'America for Americans!' - John Philip Newman (classic literature books txt) 📗

by ten degrees and the same thing is true. It is true that north of this zone there have been nations of wealth, of luxury, and of influence. South of this zone are Egypt and Arabia and India, and other nations that have lived in splendor. But the peoples that have given direction to the thought of mankind, that have created the philosophy for the race, that have given jurisprudence and history and oratory, and poetry and art and science, and government, to mankind, have been crowded, as it were, within this zone of supremacy, within this magical belt of national prosperity. Examine your globe, and there is Greece, that gave letters to the world; Rome, that gave jurisprudence to mankind; Palestine, that gave religion to our race. And to-day there is Germany, that gave a Luther to the church and a Gutenberg to science, and there is England swaying her mighty sceptre over land and sea. Our location is in this wake of power—within this magical zone. Surely there must be a destiny foretold by this great fact, and it is but wise for us as intelligent freemen on this national day to consider the significance of the prophecy. Our national home is not amid the polar snows of Northern Russia nor the burning sands of Central Africa, but sweeping over the lovely regions of the temperate zone, it lies too far south to be bound in perpetual chains of frost, and too far north to sink under the enervating influences of a tropical sun. Although on the side of the equator destined to be the great receptacle of human life, yet it is too far from the belligerent powers of the old world to fall a victim to their corruption or to the weight of their combined forces. With a shore line equalling the circuit of the globe, and with a river navigation duplicating that vast measurement, our national domain is only one-sixth less than that of the sixty states—republics, kingdoms, and empires—of Europe. Indeed, it is equal to old Rome's vast domain, which extended from the river Euphrates to the Western ocean and from the walls of Antoninus to the Mountains of the Moon.

Our location is for a purpose. For if you and I believe in the mission of individuals who accomplish the purposes of Providence, we must believe in the mission of nations for the elevation of mankind to a better future.

And, my countrymen, it is equally significant that we stand above all nations in our origin. We started where other nations left off. Unrivalled for luxury and oriental splendor, the Assyrians sprung from a band of hunters. Grand in her pyramids, and obelisks, and sphinxes, Egypt rose from that race despised by mankind. Great in her jurisprudence, giving law to the world, the Romans came from a band of freebooters on the seven hills that have been made immortal by martial genius; and that very nation, whose poets we copy, whose orators we seek to imitate, whose artistic genius is the pride of the race, came from barbarians, cannibals; and that proud nation beyond the sea, that sways her sceptre over land and ocean, sprang from painted barbarians—for such were the aborigines of proud Albion's Isle when Cæsar invaded those shores.

Our forefathers stood upon the very summit of humanity. Recall our constitutional convention. Perhaps no such convention had ever assembled in the halls of a nation. That convention, composed of fifty-five men, and such men! They were giants in intellect, in moral character; all occupying a high social position; twenty-nine were university men, and those that were not collegiates were men of imperial intellects and of commanding common sense. In such a gathering were Franklin, the venerable philosopher; Washington, who is ever to be revered as patriot and philanthropist; and Madison, and Hamilton, two of the most profound thinkers of that or of any other age. It is one of those marvels that we should recall of which we have a right to be proud; but in our pride we should not fail to ascertain why the Almighty should start us as a nation at the very acme of humanity—redeemed, educated, and made grand by the influences of a divine Christianity. Those men were not mere colonists, nor were they limited in their patriotism. "No pent-up Utica" could confine their patriotism, for those men grasped the fundamental principle of human rights. Nay, they declared the ultimate truth of humanity, leaving nothing to added since, though a century has passed. Great modifications have come to the governments of Europe. Some changes have taken place in our national life. Yet I appeal to your intelligent memory, to your calm judgments, if anything has been added to our declaration of rights, those declarations founded upon the constitution of nature. These men voiced the brotherhood of the race. All other declarations prior to this were but for dynasties, or were ethnic at most. But those men swept the horizon of humanity. These men called forth, as it were, the oncoming centuries of time, and in their presence declared that all men are created free and equal.

They not only declared the ultimate truth of human rights, but they exhausted the right of revolution. They created a constitution founded upon the will of the people, based upon our great declaration of rights, embracing man's inalienable right to life, liberty, and happiness. The instrument which their genius created was left amendable by the oncoming wants of time, modified in subordinate relations which might be suggested by emergencies and the unfolding of our race. Here then are the great fingers of prophecy pointing to our future.

