North American Union

“ New interests would be called into existence by an union.But the interests which are already in common between all these Provinces are small in comparison with those which the consequences of such an union might, and I think I may say assuredly would, call into existence; and the great discoveries of modern art, which have throughout the world, and no where more than in America, entirely altered the character and the channels of communication between distant countries, will bring all the North American Colonies into constant and speedy intercourse with each other. ”

“ The Pan-American Union, as well as other organizations and publications with the Pan-American object in view, do sincere and arduous work which has borne much industrial and social fruit, but their labours are necessarily spread over a great field: nor can Consuls do everything, however energetic. ”

“ This question of the economic unification of North America is a living issue which will disappear from the national life of the two English-speaking countries only with a fulfilment of a commercial union virtually complete. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In defending its own rights, the American Union assured the independence of the ocean. The Union once destroyed, the English will again resume their preponderance, peace will be exiled from the world, and a policy will return which has only benefited our rivals. ”

“ But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole.
The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. ”

“ Their excuse is that the American Union, and the great purpose which it declares itself called upon to accomplish, is of such vast importance, of such infinite significance in the eyes of all the Free States, for the whole of humanity, and for all the nations of the world, that they could not allow themselves to be other than interested in its full accomplishment as in an affair that concerned themselves. ”

“ The wish to spare the North American continent the war with which it was threatened, to dispose of different points in dispute between France and the United States of America, and to remove all the new causes of misunderstanding which competition and neighborhood might have produced between them; the position of the French colonies; their want of men, cultivation, and assistance ”

“ The Pan American Union, a potent factor in promoting our trade with the Latin-American countries, is not a branch of the United States Government, but an international organization in which all the American republics are represented. ”

“ The American Union has happily solved its internal and foreign problems, has established its political and economic power on a firm basis, and is, finally, in full enjoyment of its natural greatness and freely exercising all its energies at the present time. We have attentively observed that it desires to promote the progress of the world and to see the other nations of Christendom, especially the American republics, associated in this great work on terms of equality, friendship, and mutual benefit. ”

“ These principles are, indeed, indispensable to the effectual emancipation of the American hemisphere from the thralldom of colonizing monopolies and exclusions, an event rapidly realizing in the progress of human affairs, and which the resistance still opposed in certain parts of Europe to the acknowledgment of the Southern American Republics as independent States will, it is believed, contribute more effectually to accomplish. ”

“ To form and adopt a plan for the purposes of obtaining redress of American grievances, ascertaining American rights upon the moat solid and constitutional principles, and for establishing that union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies which is indispensably necessary to the welfare and happiness of both. ”

“ Living through those old days, immediately after the peace with England of 1783, we find that public and official recognition of a fatal defect in the federal form of union came from the inability of its federal government, which had no power over commerce, to establish a uniform regulation of trade among the thirteen American nations themselves and between them and foreign nations. ”

“ The American Union—the free country—years ago established its foreign policy on the plan of equality. Its commercial flag waves throughout the world without arrogance or spirit of intervention.
Your natural wisdom tells you, Mr. Root, that you do not need any other than mercantile expansion, and still more that none other would be suited to you. ”

“ Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world! ”

“ 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 ”

“ Americans did not pounce upon and seize the continent, nor did they even fire one shot to secure its entire control. Canada, Central and South America simply gravitated towards the American Union and became absorbed into one great Republic.
The smaller Republics of the Americas realized that the United States in 1899 were [101] a peace-loving nation. Although its army was a mere corporal’s guard, America had a population in that year aggregating 75,000,000. Such a large nation with an insignificant army could mean them no harm. ”

“ We are connected, both by interest and affection, with the New England States; we harbor no animosities against each other; we have no interfering territorial claims; our manners are nearly similar, and they are daily assimilating, and mutual advantages will probably prompt to mutual concessions, to enable us to form a union with them. ”

“ But he saw clearly the resources as well as the rights of the Colonies, and was satisfied that, if power were not consolidated under the constitutional auspices of England, it would be transferred to the other side of the Atlantic. Here his words are prophetic:—
"The whole train of events, the whole course of business, must perpetually bring forward into practice, and necessarily in the end into establishment, either an American or a British union. There is no other alternative." ”

“ Without reference to the serious inconvenience which would follow to us from an interruption in the supply of cotton, and regarding the point upon broader grounds even than those which affect the welfare of our own manufacturing districts, we, in England, require for the maintenance of our present influence in Europe, that the North American Confederation should be united and strong. ”

