Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 392, June, 1848

We do not much wonder at such passages as we allude to being quoted here, for, like many of those transatlantic extravagances which have now attained the distinctive name of "Americanisms," they certainly form rather amusing reading; but it requires only a very superficial inspection of these tirades, to see that they no more reflect the real tone of American opinions or American sympathies, than the harangues of the United Irishmen or of Conciliation Hall represent the feelings, judgments, or wishes of the Irish nation. Doubtless, among the less intelligent classes of the community, and the "Suisses" of the Press, on both sides of the Atlantic, there is abundance of rancour and bad feeling, in some cases the offspring of mere ignorance, in others of bad faith, disguised under the cloak of nationality and patriotism: but among the educated and the thoughtful portion of the public, and among the higher organs of periodical literature in both countries, a very different spirit is evidently gaining ground. A feeling of mutual respect, a spirit of cordiality is every day becoming more apparent, as the conviction of the common interest of the two countries becomes more palpable; and a union is gradually in the course of formation, which the storms that are agitating the rest of Europe will only tend, we trust, to cement and confirm. How, indeed, should it be otherwise? How, at least, should it long continue to be otherwise? For what country but Great Britain has ever sent forth from its bosom such a colony as now forms the United States of America? What colony could ever look back upon a loftier lineage than America, when, comparing her own wide and thriving domains with many of the sinking empires of Europe, she remembers her British descent, and feels, in a thousand traces of blood and thoughts and habits and morals, her connexion with "the inviolate island of the sage and free."