Apbil 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE 



127 



supply the sinews of war for contests in Europe. It was 

 not, however, as enemies of Great Britain that they resisted, 

 but in self-defence against the injustics of rulers who re- 

 garded nations as a sort of property. They were not 

 Americans fighting against Britons, but Britons in America 

 fighting for independence against the rulei-s of Great Britain 

 at home. If national rivahy at all were in question, one 

 might say, considering that the king of Great Britain was 

 of almost undiluted German blood, and that besides Britons 

 only Germans fought against the independence of our British 

 race in America, that the contest was between Britons and 

 Germans. This, however, would be to exaggerate the dif- 

 ference between the actual character of the War of Inde- 

 pendence and what that war is commonly held to be, alike 

 by Britons here, and by men of our own British stock in 

 America ; and no exaggeration is needed. The mistake 

 actually made is marked enough. It prevents the average 

 Briton from glorying in the noble effort by which our people 

 more than a century ago achieved victory for their just 

 cause; and it prevents the average American from recog- 

 nising that it was while Americans were British in name 

 as well as in fact (for this they have always been) that they 

 achieved the independence wliich is the greatest glory of one 

 of these nations, and should lie the greatest glory of both. 



America being derived, as we know she was, from an 

 essentially British stock, and being essentiall}' British in 

 blood and character, the Briton who finds it suit his pur- 

 pose to join the American community has no reason for 

 regarding himself as debarred from so doing by any claims 

 of the home community iipon him. There are, in fact, no 

 such claims now any more than there were in the case of 

 those who went out as colonists to America in the seven- 

 teenth and eighteenth centuries. JTor should an American 

 who finds it convenient to make the old country or one of 

 its colonies his home, consider that he is deserting his own 

 people any more than a Virginian or a Xew Englander 

 would so think, who found it convenient to return to 

 England in the old days, before the War of Independence 

 had definitel_y sepai-ated the British race into communities 

 having dififerent governments. The only kind of patriotism 

 which can be regarded by reasoning men as a virtue, is 

 loyalty to the people ; loyalty to a form of government and 

 loyalty to a tract of land are qualities appropriate only to 

 semi- savage i-aces. 



If all Britons believed in monarchy, not only as a system 

 which it would be inconvenient to change, but on principle, 

 and if all Americans were equally earnest in the belief 

 that a man is necessarily degraded who remains within a 

 community ruled (even nominally) by a sovereign, the case 

 would doubtless be very different. It would then be a 

 point of patriotism for a Briton to remain British and for 

 an American to remain American. Or if war were likely, 

 one might almost say if war were possible, then — a.s war, 

 essentially degrading, necessarily brings with it many un- 

 pleasant conditions — it might be a sort of duty for Americans 

 and Britons, alike, to remain severally under their own 

 respective flags. But Britons are not monarchist nor 

 Americans repulilican in that foolish sense. The Briton 

 knows that he has taken nearly all eSective evil out of 

 monarchy — for all at least who respect the dignity of their 

 manhood. (As for the rest, those who being free prefer to 

 ape slavery and having the right to stand erect fall to boot- 

 licking — with an appetite — it matters little what form of 

 government they have.) The American, in like manner, 

 knows that if he and his fellows wQled they could substi- 

 tute a king for a president, yet give up no atom of their 

 freedom or their self-respect. 



The Briton, even if he call himself (not being concerned 

 about trifles) a subject, is as free ft-oni all real subjection as 



the American citizen. If he spaaks with esteem or respect 

 of any king or queen who chances, as has happened, to be 

 virtuous and intelligent — or even both — it is as men or 

 women he regards them, and his respect implies no ad- 

 mission that the original atrocities were ju.st by which the 

 English monai-chy was founded and the people temponrrily 

 brought into real subjection. Still less does such reasonable 

 esteem for a king or queen chancing to be worthy of esteem 

 imply approval of the wars, the iniquities, or the immorali- 

 ties by which nearly all the rulers of this country afflicted 

 and oft'ended the people in past times. The American in 

 like manner knows that neither his own people nor the 

 kindred people here would sufter such iniquities or anything 

 approaching to them to be perpetuated, even though America 

 should choose to give to its government the title of monarchy, 

 or though Great Britain still allows the name to remain 

 after the evil of it is dead. 



As for war, if war is possible between two such com- 

 munities as Great Britain an 1 America, then the shame of 

 that is such as to overshadow any such shame as might 

 belong to being on one side or the other side in a contest 

 which would be unutterably degrading to both. 



These remarks have been suggested by the reading of 

 Mr. Andrew Carnegie's interesting work, " Triumphant 

 Democracy." It brings before the reader more thoroughly 

 than any book we have yet seen the importance of the 

 ethnic question in considering the fortunes of a nation, and 

 the comparative insignificance of the particular form of 

 government which the nation may find convenient. Mr, 

 Carnegie calls his book " Triumphant Democracy," but, so 

 far as we can see, he in no sense shows that democracy, as 

 such, has had much to do with the progi-ess of America. 

 Democracy regarded in its negative aspect has been, doubt- 

 less, all-important in determining the fortunes of the States. 

 But this implies only the converse proposition that a nation 

 which begins its career in a state of actual subjection to 

 more or less rapacious rulers, and their plunder-loving 

 followers, cannot possibly make rapid progress until it has 

 shaken itself free and replaced a state of real subjection by 

 one of practical citizenhood. If the progress of America 

 during the last century has been almost incomparably more 

 rapid than that of the old country, it has not been because 

 of any inherent virtue in democi-acy, but because the pro- 

 gress of America as a nation has not been hampered by 

 oppressive misgovernment. There is curious evidence of 

 this in the degeneracy of the present race of politicians in 

 America. England would be ruined in a couple of genera- 

 tions if her politicians were as worthless as those who have 

 attained power in America (we make no comparison in 

 regard to English statesmen, for there are no statesmen in 

 America). 



But what good fortune it is to a nation to be let alone, 

 to have a fair start in national life instead of having to 

 struggle out from under a dead weight of oppression, this 

 book shows well. We commend it to the careful study of 

 those who imagine that they have settled the whole question 

 by pointing to miniicipal bribery at New York, corrupt 

 State legislation at Albany, and iniquitous political life at 

 Washington. Compare the nation fairly and truly pictured 

 in this book, a nation about as much to be judged by its 

 politicians as England by lords-in-waiting and other flunkeys 

 at court, with the America of a hundred years ago — extend- 

 ing the comparison so that while the former is compared 

 with the England of to-day the latter is compared with the 

 England of a hundred years ago — and it will be felt, we 

 think, that America must have had some immense advan- 

 tage in the race. What that advantage has been cannot 

 well be doubted. Democratic government has done little 

 for America, and of late the little that her politicians have 



