Then, after a long interval, and much backward and forward movement, thrillingly interesting to the student, came the parliamentary declaration of the liberties of the people, assented to by Charles I., in the beginning of his reign, and celebrated as the Petition of Right. Subsequently, the Habeas Corpus Act was passed in the reign of Charles II. To the above succeeded the Bill of Rights, delivered by the Lords and Commons to the Prince and Princess of Orange in 1688. Lastly, the {80} liberties of the people were again asserted at the commencement of the eighteenth century in the Act of Settlement, whereby some new provisions were added for the better securing of religion, laws, and liberties, which the Statute declares to be "the birthright of the people of England," according to the ancient doctrine of the common law.[9]
I take this great struggle for laws and liberty as marking another distinct and remarkable epoch in the history of England—the fourth span in the bridge of her growth and development.
I am travelling rapidly through the ages of English history; but not going so fast as not to be able to see that the nation and her people are constantly progressing.
(e) The Union with Scotland
The fifth great epoch in the History of England, is the union with Scotland; by which the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, on the 1st day of May, 1707, became united as one under the name of Great Britain. The Act which created this union did not constitute between the two nations a federal alliance, but an "incorporated union," the effect of which was that the two contracting states, in their dual condition relatively to each other were totally annihilated, and they became, thereafter, one political entity, without any power of revival.
It is not essential to trace the history, anterior and subsequent, which bears upon this great event; {81} yet we may profitably reflect, that, arising out of centuries of hostility and mutual injury, here also were the most inveterate prejudices to be overcome, upon the one hand; on the other, partial similarity of race, language, and institutions, and, in the view of statesmen, the most enormous advantages. Under wise and skilful management, the latter were at last made to prevail. It is, however, notorious, such was the perverse opposition, particularly in Scotland, the nation most to be benefited, that notwithstanding the preparation for the event by a long train of antecedent causes, had the measure been referred to a plebiscitum, it could not have been carried. Can we now do other than smile at such wilful blindness, such well-intentioned folly? It is a most interesting page in history, and in the present connection it carries with it the force of an authority.
(f) Discovery of America
I now turn to another epoch closely connected with the progress of the English-American people.
In the fifteen centuries which followed the birth of Christ, many important and profoundly serious historical events are chronicled, but the sublimest fact of them all, after the introduction of Christianity, is the discovery of America. The intelligence, ambition, courage, influence, and progress of the English race are nowhere more strongly illustrated than in the events which follow this portentous event: it constitutes the sixth great epoch in the history of the English-speaking people. {82} Originally controlled by the Spanish and French, this great North American Continent, little by little, but by sure and regular steps, at length came completely under the domination of the Anglo-Saxon race. I do not dwell upon this epoch as a mere spectacle of military and material conquest. I point to the great results which have flowed from it. Every acre of ground they acquired, either by conquest or purchase, they have retained, planting in its soil deep and indestructibly the seeds of their policy, religion, and government. No revolution, no time, no partial infusion of other races, has been able to eradicate the English-American principles from the ground in which they were originally sown.
There is a marked and impressive similarity between the conquest of Britain by the Engles, Saxons, and Jutes, subsequently consolidated into England, and the conquest or absorption of the North American Continent by the English-American people. The original Britons, as such, have almost entirely disappeared. And where are the aborigines of North America? A few bands of Indians constitute the vestige of the race which peopled the North American continent when the hand and power of the Anglo-Saxon people were laid upon it. Pause and reflect upon this conquest: how it was accomplished; the principles which justified the invasion of the country, and the acquisition of the territory of the Indians. It was not merely greed and conquest that actuated the settlers. Granted that they were not always above {83} the ordinary motives which actuate humanity, still in the main, it was the spirit of discovery, the inextinguishable thirst for enterprise, so marked a characteristic of the race, which impelled them. And, as we so well know, these qualities were often combined with the noblest motives;—the desire of finding absolute freedom for their religious opinions and worship, which the necessities of the political situation at home denied them. Go back to the aim and purpose of government for a justification of these acts, preliminary to the introduction of order and civic government in the midst of a savage and barbarous country. Behold the introduction of English principles, laws, literature, into the great North American continent. While with heartfelt sympathy we deplore the sufferings and extinction of the earlier possessors of the soil, do we not clearly see that it affords a conspicuous instance of that Providence which shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will?