strange phenomenon, the _lusus naturae_, it would be nowadays. Besides,
let it be remembered that the Constitution was not the production of any
man or set of men. It was the outgrowth of the political ideas and
necessities of the age and country. These men, trained in the spirit of
the time, gave direction to their development, assisted to inaugurate
the reign of those ideas, and to give them a specific embodiment, no
more. Great and good men they were--the fit productions of the renowned
epoch of the birth of a great people. It is a noble thing, a thing for
fame and just pride, if men live at such a time who can share the
inspiration, and cause it to live in great deeds, to say nothing of
creating it.

What, then, are the distinguishing characteristics of this Puritan idea
or influence?

Since the country had a history at all, New England has been reputed the
centre, the abiding home of a pure morality. This needs no elaborate
argument to sustain it. The records of her criminal and civil courts
attest it; so do the general good order of her small communities and
larger cities, as well as the high character of the numerous men and
women who, emigrating to the various portions of the country, carry with
them, wherever they choose a home, the pure principles they have
learned around the home firesides in their native New England--the
industry, the thrift, the obedience to law, the superior intelligence,
which make them the best citizens in any community. The New England
communities, generally, possess a higher standard of morals, a more
intelligent adhesion to what is regarded as duty, a more simple social
intercourse, and purer social manners and customs, with fewer
dissipations and derelictions, than perhaps any other people in the
world can boast. Nor is there claimed for the New England Puritan a
perfect character. On the contrary, there are some traits which, in
their excess, we could wish were omitted in his composition. These,
however, will be found to be but exaggerations of his virtues for the
most part, and for the sake of those virtues can easily be tolerated,
though they have been sufficiently inveighed against from time to time.
From this high state of morals there results a very high degree of
_social_ order, which, in its result, again, gives large social and
individual liberty. Nowhere will there be found a freer people, and yet
one more observant of law. Indeed, the former is only the effect of the
la