British Union

“ The best interests and present and future prosperity of British North America will be promoted by a Federal Union under the Crown of Great Britain, provided such Union can be effected on principles just to the several provinces. ”

“ The English realm, with all its institutions, arose out of the relation of each unit to the King, and the same centre of union may gradually, and as it were by natural force of attraction, draw into a more perfect confederation the free States of the British Empire. ”

“ Look at the condition of every petty State, which by alliance with Great Britain is subject to continual aggression! And yet, after picturing the rise and progress of Abolitionism, tracing it to the Wilberforce movement in England, and British influence in the North, showing that British gold has sustained and encouraged Northern fanaticism, we are told to be heedless of the consequences of disunion, for the advantages of British alliance would far over-estimate the loss of the Union! ”

“ The British Empire which still stands and even shows signs of permanence, has learned the lesson of union, and bids fair to become an empire in its name alone. British imperialism was once, as Professor Cramb has told us, the will to give all men under British sway an English mind, in the spirit of the boast of Alexander the Great: “I will make all men Hellenes.” But the instruction of England in the larger art of government, begun in North America, has been continued since, and her imperial aim is fast becoming a will to live with other men and let them live. ”

“ Great Britain has proposed to settle them by an amicable arrangement, and our minister at London is instructed to enter into negotiations on that subject. A commission for adjusting the claims of our citizens against Great Britain and those of British subjects against the United States, organized under the convention of the 8th of February last, is now sitting in London for the transaction of business. ”

“ In short, to establish the power of the respective Legislatures in each particular State; to settle its revenue, its civil and military establishment, and to exercise a perfect freedom of legislation and internal government; so that the British States throughout North America, acting with us in peace and war under one common sovereign, may have the irrevocable enjoyment of every privilege that is short of total separation of interests, or consistent with that union of force on which the safety of our common religion and liberty depends. ”

“ Great Britain is decidedly a commercial and money-making nation, and counts closely on her commercial relations with any country. That nation or people which puts the largest amount of money into her coffers, are the people who may expect to obtain her greatest favors. This the Americans do; consequently—and we candidly ask you to mark the prediction—the British will interpose little or no obstructions to the Canadas, Cuba, or any other province or colony contiguous to this country, falling into the American Union; except only in such cases where there would be a compromise of her honor. ”

“ Then might colonization proceed on a gigantic scale—then might British capital animate British labour, on British soil, for British objects, throughout the extended dominions of the British Empire. Such an union is the United States of America—a confederation of sovereign States, leagued together for commercial and political purposes, with the most perfect free trade within, and a stringent protection from without ”

“ Immediate party interests both at home and in the colonies too frequently blind men to distant and ulterior consequences, and the many ill-wishers to the British Empire are sure to direct their policy largely to its disruption. The natural bond of union of a great Empire is economical unity, binding its several parts together by a common system of free trade and by a common commercial policy towards other Powers. ”

“ It appears that many persons on both sides of the Atlantic have a wish, a feeling, a sentiment, a belief, a conviction, that it is for the mutual benefit of the British Empire and the United States that co-operation, interfusion, union, should be permanently established between the two countries. ”

“ In this respect the delegation have helped the British Trade Union Movement, through Congress, to maintain the best traditions of British democracy in rendering service to the development of working-class organisation, irrespective of creed, colour, or country. ”

“ It was now obvious that concessions must be made on both sides, or the contest be decided by the sword. The ministry of Queen Anne, therefore, proposed that commissioners from the two kingdoms should meet at London, to devise a plan of Union, which should be mutually advantageous to the two countries. ”

“ In conformity with the recommendation of Congress, a proposition was early made to the British Government to abolish the mixed courts created under the treaty of April 7, 1862, for the suppression of the slave trade. The subject is still under negotiation. ”

“ Gentlemen say that Great Britain will count upon our divisions. How? What does she know of them? Can they ever expect greater unanimity than prevailed at the last Presidential election? No, sir, it is the gentleman’s own conscience that squeaks. But if she cannot calculate upon your divisions, at least she may reckon upon your pusillanimity. She may well despise the resentment that cannot be excited to honorable battle on its own ground; the mere effusion of mercantile cupidity. Gentlemen talk of repealing the British Treaty. ”

“ We cannot talk of self-determination and fight four years for it without the backward races believing that we are in earnest. The passing of the resolution will be a message of hope and encouragement to our comrades who do not regard the Union Jack as the last word in economic equality or political freedom. These people have a right to govern their own countries according to their own traditions and conceptions, and before the British working man can be emancipated he will have to help others to throw off the shackles of British Imperialism. ”

“ The fact is that the whole concept of modern statesmanship needs revision. But England has been, and is, the chief of sinners. Quite apart from the idea of a self-contained Empire there is the idea of Britain as an organized nation. And the British Empire as an organized Empire, organised for trade, for industry, for economic justice, for national defence, for the preservation of the world's peace, for the protection of the weak against the strong. ”

“ On the subject of British imperialism the resolution was equally emphatic: "This Trades Union Congress believes that the domination of non-British peoples by the British Government is a form of capitalist exploitation having for its object the securing for British capitalists (1) of cheap sources of raw materials; (2) the right to exploit cheap and unorganised labour and to use the competition of that labour to degrade the workers' standards in Great Britain. ”

