Do not suppose because I am reminding you of these things and shall remind you of some more, that I am trying to make you hate France. I am only trying to persuade you to stop hating England. I wish to show you how much reason you have not to hate her, which your school histories pass lightly over, or pass wholly by. I want to make it plain that your anti-English complex and your pro-French complex entice1 your memory into retaining only evil about England and only good about France. That is why I pull out from the recorded, certified2, and perfectly3 ascertainable4 past, these few large facts. They amply justify5, as it seems to me, and as I think it must seem to any reader with an open mind, what I said about the pattern.
We must now touch upon the War of 1812. There is a political aspect of this war which casts upon it a light not generally shed by our school histories. Bonaparte is again the point. Nine years after our Louisiana Purchase from him, we declared war upon England. At that moment England was heavily absorbed in her struggle with Bonaparte. It is true that we had a genuine grievance6 against her. In searching for British sailors upon our ships, she impressed our own. This was our justification7.
We made a pretty lame8 showing, in spite of the victories of our frigates9 and sloops10. Our one signal triumph on land came after the Treaty of Peace had been signed at Ghent. During the years of war, it was lucky for us that England had Bonaparte upon her hands. She could not give us much attention. She was battling with the great Autocrat11. We, by declaring war upon her at such a time, played into Bonaparte's hands, and virtually, by embarrassing England, struck a blow on the side of autocracy12 and against our own political faith. It was a feeble blow, it did but slight harm. And regardless of it England struck Bonaparte down. His hope that we might damage and lessen13 the power of her fleet that he so much respected and feared, was not realized. We made the Treaty of Ghent. The impressing of sailors from our vessels14 was tacitly abandoned. The next time that people were removed from vessels, it was not England who removed them, it was we ourselves, who had declared war on England for doing so, we ourselves who removed them from Canadian vessels in the Behring Sea, and from the British ship Trent. These incidents we shall reach in their proper place. As a result of the War of 1812, some English felt justified15 in taking from us a large slice of land, but Wellington said, "I think you have no right, from the state of the war, to demand any concession16 of territory from America." This is all that need be said about our War of 1812.
Because I am trying to give only the large incidents, I have intentionally17 made but a mere18 allusion19 to Florida and our acquisition of that territory. It was a case again of England's siding with us against a third power, Spain, in this instance. I have also omitted any account of our acquisition of Texas, when England was not friendly--I am not sure why: probably because of the friction20 between us over Oregon. But certain other minor21 events there are, which do require a brief reference--the boundaries of Maine, of Oregon, the Isthmian Canal, Cleveland and Venezuela, Roosevelt and Alaska; and these disputes we shall now take up together, before we deal with the very large matter of our trouble with England during the Civil War. Chronologically22, of course, Venezuela and Alaska fall after the Civil War; but they belong to the same class to which Maine and Oregon belong. Together, all of these incidents and controversies23 form a group in which the underlying24 permanence of British good-will towards us is distinctly to be discerned. Sometimes, as I have said before, British anger with us obscures the friendly sentiment. But this was on the surface, and it always passed. As usual, it is only the anger that has stuck in our minds. Of the outcome of these controversies and the British temperance and restraint which brought about such outcome the popular mind retains no impression.
The boundary of Maine was found to be undefined to the extent of 12,000 square miles. Both Maine and New Brunswick claimed this, of course. Maine took her coat off to fight, so did New Brunswick. Now, we backed Maine, and voted supplies and men to her. Not so England. More soberly, she said, "Let us arbitrate." We agreed, it was done. By the umpire Maine was awarded more than half what she claimed. And then we disputed the umpire's decision on the ground he hadn't given us the whole thing! Does not this remind you of some of our baseball bad manners? It was settled later, and we got, differently located, about the original award.
Did you learn in school about "fifty-four forty, or fight"? We were ready to take off our coat again. Or at least, that was the platform in 1844 on which President Polk was elected. At that time, what lay between the north line of California and the south line of Alaska, which then belonged to Russia, was called Oregon. We said it was ours. England disputed this. Each nation based its title on discovery. It wasn't really far from an even claim. So Polk was elected, which apparently25 meant war; his words were bellicose26. We blustered27 rudely. Feeling ran high in England; but she didn't take off her coat. Her ambassador, Pakenham, stiff at first, unbent later. Under sundry28 missionary29 impulses, more Americans than British had recently settled along the Columbia River and in the Willamette Valley. People from Missouri followed. You may read of our impatient violence in Professor Dunning's book, The British Empire and the United States. Indeed, this volume tells at length everything I am telling you briefly30 about these boundary disputes. The settlers wished to be under our Government. Virtually upon their preference the matter was finally adjusted. England met us with a compromise, advantageous31 to us and reasonable for herself. Thus, again, was her conduct moderate and pacific. If you think that this was through fear of us, I can only leave you to our western blow-hards of 1845, or to your anti-British complex. What I see in it, is another sign of that fundamental sense of kinship, that persisting unwillingness32 to have a real scrap33 with us, that stares plainly out of our whole first century--the same feeling which prevented so many English from enlisting34 against us in the Revolution that George III was obliged to get Hessians.
