The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-11-13 00:00:00

THE RELATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.-THEIR
COMMON DESTINY AND DUTY.

Last night, the first of a series of leeture2, in connection
with the Tuckerman Institute, was delivered in the Chapel
of the Demi',lie Mission, Bedford-street, by the Rer. 'VT. H.
Chauning. The subject of his discourse was " The Itelatiuns
of Great Britain and the United States of America—their
common destiny and duty." In opening the lecture,

The Rev, gentleman said :—As an American born and
bred, and as an Englishman by courtesy, kindness, and the
duties of an office, I feel special obligation to the Chief
Minister of Great Britain, when, during his late visit to
Liverpool, he used this phrase—" You have connected, by
safe and speedy modes of intercourse, I will not say two
nations, but two branches of one great nation, living on both
sides of the Atlantic." It is in that spirit that I would
speak to you to night. I feel it deeply that the tie between
Great Britain and the United States is one of common
international life. I feel that Providence designed this
island to be related affectionately to the colonies which she
has sent abroad from her fertile bosom, and that it is
a breach in the natural and divine laws whenever
anything occurs to break that life ; and I believe
that I am the representative of a vast majority
of my countrymen, when I say that the most earnest desire
that we have politically beyond the borders of our land,
where our special duties are assigned us, is for this close
affiliation, this perfect fraternity, this identity of interests,
this recognition of a common destiny and duty with Great
Britain. I shall take it for granted that those who listen
to me to-night have something of a reciprocal spirit—(hear,
hear)—that you feel as the Prime Minister of England
declared, that there is an intercommunion of national life
on both sides of the Atlantic. And now, to justify, in some
respects, this view, I have, in the first place, to recall to
your memories what we all so well know, that in blood,'
in organisation, those people on each side of the Atlantic
are one. The same wonderful interblending of many races,
to produce a race which, I believe, has more marked and
varied characteristics thatt any other race on the face of the
earth, belongs to us as to you. Next, there is the unity of
language and literature. I weigh my words carefully, when
I say I believe there is no language on the face of the earth
as rich as is the English tongue. (Applause.) There
may be others which, to the ear, sound more
musical, but I believe that, for eisergy of meaning
and expression, for richness and fertility of allusion, for
adaptation to all varied uses—practical, ideal, spiritual,
philosophic, poetic—there is no language so well adapted
as the English tongue. We do not acknowledge that the
English literature is any more yours than ours. All the
early literature of this nation flowed into the minds of our
ancestors to enrich them. • They were heirs of that inex-
plassably rich deposit of the Elizabethan age. The great
poets, the great philosophers, the great politicians of that
time are ours as they are yours. Shalrespere—is he not a
household guest in the humblest cottage in the far western
land ? Milton —is he not read by every one who seeks to
cultivate a high toned morality ? I 'assert, also, that by
sympathy and close intercommunion, all that is best in the
literature of Great Britain in modern times is also ours, and
I trust that you are reciprocal in that respect, and that
what is best in our literature is also yours. I wish, too,
to unfold before you the thought that we are one with you in
laws acid the forms which guide and govern the b .dy politic.
The rev. leCturer then argued that, like England, one of the
characteristics of America was a love of freedom and order—
of -liberty and law, and that it was a great mistake to
suppose that the United States were a democracy after the
ancient types of democracy. Democracy, as representing a
Government springing from the .presant will of the people,
never was the thought of the United States—is not the
thought of the United States—and be dared put it, never
would be the thought of the United States. The thought of
the United States had always been, was now, and always
would be, that of a republic. 'What was the distinction ?
Precisely this—loyalty to the constitutionally embodied
will and thoughts of the people. From first to last, the
peculiarity of the United States had been loyalty to
constitutions—the same peculiarity which had distinguished
England in all its struggles for its great charters. In a
word, there was no people on the nee of the earth, he
asserted, who showed more reverence to constitutional law
than the people of the United States, and in that
respect they were truly one with the nation from which
they, had sprung; for the characteristic of this people every-
where was loyalty to constitutions. He then replied to
recent criticisms as to the deterioration of politics in the
United States, and denied that such was the case. The
best men of America, it was true, were not in its House of
Representatives, though prepared to come forward at any
crisis; but, then, were the best men of this country in the
House of Commons ? He answered no ; but admitted that
its deliberations were influenced and prompted by the
thoughts of men outside its wails. He then referred to the
identity of the two peoples, in industry, commerce, the
mechanical arts, railroads, telegraphic communication, &c.
Turtling from these, he called their attention to a higher
