Continental System

“ Now the civilization inaugurated upon our continent, in these United States, may be said to be, indeed is, the result of all that have preceded it. It combines somewhat of the elements of all the civilizations that have been strung along the earth's eastern semi-circumference, besides others, peculiar to itself. ”

“ They form what we may, for convenience, call the bas-relief of the globe.
At the creation of the earth every great continental division received (as every other organism has, regarded by itself, and not in relation to the greater whole of which it forms a part) its own special form. Each continent is like itself alone; its characteristics are not shared by any other. Each one was so planned and so formed as to have its own special function in the progress of human culture. ”

“ The history of Europe, and indeed the experience of the entire human race, have taught them the immense value of a mighty continental organization, such as our Union has hitherto established. Solemnly impressed with this great lesson of human history, they will never consent to see their country broken up into discordant fragments. ”

“ Thick misty weather, the smoak of last nights fire still in sight. A point of land seen this morn which inclind much to the Westward was supposd by the no Continents the end of the land; towards even however it cleard up and we Continents had the pleasure to see more land to the Southward.
1770 March 6. Very moderate and exceedingly clear. Land seen as far as South so our unbeleivers are almost inclind to think that Continental measures will at last prevail. ”

“ Even amid the perils and the vast expenditures of civil war have they embarked in the grand enterprise of uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by a continental highway, equal in its cost and its importance to the power and resources of a mighty empire. ”

“ The control of these waters was the object of prolonged and memorable struggles, for on it—as the result showed—depended the empire of the world. From very remote times the consolidation and expansion, from within outwards, of great continental states have had serious consequences for mankind when they were accompanied by the acquisition of a coast-line and the absorption of a maritime population. ”

“ The Continental, drawing its very life from its desire of upholding, strengthening, and sustaining our sacred Union, welcomes the article from 'west of the Mississippi,' the object of which is to encourage, through a common literature, the fraternal relations between East and West, and cherish the great bond of national unity by proclaiming kindred ties. ”

“ In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in the land or it is nothing. That the Continental is not the latter is abundantly evidenced by what it has done—by the reflection of its counsels in many important public events, and in the character and power of those who are its staunchest supporters. ”

“ No more conclusive facts need be alleged to prove the excellence of the contributions to the Continental, or their extraordinary popularity; and its conductors are determined that it shall not fall behind. Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which a thousand journals have attributed to it, it will greatly enlarge its circle of action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every principle involved in the great questions of the day. The first minds of the country, embracing the men most familiar with its diplomacy and most distinguished for ability, are among its contributors ”

“ But in the present century our land, and especially our cities, have filled up with a population from the continent of Europe, bringing with them Continental methods of worship which would not yield to or readily adopt British methods. ”

“ And again, if we look for the natural causes which tend to promote or retard association, we find in climates and continental configurations the chief agencies. The continent of the two Americas, in its greatest length, lies north and south, the eastern continental group extends east and west. ”

“ But just for this reason it was the more necessary to understand the main stream of continental development. Many a rule which, if considered from a purely insular standpoint, might seem part of the natural order, would assume its true character of a deviation from the normal, if viewed in the larger context of European law; many features of our law apparently arbitrary would in that larger context receive explanation. ”

“ It shows the continent of North America in two great slopes, one long one sloping to the east, and a short one sloping to the west, from the line of meeting of their upper edges, or what has been termed the Continental Axis.
Fig. 62 represents the continent as sketched after a study of it as simple land masses—a primary land mass, and a secondary land mass, with the line of depression at the meeting of the two opposing slopes. ”

“ Our Continental army—called Continental because, like the general Congress, it served the whole union of British-settled Colonies or States on this continent, and was thus distinguished from the militia, which served in each case its particular Colony or State only—had experienced both defeats and victories in encounters with the King’s troops and his allies, German, Hessian, and American Tory. ”

“ During the vast span of the last five centuries, Europe has spared time from her internal combustions to discover and conquer the outer world, the four continents of Africa, Asia, America, and Australia. ”

“ From this destructive system of Colony Administration, adopted since the conclusion of the last war, have flowed those distresses, dangers, fears, and jealousies, that over whelm your Majesty's dutiful Colonists with affliction; and we defy our most subtle and inveterate enemies to trace the unhappy differences between Great Britain and these Colonies, from an earlier period, or from other causes than we have assigned. ”

“ The union between our Mother Country and these Colonies, and the energy of mild and just Government, produced benefits so remarkably important, and afforded such an assurance of their permanency and increase, that the wonder and envy of other nations were excited, while they beheld Great Britain rising to a power the most extraordinary the world had ever known. ”

“ No subject is receiving wider attention at this time than that of territorial expansion. Great Britain, as well as France, Germany, and Russia, is yearly pressing forward its domain in Africa and Asia, preceded by the soldier or the explorer ”

“ The West would divide from the East, the Atlantic States from the Lake States, the Mississippi States from the Pacific, the North Pacific States from the South Pacific, and where would be the end? Already the great West has learned her own gigantic strength, which before she knew not that she possessed, and if the time should come when her interests should apparently point in a different direction from those of the East, with such a precedent before her, would she not avail herself of that new-found strength? ”

“ In the course of our inquiry we find many infringements and violations of the foregoing Rights, which from an ardent desire, that harmony and mutual intercourse of affection and interest may be restored, we pass over for the present, and proceed to state such Acts and measures as have been adopted since the last war, which demonstrate a system formed to enslave America. ”

