OF THE AMERICAN NATION, OR THE RISE AND DECLINE OF OLIGARCHY IN THE WEST. BY J. ARTHUR PARTRIDGE, AUTHOR OF "COALITIONS AND FRONTIERS IN 1860-1," OR WHY THE SOUTH CAN'T STAND." "E PLURIBUS UNUM." PHILADELPHIA : J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO. 1866. "The whole Freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil liberty. The enjoyment of those never more certain, than in a free commonwealth. Both which, in my opinion, may be best and soonest obtained, if every county in the land were made a kind of subordinate commonalty or commonwealth." Milton. "The Reformation made another enormous stride, when at the American Revolution the State and the Church were solemnly and openly dissevered from one another." --Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe. "Not Democracy in America, but free Christianity in America, is the real key to the study of the People and their Institutions." - Goldwin Smith. THE MAKING OF THE AMERICAN NATION; OR THE RISE AND DECLINE OF OLIGARCHY IN THE WEST. "Cette vieille Europe m'ennui." - Napoleon. "Soon after the Reformation a few people came over for "America is therefore the land of the future where, in the "As interesting mankind the question was, shall the Refor- "The more a man is versed in business the more he finds "You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am "The Declaration of Independence constituted a sacred John Quincy Adams, 1844. "It is therefore very probable that mankind would have been at length obliged to live constantly under the Government of a single person, had they not contrived a kind of Constitution that had all the internal advantages of a Republican, together with the external force of a monarchical Government. I mean a Confederate Republic. "A Republic of this kind may support itself without any internal corruption. *** It possesseth all the advantages of large monarchies." ** "Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the States, the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound." - Montesquieu. Vol. I. pp. 165-7. Edition of 1777. "I regret to say, that I only see, at the present time, two Governments which well fulfil their providential mission; these are the two Colossi at either end of the world-one at the extremity of the new, the other at the extremity of the old world. Whilst our old European centre is like a volcano, consuming itself in its own crater, the two nations, Oriental and Occidental, proceed unhesitatingly, towards perfection, the one at the will of one man, the other by liberty. Providence has confided to the United States of America the care of peopling and of gaining over to civilization all that immense territory which extends from the Atlantic to the South Sea, and from the North Pole to the Equator. The Government, which is but a simple administration, has only, up to the present time put in practice the old adage, laissez faire, laisser passer, to favour that irresistible instinct which impels towards the West the peoples of America." "In Russia, it is to the imperial dynasty that we owe all the progress which, for a century and a half past, has been rescuing that vast empire from barbarism. The imperial power has to struggle against the old prejudices of our old Europe; it must centralize, as closely as possible, in the hands of an individual, the force of the state, in order to destroy all the abuses which would perpetuate themselves under the shelter of communal and feudal franchises. It is only from him that the East can receive the amelioration which it is awaiting." - Louis Napoleon Bonaparte-Life and Works. Vol. I., pp. 253, 254, |