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political dignity. It was carried over to France, where it soon acquired great historical importance.1

America, still frequently used for our country both here and abroad, and almost always when an adjective is wanted to designate the country, naturally presented itself, because no name existed for our country, yet a designation was wanted. No German emigrant goes to the United States, but simply to America. The same is probably the case with Irish emigrants.

North America, very frequently used by John Adams and other patriots of comprehensive views, must be explained in the same way. The first bank established by the continental congress in Philadelphia, in order to obtain means to carry on the war, was called, and long continued to be called, the Bank of North America. The seal of the United States treasury, adopted during the continental congress, has to this day the scroll containing the four abbreviations, Thesaur. Amer. Septent. Sigil., as may be seen on every five-dollar note. There is an instructive paper on the Seals of the Departments, by Benson J. Lossing, in a number of Harper's Monthly for 1869. Continent came to be used, although no man then thought of the United States ever stretching to the Pacific, because it furnished an adjective very much wanted for what was not yet called national-government, money, troops.

All documents, all events, all private letters, even the earliest, as they become known, more and more every day, show this pervading spirit "from New Hampshire to South Carolina, inclusive," and that "they are perfectly united," with reference to opposing British authority, "as to all internal taxation." What is internal in this case, if not within the country or nation contra-distinguished to others? Nor was there any distinction of classes as to this feeling. Some rhymes-and pretty indifferent ones-written by a soldier in the winter of 1778, after

See my paper on Nationalism.

a fearful march with bloody feet, on "the Old War for Independence," begin:

America is in a most pitiful state.

I conclude my remarks by directing attention to the significant fact that our best authorities from earliest times frequently use United States as a singular, and let it be followed by it, and this in the most solemn state papers.

The Journal of the Continental Congress is not sufficiently studied, yet it is the genetic record of our country or nation.

The following are extracts of a lecture on the want of a name for our country:

It is unfortunate that our country has no name. A name in science and in the pursuit of knowledge is the distinction of ideas; in politics it is the highest symbol of unity. The orator, the poet, the statesman, the common songster, the patriot, cling to the name of their country, and again draw inspiration from it, and hope when politically the country is torn. Would Italy have reached unity at all, through the long centuries when she was hacked into pieces, had it not been for the sweet and inspiriting name of Italia? Italia mia di dolor castello.

Nothing ultimately remained of German unity or totality but her language, literature, and the name of Germany. Everything seemed to have been lost, only not the name, and the poet's enthusiasm who sang Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein, and the many Sängerfeste which were always pre-eminently German or national, until at last that very name, scarcely saved, inspired the provoked country to conquer German unity in foreign land in the blessed year of 1870.

England, with so many historical favors and advantages not vouchsafed to others, had not only from early times a national government, but also a national name-" Merrie England"-The Laws of England. Would Nelson's signal, “England expects every man to do his duty," had he signalled His Majesty King George III., or the United Kingdom of Great Britain, have had the same effect?

We all know what powerful effect the name France has on every Frenchman. So also the Netherlands. Even Switzerland unites people of German, Italian, and French tongues.

No name formed itself with us. Printing, criticism, etc., made it more difficult, and our forefathers were upon the whole a very practical and law-abiding, liberty-loving people, but not imaginative or poetic.

Washington was peculiarly fond of the name America. He says: "I have labored ever since I have been in the service to discourage all

See American Historical Record, page 419, September, 1872.

kinds of local attachment, and distinction of country (using it here for colony of birth), denominating the whole by the great name of AMERICA.” -Maxims of Washington, by Schroeder, page 166.

Country, for the United Colonies, was not only common but universal. It is most significant that the United States of America correspond in name to the United States of the Netherlands.

But America overlaps; it does not sufficiently specify. I have read foolish remarks about American arrogance in these United States of America. We had no other name, and the English in parliament always used it. Burke, Chatham, Barré, and their opponents always spoke of "America."

The absence of a specific name gives the great importance to our flag; that is specific and national. Happily it is beautiful and poetic, exclusively national and fully national, that is the same for the merchant navy, the government, and all, and it is the only flag that is so.

These remarks are not vain. An American statesman, who united with a character the gravest errors in politics, and the kindest possible protection of his slaves with an uncompromising theory in favor of slavery, and one of the keenest and most unrelenting champions of state sovereignty, said to me, when I had expressed my regret at the absence of a name, that it was as it ought to be; that we ought not to have a name; that we have no country, we ought to have no other name but that which indicates a mere political system. I had observed that the name United States expressed only a political system.

No one can possibly say how differently the history of our country would have run had our country had a name, and had Philadelphia been permanently made the nation's capital.

