Atlantic States

“ Let us think before we act. The growing disparity of habits between us and the Atlantic States, and the pecuniary advantages or disadvantages of a separation from the states are not the only questions which ought to be considered. Is it policy for us to join a government, the different sections of which are even now antipodal on a most exciting question, and which are cultivat- ing a spirit of disunion by their altercations? ”

“ If there is one part of America more interested than any other in preserving the union of these States, and the present Government, it is the Western. Important as the Mississippi is to them, their free intercourse with the Atlantic States is more important—all their imports are received through that channel, and their most valuable exports are sold, and will continue to be so, in the Atlantic States. The same gentleman (Mr. Morris) says, we must line our frontier with custom-house officers, to prevent smuggling. ”

“ The two Atlantic States of New England are old established, rich, and commercial. The two western States I have named are full of new immigrants, are comparatively poor, and are agricultural. Nevertheless any direct taxation levied on those in the East and on those in the West must be equal in its weight. ”

“ The extensive inland navigation with which this country abounds and the easy communications which many of the rivers afford with the amazing territory to the west of us, will certainly be productive of infinite advantage to the Atlantic States.... For my part, I wish sincerely that every door to that country may be set wide open, that the commercial intercourse may be rendered as free and as easy as possible. This, in my judgment, is the best, if not the only [Pg 201] cement that can bind those people to us for any length of time ”

“ The unprecedented growth of our territories on the Pacific in wealth and population and the consequent increase of their social and commercial relations with the Atlantic States seem to render it the duty of the Government to use all its constitutional power to improve the means of intercourse with them. ”

“ England did care, because it was life or death to the little, sea-girt island, but as soon as the United States ceased to be a strip of Atlantic seaboard and the panorama, of a continent was unrolled to settlement, it was foreordained that the maritime habit of thought and action should lose its virility in America. ”

“ Nature had marked America for a great commercial nation. The sweep of the Atlantic coast, from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of Florida, comprehending twenty degrees of latitude, broken into capacious bays and convenient harbors, and receiving the inward flow of the sea into great navigable rivers that stretched far into the interior, presented an access to the ocean not surpassed by that of any large portion of the globe. ”

“ I have read that the figure upon the coins of France—a woman sowing—symbolizes the idea that France sows while others reap. That is eminently true of the United States and eminently true of North America. When we recall that Canada, the Ohio territory and Louisiana once belonged to France, and recall how relatively small the Spanish province of Florida and the British colonies along the Atlantic Coast were, we realize what an empire on this continent, extending from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, was once the territory of France. ”

“ Especially important is it that our commercial relations with the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America, with the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico, should be direct, and not through the circuit of European systems, and should be carried on in our own bottoms. ”

“ Unfortunately the northern line, through ignorance and carelessness rather than through malice, was left uncertain at various points and became the subject of almost continuous controversy until the last bit of it was settled in 1911. 1
1 See Lord Bryce’s Introduction (p. xxiv) to W. A. Dunning, The British Empire and the United States (1914) .
The fisheries of the North Atlantic, for which Newfoundland served as the chief entrepôt, had been one of the great assets of North America from the time of its discovery. ”

“ There are also here, what cannot be readily found in the Atlantic States,—men who have made hunting and trapping the business of their lives, and who, while they lend their knowledge of the craft to younger disciples, entertain them with volumes of humorous and exciting personal adventure with every sort of game, from a beaver to a grizzly, or a Blackfoot Indian. ”

“ Considering the American states as members of the European family, as they are by traditions, institutions, and languages, it is in the Pacific, where the westward course of empire again meets the East, that their relations to the future of the world become most apparent. The Atlantic, bordered on either shore by the European family in the strongest and most advanced types of its political development, no longer severs, but binds together, by all the facilities and abundance of water communications, the once divided children of the same mother ”

“ It was supplying capital and manufactures for a vast agricultural empire West and South.
America on the Pacific.—It has been said that the Mediterranean Sea was the center of ancient civilization; that modern civilization has developed on the shores of the Atlantic; and that the future belongs to the Pacific. At any rate, the sweep of the United States to the shores of the Pacific quickly exercised a powerful influence on world affairs and it undoubtedly has a still greater significance for the future. ”

“ From thirteen comparatively weak and sparsely populated States, skirting and hovering along the line of our Atlantic coast, constituting a mere string of isolated communities, we now have thirty-eight States covering our broad continent, extending from east to west, and from sea to sea. ”

“ The committee have recommended such a navy as will give to the United States an ascendency in the American seas, and protect their ports and harbors. The people will never bear the establishment of a greater force than these objects require. The reasons which forbid Great Britain, or any other European power, to station large fleets on our seas, will equally forbid us to cross the Atlantic, or go into distant seas, for the purpose of frequent or habitual wars. ”

“ Much of the land on their slopes is rich and accessible, and all of their fertile slopes, coves and small valleys have been long since occupied.
[177] I state these facts to show that in addition to natural causes the States bordering on the Atlantic in the same number of degrees of north latitude, as will more fully appear, must continue to have the dominating power in the lower house of Congress. The three States bordering on the Pacific Ocean extend over sixteen degrees of north latitude. ”

“ To the United States, whose rich territory on the Pacific is for the ordinary purposes of commerce practically cut off from communication by water with the Atlantic ports, the political and commercial advantages of such a project can scarcely be overestimated. ”

