As long as we remain apart, are not tensions, discords, and differences imminent? And at some unexpected moment will not a fanatic, politician, or demagogue cast a brand into the fire of discussion, and then will we not have war? As Canada grows in her development, and increases in prosperity and population, will not these dangers become more likely and pressing?[6] I frankly and gladly admit that the chances of war between the United States and England are becoming less probable every day. The only existing bone of contention {172} which might create war is Canada. There is no other question which cannot, and, I hope, will not be settled by agreement, or arbitration. With Canada annexed, and a common citizenship established, all causes for differences would be removed, and we would practically become one great nation, with one great purpose and a single ambition—to civilise mankind.
The disadvantages and evils which result to the three nations concerned from the present anomalous government of Canada are apparent and susceptible of much more elaboration than I have indulged in. I leave much to the imagination. Real harm may ensue from opening up these matters with too much detail. On the other hand, in searching for the advantages of union, we find all the natural causes which tend to and justify the consolidation of separate states present.
Contiguity of territory, the same race of people; the same language, literature, and laws; the same political and religious tendencies; the dominating necessities of commerce; self-protection, mutual interest, motives of peace and good-will—in fine, all those elements necessary to insure a prosperous and permanent political marriage. Almost every reason which operated upon the minds of the citizens of the original thirteen States to create the present federation is to be found in the case of Canada. She is naturally related to the United States; she is only artificially connected with England. In a commercial and material sense, the advantages of her annexation to the United States {173} are potent. She would move forward with gigantic strides, opening, developing, and peopling her vast country. In separate States of the American Union, the Canadians would cultivate and guard their own destinies, just as the present States of the Union now do. The free and unrestricted admixture of the people of the different States of the American Union has been one of the causes of her vast progress. Break down the political paper barrier which now exists between Canadians and Americans, open the door between them so that each can pass in and out of the other's country, establish a free communion of persons and goods, and Canada would leap into a condition of progress and prosperity equal to that of our most envied and successful States. American capital, invention, and push would combine with Canadian ability, energy, and resources to reach the highest stage of individual and national development.
The road to great prosperity is now blocked by the mere form of a different citizenship, although we are really one people. We are standing idly looking at each other, relying upon forced, strained, and unnatural efforts to build up commercial relations, when we have it in our power, by the stroke of a pen, as it were, to reach the goal of business, fortune, and success.
Cannot the Canadians learn an important lesson from a study of the history of Scotland? I do not mean to assert that there is a perfect historical parallel, but there are significant events connected with that history which certainly bear upon this {174} discussion. Causes which led to the merger into one of the different Saxon kingdoms, gradually to the annexation of Wales, and finally to the absorption of the Palatinates, had long been working toward similar results in both England and Scotland. The wisest statesmen in these two countries deplored those miseries which, till they ceased to be divided, each inflicted on the other. The Scots, though uncertain, intractable, and passionately jealous of their national liberties, again and again allowed the question to approach the edge of solution.[1] In fact, the union of Scotland and England was agitated in different forms for many hundred years before it was accomplished, with the most lamentable consequences in the interim, to say nothing of the policy of Edward I., and the aspirations and efforts of Henry VIII. to achieve that result after the marriage of his sister, Margaret, with James IV. of Scotland. The supreme effort of King James I., in 1606, to effect a union between the two kingdoms, when the matter was brought before Parliament, and the extraordinary zeal shown by Sir Francis Bacon in support thereof, are well known. "Swayed merely by the vulgar motive of national antipathy," as Hume puts it,[2] the attempt was defeated, and one hundred years elapsed before the important event was consummated. Upon its final accomplishment, Scotland gave up many rights and accepted a representation inadequate and small in comparison to her population, {175} much to the nation's chagrin and loss; but everybody now admits that it was a wise and eminently necessary step for her future prosperity. If it had not been accomplished[9] there would have been a renewal of national wars and border feuds, the cost of which the two kingdoms could never have endured, and at a hazard of ultimate conquest, which, with all her pride and bravery, the experience of the last generation had shown to be no impossible result of the contest.
I wish, also, to recall the important fact, that Canada was originally embraced in the plan of the American Republic, as provided in the Articles of Confederation (XI.) as follows:
"Canada acceding to this Confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of, this Union, but no other colony shall be admitted into the same unless such admission be agreed to by nine States."
The door was left wide open for her admission, but she did not avail herself of the privilege to enter. Her actual reason for not accepting an offer which placed her on a par with the most prosperous colonies of England, I cannot satisfactorily discover. I can guess, but speculation upon this point answers no practical purpose. The anomalous fact is, however, recorded that while the French Canadians were combating American Independence, the French nation was aiding the Americans to attain it. It is important to keep in sight that it {176} was the opinion of the founders of our Government that geographically, commercially, and naturally, Canada belonged to the same sphere of political life in which they revolved. Indeed it requires no strained or artificial argument to show that Canada naturally belongs to the Union; just as naturally as the Union belongs to Canada.
Goldwin Smith's remarks are pertinent in this connection[10]:
"Yet there is no reason why the union of the two sections of the English-speaking people on this continent should not be as free, as equal, and as honourable as the union of England and Scotland. . . . When the Anglo-Saxons of England and those of Scotland were reunited they had been many centuries apart; those of the United States and Canada have been separated for one century only. The Anglo-Saxons of England and Scotland had the memory of many wars to estrange them. . . . That a union of Canada with the American Commonwealth, like that into which Scotland entered with England, would in itself be attended with great advantages, cannot be questioned, whatever may be the considerations on the other side, or the reasons for delay. It would give to the inhabitants of the whole continent as complete a security for peace and immunity from war taxation, as is likely to be attained by any community or group of communities on this side of the Millennium. Canadians, almost with one voice, say, that it would greatly raise the value of property in Canada; in other words, that it would bring with it a great increase of prosperity."