No man could contemplate them without feeling that there
was in them a latent power vastly superior to any which they
judged it necessary to put forth. Their success proves to all
that what, prior to the war, was treated as American arrogance or
self-conceit, was only the outspoken confidence in their destiny
as a Providential people, conscious that to them is reserved the
hegemony of the world.
Count de Maistre predicted early in the century the failure of
the United States, because they have no proper name; but his
prediction assumed what is not the fact. The United States have
a proper name by which all the world knows and calls them. The
proper name of the country is America: that of the people is
Americans. Speak of Americans simply, and nobody understands you
to mean the people of Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile,
Paraguay, but everybody understands you to mean the people of the
United States. The fact is significant, and foretells for the
people of the United States a continental destiny, as is also
foreshadowed in the so-called "Monroe doctrine," which France,
during our domestic troubles, was permitted, on condition of not
intervening in our civil war in favor of the rebellion, to
violate.
There was no statesmanship in proclaiming the "Monroe doctrine,"
for the statesman keeps always, as far as possible, his
government free to act according to the exigencies of the case
when it comes up, unembarrassed by previous declarations of
principles.
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