The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-01
CHAPTER I.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was asked,
When ought the training of child to
begin?" and he replied: "A hundred years
before the child is born
Heredity counts in national life as in
individual. The expansion of the United
States under the constitution was fore
Swallowed in the colonial history. A IA
vorite phrase with many has been the
manifest destiny" of the United States.
If there is such a thing, it was manifest
before our national independence and
union.
Rightly to understand the later expan-
sion OF our territory and people, it will
be necessary to see how and why our ma
ton began as English at all rather than
Spanish, French or Dutch. When the
term English is used it must be under
stood in comprehensive way as indi-
eating simply the dominance of the Eng
liSh language and English institutions.
sAnglo-SaXon is no more exact, and
English is meant to include not merely
people of strictly English origin, but
Scotch and Irish, and also those of conti-
mental European origin who have cast
in their lot with us and are being assimi-
lated.
Prof Sloane says, speaking of the time
just previous to the outbreak of the
French and Indian war: Although there
were people of other Municipalities in the
colonies who left their mark in many a
virtuous habit or curious idiosyncrasy,
yet it was nevertheless a fairly homo
geneous population Of about 100000,
bearing a civilization thoroughly Eng
fish, which dWelt along the seaboard
from the Bay o; Fundy to Florida
The discovery and the earliest settle
ment of North America were by men OF
the Latin races. Save in Mexico and
southwark it Is now under the control OF
English-speaking men. The change goes
| back for It's beginning $50 years.
| Spain had the right of way on these
shores for a round century. In the great
| epoch of discovery at the close Of the
| sixteenth century the pope divided be-
| tween Portugal and Spain, the great ex-
| p1oring nations, all that they should find.
| The line of desnarcation between their
domains was to be a meridian somewhere
between the forty-tirst and forty-fourth
degrees west longitude. 1t was supposed
| that this would give all the Americas to
! Spain. As matter of fact the line cut
| South America so as to give Brazil to
Portugal. This was fortunate, as the
| Portuguese discovered and claimed Bra
! I'll at any rate. But everything else Amer
| lean fell to Spain, then at the height Of
| her power 1t would have seemed safe
! Spanish But north OF Mexico Spain
never settled with profit or permanence.
The whole Atlantic coast was despised by
| her adventures. because they found no
gold and no easy wealth in it's broad ex-
tent Before Sne close OF Tie seventeenth
century Spain had fallen from her height.
| Holland successfully resisted her, France
! rivalea her, England forever humbled
her. Her paper claim to North America
was never admitted or enforced IN the
region where the controlling settlements
were to be.
Other nations of enterprise and power
| had to take up the abandoned opportu-
nifty The Dutch and the Swedes made
attempts at winning dominion here. Dur
| ing the period when pilgrim and puritan
were settling New England the Dutch
| colonized the New Netherlands, claim
| ing from the Connecticut to the Della
ware But the commercial rivalry OF
England and Holland forced conflict,
and in 1914 the New Netherlands became
New York The Dutch have left their
| honorable impress on American history
and society, but no part of the empire
was to be theirs. Even less successful were
the Swedes, whom Gustavus Adolphus,
their highest monarch, hoped to estab-
lish in the new world. Their territory
in Delaware, occupied by them in 1888.
was forcibly seized by the Dutch In 1868,