d threads, he would have had to expose the boundless innovation,
the unfathomed gulf produced by American independence, and there would
be no opening to back the Jeffersonian shears against the darning-needle
of the great chief-justice. My misgiving lies in the line of thought of
Riehl and the elder Cherbuliez. The first of those eminent conservatives
writes: "Die Extreme, nicht deren Vermittelungen und Abschwaechungen,
deuten die Zukunft vor." The Genevese has just the same remark: "Les
idees n'ont jamais plus de puissance que sous leur forme la plus
abstraite. Les idees abstraites ont plus remue le monde, elles ont cause
plus de revolutions et laisse plus de traces durables que les idees
pratiques." Lassalle says, "Kein Einzelner denkt mit der Consequenz
eines Volksgeistes." Schelling may help us over the parting ways: "Der
erzeugte Gedanke ist eine unabhaengige Macht, fuer sich fortwirkend, ja,
in der menschlichen Seele, so anwachsend, dass er seine eigene Mutter
bezwingt und unterwirft." After the philosopher, let us conclude with a
divine: "C'est de revolte en revolte, si l'on veut employer ce mot, que
les societes se perfectionnent, que la civilisation s'etablit, que la
justice regne, que la verite fleurit."

The anti-revolutionary temper of the Revolution belongs to 1787, not to
1776. Another element was at work, and it is the other element that is
new, effective, characteristic, and added permanently to the experience
of the world. The story of the revolted colonies impresses us first and
most distinctly as the supreme manifestation of the law of resistance,
as the abstract revolution in its purest and most perfect shape. No
people was so free as the insurgents; no government less oppressive than
the government which they overthrew. Those who deem Washington and
Hamilton honest can apply the term to few European statesmen. Their
example presents a thorn, not a cushion, and threatens all existing
political forms, with the doubtful exception of the federal constitution
of 1874. It teaches that men ought to be in arms even against a remote
and constructive danger to their freedom; that even if the cloud is no
bigger than a man's hand, it is their right and duty to stake the
national existence, to sacrifice lives and fortunes, to cover the
country with a lake of blood, to shatter crowns and sceptres and fling
parliaments into the sea. On this principle of subversion they erected
their commonwealth, and by its virtue