some extent, no doubt, of carelessness and the want of artistic skill;
but to a greater extent, I fear, of "malice aforethought." In
composing my work I have followed, rather than directed, the course of
my thought, and, having very little confidence in the memory or
industry of readers, I have preferred, when the completeness of the
argument required it, to repeat myself to encumbering my pages with
perpetual references to what has gone before.

That I attach some value to this work is evident from my consenting to
its publication; but how much or how little of it is really mine, I am
quite unable to say. I have, from my youth up, been reading,
observing, thinking, reflecting, talking, I had almost said writing, at
least by fits and starts, on political subjects, especially in their
connection with philosophy, theology, history, and social progress, and
have assimilated to my own mind what it would assimilate, without
keeping any notes of the sources whence the materials assimilated were
derived. I have written freely from my own mind as I find it now
formed; but how it has been so formed, or whence I have borrowed, my
readers know as well as I. All that is valuable in the thoughts set
forth, it is safe to assume has been appropriated from others. Where I
have been distinctly conscious of borrowing what has not become common
property, I have given credit, or, at least, mentioned the author's
name, with three important exceptions which I wish to note more
formally.

I am principally indebted for the view of the American nationality and
the Federal Constitution I present, to hints and suggestions furnished
by the remarkable work of John C. Hurd, Esq., on The Law of Freedom and
Bondage in the United States, a work of rare learning and profound
philosophic views. I could not have written my work without the aid
derived from its suggestions, any more than I could without Plato,
Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Suarez, Pierre Leroux, and the
Abbate Gioberti. To these two last-named authors, one a humanitarian
sophist, the other a Catholic priest, and certainly one of the
profoundest philosophical writers of this century, I am much indebted,
though I have followed the political system of neither. I have taken
from Leroux the germs of the doctrine I set forth on the solidarity of
the race, and from Gioberti the doctrine I defend in relation to the
creative act, which is, after all, simply that of the Credo and th