And we have been equally favored in our population, whether we take the Puritans who landed in New England, the Dutch who landed in New York, or the English who crowded Maryland and Virginia. They were first-class families. Especially do we trace back with pride that glorious genius for liberty, for intelligence, for devotion manifested by those heroic men and women who, amid the desolations of a terrific winter landed on a barren rock to transform a vast wilderness, through which the wild man roamed, into a garden wherein should grow the flowers and the fruits of freedom.

We sometimes deprecate the cosmopolitan character of our population. It is a fact, however, that the best blood of the old world came to us until within ten years—not the decrepit, not the maimed, not the aged; for over fifty per cent. of those who came were between fifteen and thirty, and have grown up to be honorable citizens in the composition of our constitutional society. They came not as paupers. Many of them came, each bringing seventy dollars, some $180 dollars, and in the aggregate they brought millions of dollars.

There has been, however, a change, a manifest change, in the character of those from foreign shores within the last decade. The time was when we welcomed everybody that might immigrate to this country; when we threw our gates wide open; when in our Fourth of July orations, we proclaimed this to be the asylum of the oppressed, the home of the down-trodden. But in the process of time this great opportunity afforded the nations of the old world came to be abused, and to-day is the largest source of our national danger. We are now bound to call a halt all along the line of immigration; to say to those peoples of the old world that this is not a new Africa, nor a new Ireland, nor a new Germany, nor a new Italy, nor a new England, nor a new Russia; that this is not a brothel for the Mormon, a fetich for the negro, a country for the ticket-of-leave-men; not a place for the criminals and paupers of Europe; but this country is for man—man in his intelligence, man in his morality, man in his love of liberty, man, whosoever he is, whencesoever he cometh. [Cries of amen, followed by applause.]

The time has come for us to call a halt all along the line, and if we do not close the gates we should place them ajar. We should do two things: First, declare that this country is for Americans. [Applause.] It is not for Germans, nor for Irishmen, nor for Englishmen, nor for Spaniards, nor for the Chinese, nor for the Japanese, but it is for Americans. [Cries of amen and applause.] I am not to-day reviving the Know-Nothing cry, for I am glad to say that I am not a know-nothing in any sense. [Laughter.] Nor am I reviving what may be called the old Native American cry, for we have outlived that. But I am simply declaring that America is for Typical Americans. In other words, that we are determined by all that is honorable in law, by all that is energetic in religion, by all that is dear to our altars and our firesides, that this country shall not become un-American.

Let us to-day proclaim to the world that he is an American, whether native-born or foreign-born, who accepts seven great ideas which shall differentiate him from all other peoples on the face of the globe. I am bound to say, and you will agree with me, that in proportion there are as many intelligent foreigners (that is, foreign-born) in this congregation, in our city and in our country, who are in full accord with this utterance as there are of those to the manor born. In other words could I call the roll, I would find as many intelligent foreigners who came here, not for selfishness, but for liberty and for America's sake, who would be in accord with me in declaring that America is for the Typical American. [Applause.]

I speak without prejudice; I know that there are those here of foreign birth who are ornaments in every department of society. They minister to the sick as learned physicians. They plead in all our courts of justice. They are the eloquent exponents of divine truth. They are in our halls of legislation. They beautify private life in all the immunities and refinements thereof. They have added to the wealth of the nation. But while I make this concession, and I do it cheerfully and proudly, yet I must affirm that there are three classes of Americans: the native-born, the foreign-born and the typical American. The native American has the advantage of birth, out of which flows one supreme advantage—he may be the President of the United States. This is a wise provision, as nativity is a primary source of patriotism, and time is necessary to appreciation. But the native may be a worthless citizen. He should be the typical American, but he has too often failed to be. The Tweeds, the Wards, their like, are no honor whatever to the native stock. Some of the worst scoundrels who have scandalized our nation have been born to the soil.

Then there is the foreign-born American, who is such by naturalization. He may be worthy of our free institutions, as many are; he may be unworthy, as many have proved themselves to be. But, rising above these, is the typical American, without regard to place of birth. He is the possessor of the seven great attributes, which, in my humble judgment, constitute the true American:

I. That our civil and political rights are not grants from superiors to inferiors, but flow out of the order and constitution of nature.

II. That the force to maintain these rights is not physical, but moral.

III. That the safeguard of such rights is individual culture and responsibility.

IV. That secular education is provided by the State, and is forever free from sectarian control.

V. That there is no alliance of State and Church; the Government non-religious, but not irreligious.

VI. That the Sabbath is a day of rest from ordinary care and