Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 255 



thing from his statement that they are "English." 

 The "truly British people" consists of a conglom- 

 erate of as distinct races as exist anywhere in 

 Aryan Europe. The Erse, Welsh, and Gaelic im- 

 migrants to America are just as distinct from the 

 English, just as "foreign" to them, as are the Scan- 

 dinavians, Germans, Hollanders, and Huguenots 

 often more so. Such early families as the Welsh 

 Shelbys and Gaelic McAfees are no more English 

 than are the Huguenot Seviers or the German 

 Stoners. Even including merely the immigrants 

 from the British Isles, the very fact that the Welsh, 

 Irish, and Scotch, in a few generations, fuse with 

 the English instead of each element remaining sep- 

 arate, makes the American population widely dif- 

 ferent from that of Britain; exactly as a flask of 

 water is different from two cans of hydrogen and 

 oxygen gas. Mr. Shaler also seems inclined to 

 look down a little on the Tennesseeans, and to con- 

 sider their population as composed in part of infe- 

 rior elements; but in reality, though there are very 

 marked differences between the two commonwealths 

 of Kentucky and Tennessee, yet they resemble one 

 another more closely, in blood and manners, than 

 either does any other American State; and both 

 have too just cause for pride to make it necessary 

 for either to sneer at the other, or indeed at any 

 State of our mighty Federal Union. In their origin 

 they were precisely alike; but whereas the original 

 pioneers, the hunters and Indian fighters, kept pos- 

 session of Tennessee as long as they lived, Jack- 



