Almost nothing that goes by the name of Historic Rights or Historic
Wrongs can be called a truly objective view of the past. Take, for
example, the Franco-German debate about Alsace-Lorraine. It all
depends on the original date you select. If you start with the Rauraci
and Sequani, the lands are historically part of Ancient Gaul. If you
prefer Henry I, they are historically a German territory; if you take
1273 they belong to the House of Austria; if you take 1648 and the
Peace of Westphalia, most of them are French; if you take Louis XIV
and the year 1688 they are almost all French. If you are using the
argument from history you are fairly certain to select those dates in
the past which support your view of what should be done now.
Arguments about "races" and nationalities often betray the same
arbitrary view of time. During the war, under the influence of
powerful feeling, the difference between "Teutons" on the one hand,
and "Anglo-Saxons" and French on the other, was popularly believed to
be an eternal difference. They had always been opposing races. Yet a
generation ago, historians, like Freeman, were emphasizing the common
Teutonic origin of the West European peoples, and ethnologists would
certainly insist that the Germans, English, and the greater part of
the French are branches of what was once a common stock. The general
rule is: if you like a people to-day you come down the branches to the
trunk; if you dislike them you insist that the separate branches are
separate trunks.
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