evolution of 1688. The American colonists
had suffered from the tyranny of James the Second. Their charters had
been wrested from them by mockeries of law, and by the corruption of
judges in the city of London; and in no part of England was there more
gratification, or a more resolute feeling, when James abdicated and
William came over, than in the American colonies. All know that
Massachusetts immediately overthrew what had been done under the reign
of James, and took possession of the colonial fort in the harbor of
Boston in the name of the new king.

When the United States separated from England, by the Declaration of
1776, they departed from the political maxims and examples of the mother
country, and entered upon a course more exclusively American. From that
day down, our institutions and our history relate to ourselves. Through
the period of the Declaration of Independence, of the Confederation, of
the Convention, and the adoption of the Constitution, all our public
acts are records out of which a knowledge of our system of American
liberty is to be drawn.

From the Declaration of Independence, the governments of what had been
colonies before were adapted to their new condition. They no longer owed
allegiance to crowned heads. No tie bound them to England. The whole
system became entirely popular, and all legislative and constitutional
provisions had regard to this new, peculiar, American character, which
they had assumed. Where the form of government was already well enough,
they let it alone. Where reform was necessary, they reformed it. What
was valuable, they retained; what was essential, they added, and no
more. Through the whole proceeding, from 1776 to the latest period, the
whole course of American public acts, the whole progress of this
American system, was marked by a peculiar conservatism. The object was
to do what was necessary, and no more; and to do that with the utmost
temperance and prudence.

Now, without going into historical details at length, let me state what
I understand the American principles to be, on which this system rests.

First and chief, no man makes a question, that the people are the source
of all political power. Government is instituted for their good, and its
members are their agents and servants. He who would argue against this
must argue without an adversary. And who thinks there is any peculiar
merit in asserting a doctrine like this, in the midst of twenty millions
of pe