Читать книгу The American Spirit in the Writings of Americans of Foreign Birth - Various - Страница 7

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By nationality we understand the peculiar genius of a people which animates its institutions, prompts its actions and begets a feeling of common interest and sympathy. It is not the result of any compact, but an instinct of human nature in its social capacity, an expansion of the inborn love of self and kindred. To hate his own countrymen is as unnatural as to hate his own brothers and sisters.

Nationality grows with the nation itself and acts as a powerful stimulus in its development. But on the other side it presupposes an organized state of society and is the result of a historical process. Barbarians have no nationality, because they are no nations, but simply material for nations. It is not only the community of origin and language, but also the community of rights and duties, of laws and institutions, of deeds and sufferings, of freedom and oppression, of literature and art, of virtue and religion, that enters into the definition of a nation and gives vigor to the sense of nationality. Historical reminiscences of glory and woe, whether preserved in monuments, or written records, or oral traditions, popular songs and national airs, such as “God save the Queen,” “Ye mariners of England,” “Rule, Britannia,” “Scots wha hae with Wallace bled,” “Allons enfants de la patrie,” “Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” “Hail, Columbia,” contribute powerfully to strengthen the national tie and to kindle the fire of national enthusiasm.

Nationality begets patriotism, one of the noblest of natural virtues that has filled the pages of history with so many heroic deeds and sacrifices. Who can read without admiration the immortal story of Gideon, Leonidas, Cincinnatus, Horatius Cocles, William Tell, Arnold von Winkelried, the Maid of Orleans, John Hampden, Prince William of Orange, Andreas Hofer, George Washington, who lived or died for their country?

True patriotism does not imply hatred or contempt of foreigners, and is entirely compatible with a proper regard for the rights and welfare of other nations, just as self-love and self-respect may and should coexist with the most generous philanthropy. A narrow-minded and narrow-hearted nationalism which walls out the life of the world, and for this very reason condemns itself to perpetual imprisonment in the treadmill of its own pedantry and conceit, may suit semi-barbarians, or the stagnant heathen civilization of China and Japan[2], but not an enlightened Christian people. True and false nationalism and patriotism are related to each other, as self-love to selfishness. The first is a law of nature, the second a vice. We respect a man in the same proportion in which his self-love expands into love of kindred and country, and his patriotism into love of humanity at large. Washington was always generous to the enemy and was the first to establish amicable relations with England after the conclusion of the American war. The Christian religion, which commands us to love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves, tends to purify and elevate patriotism, like every other natural virtue, by emancipating it from the selfish, overbearing, all-grasping passion of conquest, and making it contributory to the general welfare of the human family. One of the noblest acts of the English nation, as a nation, is the disinterested abolition of the African slave trade.

The events of modern times tend more and more to break down the barriers between the nations, to bring the ends of the earth together and to realize the unity and universality of the human race.

This we must steadily keep in view, if we would understand the distinctive character and mission of the American nation, i. e., the people of the United States, who are emphatically called by that name, as the chief bearers of the historical life and future significance of the entire Western Continent.

In discussing this interesting topic, we shall avoid, of course, the whirlpool of party politics, and endeavor to rise above those violent sectional strifes, which, for some time past, have been and are still agitating our country on the question of the true nature of Americanism.

Of all the great nations of the earth none has entered into existence under more favorable auspices and prospects, none is better prepared and more clearly called to represent a compact, well defined and yet expansive, world-embracing nationality, than the American. Our motto, E Pluribus Unum, is an unconscious prophecy of our national character and destiny, as pointed out by the irresistible course of events and the indications of Providence. Out of many nations, yea, out of all the nations of Christendom, is to be gathered the one cosmopolitan nation of America on the strong and immovable foundation of the Anglo-Saxon race....

Let us now proceed to an analysis of the different elements, which enter into the composition of the American nationality and will, in their combined action, enable it to fulfil its great destiny.