class of facts—those concerning the education of the people.
The education of the people, he declared, was an English
idea. It was brought by their pilgrim fathers, and
the very first work to which they devoted themselves was
laying out ground for the schools and universities, for they
foresaw, that only a people who were thoroughly trained,
could be fit to conduct the Government which there was to
be organised. It was absolute necessity, but it was also
an honourable purpose that they should be fitted for that
trust. The rev. lecturer here quoted from the census of
18511, to show the extent of education throughout the
United States, and the care which the Government there
took to provide the people with schools, lyceums, public '
libraries, and all the other means of enlightenment. He
dwelt on the number and circulation of newspapers through-
out the States, and declaring that in America a free Press
was regarded as the very soul of a healthy body politic,
expressed his jay at the offer's and 'progress that
were being made to free the press from all shackles:.
He urgel that the spirit of religion in America was
the same as that which prevailed in England, and,
having shown that the two nations were one in all the
great principles of life, asked if it was not evidently the
design of God that they should be so? Would it not be a
violation against the deepest laws of life, and against the
purpose of Providence everywhere, if nations like these
should be arrayed against one another ? Looking forward
to the future, and foreseeing what might come to pass in
Europe, and the New World, how should not every one who
loved his race, pray that they should be one in their inmost
anti utmost life ? God grant it. (Applause) He could
not believe that they had yet begun to see what was the
destiny that they were -to accomplish together: ([Lear,
hear, and applause.) Let them look at it. Was itby accident
that they had scattered their colonies the world round'?
Was it by accident that their combined fleets now whitened
every sea ? Was it by accident that they were at this-very
moment combining plans whereby this earth would be
girded by telegraphic communication ? There was no
accident in that. It was the plain appointment of Provi-
dence, and shame to both if they yielded to any hindrance,
to any check which could interfere between the accomplish
ment of that sublime and glorious destiny which awaited
them. (Applause.) He would allude to the only true
dangers that he knew of in the United States, that could
prevent them fulfilling. that destiny—they were the influence
of a vast foreign immigrati in, and the influence of domestic
servitude. And first, in regard to the danger arising from
foreign immigration, was the Anglo Saxon race in America
strong enough to assimilate to it the various elements that
were placed by it ? He answered yes, they were
strong enough. Here was the proof of it. It was a
remarkable fact how all races became transformed
and amalgamated with the States as they entered there.
Hero people spoke with great fear, oftentimes with
disparagement of their immediate neighbours of the Celtic
race across the channel. Ho would tell them what their
experience in America of their Irish brethren was. They
found that their Irish brethren, in America, became, in a
period of time very short, considering the transformation, not
industrious and energetic, for that they always were, bat
they became thrifty—they became desirous of elevating
their condition—they became earnest for the education and
improvement of their children, and they became devoted to
the land of which they had been admitted members. They
became capable of self-government, and. in a word, were
invaluable elements of the .nation. So, also, with the
Germans, the Swedes, the Italians, and all the other races
which entered the Union. • With regard to the second
danger—slavery—the reverend gentleman repeated
the views to which ,he gave utterance last
year on this subject. The problem was not to be solved,
he declared, by dividing the Union into a servile band of
republics, end a free band of republics. That would be to
avoid the solution of the problem, and would be falsehood
to duty on all sides. Neither would it be solved by one
conquering the other, but it would be solved by both co-
operating for the removal of that great evil which prevented
them from being what God designed theta to be, and what
humanity summoned them to be—a republic of united free-
men. It would be done by the common action of north
and south, by a common sacrifice, and by common consent ;
and, he dared to predict; that would be the method that
would be followed. In conclusion, the reverend
lecturer earnestly and most eloquently bespught the
people of this country to look with sym-
pathy on their race in America working out . these
hard problems, and nobly exhorted them, in the event of
America failing in the solution, not to lose faith in the
principle of reaublicanism. He begged of them to cease
the spirit of negative criticism which was recently indulged
in towards America and her institutions, declaring that, in
the Central American dispute, the United States were right,
and that the difference would uever have arisen had
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THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES.—A blue book of 140 pages
has been published, containing further papers relative to the
alterations in the constitution of the Australian colonies in
continuation of papers presented in April and May, 1855.
The dates of the papers extend from February, 1855, to the
20th July, 1855.

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