Empire State

“ In one word, we mean to build up a Republic, greater, more populous, freer, more prosperous, and more powerful than any state history tells us of; a Republic having within itself all that can make a people great, good, and happy, and being so strong, that its pleasure will be consulted before any power on earth will undertake to disturb the peace of the world. [Loud cheering.] This, my Lord John Russell, is the Empire we are fighting for, and this Empire we mean to have. ”

“ How much smaller, on the other hand, how much more simple and modest was she in the first century, a time when the Empire really was at its most flourishing epoch, with its frontiers safe, its population on the up-grade, its cities developing themselves by a process of growth which was still a perfectly natural one, agriculture, trade, and industries in a sound condition, and the State well organised and strong. ”

“ An empire built upon the principles of justice, moderation and equity, the only principles that can make a state flourishing, and enable it to elude the machinations of its secret and inveterate enemies. ”

“ The world has witnessed similar eras— as in the days when petty kings and feudal barons were changing the map of Europe every fortnight, or when great emperors and great kings were engaged in a mad scramble for colonial empire. ”

“ It showed us that we English, and all those stalwart kinsmen of ours across the Atlantic and on the far side of the Pacific—north, south, east, and west, wherever the old flag flew—were now actually as well as nominally subjects of one Government, and that that Government would for the future be composed of men chosen as their representatives by the people of every country in the Empire; men drawn [336] together under one historic roof by one firm purpose—the service and administration of a great Imperial State. ”

“ The American Empire has been built, as were the palaces of Aladdin, in a night. The morning is dawning, and the early risers who were not even awakened from their slumbers by the sound of hammer and engine, are beginning to rub their eyes, and to ask one another what is the meaning of this apparition, and whether it is real. ”

“ But here is an Empire of natural wealth in a vast region claimed and owned by the then foremost military power on the globe, quietly, speedily and with a friendly hand passing over to the youngest member of the family of nations, to be by it, in its inexperience in government, ruled and developed for the happiness and blessing of mankind. ”

“ It is these New England principles that I would engraft upon that great empire of the West, which to-day is so plastic in our hands, whose future we, to-day, have power to shape, but which to-morrow we shall be powerless to mould. ”

“ A Continent, whose inhabitants double every five-and-twenty years! who, therefore, within a century and an half will be upwards of an hundred and twenty millions of souls! Forbid it, Patriotism, forbid it, Politics, that such a great and mighty Empire as this should be held in subjection by the paltry Kingdom of Great Britain! Rather let the seat of empire be transferred; and let it be fixed where it ought to be, namely, in Great America! ”

“ The cause of America is, in my humble opinion, the cause of the whole British empire; an empire which, from my youth, I have been taught to love and revere, as founded in the principles of natural reason and justice, and upon the whole, best calculated for general happiness of any yet risen in the world. ”

“ Nevertheless, if we consider the origin and history and meaning of the Empire, we must suppose that one of the results of its existence must be, in the purely business sphere, to strengthen demand. After all, that is really why we created it. On the loss of the United States we felt it vital, in face of the general animus of Europe, to build another Empire in the place of the one which we had forfeited. ”

“ Steam, transportation, industrial development, city life, business organization, expansion across the continent—these are the factors that have made of the United States a nation utterly apart from the nation of which those who signed the Declaration of Independence and fought the Revolution dreamed. ”

“ She, with her progeny, may almost claim to constitute a kind of Universal Church in politics. But, among these children, there is one whose place in the world's eye and in history is superlative: it is the American Republic. She is the eldest born. She has, taking the capacity of her land into view as well as its mere measurement, a natural base for the greatest continuous empire ever established by man. ”

“ The eyes of all Americans, except those of the aged or ageing, were turned from across the Atlantic Ocean toward the boundless, the alluring West—their thoughts diverted from the commotions of Europe and the historic antagonism of foreign nations, to the economic conquest of a limitless and virgin empire and to the development of incalculable and untouched resources, all American and all their own. ”

“ Why are these men coming? What has induced them to volunteer to take part in our battles? They are thousands of miles away. Is it not perfectly clear that they are coming because of the principles for which the Empire stands, which in their eyes are much more than power? [Hear, hear.] The Empire stands for justice, for righteousness, for good government, for mercy, for truth. ”

“ And when from the land of the Pilgrims I look abroad over the United States, I see everywhere, in the south as well as the north and the west, the country populated, the empire founded by a people composed of all peoples, who suffered persecution for their faith, who sought freedom of conscience and peace on a new free soil. ”

“ This is the American people—locked in the arms of mighty economic and social forces; building industrial empires; compelled, by a world war, to reach out and save "civilization,"—capitalist civilization,—a people that, by its very ancestry, seems destined to follow the course of empire.
The sons and daughters of the native born American stock are, in the main, the descendants of the conquering, imperial races of the modern world. During recent times, three great empires—Spain, France and Great Britain—have dominated western civilization. ”

“ From a thin string of agricultural settlements on the Atlantic coast, here and there dotted with small trading towns, this Republic has in a century expanded into a vast empire spanning a continent, excelling in wealth and material power every other nation on the globe. ”

“ At the centre, to pursue our examination, we have the nation to whose political genius the Empire owes its existence—a nation renowned, apart from its other achievements, as the parent of free government wherever it exists, and as having carried it in her own case to perhaps its highest pitch of perfection. ”