The name America is of so great an interest to us that I will give here a paper which was first published in the American Historical Record in 1872:

The beautiful, but unjust name of our portion of the globe may be said to be of German origin, in a twofold manner.

Emric or Amric is an old Germanic personal name. Am means diligence or activity; hence Ameise, the German for ant, the industrious creature by way of excellence; and ric (our rich) signifies strong, abundant. Amric, therefore, meant the very industrious or active. German conquerors of Italy carried thither German names, and Amric was euphonized by the Italians into Amrico or Americo, which in turn was Latinized into Americus. So far the origin of Vespucci's name.

How it came to be applied to our continent was thus:

The Germans, neither among the early discoverers nor conquistadores, nevertheless, took the deepest interest in the nascent science of cosmography, the corresponding name for what is now called geography, and through this science they influenced positively and practically that great

Age of Maritime Discovery and geographic expansion which widened. commerce from the little, yet wonderfully influential, Mediterranean to the commerce of the Atlantic, the Southern Ocean, and the Pacific. Behaim's Globe and Mercator's (Krämer's) Plan, without which navigation could not have much advanced, sufficiently prove this fact. Lorraine was a German principality at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the reigning duke had formed, at his court, an academy of cosmography, of which a schoolmaster at Strasburg, then as now again, a German city, was a member, or to which at any rate he proposed the name of America for the Western Hemisphere or for North America. The name of this resolute and sagacious schoolmaster was Waldseemüller (Woodlake-miller), which he transformed into the Græco-Latin monster of a name, Hylacomilus; and Hylacomilus is the man that first wronged Columbus by immortalizing so grandly the name of one who followed the great proto-euretes at a long distance, and who has been outstripped in the character of a discoverer by very many later navigators. But so it was; a name for North America had become an urgent want, felt by all the thinking men of Europe. A distinct thing or idea must have a distinct name; it is a requisite of things. The West Indies, no good or correct name at all events, had become wholly useless since the northern mainland had become known, and since the vast Pacific has been revealed. Humboldt in his contributions to the history of geography has shown all this. Psychologically or ethically speaking there has never been erected a monument so magnificent, undeserving, and cruelly unjust; as if the Madonna di Sisto were not called by Raphael's name, but by that of a man who framed it first! Phonetically speaking, there could be no more beautiful name with its musically flowing four vowels over only three consonants, and they not rugged; and practically speaking there it is, and never to be changed. The misfortune of our namelessness led the men of our revolution to use America, along with Continent, for our country, and we find it again in the United States of America, not North America, although the seal of our treasury has to this day the Latin scroll, "seal of the treasury of North America,” as every dollar note shows.

As United States is often very inconvenient to be used in the adjective form, we still use frequently American for that which belongs to our country or government. Columbia was seized upon by poets, and ever so many towns and counties are called Columbia, while a republic in South America bears this name, but the continent or continental isle, which, as appears from the Book of Prophecies collected by Columbus himself, he meant to discover, has been forever wrenched, as to its name, from him to whom it most justly belonged.

The Revolution and Declaration of the "Great Continental Congress" of the 15th of May, 1776.

The Mecklenburg declarations of independence deserve a passing notice, even in so brief a work as the present. Mecklenburg, a small place in North Carolina, witnessed twice the proclamation of a cluster of bold freemen that America should not endure any longer the assumption of authority, on the part of Great Britain, of taxing without representation. The Second Mecklenburg Declaration, which had been adopted on May 30, 1775, was presented on the 27th of May, 1776. This declaration is interesting for the following points: it shows in a great measure the spirit of liberty and strictly representative freedom pervading the whole "country"; it breathes the spirit of the "whole" forming naturally a patriotic entirety, and it begins with the words: "The Provincial of each Province, under the direction of the great Continental Congress," etc., that is, national congress.

Province was a common name given to the colonies at the carliest period of the revolution, indicating the idea of the entirety of the country lying at the foundation. Shall we, wrote Washington to the congress, supinely allow the English to tear one province after another from us?

On July 4, 1775, Washington issued an order in which he declares that all troops raised or to be raised "for the support and the defence of the liberties of America," etc., "they are now the troops of the United Provinces of North America; and it is hoped that all distinctions of colonies will be laid aside, so that one and the same spirit may animate the whole."

The Mecklenburg declaration was presented to the great continental congress on the 27th of May, that is after the resolution, of which we shall speak presently, had been adopted,

These words of the great man include within them, like a seed-corn, a whole and wide-branching tree of the history and philosophy of our polity. They are the spontaneous welling forth of patriotism and wisdom-very different from the artificial formulations of some later American statesmen, reminding us of the verbal artificialities of the schoolmen.