Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, December 31, 1867

Growth of the United States.

FROM an article in the Methodist, headed, “The Prospective growth of the United States,” we make the following extract, which will be of interest to our readers:

It is a remarkable circumstance that even while the question of a perpetuation of our national unity is hardly settled, the country begins to expand in all directions. The first step in this direction was made last year by the purchase from Russia of Russian America. It is a country thinly populated, but a vast tract of land. On its mercantile value, there is not yet a full agreement of opinion; but if the action of the United States Senate reflects in any way the opinion of the people, the purchase is acceptable to the large majority of them, for—a thing not frequent in matters of this kind—the purchase was ratified by all save two votes. While thus foreign rule ceased in the extreme north of our continent, negotiations were actively carried on for the purchase of the Danish islands in the West Indies. These negotiations have recently been concluded, and now await ratification by the Senate.

At the same time, it is asserted that the Spanish Government has made to the United States a formal offer of Cuba and Porto Rico for the sum of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. The report needs verification; but though it may be premature, it is by no means improbable. The statesmen of Spain cannot be so blind as not to see the extreme improbability of their being able to retain much longer their hold on their American colonies, especially of Cuba. The spirit of independence in this island is visibly growing from year to year. A steadily-increasing proportion of the children of the educated and wealthy classes receive their education in the United States, and there imbibe the spirit of independence and of republicanism. The fact that it is the revenue of Cuba which with difficulty keeps off from old, sluggish Spain the impending bankruptcy, is coming to be better understood in Cuba, and produces a general hatred of Spanish dominion.

Cuba has now its Cuban and American press in opposition to the Spanish, and it is evident that it is only the despotic rule of the Spanish officials which arrests the rapid march of native sentiments. Under these circumstances, Spain must expect the speedy outbreak of revolutionary attempts, which must become more dangerous as the native population increases, and as the intercourse of the people with the independent States of America becomes more intimate. Spain, moreover, knows that Mexico and the republics of

South America are most eager to give the greatest possible encouragement and aid to every revolutionary movement in the Spanish colonies, and that this sympathy cannot fail to shake the Spanish power, and to hasten on the day of its downfall. Considerations of this kind must dispose the Spanish Government favorably toward the idea of selling what, in the course of time, it will be unable to retain. From reasons too obvious to need any explanations, it cannot expect to find any other purchaser than the United States.

It is reported, with what degree of truth we do not know, that, in addition to the offers and purchases mentioned above, other offers have been made, and other negotiations have been carried on. Sweden and Holland are said to be anxious to sell out their American possessions, and even England has been said not to be altogether opposed to the sale of at least some tracts in British America. The United States Government, on the other hand, is reported to have negotiated for the purchase of the Bay of Samana, in the island of San Domingo, and to be anxious to secure the Sandwich islands, the government of which will become extinct on the death of the present childless king.

Taken as a whole, these facts and reports unquestionably point to a strong tendency toward the expansion of our national territory. We do not stop to-day to discuss the soundness or unsoundness of this tendency; we intended only to adduce the facts which appear to establish its existence. But it is evident that there are great principles at the bottom of this movement which should be thoroughly elucidated and understood. The inhabitants of the European colonies in America are in a condition of political childhood, and it is natural that, both among these peoples and among the inhabitants of the independent American States, a strong desire should be manifested that all American territory should outgrow the humiliating condition of being European dependencies. This desire must steadily grow as America more and more outgrows Europe in rapidity of development, with the certain prospect of, at no remote time, excelling it in population, power, and influence. And it is therefore a question well worthy the consideration of a Christian and civilized nation, how this great prospective change in the American growth can best be effected in a peaceable, becoming, and lawful manner, and insurrection and bloodshed be avoided.