d States were at this time peculiar
and somewhat anomalous. Popular sentiment, the expression of the
sovereignty of the nation, was mixed in character and yet crude in form,
and it was difficult to discern precisely in what relation it stood to
the disturbed nationalities of Europe. Separated from the old world by a
vast ocean, the public mind here was not so immediately and powerfully
acted upon by passing events as it would have been, if only an imaginary
line of political demarcation had been drawn between the new republic
and convulsed communities; and its manifestations were less
demonstrative than implied.

All Europe was effervescing with antagonistic ideas; and the wisest and
the best men in the old world stood in wonder and awe in the midst of
the upheaval of social and political systems that were hoary with age,
and apparently as settled in their places as the oceans and continents.
France, the old ally and friend of the United States, was the centre of
the volcanic force that was shaking the nations; and with instinctive
motion the potentates, alarmed for the stability of their thrones, had
assumed the attitude of implacable enemies to the new power that was
bearing rule in that kingdom. As the car of revolution rolled onward,
carrying King Louis to the scaffold, they felt the hot breath of
avenging justice upon their own foreheads, and they called out their
legions for defence and to utter a solemn and effective protest. The
people were awed in the presence of gleaming bayonets. In the autumn of
1792, nearly all Europe was in arms against France.

In the United States, where revolution had done its work nobly and
wisely, and the experiment of self-government was working successfully,
sympathy for the struggling people of France and of all Europe was
powerful and untrammelled. Without inquiry, it cheered on the patriots
of France, with Lafayette at their head, when they were struggling for a
constitution; and when it was gained, and the king accepted it, great
satisfaction was felt by every American citizen in whose bosom glowed
the love of freedom for its own sake. With this feeling was mingled a
dislike of Great Britain; first, because the remembrance of her
oppression and her warfare against the independence of the United States
were fresh in the minds of the American people; secondly, because her
government yet refused compliance with the terms of a solemn treaty made
ten years before; and, thirdly, beca