“ America, and especially Saxon America, with its immense virgin territories, with its republic, with its equilibrium between stability and progress, with its harmony between liberty and democracy, is the continent of the Future,—the immense continent stretched by God between the Atlantic and Pacific, where mankind may plant, essay, and resolve all social problems. ”

“ In prosecution of which system, various Acts of Parliament have been passed for raising a Revenue in America, for depriving the American subjects, in many instances, of the constitutional Trial by Jury, exposing their lives to danger by directing a new and illegal trial beyond the seas for crimes alleged to have been committed in America ”

“ Europe lies between these extremes. Limited in area, diversified in surface, and deeply indented in its coast-line, it has experienced all the advantages which a continent needs for its development, and for that historical greatness which Europe has won for itself. ”

“ But we shall have to speak of all the three divisions of the Old World, Europe, Asia, and Africa, in those parts of the three which come nearest to one another, and in which the real history of the world begins. ♦The Mediterranean Lands.♦ These are those parts of all three which lie round the Mediterranean sea, the lands which gradually came to form the Empire of Rome. In these lands the boundaries between the three great divisions are very easily marked. Modern maps do not all place the boundary between Europe and Asia at the same point ”

“ It is impossible for us to realize what a sudden invitation to greed and discord lay in this fair, beautiful, unclaimed continent—eight millions of square miles of land—more than twice the size of all Europe itself. ”

“ Having traced the stream of warlike immigration from Eastern Asia westward, and thence to Central Europe, and still westward and southward to the shores of the Atlantic, and even across the Mediterranean into Africa, overwhelming the Roman Empire of the West in its course,—observe this tide of human movement, as wave followed wave for centuries, rolling peoples against and over one another, confounding them together, and leaving them upon the same soil, or in close proximity to each other ”

“ All that makes Europe Europe, all that parts off Europe from Africa and Asia, has been carried into America and Australia and Africa itself. The growth of this new Europe, no less than the changes of the old, is an essential part of European geography. ♦Barbarian dominion.♦ It is otherwise with territories, great or small, which have been occupied by England and other European powers merely for military or commercial purposes. Forts, factories, or empires, on barbarian soil, where no new European nation is likely ever to grow up, are not cases of true colonization ”

“ It is the fate of continents, no less than of the human communities that inhabit them, to have their first origin shrouded in obscurity. When the curtain of darkness begins to rise from our primeval Europe, it reveals to us a scene marvelously unlike that of the existing continent. The land then lay chiefly to the north and northwest, probably extending as far as the edge of the great submarine plateau by which the European ridge is prolonged under the Atlantic for 230 miles to the west of Ireland. ”

“ I am clearly, positively, and conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of this continent to be so; that every thing short of that is mere patchwork, that it can afford no lasting felicity,—that it is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking back at a time, when, a little more, a little farther, would have rendered this continent the glory of the earth. ”

“ These are the invaluable rights, that form a considerable part of our mild system of government; that, sending its equitable energy through all ranks and classes of men, defends the poor from the rich, the weak from the powerful, the industrious from the rapacious, the peaceable from the violent, the tenants from the lords, and all from their superiors. ”

“ The reason is that, like any other continent, though, in its incidentals, it is the history of a vast region, inhabited by peoples possessing certain traits of physical affinity and living for a few short spells under administrative unity yet, in its essentials, it is the history of many separate countries which have, throughout the ages, been inhabited by many distinct peoples, with different languages, philosophies, and civilizations, and organized for the most part into sovereign states, ruled by their own kings or emperors. ”

“ It would have been but reasonable to have expected that the opening of an inhabited continent — more than half the land surface of the globe — to the intelligent curiosity of the representatives of the civilization of the Old World, would have contributed largely to the sum and the elements of our knowledge of the origin and history of our human race. ”

“ So, as our stars multiply, and the nation overcometh its adversaries, persuading all to its declared principles, everywhere on the continent, it will become a pillar in the temple, and the name of the continent itself will be needed to declare alike its unity and its power. ”

“ Contrast the complexity of Europe, its lack of symmetry, its variety, irregularity, disorder and caprice! The geography of the two continents already foreshadows the differences in their civilizations. On the one hand simplicity and size; on the other a hole-and-corner variety; there immense rivers, endless forests, interminable plains, indefinite repetition of a few broad ideas; here distracting transitions, novelties, surprises, shocks, distinctions in a word, already suggesting Distinction. Even in its physical features America is the land of quantity, while Europe is that of quality. ”

“ It will be plain from the map that these two positions were essentially the keys to the continent. The access to the interior of the continent by natural water-ways is by two lines,—on the north by the St. Lawrence system of lakes and rivers; on the south by the Mississippi system of rivers, which practically connects with the St. Lawrence system. Fortune, in giving France the control of these two great avenues, offered her the mastery of the whole of its vast domain. ”

“ The Great West is to feed all Europe with her harvests of yellow grain; the South, with her cotton interest, is to clothe, not Europe only, but the world; the Pacific States will be the 'vineland' of America, furnishing the wherewithal to 'gladden the heart of man,' while the manufactures of New England and the Middle States shall furnish the implements of labor to the brethren all over the continent, and turn the raw material both of the South and of their own sheep-feeding hills into garments for the toiling millions of America. ”

“ The Continent hath, at this time, the largest body of armed and disciplined men of any power under Heaven; and is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accomplish the matter, and either more, or, less than this, might be fatal in its effects. Our land force is already sufficient, and as to naval affairs, we cannot be insensible, that Britain would never suffer an American man of war to be built, while the continent remained in her hands. ”