Colin Ross, "Unser Amerika", Chapter 29

 29.

The New Continent

Hard by the edge of chaos and anarchy, the young American state reached the saving harbor of the Constitution of 1787 and a social and state order that was once again secure. In order to keep up the fight against England, it had been necessary to call up forces that could not easily be gotten rid of after peace had been concluded. All the big words "against tyranny", "for freedom and equality" had not been meant so seriously. The frontiersmen, farmers, and artisans who fought under the star-spangled banner formed an uncomfortable, even dangerous force. Congress wanted to send them home without pay. But they did not agree to this. A troop of soldiers marched to Philadelphia, took up camp in front of the building where Congress was meeting, and demanded fulfillment of its demands at the point of the bayonet. The famous march of the "veterans" of the World War to Washington to enforce the "bonus" thus has its model in that event.

There was no agreement on the final form of government; the individual states were in constant dispute. Moreover, inflation prevailed; the mass-issued paper money was worth nothing. England closed its ports, which had previously been open to ships and goods from the colonies. America came close to the brink of collapse and disintegration. The emergency, however, finally enabled the conservative-minded to create a much tighter central authority than would have been possible immediately after the conclusion of peace. Subsequently, although the lower classes had to be given greater and greater rights, especially when Jackson came to power, they still managed to keep power in their hands, even if the forms under which it was exercised changed. Likewise, the purely English character of the American states was successfully preserved, even deepening it at first. In the decades from the recognition of independence to the 1930s and 1940s, the United States came close to becoming, in effect, an Anglo-Saxon nation.

A number of circumstances came together. The first was that the connection with Europe broke off, and with it, immigration ceased. America, which until then had been an appendage of Europe, took the path to a continental existence of its own.

Until then, all events in Europe had repercussions on America. The wars of European peoples had also been fought in the American theater of war. Now this ceased, not least because of Washington's clever policy of neutrality. By it, of course, he severely disappointed France. When the young French Republic went to war with Europe, it submitted to America the bill for the arms aid it had provided. Washington, however, declared that the treaty concluded with the monarchy had no validity for the republic. In general, America was appalled by what was going on in France. This was not how democracy or human rights were imagined.

In 1812, however, America went to war with England. It had been declared when Napoleon assembled the Grand Army against Russia and was thought to be at the height of his power. When he then collapsed, America stood alone, and nothing came of the hoped-for conquest of Canada. But at least they held their ground and managed to end the war without losing territory.

After that, however, there was peace. One withdrew to America, the other to Europe, and they were too busy with reconstruction to disturb the peace. Thus, one was even able to bluff successfully. Under President Monroe, they shouted to Europe, "Hands off America!" In fact, the Holy Alliance then abandoned its planned intervention in South America, and Russia staked its claims on the California coast.

However, the decisive events of this period, which continue to have an impact to this day, were the cessation of immigration and the opening up of the American continent. As so often in American history, however, the one eventually canceled out the other without America being able to decide on a clear line. The War of Independence had in itself meant a weakening of the English base of the population. In addition to war casualties, sixty to seventy thousand supporters of the King, the so-called Loyalists, had been lost. They had largely gone to Canada, where they laid the groundwork for an anti-American British Canadianism. Instead, several thousand of the thirty thousand or so "Hessians" who had fought under the British flag against the Americans remained in the country.

Since no more immigrants came thereafter except for a few thousand English and Scots every year or so, the population ratio shifted again in favor of the British character of the total population. The Dutch, Huguenots and Swedes were completely absorbed into Anglo-Americanism. Germanness was also slowly absorbed. In Pennsylvania it held on. But since the Germans here had failed to secure their language and folklore by law when they had the power to do so, it slowly but steadily declined. The German cities became English one after the other, and only in the countryside did the Germans hold on.

In Canada, the descendants of some seventy thousand Frenchmen so preserved language and custom that they now form a French Canadian state within British Canada. In Pennsylvania, twice as many Germans, except in the countryside, have not succeeded in preserving language and customs, much less in securing permanent political influence. What is the reason for this strong völkisch power of the French on American soil?

I believe it lies, on the one hand, in the religious unity of the French Canadians. They were exclusively Catholics and thus stood in sharp contrast to the Protestant British. The Pennsylvanians, however, were divided into innumerable sects, some of which, moreover, coincided with the British or were at least very similar to them. The French Canadians saw the British as their defeaters and accordingly seceded from them, while the German-blooded Pennsylvanians had fought for freedom and independence together with the Anglo-Saxons.

Out of this sense of common fatherland, the leaders of Pennsylvanian Germanness failed to secure their völkisch rights in the new state; indeed, they were in part the ones who abandoned Germanness and pursued the Anglicization of the communities. It is a phenomenon which we unfortunately encounter again and again, that just the ethnic Germans in America, who have gained wealth and position, turn to the Anglo-American lines.

To this was added another reason, the opening up of the continent. In Canada, the Loyalists had been settled in Ontario, thus putting them ahead of the French and sealing them off from the West. This kept them together, and Quebec preserved its purely French character. In Pennsylvania, however, the gates to the West opened wide, and among those moving into the unknown were not a few Germans. They scattered among the Anglo-Saxon pioneers, and being everywhere in the minority, they were bound to lose their Germanness in time.

It was decisive for the Anglo-Saxon character of the Union that the great westward move had been made in broad lines before the immigrant stream began. In rapid succession, first east of the Mississippi, then west of the great river, one new state after another arose. All of them were founded by Anglo-Americans with the help of quite a few pioneers of German or Irish blood. When the non-Anglo-Saxon masses arrived, they were no longer able to found their own state structures, but found everywhere already an Anglo-American framework, in which a ruling class existed, to which they had to subordinate themselves. Thus, although it was not possible to create an Anglo-American nation, it was possible to create one under Anglo-Saxon leadership.