“ Here, then, were three parties all at daggers drawn—the Hudson’s Bay Company standing stiffly for the old order of things and marking time till the negotiations in England gave some cue for a new policy; the colonists asking for a representative government, which meant union with Canada, waiting till negotiations for Confederation gave them some cue; the independents, furtive, almost nameless, working in the dark, hand in hand with that million dollar fund, watching for their opportunity. ”

“ Thus much may be said without error or offence, viz.: that such foreign nations as desire the prosperity of America, and would rejoice to see her become great and powerful, under the auspices of a government wisely calculated to extend her commerce, to encourage her navigation and marine, and to direct the whole weight of her power and resources as her interest and honor may require, will doubtless be friendly to the union of states, and to the establishment of a government able to perpetuate, protect, and dignify it. ”

“ Ninthly, and finally, that the substitution of the British colonial system for the American system, without benefiting any section of the Union, by subjecting us to a foreign legislation, regulated by foreign interests, would lead to the prostration of our manufactories, general impoverishment, and ultimate ruin. * * * The danger of our Union does not lie on the side of persistence in the American system, but on that of its abandonment. ”

“ In the meantime the people of the United States had grown up to a proper consciousness of their strength, and in a brief contest with France and in a second serious war with Great Britain they had shaken off all which remained of undue reverence for Europe, and emerged from the atmosphere of those transatlantic influences which surrounded the infant Republic, and had begun to turn their attention to the full and systematic development of the internal resources of the Union. ”

“ This system, first proclaimed to the world in the first commercial treaty ever concluded by the United States — that of 1778-02-06, with France — has been invariably the cherished policy of our Union. It is by treaties of commerce alone that it can be made ultimately to prevail as the established system of all civilized nations. With this principle our fathers extended the hand of friendship to every nation of the globe, and to this policy our country has ever since adhered. ”

“ Interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of slaves, which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers. ”

“ On the other hand, it was strongly urged that the Western territory had been secured through a war undertaken by all the colonies for the whole country, and that the lands ought to be reserved to reward the continental soldiers, and to secure the debt of the United States. For the sake of union, two of the three dissatisfied commonwealths agreed to the Articles of Confederation. ”

“ There was room enough for two states on one continent, could the Americans but have believed it. We do not affect to be surprised at the course they have taken. It was natural that a blow should be struck for the Union; but all Europe has long seen that the Union could never be restored. ”

“ Her Majesty the Queen has already been pleased to express deep interest in a closer union of her North America colonies and will no doubt greatly appreciate this decided expression of your opinion, and the avowal of your desire that all British North America should unite in one community, under one strong and efficient government, which cannot but tend to hasten the accomplishment of this great measure. ”

“ We believe that this Union is the most sacred trust ever confided by God to man. We believe that this American Union is the best, the brightest, the last experiment of self-government; and as it shall be maintained and perpetuated, or broken and dissolved, the light of liberty shall beam upon the hopes of mankind, or be forever extinguished amid the scoffs of exulting tyrants, and the groans of a world in bondage. ”

“ Common institutions, common freedom, and common tongue have evidently far more to do with trade than union has; and for purposes of commerce and civilization, America is a truer colony of Britain than is Canada. ”

“ In fact it seems to be in the nature of things that the United States' prestige should grow and ours should wane in North America, and I wish we were well and creditably out of the scrape.
In the course of the previous year he had already expressed the opinion that the great problem for us in American politics was to find some fair and honourable way of dissolving all connection between England and our North American colonies. ”

“ The only sort of union that is quite likely to come about is the joining by the Americans of the United Empire, or Confederation of all English-speaking nations, with which we have been connected for some years. ”

“ Copyright 1895 by John Fretwell.
Copyrighted in England and the United States
Right of Translation and Republication Reserved
GEO. H. ELLIS, PRINTER, 141 FRANKLIN STREET, BOSTON.
"To be taken into the American Union is to be adopted into a partnership. To belong as a Crown Colony to the British Empire, as things stand, is no partnership at all.
"It is to belong to a power which sacrifices, as it has always sacrificed, the interest of its dependencies to its own. The blood runs freely through every vein and artery of the American body corporate. ”

“ Do not think that other nations are unapproachable. But remember that North and South America, with all Europe, "are more closely related in point of time and common interests than were the original Thirteen States when the necessities of commerce forced them to form the compact of the Union ”

“ Moreover, if in what has been said we are correct, the relationship at present existing between the American Union and the Insular regions, is that of de facto Justiciary Union, and the American Congress, under the lead of President McKinley and President Roosevelt, has acted, with reference to these regions, according to the principles of the American system. ”