefferson has not been alone in blindness to the mighty capabilities of the Republic, inspired by his own Declaration of Independence. Daniel Webster, in a speech at Faneuil Hall, as late as 7th November, 1845, pronounced that the Pacific coast could not be governed from Europe, or from the Atlantic side of the Continent; and he pressed the absurdity of anything different:—
“Where is Oregon? On the shores of the Pacific, three thousand miles from us, and twice as far from England. Who is to settle it? Americans mainly; some settlers undoubtedly from England; but all Anglo-Saxons; all, men educated in notions of independent government, and all self-dependent. And now let me ask if there be any sensible man in the whole United States who will say for a moment, that, when fifty or a hundred thousand persons of this description shall find themselves on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, they will long consent to be under the rule either of the American Congress or the British Parliament. They will raise a standard for themselves, and they ought to do it.”[623]
Such a precise and strenuous protest from such a quarter mitigates the distrust of Jefferson. But after the acquisition of California the orator said, “I willingly admit, my apprehensions have not been realized.”[624]