of Jove. The liberty possessed by the world has
been gradually secured, and it was left for our country first to
incorporate in its foundation a recognition of individual rights. A
hundred years before the revolutionary war, Massachusetts and Virginia
resisted English tyranny. Massachusetts, in 1664, called herself a
"perfect republic." She preserved a neutral harbor by force of arms
against opposing English factions; she enacted laws against the
supremacy of the English parliament, and she established her own mint.
This last is noticeable, as in the progress of liberty, rights of
property, of which money is the exponent, have always been one of the
foremost. Bancroft says Virginia was always a land of liberty; that
Virginia placed the defense of liberty not in municipal corporations,
_but in persons_, and that the liberty of the individual was ever highly
prized. The difference between a monarchy and a republic is the
difference between force and consent; it is the difference between being
governed and governing yourself; it is the difference between the _men_
of Russia and the _men_ of the United States; it is the difference
between the political rights of one man as the government and the
political rights of the people as the government. But the world has
never yet seen a true republic, though it has for hundreds of years been
taking steps towards one.

The original principles of just governments are five, all of which were
acknowledged by the United States at its foundation. These principles
are:

_First._ The natural right of each individual to self-government.

_Second._ The exact equality of these rights.

_Third._ That these rights when not delegated by the individual, are
retained by the individual.

_Fourth._ That no person can exercise these rights of others without
delegated authority.

_Fifth._ That the non-use of these rights does not destroy them.

These five underlying principles are the admitted basis of all
governmental rights, and the old revolutionists acted upon them. They
were men of middle life; they were under an old and established form of
government to which they had not delegated authority, and during all
these years they had made no use of their natural, equal rights. When
they chose to assume the exercise of these rights, they at once took
them up.

The women of that day were no less in earnest than were the men. Mercy
Otis Warren, sister of that James Otis whose fiery words did so