“ I think Congress will agree with the General Council making it quite plain to the Government and the whole world that, being conscious of the fact that our British movement has won its way from such conditions of slavery as are being imposed in China to our present comparative or limited freedom, we are prepared, on behalf of the British Trade Union Movement, to raise our voice in condemnation of the atrocities committed by the British and other employers in China, and in wishing the Chinese people every success in their struggles against the employing and imperialist class in their country. ”

“ It is not likely that any form of government which Great Britain could have established, especially if it excluded our people from its control, could have maintained the union twenty-five years longer than the relation actually existed. ”

“ Thus British institutions—the institutions of national self-government, which are peculiarly British in origin—have played a main part both in determining the character of the British Empire and in bringing about its wonderful expansion. The more the British Empire has grown the more freedom has been established on the face of the earth. ”

“ England sprang out of the mass of English states which covered Britain after its conquest, we owe it to the gradual submission of the smaller peoples to the supremacy of a common political head. The difference in power between state and state which inevitably led to this process of union was due to the character which the conquest of Britain was now assuming. Up to this time all the kingdoms which had been established by the invaders had stood in the main on a footing of equality. ”

“ The Grievances of Britain & the Colonies as you observe spring from the same root of Bitterness & are of the same pernicious Growth. The Union of Britain & the Colonies is therefore by all means to be cultivated. If in every Colony Societies should be formd out of the most respectable Inhabitants, similar to that of the Bill of Rights, who should once in the year meet by their Deputies, and correspond with such a Society in London, would it not effectually promote such an Union? ”

“ Great Britain entered into a virtual act of union with that country, by which we bound ourselves as securities to preserve the people in all the rights, laws, and liberties which their natural, original sovereign was bound to support, if he had been in condition to support them. ”

“ Great Britain surely lacked the laudable humanity and fostering clemency to grant such a just plan of union; but the sentiment remains, like the land that honored its birth, as a pattern for wise men to study the convenience of the people more than the comfort of the cabinet. ”

“ British Labor, showing a solid front to British Capital and to the British Government, won its point in the face of as difficult an economic situation as recent times have produced. The success gave the whole British Labor Movement a new sense of the power that comes with Trade Union Unity. ”

“ A new nation came into being. The friends of the North had triumphed.
Thus in addition to the play of diplomatic incidents, the incidental frictions, the effect on trade relations, the applications of British neutrality, and the general policy of the Government, there existed for Great Britain a great issue in the outcome of the Civil War--the issue of the adoption of democratic institutions. It affected at every turn British public attitude, creating an intensity and bitterness of tone, on both sides, unexampled in the expressions of a neutral people. ”

“ To guard and preserve so vast and lucrative a dominion, to vindicate its integrity alike against outer foes and inner disaffection, to strengthen its unity by drawing closer the bonds, whether commercial or administrative, which linked its various parts to the mother country, became from this moment not only the aim of British statesmen, but the resolve of the British people. ”

“ The central government of Great Britain, as the guardian of the welfare of the whole empire, cooperates with the several governments of her colonial dependencies, and, by common consultation and arrangement, endeavours to come to such a determination as will be to the advantage of all the interests at stake. ”

“ To act thus is indeed to perfect the union and make all the inhabitants of Great Britain acknowledge, with gratitude and with joy, that they are subjects of the same well-regulated kingdom, and governed with the same impartial affection by the sovereign and father of the whole commonwealth. ”

“ It is their State and their Empire—theirs to possess, theirs to control, but theirs also to support and to defend. And I for one have such faith in the common sense and fair-mindedness of the British people that I believe you have only to convince them that you have a really sound national policy, and they will rally to it, without having to be bought by promises of a penny off this and twopence off the other—a sort of appeal, I regret to say, which is not only confined to Radical orators, but in which Unionists also are sometimes too apt to indulge. ”

“ That the restrictions imposed by several late acts of parliament on the trade of these colonies, will render them unable to purchase the manufactures of Great Britain. 12. That the increase, prosperity, and happiness of these colonies depend on the full and free enjoyment of their rights and liberties, and an intercourse with Great Britain mutually affectionate and advantageous. 13. That it is the right of the British subjects in these colonies to petition the king, or either house of parliament. ”

“ However England may regard us, we need only view her as a splendid example of a nation great and powerful by the productiveness of her soil and mines, the ability of her people, and the liberalizing spirit of her commerce. In her present external condition, in her vast navy, her extensive commerce, in all save her insulated and secure position, we may read our own near destiny. Grasping, ambitious and powerful the British race certainly is ”

“ Clearly, so far as concerns the great dominions, the British Empire is far from being a military domination imposed by force. It is a voluntary partnership or brotherhood of free peoples, a Commonwealth of Nations. It is a wonderful achievement in the combination of unity and freedom, an experiment in the unforced co-operation of free States such as has never before been seen in human history. ”

“ But, though Great Britain could do perfectly well without her colonies, and though, on every principle of morality and justice, she ought to consent to their separation, should the time come when, after full trial of the best form of union, they deliberately desire to be dissevered, there are strong reasons for maintaining the present slight bond of connection so long as not disagreeable to the feelings of either party. ”