the difficulty of carrying on the diplomatic discussions, which necessarily occur between states whose commercial and territorial interests touch and clash at so many points; and the war of words is but too well adapted to prepare the public mind for more deplorable struggles.

Let me further also remark, that the suggestion which I propose to combat, viz. that the experiment of self-government on the basis of an extensive electoral franchise is substantially a failure in the United States, and that the country has entered upon a course of rapid degeneracy since the days of Washington, is not only one of great antecedent improbability, but it is one which, it might be expected, our brethren in England would be slow to admit. The mass of the population was originally of British origin, and the additional elements, of which it is made up, are from the other most intelligent and improvable races of Europe. The settlers of this Continent have been providentially conducted to it, or have grown up upon it, within a comparatively recent and highly enlightened period, namely, the last two hundred and fifty years. Much of it they found lying in a state of nature, with no time-honored abuses to eradicate; abounding in most of the physical conditions of prosperous existence, and with few drawbacks but those necessarily incident to new countries, or inseparable from human imperfection.

Even the hardships they encountered, severe as they were, were well calculated to promote the growth of the manly virtues. In this great and promising field of social progress, they have planted, in the main, those political institutions, which have approved themselves in the experience of modern Europe and especially of England, as most favorable to the prosperity of a state; - free representative governments; -written constitutions and laws, greatly modelled upon hers, especially the trial by jury;-a free and a cheap, and consequently all-pervading press; responsibility of the ruler to the people; liberal provision for popular education, and very general voluntary and bountiful expenditure for the support of religion. If under these circumstances, the People of America, springing from such a stock, and trained in such a school, have failed to work out a satisfactory and a hopeful result; and especially if within the last sixty years (for that is the distinct allegation) and consequently since, from the increase of numbers, wealth, and national power, all the social forces of the country have, for good or evil, been in higher action than ever before, there has been such marked deterioration that we are now fit to be held up, not as a model to be imitated, but as an example to be shunned, not for the credit but for the discredit of popular institutions, then, indeed, the case must be admitted to be a strange phenomenon in human

affairs,

disgraceful, it is true, in the highest degree to us, not reflecting credit on the race from which we are descended, -nor holding out encouragement anywhere for the adoption of liberal principles of government. If there is any feeling in England that can welcome the thought, that Americans have degenerated, the further reflection that it is the sons of Englishmen who have degenerated, must chasten the sentiment. If there is any country, where this supposed state of things should be readily believed to exist, surely it cannot be the parent country. If there is any place where such a suggestion should find ready credence, it cannot be in that House of Commons, where Burke uttered those golden words: "My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection." It cannot be in that House of Peers, where Chatham, conscious that the Colonies were fighting the battle not only of American but of English liberty, exclaimed, with a fervor that almost caused the storied tapestry to quicken into life, "I rejoice that America has resisted." It must be in Venice, it must be in Naples, or wherever else on the face of the earth liberal principles are scoffed at, and constitutional freedom is known to exist, only as her crushed and mangled form is seen to twitch and quiver under the dark pall of arbitrary power.

с

Before admitting the truth of such a supposition, in itself so paradoxical, in its moral aspects so mournful, in its natural influence on the progress of liberal ideas so discouraging, let us, for a few moments, look at facts.

The first object in the order of events, after the discovery of America, was, of course, its settlement by civilized man. It was not an easy task; a mighty ocean separated the continent from the elder world; a savage wilderness covered most of the country; its barbarous and warlike inhabitants resisted from the first all coalescence with the new comers. To subdue this waste, to plant cornfields in the primeval forest, to transfer the civilization of Europe to the new world, and to make safe and sufficient arrangements, under political institutions, for the organized growth of free principles, was the great problem to be solved. It was no holiday pastime, — no gainful speculation, no romantic adventure; but grim, persistent, weary toil and danger. That it has been upon the whole performed with wonderful success, who will deny? Where else in the history of the world have such results been brought about in so short time? And if I desired, as I do not, to give this discussion the character of recrimination, might I not,- dividing the period which has elapsed since the commencement of the European settlements in America into two portions, namely, the one which

preceded and the one which has followed the Declaration of Independence, the former under the sway of European governments, England, Holland, France, Spain, the latter under the government of the independent United States,- might I not claim for the latter, under all the disadvantages of a new government and limited resources, the credit of greatly superior energy and practical wisdom, in carrying on this magnificent work? It was the inherent vice of the colonial system, that the growth of the American colonies was greatly retarded for a century, in consequence of their being involved in all the wars of Europe. There never was a period, on the other hand, since Columbus sailed from Palos, in which the settlement of the country has advanced with such rapidity as within the last sixty years. The commencement of the Revolution found us with a population not greatly exceeding two millions; the census of 1800 a little exceeded five millions; that of the present year will not probably fall short of thirty-two millions. The two centuries and a half which preceded the Revolution witnessed the organization of thirteen Colonies, raised by the Declaration to States, to which the period that has since elapsed has added twenty more. I own it has filled me with amazement to find cities like Cincinnati and Louisville, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis, not to mention those still more remote, on spots which