Conquered people

“ Their conquering rule was like no other on historical record. They are the only conquering people who have benefited, by intention and in fact, the nations they conquered. They did give them such freedom as to incorporate them among themselves. ”

“ In the savage world, society and religion are based upon locality; in the barbaric world there is the first sign of the element of kinship consciously used in the effort of conquest, which dies away gradually as successful settlement, by which conqueror and conquered become merged in one people, follows conquest ”

“ As the increase of people depends on the encouragement of marriages, the following things must diminish a nation, viz. 1. The being conquered; for the conquerors will engross as many offices, and exact as much tribute or profit on the labour of the conquered, as will maintain them in their new establishment; and this diminishing the subsistence of the natives discou [387] rages their marriages, and so gradually diminishes them, while the foreigners increase. ”

“ The conquerors transplanted with them their independent and ferocious spirit to reanimate exhausted communities, and in their turn received a salutary mitigation, till in process of time the conqueror and conquered, having a common interest, were lost in each other. ”

“ The conquering race seldom care to inform themselves minutely about the condition and characteristics of the conquered, and the results have been renewed sanguinary struggles and immensely increased expenditures. ”

“ These and other examples too numerous to cite here prove that the children of bodies of conquerors who marry the women of the land will have an inevitable tendency to follow their mothers' speech. We may also lay down as a solid factor in the tendency of the conqueror to merge into the conquered the isolation of the conquerors from their original homes and from the great mass of those who speak the same language. ”

“ Conquering races hold it to be Nature's own dictate that the conquered should obey the conquerors, or, as they euphoniously paraphrase it, that the feebler and more unwarlike races should submit to the braver and manlier. ”

“ If the division between the noble and the common of the human race, as established by birth, by hereditary rank, by unalterable caste, were stronger and deeper and less eradicable than at this day, the real division, as visible in his nature, between man and man, of the noble and the common, the difference in his tastes, his enjoyments, his pleasures, his capacity no less than his power of enjoying, was a mere nothing then, to what it is to-day. ”

“ But once we can find that these people were not forever transfixed to frieze, but were as simple, as industrious, as human as we, the kinship is established, and through their veins begins to flow the stream that is common to all humanity. ”

“ But it will at once occur to any one that the life of society is not always continued and maintained in this natural way, by the succession of parents and children. New societies are formed by conquest and by the imposition of one people upon another. ”

“ Here lies the secret of all his insistence on loyalty and filial piety: the regeneration of society is dependent on the maintenance of the natural relation between the Ruler who rules— that is, lets the li of heaven flow through him—and his people. They are to maintain such an attitude towards him as will enable them to receive the li. In the family, he is the father ”

“ They conquered till none were left to conquer, and then they dwelt at ease within their rocky mountain walls, with their man servants and their maid servants, their minstrels, their sculptors, and their concubines, and traded and quarrelled, and ate and hunted and slept and made merry till their time came. ”

“ In like manner the three great systems of consanguinity, which are connected with the three radical forms of the family, stand to each other in a similarly connected series, running parallel with the former, and indicating not less plainly a similar line of human progress from savagery to civilization. ”

“ We have had, at intervals, persons who rebelled, through recurrent heredity perhaps, against our admirable system, and to them we administer lex dernier—they are transported to some other land, by methods known only to ourselves, there to mingle with a new people, with but a faint conception of their nativity. ”

“ When there come the conquests which produce compound societies, and, again, doubly compound ones, there come superpositions of ranks. And the general effect is that, while the ranks of the conquering society become respectively higher than those which existed before, those of the conquered become respectively lower. ”

“ Especially must it appeal to us, who boast a tradition greater than the world has ever yet seen, and kinship with men who represent the utmost of which the human spirit has yet shown itself capable,—to us who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake, but to whom the names of all our Imperial predecessors, from Babylon to Spain, serve as a perpetual memento mori. ”

“ To the same description of feelings may be referred that consideration for ancestry, that attention to the line of descent, and that regard to the history and merits of distant kindred, which in the meanest people appears often to assume the character of family pride. ”

“ Whether the conquerors are an early superior race or a refined spiritual power like Christianity, whether those conquered are primitive roving populations or splendid examples of the "blond beast," like German nobles of the early Middle Ages, conquest lies at the basis of the phenomenon, instincts that had been free and strong before turning while still strong against their possessor and making him ill. ”

“ As descendants, in whole or in part, from that illustrious people who, after conquering nature by their industry and perseverance, achieved liberty by their determined valour, and learning and science by their intellectual vigour, I rejoice to see you instituting bonds of union, for the purpose of preserving the remembrance of such an honourable lineage, and the ties of a common origin. ”

“ So in my fanciful moments I have imagined may society be, when the two great branches of humanity's noblest family, which have been separated so long, will consent not only to meet, but to meet on the same ground ”

“ MIGHTY and momentous were the changes that now swept over the lives of our forefathers, still torn with those tribal controversies which are inevitable in any great settlement of people in a new-found land. ”

“ Men unite in certain family compacts for mutual defence and assistance. The will of the patriarch is constituted a species of common law; the ties of consanguinity give rise to more or less compact settlements ”

“ And this signified that in character, as well as in nature, the race was a unity; the past made the present, the heir became as his inheritance; and so any change in man had to be effected by the Maker and not by those He had made. ”

