Blair Collection > Celtic gleanings, or, Notices of the history and literature of the Scottish Gael

LECTURE I. 25
cable. It is so in England, where the Saxon
mind is dominant ; no English revolution has
ever touched the feudal system. But in France
no sooner is that system shaken by a great na-
tional movement, than the innate ideas, if we
may so speak, of the people assert their power,
and the whole is thrown off as an intolerable
burden. Celtic France, so soon as free to do so,
asserted in the face of the world its sympathy
with the principles that have characterized the
race. The very change in the title of their mon-
arch from being the King of France to be the
King of the French, was in accordance with Cel-
tic principles. Among the Celts the monarch was
the head of his people. And these ideas follow
the Celt wherever he goes. He has carried them
from the east ; he is carrying them to the west —
to the forests and prairies of America. It would
be interesting to know to what extent Celtic
influence in America had to do with the origi-
nation of the earlier free soil movement ; a
movement having in view the bringing of the
national arrangement on the subject of the ten-
ure of land into accordance with the principles
of Celtic policy.
In comparing certain of the principles of na-
tional policy which characterize the Celt with
those that characterize the Anglo-Norman or