ents, the wisest and the best, equally so.

The sentiment of the Revolution was altogether moral. There was an
entire absence of the spirit of revenge, or rapine, or blood. They
never for a moment placed as much reliance upon their numbers and
strength as upon the justice of their cause and the existence of a
Supreme Ruler, who controls the affairs of men. Such was the tone of
the press, the pulpit and the bar. Everywhere the morality of the
contest was examined and the ground carefully tested at each step. Not
by leading men only, but by all those who had a vote to give in a
town meeting or an arm to sustain the weapons of war. They were no
zealots, like the crusaders; but plain, careful men, of sound moral
principles and correct judgment. It is true that they were descendants
of those who rejoiced when Charles the First was beheaded and James the
Second was dethroned. This feeling, however, had no mixture of cruelty
in it, but it proceeded from a conviction that those monarchs were
unworthy of the throne. Their impulses were always in favor of
liberty. They sympathized with the members of the Republican Party in
England, encouraged them at home, and welcomed them to these shores.

The Revolution was no sudden outbreak or the consummation of the wild
enthusiasm which sometimes characterizes popular movements. All
through our colonial and provincial history, questions had arisen and
been discussed which prepared the public mind for independence. The
strength of the revolutionary spirit in the different colonies bore a
distinct relation to the fervor of the preceding local controversies.

It is impossible to say at what moment the public mind was steadily
directed to independence, either as a possible or desirable termination
of the controversies with the mother country. Both the war with France
and the peace with France precipitated the American Revolution. The
war, by developing the military courage and skill of our people, and
by increasing the burdens of Great Britain, thus affording a pretext
for additional taxation on America. The peace, by relieving the
colonies of the presence of a foe which they dreaded on its own
account, as well as for its active agency in stimulating the Indians to
deeds of hostility. Thus, in fact, England exchanged the thirteen
colonies to which she was allied by blood, language, and similarity of
institutions, for the provinces of France, whose people even now reject
her