FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156  
157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   >>   >|  
ic was in the people, and they justified the fathers and the institution. Here, therefore, was opened in all the directions of human inquiry and action a new world of hope and promise. The people were no longer bound by old traditions, nor clogged by any formulas of state religions, nor hampered by the dicta of philosophical authority. Their minds were free to choose or to reject whatever propositions were presented to them from the wide region of speculation and belief. The Constitution was the only instrument which prescribed laws and principles for their unconditional acceptance and guidance; and this was a thing of their own choice, the charter and seal of their liberties, to which they rendered a cheerful and grateful obedience. With this mighty security for a platform, they pursued their daily avocations in peace, trusting their own souls, and working out the problem of republican society, with a most healthy unconsciousness. Sincere and earnest, they troubled themselves with no social theories, no visions of Utopia, nor dreams of Paradise and El Dorados, leaving the spirit which animated them to build up the architecture of its own _cultus_, with an unexpressed but perfect faith in the final justice and satisfaction of results. Religion, therefore, and politics--literature, learning, and art--trade, commerce, manufactures, agriculture--and the amenities of society and manners, were allowed to develop themselves in their own way, without reference to rule and preconcerted dogmas. Hence the peculiarities which mark the institutions of America--their utter freedom from cant and the shows and pageantry of state. Bank, titles, and caste were abolished; and the enormous gulfs which separate the European man from the European lordling were bridged over by Equality with the solid virtues of humanity. What a stride was here taken over time and space, and the historic records of man, in the fossil formations of the Old World during the ante-American periods! It had come at last, this long-prophesied reign of Apollo and the Muses, of freedom and the rights of man. Afar off, on the summits of imaginative mountains, were beheld, through twilight vistas of night and chaos, the proud ruins of dead monarchies, and the cruel forms of extinct tyrannies and oppressions, crowned and mitred no more; whose mandates had once made the nations tremble, and before whose judgment seats Mercy pleaded in vain, and Justice muffled up
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156  
157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
society
 

European

 

freedom

 

people

 

amenities

 
humanity
 
virtues
 

Equality

 
manners
 

lordling


bridged

 

agriculture

 
commerce
 

historic

 
records
 

fossil

 
stride
 
allowed
 

manufactures

 

formations


pageantry

 

America

 

peculiarities

 

dogmas

 

institutions

 

titles

 

separate

 

reference

 

enormous

 

preconcerted


abolished

 
develop
 

oppressions

 

tyrannies

 

crowned

 
mitred
 

extinct

 
monarchies
 

mandates

 
pleaded

Justice
 

muffled

 
judgment
 
nations
 

tremble

 

prophesied

 
American
 

periods

 
Apollo
 

beheld