“ Finally, it is admitted even by those who are most inclined to make light of the sentiment elicited by the late war, that all the States of the Atlantic seaboard are instinctively drawing together to counterpoise the growing predominance of the West. ”

“ It will give to us those articles which we consume so largely and do not produce, thus equalizing our exports and imports. In case of foreign war it will give us command of all the islands referred to, and thus prevent an enemy from ever again possessing himself of rendezvous upon our very coast. At present our coast trade between the States bordering on the Atlantic and those bordering on the Gulf of Mexico is cut into by the Bahamas and the Antilles, Twice we must, as it were, pass through foreign countries to get by sea from Georgia to the west coast of Florida. ”

“ The powers of Europe, far removed from the west coast of America by the Atlantic Ocean, which intervenes, and by a tedious and dangerous navigation around the southern cape of the continent of America, can never successfully compete with the United States in the rich and extensive commerce which is opened to us at so much less cost by the acquisition of California. ”

“ If, on the contrary, there be but one Government pervading all the States, there will be, as to the principal part of our commerce, but one side to guard—the Atlantic coast. Vessels arriving directly from foreign countries, laden with valuable cargoes, would rarely choose to hazard themselves to the complicated and critical perils which would attend attempts to unlade prior to their coming into port. ”

“ It is not remarkable that the cities and States of the Union which first took steps to connect the fertile regions lying beyond the Allegheny Mountains with the Atlantic should have made the greatest progress in importance and prosperity. ”

“ Beginning on the Atlantic coast an infant republic, the United States has stretched its arms westward across the Continent. The same oceans that bound the east and west 81of the Old World wash its eastern and western shores. ”

“ Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise. ”

“ In the heart of the North American Continent, forming in part the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions to the north, lies that chain of great freshwater lakes bordered by busy and rapidly growing commonwealths, washing the water-fronts of rich and populous cities, and bearing upon their steely blue bosoms a commerce which outdoes that of the Mediterranean in the days of its greatest glory. ”

“ Atlantic America, on account of the priority of its settlement, its vicinity to the ocean, and its favorable position for commerce, has many advantages. The western country, however, has a decided superiority in the fertility of its soil, the benignity of its climate, and the extent of its territory. ”

“ America cannot be understood without taking into account the history of its various peoples before they crossed the Atlantic. Indeed, too much emphasis has heretofore been laid upon the Atlantic as a natural boundary not merely of the American continent, but also of the history of America. ”

“ It holds the same relation to America that Ireland does to Europe. Stretching far out into the Atlantic, it is the vanguard of the western continent, or rather the signal-tower from which the New World may speak to the Old.
And yet, though large as England, and so near our [Pg 4] coast, few Americans ever see it, as it lies out of the track of European commerce. Our ships, though they skirt the Banks of Newfoundland, pass to the south, and get but occasional glimpses of the headlands. Even what is seen gives the country rather an ill reputation. ”

“ Then we found that it was precisely the Atlantic that gave Americans a taste of our agony and horror. The Atlantic was no safe place for the American men and women and children who traveled so ingenuously over it. ”

“ An important adjunct to the present highly favourable geographical conditions pointing to a great future for civilization on the Atlantic coast is the construction of a ship-canal across the isthmus uniting North and South America. ”

“ And behold one fine day, one grand day, the most fortunate and daring of the navigators who were exploring the Atlantic in every direction discovered America. In mid-Atlantic there lay two connected continents, stretching from one hemisphere to the other, covering many latitudes and a great variety of clime, and much of this vast territory was still but sparsely inhabited. It was then that our forefathers realised how vast and rich was the earth, and how small and poor in comparison seemed that Mediterranean world in which for so many centuries they had lived. ”

“ The Atlantic is still the great historic sea. Even in its sunken wrecks might be read the record of modern nations. Who shall say that the Pacific will not yet become the great historic sea of the future—the vast amphitheater around which shall sit in majesty and power the two Americas, Asia, Africa, and the chief colonies of Europe. God forbid that the waters of our national life should ever settle to the dead level of a waveless calm. It would be the stagnation of death, the ocean grave of individual liberty.
GREATEST CONTINUOUS EMPIRE. ”

“ Europe is nearer to you than the greatest part of the American continent—yea! even nearer than perhaps some parts of your own territory. President Monroe's second motive is, that you are separated from Europe by the Atlantic. Now, at the present time, and in the present condition of navigation, the Atlantic is no separation, but rather a link; as the means of that commercial intercourse which brings the interest of Europe home to you, connecting you with it by every tie of moral as well as material interest. ”

“ We go eastward to realize history and study the works of art and literature, retracing the steps of the race; we go westward as into the future, with a spirit of enterprise and adventure. The Atlantic is a Lethean stream, in our passage over which we have had an opportunity to forget the Old World and its institutions. ”

“ It will also be the means of producing new correspondences and connections between the men of the American and European sides of the Atlantic, and spread much more widely among us a knowledge of the present literature and science of this Continent. ”

“ On both oceans it gives the finest naval positions that a great maritime power could desire, and the only positions possible for British people on the American continent. A wonderful system of waterways penetrates, from the Atlantic frontage, unto the very heart of the continent, to prairies which are the greatest undeveloped wheat area in the world, lands capable of supporting a large population and of proved capacity to yield a vast surplus of food products. ”