It is evident to the most superficial observer that the basis of our national character is English. It is so, not only in language, but also in manners and customs, in our laws and institutions, in the structure of our domestic, political and ecclesiastical life, in our literature and religion. It is perfectly idle to think that this country will ever become German, or French, or Irish, or Dutch. Let them emigrate by hundreds of thousands from the continent of Europe, they will modify and enrich, but they can never destroy or materially change the Anglo-Saxon ground-element of the American people....

But with all due regard for good old England, America is by no means intended to be a mere copy or continuation of it. If our nationality, owing to its youth and the many foreign elements still entering into its composition, is less solid and compact than that of our older brother, it is, on the other hand, more capable of expansion and development; it is composed of a greater variety of material and destined ultimately for more comprehensive ends by the Almighty Ruler of nations, who assigned us not an island, but a continent for a home, and two oceans for a field of action.

If ever a nation was laid out on a truly cosmopolitan basis and gifted with an irresistible power of attraction, it is the American. Here where our globe ends its circuit seems to terminate the migration of the human race. To our shores they come in an unbroken stream from every direction. Even the tribes of Africa and Asia are largely represented amongst us and call our country their home. But whatever may be the ultimate fate of the red man, the negro and the Chinese, who are separated from us by the unsurmountable difference of race, it is evident that all the civilized nations of Europe, especially those of Germanic origin, have contributed and will continue to contribute to our stock. They meet here on the common ground of freedom and equality, to renew their youth and to commingle at last into one grand brotherhood, speaking one language, pervaded by one spirit, obeying the same laws, laboring for one aim, and filling in these ends of the earth the last and the richest chapter in the history of the world. As Europe is a great advance on the civilization of Asia, so we have reason to believe that America will be in the end a higher continuation of the consolidated life of Europe. The eyes of the East are instinctively turned to the West, and civilization follows the march of the sun.

The history of the colonization and growth of this country strongly supports the view here taken. The descendants of England were indeed the chief, but by no means the only agents in the Colonial period. The Dutch on the banks of the Hudson, the Swedes on the Delaware, the Germans in Pennsylvania and the neighboring States, the Huguenots in South Carolina, New York and Boston, were amongst our earliest and most useful settlers. In a more recent period Scotland, Ireland and all parts of Germany have made the largest contributions to our population. Florida, California and New Mexico are of Spanish origin. The French claimed once by right of exploration and partial occupation the immense central valley from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and between the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains; and although these possessions have long since been ceded to England and the United States, the French element can never be entirely effaced on the banks of the lower Mississippi or in Canada East.

In the Revolutionary War the descendants of the Continental Europeans, especially the Germans of Pennsylvania and Virginia, in proportion to their number, fought with as much zeal and success and shed their blood as freely for the independence of the country as the Anglo-Americans. Some of them, as the Muhlenbergs and the Hiesters, acquired considerable distinction as officers of the army or members of the first Congress.

But a number of our most eminent Revolutionary heroes were not even native Americans, but came from different nations to offer us the aid of their means, their enthusiasm, their military skill and experience in the hour of trial. The Irish Montgomery died for us at the gates of Quebec. General Mercer, who fell in the battle of Princeton, was a native of Scotland. Kosciusko, the Pole, paid his early vows to liberty in our cause, and his countryman, Pulaski, perished for it at Savannah. The noble Germans, Baron de Kalb, who shared with Gaines the glory of capturing Burgoyne and fell in the battle of Camden in South Carolina, bleeding of seven wounds, and Steuben, the pupil of Frederic the Great, and the Seven Years War, who left a handsome pension to serve his adopted country and helped to decide the day at Yorktown, crowned in the new world the high military reputation which they had previously acquired in the old; they were amongst the most experienced officers in the American army, and did it essential service, especially by training, with immense labor, the raw recruits, and preparing them for the victories of the battle-field. Our Congress knew well how to appreciate their merits, by erecting to the former a monument at Annapolis, and by voting to the latter a handsome annual pension, to which the legislatures of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York added large donations of land. France threw the weight of her powerful moral influence and material aid into our scale, and sent us the Count de Rochambeau, Baron de Viomenil, and especially the Marquis of Lafayette, the citizen of two worlds, whose name will be handed down to the latest American, as well as French posterity, in inseparable connection with Washington. The West Indies gave us Alexander Hamilton, who fought gallantly in the war, and, after its conclusion, organized our financial credit and took the most distinguished part in the formation and defence of our Federal Constitution, thus joining to the laurels of the battle-field the more enduring honors of peace, like his friend, the Father of his Country, whom we justly revere and love as “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Thus all the leading nations of Christendom were actively and honorably represented in the first settlement of our country, and in that great struggle which resulted in the birth of a new nation, and thus earned a title to a share in the blessings of its freedom....

