Page 126 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

POSSIBILITIES OF AN ANGLO-
AMERICAN REUNION.

July, 1894.
[The following article was requested by the Editor of the
" North American Review," as one of a number, by several
persons, dealing with the question of a formal political con-
nection, proposed by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, between the
United States and the British Empire, for the advancement of
the general interests of the English-speaking peoples. The pro-
jects advocated by previous writers embraced: i, a federate
union 2, a merely naval union or alliance; or, 3, a defensive
;
alliance of a kind frequent in political history.]
TH E words " kinship and " alliance " express
"
two radically distinct ideas, and rest, for
both the privileges and the obligations involved
in them, upon foundations essentially different.
The former represents a natural relation, the
latter one purely conventional, — even though
it may result from the feelings, the mutual
interests, and the sense of incumbent duty
attendant upon the other. In its very etymol-
ogy, accordingly, is found implied that sense of
constraint, of an artificial bond, that may prove