It is almost needless to point out that the conditions incidental to this expansion were at first misunderstood. The ignorance of public opinion as to the true {5} relations between mother-land and colonies, seconded by the blindness and obstinacy of politicians waging a bitter party fight, produced in 1776 the great schism of the Anglo-Saxon race. Chatham, Burke, and many of the clearest minds of England, believed that the American Revolution was unnecessary--in America itself there was a large, and for a long time a preponderant party, which held that in constitutional change a way of escape could be found from Revolution. The worse counsels prevailed, and Revolution took the place of Reform and Readjustment. It is, no doubt, idle to speculate upon the results which might have followed from a different line of action; if the statesmen of that day had proved equal to the task of dealing with the political problem with which they were confronted. The idea that the separation of the United States from Great Britain was a pure gain to either country or to the world may, however, be distinctly challenged. It may easily be imagined that the earlier ripening of public opinion in England upon the question of slavery, and the earlier solution found for it on peaceful lines, might have helped to solve the problem at an earlier stage in America as well, and thus prevented the frightful catastrophe of the War of Secession in 1865. The close and intimate political reaction upon each other of the two greatest Anglo-Saxon communities, the one with its higher standard of statesmanship and public morality, the other with its more active liberalizing tendencies, might have been in the highest {6} degree healthful for both. United with all others of their own race and language, British people might have been able, in self-sufficing strength, to withdraw almost a hundred years earlier than could otherwise be possible from the entanglements of European politics, and to be free to devote all their energies to the maintenance of peace, and the development of industry, commerce, and civilization. Qualifications to these views will, of course, present themselves to every mind, and it is not necessary to press them too far or to quarrel with the course of history. Much more important is it to observe its results and learn the lessons which it teaches.