It was an instrument which simply put down in writing what for generations had been taking shape and gathering force about quiet firesides throughout the British possessions. The colonies were one hundred and fifty years old. and while they were English in name and never ashamed of their heritage. there was not in them any deepseated attachment to the British Crown. Indeed. there never had been any such attachment among those classes of the English people out of which the most of the American immigration had come. The distinguished Senator from Maryland has referred to the speech of the Earl of Rosebery at the time of his inauguration as the lord rector of the University of Glasgow. when he took occasion to say that an enlightened colonial policy in the eighteenth century would have prevented the dismemberment of the British Empire. There may be possibly a sense in which this is true.
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immigration