The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-30

not IN the order Of nature that her sovereigns /
should retain the outlying islands. The
islands are natural appendages Of the oonti-
nent, and should be embraced in the same
political system. 1t is as contrary to fitness,
that the American islands should belong to the |
political system of Europe, as il would be for |
the British islands to be included in the |
political system of America. Outlying islands |
are sort of satellites to their continents they
should go with them politically, as they do
geographically. The reason why European
dominion has greater longevity in the islands
than on the mainland is, that the wars by
which the English and Spanish colonies won
independence were land struggles, none of the
colonies, at the time of achieving their free
DOM having had a naval force capable of
coping with the mother country on the ocean,
None of the American islands is large
enough to become an independent country,
and the naval superiority of Europe has kept
them subject to the original claimants. The
United States is the only American power
that has ever had a considerable navy; but
with the exception of the Bermudas there are
no islands near our coast belonging to any
power with whom we have ever been at war,
and at the time of our last war with Great
Britain we were not strong enough on the
ocean to seize these. Our proximity to the
Bahamas is the result of our subsequent acqui-
sition of Florida. We have peacefully extin-
guished, by purchase, the European title to
large areas of territory adjacent to our own,
but we have taken no active interest in any of
the American islands, except Cuba. To this
our Government long ago asserted a reversion-
airy claim by declaring that it should never
pass from Spain to any other sovereignty than
our own.
We have made one or two unsuccessful at
tempts to purchase it, and we suppose no
American doubts that it will ultimately be
ours. The abolition of slavery in the United
speedy extinction everywhere, is favorable to
our early acquisition of Cuba. Spain cannot
long resist the universal tendency of the age,
and with the example of Jamaica before her
she cannot expect the island to continue profit
able after the emancipation of the negroes. 1t
is probable, therefore, that altered crcum-
| stances and prospects will abate her reluctance
| to sell it, But when we have acquired Cuba,
and when Mexico and the South American
nations come to have navies, manifest destiny
| will speedily displace the island dominion of
Europe in this hemisphere.
There is no hazard in predicting that the
| whole American continent and neighboring
| islands will be emancipated from European
\ CONTROL but is it equally clear that republican
ideas of government are to predominate in the
4 independent New World This is a question
] to which no thoughtful person would assume
1 to give dogmatic answer; but all the main
| tendencies, so far as they are yet disclosed,
! pointtowards the universal prevalence ofrepub-
| licanism. We do not overlook the existence
of monarchy in Brazil, the incipient tendency
/ to kingship in Canada, nor the great strides
| towards Capitalization in the United States.
| But all these are abnormal. They are against
| the predominant current of American ideas.
| The Brazilian monarchy is a consequence of the
original absurdity of making that vast terri
tory satellite of an Insignificant patch of the
Spanish peninsula. 1t is a relic of that sub
| jugation to Europe from which the American
continent is not yet quite free.
| NOW half appeared
| The tawny lion, paving to get free
His hinder parts; then springs as broke from
And rampant shakes his brindled name"
In like manner, the Canadian monarchy, if
there should be one, will be mere navel
mark left by the peaceful severance of the
umbilical cord which binds that vast country
| to Britain. Mischievous as some recent ten
denotes are in the United States, they do not
bear in the direction of monarchy. The nulli-
| fcatiOn and almost complete prostration of
executive influence, and the supremacy
claimed for the elected representatives of the
people, point rather to the absolute tyranny
of political maiorities than to the despotism of
an individual. We have not and never can
have on this continent Certainly not in the
next century or two) an aristocracy of birth
and blood, which, in the Old World forms
one of the chief supports of throne. Our
aristocracy on this continent is an aristocracy
of wealth, and the equal division of estates
prevents the building up of great families
The openings for enterprise on a new CONT
nent enable parUenus to eclipse our oldest
houses. The levelling political tendency also,
stronger at this moment than it has ever been
before, is an active force operating for the per-
petuity of republicanism
The very principle which called for the
severance of this continent from political de-
pendence on Europe, contains the essence of
the republicanism of which America is the
natural home. Wecommenced our Declaration
of independence by proclaiming human equal
ity, meaning no more by this fruitful dogma
than that men on the Western Continent
rightfully owe no more subsection to men on
the Eastern, than men on the Eastern Cont
nent do to those on the Western. But if the
dogma be true as a justification for throwing
off the Old World yoke, it is equally true as
ground for disputing the control of one
class, order, or race of men over another in
the same country, or, at all events, this is
the chief practical use which has been made
oft. From which it appears that the germs
of republcanism were deeply planted in the
very fact of separation, and that one of the
supposed logical consequences of continental
independence is institutions founded on equal
ity of political rights.