NATIONALITY.
IN the bickerings between Great Britain and the United States, Jonathan is not to have all the absurdity to himself: patriotic individuals on this side of the water are bent upon showing that some Englishmen can be as absurd as any American. A very enlightened and philanthropic body, the Glasgow Emancipa- tion Society, at their last meeting unanimously resolved, "That it is the duty of the friends of liberty and equal rights in Great Britain to COMBINE, and, by Christian, peaceful, and bloodless means, to seek the dissolution of the American Union, as the gigantic enemy of freedom and the rights of Here is a resolution which will in America be manna to every Hunter's Lodge, every knot of Sympathizers, every gang of Repealers, every clamourer for the annexation of Canada—to all in the Union who hunger for war with England. If the peo- ple of England could adopt or act upon this suggestion, they would violate the first principle of international ethics, and render a stable peace impossible. The plain English of the resolution is, that it is the duty of British subjects to combine to effect a re- volution in the United States. The flourish about "Christian," (peaceful, and "bloodless means," is mere verbiage : "revolu- tions are not made with rose-water." Something worse than war against America is denounced in the resolution—the establish- ment of a propaganda in this country to disseminate among American citizens disaffection and disloyalty to their own Govern- ment. Who could blame a citizen of the Union for taking fire on reading the resolution ? Fancy a missionary board established in the United States to republicanize our own countryl Perhaps it is going too far to claim this piece of absurdity as of domestic manufacture. The Emancipation Society, by unani- mously adopting made it in one sense their own ; but the honour of framing and offering it to the meeting is claimed by an Ame- rican citizen ! Mr. Henry C. Wright, of Philadelphia," has established his title to the authorship, in a letter to the Glasgow Argus ; admitting that it may be said he acts "the part of a traitor to his country," but adding, "my moral obligations are not bounded by time or place." This unmeaning phrase has been little heard of late years. It was very fashionable at the commencement of the French Re- volution ; and in the event of a rupture with the United States, the fallacy, if revived, might become the means of unsettling the principles and destroying the self-respect of many Englishmen domesticated in the Union but not denationalized. In one sense, "moral obligations are not bounded by time and place." The generalized expression of the duties a man owes to his neighbour in England will correctly express the duties a man owes to his neighbour in any other country. But, though the expression may be generalized, the actual obligations are specific—binding the individual to an individual or individuals. Gratitude, bene- volence, &c., are due, not to the abstract idea of man or society, but to the personal benefactor, to the brother, the townsman—the individuals, in short, with whom men stand in actual innnediate connexion—the individuals upon whom juxtaposition in time and place enables them to act. Accident—in the eyes of those who believe that all is accident in the events of life—may in the first instance determine the individuals with whom we are to be brought in contact, and to whom our services are due ; but the connexion once formed cannot without a violation of moral duty be shaken off at pleasure. In other words, moral obligations are bounded by time and space : there are individuals who have pre. ferable claims upon us. The fallacy which represents professions of a vague and ab- stract benevolence as a compensation for neglect of family duties is easily seen through. The universal philanthropist who neglects his wife and children is a stock character with comedians and farce-writers; and the man who sacrifices the ties of country to an abstraction—call it philanthropy, liberty, or what you will—is a character equally dangerous and unsafe. Paul Jones palliated un- der the pretext of a love of liberty his hostile landing and devas- tations in his native country. The traitor Arnold doubtless al- leged that a sense of reawakened loyalty induced him to turn his arms against his countrymen. During the ephemeral existence of the French Republic, Paris was the rendezvous of enthusiasts of all countries who renounced their country from devotion to "the rights of man." They who have taken the trouble to trace the careers of the self-denationalized to a close, have not found one instance in which true moral worth has long aurvived Shia (mil* disruption of natural bonds. " Benevolence," "rights of man," and all such phrases, are mere generalized expressions of duties owed by individuals to individuals. When the persons to whom they are due are cast off, mere formulas of words cannot be- come substitutes for men of flesh and blood and afford an exercise for virtue. New ties may be formed in a new land, but the most rigorous discharge of duty to other fellow-beings cannot make amends for the desertion of those who had claims upon a man by interchange of sympathy and services from childhood upwards. And when the new and old connexions come to stand to each other in hostile relations, every act of service done to the newly- formed allies is a crime committed against the others. The rene- gade feels that he has entangled himself among conflicting duties —that he cannot act right towards one party without doing wrong to another ; he has no principle to guide him, no confi- dence in his own judgments and actions ; he loses all self- respect, and becomes reckless and untrustworthy.
A nation like the United States, the population of which is in so large a proportion composed of emigrants from foreign lands, is unavoidably exposed to the demoralizing influences of this sun- dering of the first natural ties. Many of its citizens are rather mere associates in business—men combined by a common interest
which may tomorrow as it began today—than members of a nation. Their nationality is worn lightly, as a thing to be cast aside should accident drive them to some other country. They have no rooted attachments, no sense of enduring obligations to others ; their character becomes hard and egoistical, their respect for public opinion weakened. Repudiation, and the vulgar tricky diplomacy- of the Union, are owing in part to the growing in- fluence of such characters. For this the nation is not so much to be blamed as pitied : it is the consequence of having become an independent state before its territory was so densely peopled that the old settlers must give the tone to public opinion. But for Bri- tain, all of whose social influences are repugnant to this moral disease, to give it countenance would be foolish as well as criminal : and to sanction anti-national proposals from stray American ad- venturers is to countenance it. For British subjects even to ex- press approbation of Mr. Wright's ex-parte charges against his countrymen is unbecoming ; but to " combine " with him to revolutionize the country would be a violation of the comity of nations.
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