"Now, Gentlemen, I do not know what practical views or what practical results may take place from this great expansion of the power of the two branches of Old England. It is not for me to say; I only can see, that on this continent all is to be Anglo-American from Plymouth Rock to the Pacific seas, from the north pole to California. That is certain; and in the Eastern world I only see that you can hardly place a {150} finger on a map of the world and be an inch from an English settlement. Gentlemen, if there be anything in the supremacy of races, the experiment now in progress will develop it. If there be any truth in the idea that those who issued from the great Caucasian fountain, and spread over Europe, are to react on India and on Asia, and to act on the whole Western world, it may not be for us, nor our children, nor our grandchildren to see it, but it will be for our descendants of some generation to see the extent of that progress and dominion of the favoured races. For myself, I believe there is no limit fit to be assigned to it by the human mind, because I find at work everywhere, on both sides of the Atlantic, under various forms and degrees of restriction on the one hand, and under various degrees of motive and stimulus on the other hand, and 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 of the idea that the many are made for the few, or that government is anything but an agency for mankind. And I care not 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 that I shall find prosperity and happiness."
Following in the wake of these premises, therefore, arises our duty to propagate Anglo-Saxon principles; to increase and multiply its peoples; to strengthen and extend its influences; to carry its banners everywhere a human foot can tread and human energy be felt.
Some may think that their interests concur with {151} their prejudices to prevent the union of the Anglo-Saxon people, no matter in what form, or for what object, the alliance is created. It would be difficult to define these interests, but whether they be real or unreal, substantial or immaterial, no attention should be given to any opposition supposedly arising out of them. If we are actuated by pure motives, which are made clear and are understood, we shall emerge from the struggle as the race always has, in victory.
And thus we have linked to the natural; sympathetic influences which operate to bring us closer together, the elements of self-interest and self-preservation, protection, and necessity; and, finally, to crown all, a high and mighty duty.
Here are centred all the motives of selfishness and all the influences of sympathy which are necessary to create and permanently continue a great political intermarriage,—a combination and a form indeed upon which "every god did seem to set his seal" to give the world the assurance of a great, prosperous and imperishable union.
[1] See Buckle, vol. ii., p. 334 et seq.
[2] Review of the World's Commerce, issued from the Bureau of Foreign Commerce, Department of State, Washington, D. C., 1902.
[3] Ante, p. 62 et seq.
[4] Ante, p. 71 et seq.
[5] Speech of Daniel Webster, delivered on the 22nd of December, 1843, at the Public Dinner of the New England Society of New York, in Commemoration of the Landing of the Pilgrims.