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.
MONOGRAPH.
The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus is the greatest event of secular history. Besides the potato, the turkey, and maize, which it introduced at once for the nourishment and comfort of the Old World,[241] and also tobacco, which only blind passion for the weed could place in the beneficent group, this discovery opened the door to influences infinite in extent and beneficence. Measure them, describe them, picture them, you cannot. While yet unknown, imagination invested this continent with proverbial magnificence. It was the Orient, and the land of Cathay. When afterwards it took a place in geography, imagination found another field in trying to portray its future history. If the Golden Age is before, and not behind, as is now happily the prevailing faith, then indeed must America share, at least, if it does not monopolize, the promised good.