Nicaragua comes next. There again they were quite angry with us on top, but controlled in the end by the persisting disposition35 of kinship. They had land in Nicaragua with the idea of an Isthmian Canal. This we did not like. They thought we should mind our own business. But they agreed with us in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty that both should build and run the canal. Vagueness about territory near by raised further trouble, and there we were in the right. England yielded. The years went on and we grew, until the time came when we decided36 that if there was to be any canal, no one but ourselves should have it. We asked to be let off the old treaty. England let us off, stipulating37 the canal should be unfortified, and an "open door" to all. Our representative agreed to this, much to our displeasure. Indeed, I do not think he should have agreed to it. Did England hold us to it? All this happened in the lifetime of many of us, and we know that she did not hold us to it. She gave us what we asked, and she did so because she felt its justice, and that it in no way menaced her with injury. All this began in 1850 and ended, as we know, in the time of Roosevelt.
About 1887 our seal-fishing in the Behring Sea brought on an acute situation. Into the many and intricate details of this, I need not go; you can find them in any good encyclopedia38, and also in Harper's Magazine for April, 1891, and in other places. Our fishing clashed with Canada's. We assumed jurisdiction39 over the whole of the sea, which is a third as big as the Mediterranean40, on the quite fantastic ground that it was an inland sea. Ignoring the law that nobody has jurisdiction outside the three-mile limit from their shores, we seized Canadian vessels sixty miles from land. In fact, we did virtually what we had gone to war with England for doing in 1812. But England did not go to war. She asked for arbitration41. Throughout this, our tone was raw and indiscreet, while hers was conspicuously42 the opposite; we had done an unwarrantable and high-handed thing; our claim that Behring Sea was an "inclosed" sea was abandoned; the arbitration went against us, and we paid damages for the Canadian vessels.
In 1895, in the course of a century's dispute over the boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana, Venezuela took prisoner some British subjects, and asked us to protect her from the consequences. Richard Olney, Grover Cleveland's Secretary of State, informed Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister of England, that "in accordance with the Monroe Doctrine43, the United States must insist on arbitration"--that is, of the disputed boundary. It was an abrupt44 extension of the Monroe Doctrine. It was dictating45 to England the manner in which she should settle a difference with another country. Salisbury declined. On December 17th Cleveland announced to England that the Monroe Doctrine applied46 to every stage of our national Life, and that as Great Britain had for many years refused to submit the dispute to impartial47 arbitration, nothing remained to us but to accept the situation. Moreover, if the disputed territory was found to belong to Venezuela, it would be the duty of the United States to resist, by every means in its power, the aggressions of Great Britain. This was, in effect, an ultimatum48. The stock market went to pieces. In general American opinion, war was coming. The situation was indeed grave. First, we owed the Monroe Doctrine's very existence to English backing. Second, the Doctrine itself had been a declaration against autocracy in the shape of the Holy Alliance, and England was not autocracy. Lastly, as a nation, Venezuela seldom conducted herself or her government on the steady plan of democracy. England was exasperated49. And yet England yielded. It took a little time, but arbitration settled it in the end--at about the same time that we flatly declined to arbitrate our quarrel with Spain. History will not acquit50 us of groundless meddling51 and arrogance52 in this matter, while England comes out of it having again shown in the end both forbearance and good manners. Before another Venezuelan incident in 1902, I take up a burning dispute of 1903.
As Oregon had formerly53 been, so Alaska had later become, a grave source of friction between England and ourselves. Canada claimed boundaries in Alaska which we disputed. This had smouldered along through a number of years until the discovery of gold in the Klondike region fanned it to a somewhat menacing flame. In this instance, history is as unlikely to approve the conduct of the Canadians as to approve our bad manners towards them upon many other occasions. The matter came to a head in Roosevelt's first administration. You will find it all in the Life of John Hay by William R. Thayer, Volume II. A commission to settle the matter had dawdled54 and failed. Roosevelt was tired of delays. Commissioners55 again were appointed, three Americans, two Canadians, and Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice, to represent England. To his friend Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, about to sail for an English holiday, Roosevelt wrote a private letter privately56 to be shown to Mr. Balfour, Mr. Chamberlain, and certain other Englishmen of mark. He said: "The claim of the Canadians for access to deep water along any part of the Alaskan coast is just exactly as indefensible as if they should now suddenly claim the Island of Nantucket." Canada had objected to our Commissioners as being not "impartial jurists of repute." As to this, Roosevelt's letter to Holmes ran on: "I believe that no three men in the United States could be found who would be more anxious than our own delegates to do justice to the British claim on all points where there is even a color of right on the British side. But the objection raised by certain British authorities to Lodge57, Root, and Turner, especially to Lodge and Root, was that they had committed themselves on the general proposition. No man in public life in any position of prominence58 could have possibly avoided committing himself on the proposition, any more than Mr. Chamberlain could avoid committing himself on the ownership of the Orkneys if some Scandinavian country suddenly claimed them. If this embodied59 other points to which there was legitimate60 doubt, I believe Mr. Chamberlain would act fairly and squarely in deciding the matter; but if he appointed a commission to settle up all these questions, I certainly should not expect him to appoint three men, if he could find them, who believed that as to the Orkneys the question was an open one. I wish to make one last effort to bring about an agreement through the Com-mission.... But if there is a disagreement... I shall take a position which will prevent any possibility of arbitration hereafter;... will render it necessary for Congress to give me the authority to run the line as we claim it, by our own people, without any further regard to the attitude of England and Canada. If I paid attention to mere abstract rights, that is the position I ought to take anyhow. I have not taken it because I wish to exhaust every effort to have the affair settled peacefully and with due regard to England's honor."