“ It was Empire, the resistless subjugation of all this central world of the lakes and the prairies. Here, mid-most in the land, beat the Heart of the Nation, whence inevitably must come its immeasurable power, its infinite, infinite, inexhaustible vitality. ”

“ A vast empire is foundering on the hands of this incapable management. And by empire is meant the political machinery which holds together the English-speaking people of the world outside of the United States. ”

“ The fifties, so far as they are by themselves a test, give much cause for satisfaction, and are in any case an excellent barometer to indicate the power and importance of the Empire. They have risen with its rise ”

“ Its people are at present few, but its resources are immense, and it is abundantly calculated to sustain at least one half of the present population of the globe. You now stand in a central position, in the midst of the great American continent. Here is the spot which is destined for the seat of empire, and here shall the ambassadors of all nations resort with a tribute of homage to a greater than Cyrus.
"The seat of empire," continued he, "began in the eastern Eden, but its progress has always been westward. ”

“ Had we really founded a series of disconnected nations, with no common sentiment or interest, or was the empire an organic whole, as ready to thrill with one emotion or to harden into one resolve as are the several States of the Union? ”

“ For a score of centuries the horse, the horse-drawn vehicle, the hand-made high-road, the parchment document, the public speaker and vocal teacher and a feeble coastal shipping had been the limiting conditions of all statecraft. Under these conditions the idea of the Empire had been the highest political idea in men’s minds. ”

“ The foundations of Empire have been laid in the United States. Territory has been conquered; peoples have been subjugated or annihilated; an imperial class has established itself. Here are all of the essential characteristics of empire.
The American people have been busy laying the political foundations of Empire for three centuries. A great domain, taken by force of arms from the people who were in possession of it has been either incorporated into the Union, or else held as dependent territory. ”

“ In the great scale of empire, you will decline, I fear, from the decision of this day; and the Americans will rise to independence, to power, to all the greatness of the most renowned states! For they build on the solid basis of general public liberty. ”

“ In the struggle of nations, not for land, but for materials and markets, on a world-scale, it has been necessary that each contending empire should be as economically self-contained, as closely united politically, and as militarily formidable as possible. ”

“ I know the Empire—its utter decadence, its self-seeking politicians and pleasure-loving mobs, corruption and intrigue everywhere you go, collapse of morals and duty-sense, decline of art into craft and science into stagnancy—you were a great race once, you humans, you were the first to aspire to the stars and we owe you something for that, I suppose. ”

“ As we look back on those decades, the years seem to be hurrying past with great rapidity, changing the primitive United States in the span of a single lifetime from a row of scattered republics scarcely realizing national existence into a great empire stretching across the continent. ”

“ It is an idea of the first political importance--especially to British statesmen. The Empire is only in its infancy. With a fleet of ethereal gunboats we might colonise the solar system, and annex the stars. ”

“ So simple has been the process of empire building for the United States; so natural have been the stages by which the American Empire has been evolved; so little have the changes disturbed the routine of normal life that the American people are, for the most part, unaware of the imperial position of their country. They still feel, think and talk as if the United States were a tiny corner, fenced off from the rest of the world to which it owed nothing and from which it expected nothing. ”

“ Contemplating this spectacle, this Empire thrilled throughout its vast bulk, from bound to bound of its far-stretched greatness, with one hope, one energy, one aspiration and one fear, one sorrow and one joy, is not this some warrant, is not this some presage of the future, and of the course which this people will pursue? ”

“ To-day the words 'Empire' and 'Imperialism' fill the place in everyday speech that was once filled by 'Nation' and 'Nationality.' In the never-ending struggle of political principles authority rather than liberty seems for the moment to have the upper hand; power and dominion rather than freedom and independence are the ideas that appeal to the imagination of the masses; men's thoughts are turned outward rather than inward; the national ideal has given place to the Imperial. ”

“ Behold this extended empire, inhabited by the hardy sons of American freemen, knowing their rights, and inheriting the will to protect them — owners of the soil on which they live, and interested in the institutions which they labor to defend; with two oceans laving your shores, and tributary to your purposes, bearing on their bosoms the commerce of our people; compared to yours, the governments of Europe dwindle into insignificance, and the whole world is without a parallel. ”

“ In area and population alike the Empire holds the first place, not only among the political combinations of the world to-day, but also among the political combinations of the world as known to history. ”

“ The American Republic we especially take under our wing (price of the Magazine in the United States 50 cents.) , whilst we work for the Empire, seek to strengthen it, to develop it, and, when necessary, to extend it. We believe in Ourselves, in England, and in Humanity. ”

“ Security accepted as normal, comfort more widely spread than ever before, and a standard of extravagance and display which would have astonished all previous ages, characterise the heart of the Empire at the height of its material greatness. “Situate at the entering of the sea,” with a population exceeding Scotland or Ireland, and the revenues of many European States, the greatest city of that Empire is taking toll from the industry of all the world. ”

“ The probability is that they will go on to increase, and that in fifty or sixty years they will be double our number; and form a mighty empire, consisting of a variety of States, all equal or superior to ourselves in all the arts and accomplishments which give dignity and happiness to human life. ”

“ Only so is it possible to establish and maintain the wide understandings, the common sympathy necessary to our continued association. The Empire, mediately or immediately, must become the universal educator, news-agent, book-distributor, civiliser-general, and vehicle of imaginative inspiration for its peoples, or else it must submit to the gravitation of its various parts to new and more invigorating associations. ”