The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-09-29
THE BRITISH AND AMERICAN RACE FOR EMPIRE
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j. has as been a subject of remark that while
eur ew aouaia on this continent has filed up with
maFVsaoas apidity, and new and great States have
gre aniiLo being in few years under constitu-
f9n nile centuries had been requisite for the pur-
pos9 other parts of the world, and even in this
then our country was yet in colonial dependence
upon Great Brtain-the immense British domain
north of us upon the continent, though enjoy
ing all the advantages and facilities for rapid deve
opment which belonged to us except our political
institutions, have remained for the most part until
now, wild, uninhabited desert.
Great as the difference of institutions may be un-
der which the two contiguous parts of the Continent
have remained, and undoubtedly superior ours
are to those of British America in the impulse they
give to individual enterprise and adventure and
to political and social Development yet it would be
rash and empirical to conclude that tho existing dis
parity between the two regions is altogether due to
the different political institutions under which they
have remained. We have no doubt that it is per-
fectly just to ascribe the low social and industrial
condition Of countries south Of to the feebeness
and decay Of their political institutions; but we are
not sure would be legitimate to attribute the back
wardness in development of the British dominons
on our north exclusively, in chief part to infu-
ences like these 1t is not to be denied that the
Canadas are less prosperous and vigorous than the
States but we think it probable that tho fact is
chiefly due to the severer climate and the more I'M
propitious seasons that there prevail, and we might
add, somewhat also to the French extraction of the
people for we think it cannot be successfully denied
that the French race is better adapted to conditions
of society such as are found in old and denselypeo
pied countries, like France, than to the hardshps,
priyations and vicssudes Of colonial life. The his
tory of colonization in tho New World has abund
anty proved that the Spanish race is immensely in
ferior to the Anglo-Saxon in capacity for planting
new and aourishing empires. The history of North
America has just as decidedly proved that the
French race are very far inferior to the AngoSaxon
in this particular; for whereas France once held do
minion in grand semfcircle of country embracing
Canada, the country of the great lakes, the entire
Mississippi valley and Texas, it now does not own
a foot of land upon the entire continent
The fact is thus established that the ultimate do
minion of all North America and the West Indies
must soon belong to the Anglo-Saxon race. The
only problem remaining to be solved for each dis
trict is, whether it shall belong to that portion of
the race which still swears by the crown of Great
Britain, or to that which is engaged in extending the
free institutions of the American Union. Reasoning
from the past history Of the on this continent
history which shows long career of feebleness,
poverty, and tedious and doubtful development
while under the colonial dominion, and of sudden
and stupendous outgrowth and expansion after
the yoke was thrown off-a history which presents
the almost stationary Canadas and the wild wastes
of British America the fruits of one class of inst
buttons and the thrtytwo States of this Union with
their Aourishing agriculture, universal commerce,
incalculabe wealth, their vast railroad systems their
military power, their physical resources Of every
name their mighty intellectual energy and activity
as the fruits of the other we say, reasoning from
the past history Of the AngloSaxcns this CONT
nent it would be very natural to conclude that the
great acquisitions of empire yet to be made upon it
would surely be by that branch of the race which
under our federal constitution has already succeeded
in establishing thrty-three States, two of which are
planted upon the Pacific ocean. .
We must not forget, however, the circumstances
which have controlled and retarded the develop
ment of British empire on this continent Among
the most influential of these has been the territorial
monopoly which has been enjoyed for two centuries
by the great Hudson's Bay Company in all the Brit
ish dominions without the limits of the Canadas-a
monopoly which enabled that company, as it were,
to placard four hundred thousand square miles of
territory embracing Of the finest lands in North
America, as British landed proprietor would do his
game preserves in England, mo thoroughfare here"
"No admission on any kind of business Mon
strous as it seems to US that few should
have been allowed, for two centuries, for the
mere preservation, for their own use, of the furs
and skins of wild beasts running wild upon it, an
exclusive, arbitrary and absolute right of user to
this large and valuable portion of the earth's
face while millions Of their countymen were snted
for bread and frantic for the want of employment;
yet the fact has been Of two hundred years dura-
ton Nothing could more strikingly exhibit the diff
ference which exists in the spirit of the institutions
of England and the United States than the temper in
which the two peoples would respectively look upon
such monopoly.
The territorial monopoly Of the great Hudsons
Bay Company has at last, however fallen; and acts
have passed the British Parliament establishing CO.
lonal governments in the hitherto closed domains of
British America. The fall of the great land monop-