the great law of universal right, in a government of representation from the governed, will become intelligible, however impatient may have been our waiting.

With our rapidly-increasing millions of population and wealth, representation has not only become clearer in truth and broader in spirit, but more extended in reach and irresistible in effect. In our municipal and civil bodies, our legislative, judicial, and executive departments of the states and the nation, representation receives its contents, significance, and responsibilities from the personal rights and consequence of thirty-four millions of freemen, and all their vast interests of education, religion, and commerce. Our consuls in every port, and our ministers plenipotentiary abroad, represent the moral power of living, growing millions, rapidly accumulating wealth, pure, free Christianity, inviolable unity, unparalleled energy, and an invincible army and navy. In this vital potency, the government of the Great Republic is everywhere. It reaches to the ends of the earth, to protect its citizens, and seize its criminals. Well Well may its represen tatives feel that their country confers on them high honor, and that, in their humblest mission, they are rendered truly great. Well may the American citizen mention his nation anywhere with feelings of honorable satisfaction and sustained confidence.

A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

A careful study of the growth of American history will reveal the curious but important fact, that Providence rendered necessary all the essential measures for organizing liberty. Left to themselves, the people would have been quite satisfied with government by towns or neighborhoods, or, at most, of single colonies. But God permitted danger to become one of the first of all the combining forces. They soon found it unsafe to exist in fragmentary communities. The savages were too hostile and powerful. They must combine;

and, to do this, they must find those subtle, common interests and rights which constitute the larger unities.

There were, moreover, questions of boundary and jurisdiction, not between themselves merely, but between the homogeneous English colonists and the French from the North and North-west, the Dutch from the Hudson, and the Spaniards from the South and South-west. Encroachments from all directions demanded defence, - first by diplomacy, and then, as they thought, by the sword. Defence required confederacy; and, however obstinate and threatening internal rivalry and collision, the pressure of invasion from without was allowed to increase until union was an absolute necessity, and sectional jealousies were held in abeyance by extreme peril from menacing or actual hostile invasions. The English colonies, therefore, went into the great French and Indian wars a unit, which was the foreshadowing and the actual beginning of the great union which made them a nation.

The common danger from the tyranny of the home government, as we have before seen, tended strongly to the same result. If, when one class of dangers subsided, the colonies showed again the internal repulsions that threatened to break the tender ties which began to bind them together, and destroy the divine plans of organic, vital union, then God allowed the prompt development of new dangers to absorb colonial interest; and immediately these tender, fretted ties began to grow again. And thus it has been as generations have come and gone. Our unity has been fostered by our perils from the rivalry and hostility of other nations.

But the larger, broader unity, which indicated national power, appeared and disappeared alternately during the period of preparation. In the mean time, narrower local boundaries, on the basis of colonial neighborhood, began to reveal themselves more and more distinctly; and, at the declaration of independence, thirteen distinct Common

wealths, or States, appeared with the forms of local, independent governments well defined, all for reasons of defence against enemies who interfered in various ways with the providential purposes of a free government. Hence arose our grand civil and political system,-State constitutions, State legislatures, judicial and legislative functions, with their high incumbents, all occupying their seats of power by the free election, and during the will, of the people. To these original thirteen were added from time to time the free civil organizations of new States, North and West, South and South-west, until thirty-seven States are now organic and vital, with well-defined republican forms of government. This great result, we have seen, has arisen from the ideas of defence which first brought contiguous colonies into close confederation; which made the protection of their own firesides and property, their harbors and liberties, first in importance and in order of time. The convictions which gave paramount consideration to common dangers and destiny arose subsequently, leaving the organizations which were first for local protection free in the period of development, to devote themselves to the advancement of productive industries, education, and commerce. With respect to the Great Republic, they simply form component parts of an organic whole, and provide wisely for all the advantages of a division of labor.

One of the evidences of divine control in the organization of this government is in the fact that actual unity existed before it was known to the people. God, who had called these separate colonies to this virgin land, arranged the elements of a grand Union, far in advance of the concep tions of man. Common blood, common sufferings, common dangers, and a common destiny, gradually brought to the nation of colonists the great good sense of harmony, and ultimately the unsuspected fact that they were one nation. God had predetermined this result; and he would superintend all the jealous rivalries, the bitter sectional animosi

ties, which were in the way of its realization. He would clear up the vision of the people, and slowly unfold to their view the plan of a great organic national life.

On the morning of the 5th of September, 1774, the first Continental Congress assembled in Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia. There were forty-four and soon fifty-two delegates from all "the old thirteen" except Georgia. Here were many of the great founders of our free institutions, and they argued with the skill of experienced statesmen. Richard Henry Lee said, "Our rights are built on a fourfold foundation,-on Nature, on the British Constitution, on charters, and on immemorial usages. The Navigation Act is a capital violation of them all." "There is no allegiance without protection," said John Jay; "and emigrants have a right to erect what government they please. I have always withheld my assent from the position, that every man discovering land does it for the State to which he belongs." Roger Sherman declared, "The colonies are not bound to the king or crown by the act of settlement, but by their consent to it. There is no other legislature over them but their respective assemblies. They adopt the common law, not as the common law, but as the highest reason." "But Rutledge thought that the British Constitution gave them a sufficient foundation; and Duane, that the law of Nature would be a feeble support." ""*

After a severe struggle, it was resolved to vote by colonies; and thus the equal rights of the future small States were conceded. A plan of compromise was introduced by Galloway, proposing a union between Great Britain and the colonies, "so ingeniously defended, that even the clearheaded Jay was led to adopt it." This gave it influence, and it only failed by one vote. This was another of our providential escapes, not the last time that God interfered to save the American people from the danger of compromises when a great principle was involved.

* Greene, pp. 84, 85.

From this Congress went out a "bill of rights," an address to the king, another to the people of Great Britain, one to the British Provinces, and one to the Province of Quebec. "When your lordships," said Lord Chatham, "look at the papers transmitted to us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect the cause, and wish to make it your own." The memory of Lord Chatham is dear to the heart of every American. "Non-importation, non-exportation, non-consumption" of British goods were the high-souled resolves which went out from this Congress. "Negotiation, suspension of commerce, and war," said Jay, "are the only three things. War is, by general consent, to be waived at present. I am for negotiation, and suspension of commerce."

The most important effect of these grave deliberations had been to reveal and strengthen the union of the colonies, which more distinctly indicated the existence of a new nation on this continent. Josiah Quincy wrote, “Permit me to congratulate my countrymen upon the integrity and wisdom with which the Congress have conducted. Their policy, spirit, and union have confounded their foes and inspired their friends."

Before adjournment, provision was made for calling another Congress. The War of the Revolution commenced, and the representatives of the people were again called together. They met on the 10th of May, 1775, in the State House in Philadelphia, that grand old Hall of Independence, still well preserved, and sacred in the feelings of the American nation.

This was the Congress from which came, as we have seen in another part of this work, the Declaration of Independence and the old Articles of Confederation, and which fought the great battles of diplomacy resulting in the acknowledgment of our national independence. It had been irregularly constituted. There were no general laws of representation, nor election; there was no constitution. It was necessary,