“ If we wait until our necessities tell us that we belong to one family and should be confederated together, who can divine the conditions and inequalities which will result? Can we not now, therefore, look the situation fully and candidly in the face, and decide calmly and dispassionately in what our best interests consist? ”

“ Happily, the progress of education, and the growth of a wholesome public opinion, have made shameful the position of a European's concubine; and both races have thus been saved from a mode of life equally demoralising to each. ”

“ Adopting the language and manners of their conquerors, their own name as a people became entirely lost to their posterity, while this sole vestige (the contributions at weddings) alone remains, of their ancient customs. ”

“ Into communities produced by multiplication of it, the patriarchal group, carrying its supremacy of the eldest male, its system of inheritance, its laws of property, its joint worship of the common ancestor, its blood-feud, its complete subjection of women and children, long retains its individuality. ”

“ There he had anticipated a state without family life, without law courts or coins, without schools or temples, in which all differences of nationality would be merged in the common brotherhood of man. ”

“ A learned man once advanced the theory that in the olden days the children of Abraham and Keturah, driven forth by unkind kinsmen, wandered on until they reached the flowery Kingdom, and there the family of the old patriarch multiplied as the stars of heaven, as the sand upon the sea-shore, and became a mighty nation. ”

“ Groups in which such ties, and the resulting congruity, are most marked, and which, having family traditions in common, a common male ancestor, and a joint worship of him, are in these further ways made alike in ideas and sentiments, are groups in which the greatest social cohesion and power of coöperation arise. For a long time the clans and tribes descending from such primitive patriarchal groups have their political concert facilitated by this bond of relationship and the likeness it involves. ”

“ This is the true “predestination” of God’s counsels; this is the true “election” of the chosen vessels. Race and nationality, as well as family, are the precious gifts of God, to be used and recognised and taken account of as amongst the mighty moving powers of the world. ”

“ The general conscription is nothing but an internal contradiction which has crept into the social life-conception, and which has only become evident because it has arrived at its utmost limits at a period when men have attained a certain degree of material development.
The social life-conception transfers the significance of life from the individual to mankind in general, through the unbroken continuity of the family, the tribe, and the State. ”

“ Recognizing the fact that if we are fully to understand the higher forms of the family we must trace them up from those lowest forms accompanying the lowest social state, we saw how, in a small separated group of persons old and young, held together by some kinship, there was, under the circumstances of pastoral life, an establishing of male descent, an increasing of cohesion, of subordination, of coöperation, industrial and defensive ”

“ It is easy in Congress and from the pulpit, North and South to talk about polygamy and Brigham Young and debauchery of various kinds; but there is also one great fact that four millions of people lived in open and notorious concubinage. ”

“ The purer light is soon darkened in pride and selfishness, luxury and lust; as in Genesis, the sons of God see the daughters of men, that they are fair; and they take them wives of all that they choose. And so a mixed race springs up and increases, without detriment at first to the commonwealth. ”

“ If, then, this able and brilliant young man,—whose bread and meat you now have at your disposal,—had lived in concubinage with the mother of his children, no law against custom and tradition would have been violated, and no one would suggest that he be punished for what he had done. ”

“ And thus by Marrying constantly each rank within it self, the Descent and Dignity thereof is preserved for ever; and whether the Family be high or low it never alters. But to proceed to the particular ranks and degrees of Men among them. ”

“ We find amazingly close kinship all the world over, and at all stages of recorded history, between practices intended to ensure plenty of crop or herd, to avert defeat or pestilence, to enable the gratification of lust or hate. ”

“ And, dear friends, you, who by inheritance have slaves born in your families, we beseech you to consider them as souls committed to your trust, whom the Lord will require at your hand, and who, as well as you, are made partakers of the Spirit of grace, and called to be heirs of salvation. ”

“ To the aristocracy I would say, forget your ancestors, throw away your titles and every outward sign of courtly favour, and we will promise you to be generous and efface every remembrance of our ancestors. Let us be children of one father, brothers of one family! ”

“ The pride of clan is now changed to pride of race; loyalty to feudal chief has become loyalty to the Emperor as sovereign; and the old traits of character exist under the European costumes of to-day, as under the flowing robes of the two-sworded retainer. ”

“ May my descendants attend to my wishes, as to the division and employment of this immense sum!
"'In a century and a half, there happen so many changes, so many varieties of fortunes, such a rise and fall in the condition of the successive generations of a family, that probably, a hundred and fifty years hence, my descendants will belong to various classes of society, and thus represent the divers social elements of their time.
"'There may, perhaps, be among them men of great intelligence great courage, or great virtue—learned men, or names illustrious in arts and arms. ”

“ Driven into unwilling concubinage, their offspring are sold by their Anglo-Saxon fathers. To them, the marriage institution is but a name, for their despoilers break down the hymenial altar and scatter its sacred ashes on the winds. ”

“ Furthermore, the Companions were to be all unmarried men, such as therefore were free to dedicate their lives to the cause of their country with a readiness that was not to be expected or called for from men that had wives and families. ”

“ Ancestor-Worship.—When a practice or institution is seen to work well it soon becomes indorsed by social custom, law, or religion. The patriarchal system became fortified by ancestor-worship, which helped to keep the family subordinate to its male head. ”

“ And our "peculiar institution," the plural or patriarchal order of marriage, comes to us from God as the true and sure basis upon which to build society; as the means by which humanity shall be healed of the deplorable afflictions that have been transmitted from generation to generation, in consequence of the sins of the fathers. ”