The Anglo-Saxon Century and the Unification of the English-Speaking People

by John R. Dos Passos

At present we have advanced no farther in the question than this: It appears that many persons on both sides of the Atlantic have a wish, a feeling, a sentiment, a belief, a conviction, that it is for the mutual benefit of the British Empire and the United States that co-operation, interfusion, union, should be permanently established between the two countries.

This is the first step in the movement. Discussion, argument, controversy, properly precede acts. A spirit of scepticism, as Buckle says,[4] certainly a spirit of inquiry, must arise previous to actual steps being made in any great movement. But, if the statements contained in this resolution are correct, it is the duty of every citizen of England and the United States, in fact, the duty of citizens of all countries, to commence the agitation of the question; to bend their energies to its solution, and to {60} aid in the quick and complete consummation of co-operation. If the purpose of co-operation is to secure "civilisation and peace" to the inhabitants of the world, it is not merely the business of Englishmen and Americans to see that it succeeds, but it is a matter in which all mankind is interested. The question is not limited to those of the English-speaking family; it is as broad as humanity itself.

No reason has been assigned why the consummation of this important subject should be postponed or evaded. On the contrary, existing conditions require that it should be pushed to a solution. It has come to stay—to be solved. Great events cannot be ripped, untimely, from the womb of history. They are born at regular periods of political gestation, and when thus ushered into the world, become ripe for discussion and action. They cannot be smothered. They must be met and settled. Of course, the professional politicians, especially those of the United States, will not touch this great subject of "union." They will await events. They will gauge its popularity. They will study its effect and influence upon the Irish and German vote. They will play with it until it becomes a burning, absorbing, national topic, and when the wind of popular approval blows that way, they will outrival each other in its advocacy. The politicians are born for the hour. A learned, thoughtful, and dispassionate advocacy of any public question, by a professional politician, would be a rara avis in national life. The inherent strength, reason, and justice of great public questions, are never considered {61} by these nimble gentlemen—in fact, perhaps they never were. The business of politics involves only the present. The motto of the politicians is "Policy," "Expediency"; not "Truth," "Reason," and "Stability." In the primitive stages of this discussion, therefore, it is left in the hands of the independent, non-partisan thinkers. This class must mould it into tangible, practical shape, before it can be brought into the realm of ordinary politics.

III.—DEFINITION OF CO-OPERATION, ALLIANCE, UNION, OR COMPACT

Our first aim, therefore, is to discover what kind of co-operation should be established between the two nations. And this may be accomplished by stating what is not meant to be included in the term.

I take it that the sincere advocates of co-operation, union, interfusion, do not mean, by these or kindred terms, an "offensive and defensive" treaty, or alliance, between the United States and the British Empire, for the mere temporary purpose of commercial or material aggrandisement, or conquest, or for military or naval aggression, or defence. If that be the scope and limit of this movement, it might as well be dropped, as utterly and wholly impracticable. In fact, an offensive and defensive treaty, in its common acceptation, has already been discarded by the advocates of union. The great end and purpose of the resolution, to "secure civilisation and peace," cannot be attained {62} by such means. To ascertain the source from which co-operation and interfusion between the English-speaking people arises, to distinguish Anglo-Saxon union from other forms of international alliance, it seems a necessary prelude to the discussion of the subject to recall the primary ends of government. In whatever form it exists, its ends may all be summed up in the idea of benefit, or advantage. It is so in the most arbitrary despotism that ever existed among men; it is so in the most enlightened free system; the difference being that through progressive development in the several succeeding conditions of society, the free government confers greater benefit and advantage. We need not now consider the former; we have to do with the latter only. As it is, in the modern sense, its raison d'etre is the harmonious blending of all classes of society; the preservation of the essential interests, wisely understood, of the people; the preservation of an open field for the exercise of every virtue and every talent, and, subject to these, the performance of every duty enjoined by good neighbourhood, and the encouragement of every tendency and impulse which points to the amelioration of mankind, at home or abroad. Such is the idea of a commonwealth, constructed on true, liberal principles, and sanctified by Christianity.

As an individual is endowed with intellectual, moral, and physical functions for the purpose of ennobling his own existence, benefiting his fellow-men, and reaching by these means a higher plane of moral and religious life, so government, {63} as we now understand it, is organised to place it within the power of men to enjoy to their fullest extent, religious, civil, and political liberty; or, to express it in another way, to give an individual those rights, privileges, and liberties which the true and purest thoughts of the past ages have determined as the best rule for his real happiness.

The peculiar and striking characteristic, or virtue, of the Anglo-Saxon people is, that they understand the objects for which governments are instituted more directly, and apply them more successfully and broadly than other peoples. They keep more closely in view the origin and aim of political society in its relation to individuals, and to other nations—to the world at large. Montesquieu frankly made this admission in 1748, when he said: "They know better than any other people upon earth how to value at the same time those three great advantages, religion, commerce, and liberty."[5] And Mommsen made the same admission when, with evident reference to the English race, he said, it knows how to combine "a love of freedom with a veneration for authority."

And Mr. Webster uttered the same thought:

"I find at work everywhere, on both sides of the Atlantic, under various forms and degrees of restrictions on the one hand, and under various degrees of motive and stimulus, on the other hand, in these branches of a common race, the great principle of the freedom of human thought, and the respectability of individual character. I find, everywhere, an elevation of the character of man as man, an elevation of the individual as a component part of society. I find everywhere a rebuke {64} of the idea, that the many are made for the few, or that government is anything but an agency of mankind. And I do not care beneath what zone, frozen, temperate, or torrid; I care not what complexion, white or brown; I care not under what circumstances of climate or cultivation, if I can find a race of men on an inhabitable spot of Earth whose general sentiment it is, and whose general feeling it is, that government is made for man—man as a religious, moral, and social being—and not man for government—there I know, I shall find prosperity and happiness."[6]