oblige us to believe that a considerable portion of our citizens have no
comprehension of the first principles of liberty. It is an undeniable
fact that, in consequence of these and other symptoms, the confidence of
many reflecting men in our free institutions is very much impaired. Some
despair. That main pillar of public liberty--mutual trust among
citizens--is shaken. That we must seek security for property and life in
a stronger government is a spreading conviction. Men who in public talk
of the ability of our institutions, whisper their doubts, perhaps their
scorn, in private.

"'Whether the people of the United States might have been as thriving
and more happy had they remained British subjects, I will not presume to
say. Certainly not if violent men like Lord Hillsborough, or corrupt men
like Mr. Rigby, had continued to take part in the administration. With
other hands at the helm the case might have been otherwise. Jefferson,
at least, in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, said of
his countrymen and of the English: "We might have been a free and great
people together." One thing, at all events, is plain, that had these
colonies shared the fate of the other dominions of the British Crown,
the main curse and shame--the plague spot of the system of
slavery--would have been long since removed from them (before it was);
but, as in the case of Jamaica, not without a large compensation in
money to the slave owners. It is also plain that in the case supposed
they would have equally shared in our pride and glory at the wondrous
growth of the Anglo-Saxon race--that race undivided and entire,
extending its branches as now to the furthest regions of the earth, yet
all retaining their connection with the parent stem--all its members
bound by the same laws, all animated by the same loyalty, and all
tending to the same public-spirited aim. How great a nation should we
and they be together!--how great in the arts both of peace and war!
scarcely unequal now to all other nations of the world combined!" * *

"Since 1782 at the latest, views like these are merely day-dreams of the
past. In place of them, let us now indulge the hope and expectation that
the American people may concur with ours in desiring that no further
resentment may be nourished, no further strife be stirred, between the
kindred nations; so that both, mindful of their common origin, and
conscious of their growing greatness, may both alike discard