As long, then, as we have such an immense body of land waiting for living men, and such a gigantic task of the future before us, there is no cause to discourage immigration. Let this continent of land continue to attract another continent crowded with men, that they may thus both prove a blessing to each other. How could we cherish a proscriptive spirit without striking at the fundamental creed and glory of our institutions? How could we indulge in hatred of foreigners and shut the gate to the stranger, without insulting the memory of our own fathers and of the fathers of this country? Let us never forget the sacred trust of civil and religious liberty committed to us; never forget our past history and our comprehensive destiny. Ourselves the children of the pilgrims of a former generation, let us welcome the pilgrims of the present day, and open a hospitable asylum to the oppressed and persecuted of every Christian nation. Favored by the free gift of Providence with a territory almost as large as Europe, and capable of sustaining ten times the amount of our present population, let us cordially invite and encourage the immigrants, till prairies and forests, and mountains and valleys resound with the songs of living men and the praises of God.

Here are our millions of acres stretching towards the setting sun and teeming with hidden wealth, that must be made available for the benefit of society. Here is room enough for all the science, learning, art, wisdom, virtue and religion of Europe, that, transplanted into a virgin soil and breathing the atmosphere of freedom, they may bring forth new blossoms and fruit and open a new epoch in the onward march of civilization. Here is the general congress of the noblest nations of Christendom, the sterling, energetic Briton; the strong-willed, enterprising Scotch; the hard-working, generous Irish; the industrious, deep-thinking German; the honest, liberty-loving Swiss; the hardy, thrifty Scandinavian; the even-tempered, tenacious Dutch; the easy, elegant Frenchman; the earnest, dignified Spaniard; the ingenious, imaginative Italian; the patriotic, high-minded Magyar and Pole,—that they might renew their youth, and, laying aside their prejudices and defects and uniting their virtues, may commingle into the one American nation, the freest, the most enlightened, the most comprehensive of all, the nation of the new world, the nation of the future....

The destiny and mission of such a cosmopolitan nation can hardly be estimated. It must be majestic as our rivers, magnificent as the Niagara Falls, lofty as the Rocky Mountains, vast as our territory, deep as the two oceans around it, far-reaching as the highways of commerce that already carries our name and influence to the remotest regions of the globe. History points to a boundless future before it, and nothing can prevent it from filling the most important pages in the annals of coming centuries [except] its own unfaithfulness to its providential trust....

Such high views on the destiny of our nation, so far from nourishing the spirit of vanity and self-glorification, ought rather to humble and fill us with a deep sense of our responsibility to the God of nations, who entrusted us with a great mission for the world and the Church, not from any superior excellency of our own, but from free choice and an inscrutable decree of infinite wisdom. Nor should we forget that there are fearful tendencies and dangers growing up in our national life, which threaten to unfit us for our work and to expose us to the judgment of the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, who is not bound to any particular human instrumentality, but can raise a new generation on the ruins of our own to carry out His designs. It is only in steady view of these dangers, and by an earnest struggle against evil temptations, that we can at all succeed and accomplish the great ends for which Providence has called us into existence.