The Anglo-Saxon Race

[Gladstone]

A link to an article in the July 1851 issue of the journal "The North American Review" describing America's predominantly Anglo-Saxon population and its origon

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-b...ABQ7578-0073-4

The article is from p.34 to 71. To turn the page simply click "next page" at upper right hand corner.

[Gladstone]

Some remarkable statements on pg. 42-43 of the linked article above:

"Possessing all these elements of progress, we shall go on from strength to strength until we fall by our own sins. Small nations may be devoured by large ones, without, so far as we can see, any fault of their own; but great and powerful nations fall only by their own sins. The only enemies they have to fear are the vices they cherish within their own bosoms.".....

The next paragraph goes on to state:

"All these nations fell from precisely the same causes. Strength and success brought them wealth, and wealth brought in her train licentiousness, forgetfulness of principle, and degradation of character, until strength became palsied, and former successes only prepared the way for the more shameful downfall. As we look abroad among our own people and see how the wealth of the nation at large grows like an exotic weed, and how luxury in our large cities keeps ready pace with wealth, we cannot but tremble for the ultimate success of the great experiment in self-governament we are trying. For the honor of Freedom, we yet trust that her sons, so ready and able to defend her cause in adversity, may not succumb before the enticements and corruptions of prosperity."

Gladstone

[Gladstone]

An additional insightful excerpt from pg 35-36 of the article

"The American, however democratic he may be, however slow to admit the claim of anything hereditary, is yet proud to assert that he too is the free-born child of the same stock; for a thousand years of progressive civilization, transportation to a new continent, revolution, change of governmental form, have not sufficed to change the nature of the Anglo-Saxon. When he wants that which a foreign neighbor possesses, he is still the same brave, hardy, determined, piratic being as when we first hear of him in history; and when having conquered a new country, he plants himself, and establishes a home, we find him possessed of a similar love of liberty protected by law, a similar respect for woman, and a similar reverence for religion, as when he dwelt a pagan in the forests of Germany, in the days of the Roman Empire; or when, a few centuries later, he had established his power over the island of the Britons, and bowed before the cross of Christ. So striking is this resemblance that, of late years, we have come to call ourselves Anglo-Saxons in common parlance, and to find an excuse for our aggressions upon our neighbors in the inherent disposition handed down to us from the farthest antiquity we can penetrate, and which by its long continued success, we venture to affirm, plainly indicates that the destiny of the Anglo-Saxons is to conquer the whole earth."

The attitude expressed in the statements above, namely the idea of the inherant right to rule others, in conjunction with the truths of the two previous excerpts, go a long way towards explaining how America got into the catastrophic mess it finds itself in now.