That is the way to do these things: not by a peremptory62 public letter, like Olney's to Salisbury, which enrages63 a whole people and makes temperate64 action doubly difficult, but thus, by a private letter to the proper persons, very plain, very unmistakable, but which remains65 private, a sufficient word to the wise, and not a red rag to the mob. "To have the affair settled peacefully and with due regard to England's honor." Thus Roosevelt. England desired no war with us this time, any more than at the other time. The Commission went to work, and, after investigating the facts, decided in our favor.
Our list of boundary episodes finished, I must touch upon the affair with the Kaiser regarding Venezuela's debts. She owed money to Germany, Italy, and England. The Kaiser got the ear of the Tory government under Salisbury, and between the three countries a secret pact66 was made to repay themselves. Venezuela is not seldom reluctant to settle her obligations, and she was slow upon this occasion. It was the Kaiser's chance--he had been trying it already at other points--to slide into a foothold over here under the camouflage67 of collecting from Venezuela her just debt to him. So with warships68 he and his allies established what he called a pacific blockade on Venezuelan ports.
I must skip the comedy that now went on in Washington (you will find it on pages 287-288 of Mr. Thayer's John Hay, Volume II) and come at once to Mr. Roosevelt's final word to the Kaiser, that if there was not an offer to arbitrate within forty-eight hours, Admiral Dewey would sail for Venezuela. In thirty-six hours arbitration was agreed to. England withdrew from her share in the secret pact. Had she wanted war with us, her fleet and the Kaiser's could have outmatched our own. She did not; and the Kaiser had still very clearly and sorely in remembrance what choice she had made between standing69 with him and standing with us a few years before this, upon an occasion that was also connected with Admiral Dewey. This I shall fully61 consider after summarizing those international episodes of our Civil War wherein England was concerned.
This completes my list of minor troubles with England that we have had since Canning suggested our Monroe Doctrine in 1823. Minor troubles, I call them, because they are all smaller than those during our Civil War. The full record of each is an open page of history for you to read at leisure in any good library. You will find that the anti-English complex has its influence sometimes in the pages of our historians, but Professor Dunning is free from it. You will find, whatever transitory gusts70 of anger, jealousy71, hostility72, or petulance73 may have swept over the English people in their relations with us, these gusts end in a calm; and this calm is due to the common-sense of the race. It revealed itself in the treaty at the close of our Revolution, and it has been the ultimate controlling factor in English dealings with us ever since. And now I reach the last of my large historic matters, the Civil War, and our war with Spain.
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entice
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| v.诱骗，引诱，怂恿 | |
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certified
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| a.经证明合格的；具有证明文件的 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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ascertainable
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| adj.可确定（探知），可发现的 | |
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justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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frigates
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| n.快速军舰( frigate的名词复数 ) | |
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sloops
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| n.单桅纵帆船( sloop的名词复数 ) | |
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autocrat
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| n.独裁者；专横的人 | |
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autocracy
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| n.独裁政治，独裁政府 | |
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lessen
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| vt.减少，减轻；缩小 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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concession
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| n.让步，妥协；特许(权) | |
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intentionally
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| ad.故意地，有意地 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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chronologically
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| ad. 按年代的 | |
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controversies
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| 争论 | |
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underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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bellicose
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| adj.好战的；好争吵的 | |
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blustered
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| v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮；（风）呼啸；狂吹 | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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advantageous
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| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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unwillingness
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| n. 不愿意，不情愿 | |
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scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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enlisting
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| v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的现在分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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stipulating
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| v.（尤指在协议或建议中）规定，约定，讲明（条件等）( stipulate的现在分词 )；规定，明确要求 | |
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encyclopedia
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| n.百科全书 | |
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jurisdiction
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| n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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arbitration
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| n.调停，仲裁 | |
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conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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dictating
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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impartial
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| adj.(in,to)公正的，无偏见的 | |
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ultimatum
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| n.最后通牒 | |
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exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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acquit
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| vt.宣判无罪；(oneself)使(自己)表现出 | |
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meddling
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| v.干涉，干预（他人事务）( meddle的现在分词 ) | |
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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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dawdled
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| v.混（时间）( dawdle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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commissioners
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| n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 )；长官；委员；政府部门的长官 | |
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privately
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| adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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enrages
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| 使暴怒( enrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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camouflage
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| n./v.掩饰，伪装 | |
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warships
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| 军舰，战舰( warship的名词复数 )； 舰只 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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gusts
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| 一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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petulance
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| n.发脾气，生气，易怒，暴躁，性急 | |
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