the vault
of an edifice, and supporting nothing. This might explain the destinies
of certain nations, which seem borne on by an unknown force to ends of
which they themselves are ignorant. But hitherto facts have been wanting
to researches of this kind: the spirit of inquiry has only come upon
communities in their latter days; and when they at length contemplated
their origin, time had already obscured it, or ignorance and pride
adorned it with truth-concealing fables.

America is the only country in which it has been possible to witness
the natural and tranquil growth of society, and where the influences
exercised on the future condition of states by their origin is clearly
distinguishable. At the period when the peoples of Europe landed in the
New World their national characteristics were already completely formed;
each of them had a physiognomy of its own; and as they had already
attained that stage of civilization at which men are led to study
themselves, they have transmitted to us a faithful picture of their
opinions, their manners, and their laws. The men of the sixteenth
century are almost as well known to us as our contemporaries. America,
consequently, exhibits in the broad light of day the phenomena which the
ignorance or rudeness of earlier ages conceals from our researches.
Near enough to the time when the states of America were founded, to be
accurately acquainted with their elements, and sufficiently removed from
that period to judge of some of their results, the men of our own day
seem destined to see further than their predecessors into the series of
human events. Providence has given us a torch which our forefathers did
not possess, and has allowed us to discern fundamental causes in the
history of the world which the obscurity of the past concealed from
them. If we carefully examine the social and political state of America,
after having studied its history, we shall remain perfectly convinced
that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law, I may even say not an
event, is upon record which the origin of that people will not explain.
The readers of this book will find the germ of all that is to follow in
the present chapter, and the key to almost the whole work.

The emigrants who came, at different periods to occupy the territory now
covered by the American Union differed from each other in many respects;
their aim was not the same, and they governed themselves on different
principles. These men had,