The Beginnings of New England eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 276 pages of information about The Beginnings of New England.

The Beginnings of New England eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 276 pages of information about The Beginnings of New England.

For the origin of these more potent methods we must look back to the early ages of the Teutonic people; for their development and application on a grand scale we must look chiefly to the history of that most Teutonic of peoples in its institutions, though perhaps not more than half-Teutonic in blood, the English, with their descendants in the New World.  The third method of nation-making may be called the Teutonic or preeminently the English method.  It differs from the Oriental and Roman methods which we have been considering in a feature of most profound significance; it contains the principle of representation.  For this reason, though like all nation-making it was in its early stages attended with war and conquest, it nevertheless does not necessarily require war and conquest in order to be put into operation.  Of the other two methods war was an essential part.  In the typical Oriental nation, such as Assyria or Persia, we see a conquering tribe holding down a number of vanquished peoples, and treating them like slaves:  here the nation is very imperfectly made, and its government is subject to sudden and violent changes.  In the Roman empire we see a conquering people hold sway over a number of vanquished peoples, but instead of treating them like slaves, it gradually makes them its equals before the law; here the resulting political body is much more nearly a nation, and its government is much more stable.  A Lydian of the fifth century before Christ felt no sense of allegiance to the Persian master who simply robbed and abused him; but the Gaul of the fifth century after Christ was proud of the name of Roman and ready to fight for the empire of which he was a citizen.  We have seen, nevertheless, that for want of representation the Roman method failed when applied to an immense territory, and the government tended to become more and more despotic, to revert toward the Oriental type.  Now of the English or Teutonic method, I say, war is not an essential part; for where representative government is once established, it is possible for a great nation to be formed by the peaceful coalescence of neighbouring states, or by their union into a federal body.  An instance of the former was the coalescence of England and Scotland effected early in the eighteenth century after ages of mutual hostility; for instances of the latter we have Switzerland and the United States.  Now federalism, though its rise and establishment may be incidentally accompanied by warfare, is nevertheless in spirit pacific.  Conquest in the Oriental sense is quite incompatible with it; conquest in the Roman sense is hardly less so.  At the close of our Civil War there were now and then zealous people to be found who thought that the southern states ought to be treated as conquered territory, governed by prefects sent from Washington, and held down by military force for a generation or so.  Let us hope that there are few to-day who can fail to see that such a course would

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The Beginnings of New England from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.