Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/254

242 the tribe produced by the mingling of Saxon, Danish, and Norman blood. That makes the present English nation, and the American also. This is a very powerful tribe of men, possessing some very noble traits of character; active and creative in all the arts of peace; industrious as a nation never was before; enterprising, practical; fond of liberty, fond also of law, capable of organizing themselves into great masses, and acting with a complete concert and unity of action. In these respects, I think this tribe, which I will call the English tribe, is equal to any race of men in the world that has been or is; perhaps superior to any race that has been developed hitherto. But in what relates to the higher reason and imagination, to the affections and to the soul, I think this tribe is not so eminent as some others have been. North and South, the people are alike of Anglo-Norman descent. 4. Another cause of our prosperity, which depends a great deal on ourselves, is this—the absence of war and of armies. In France, with a population of less than forty millions, half a million are constantly under arms. The same state of things prevails substantially in Austria, Prussia, and in all the German States. Here in America, with a population of twenty millions, there is not one in a thousand that is a soldier or marine. In time of peace, I think we waste vast sums in military preparations, as we did in actual war not long since. Still, when I compare this nation with others, I think we have cause to felicitate ourselves on the absence of military power.

5. Again, much depends on the past history of the race; and here there is a wide difference between the different parts of the country. New England was settled by a religious colony. I will not say that all the men who came here from 1620 to 1650 were moved by religious motives; but the controlling men were brought here by these motives, and no other. Many who cared less for religious ideas, came for the sake of a great moral idea, for the sake of obtaining a greater degree of civil freedom than they had at home. Now the Pilgrims and the Puritans are only a little ways behind us. The stiff ruff, the peaked beard, the "Prophesying book" are only six or seven generations behind the youngest of us. The character of the Puritans has given to New England much of