e: Except in the instance of slavery, all these changes were
favourable to union.]

In this brief survey of the principal changes wrought in the several
states by the separation from England, one cannot fail to be struck with
their conservative character. Things proceeded just as they had done
from time immemorial with the English race. Forms of government were
modified just far enough to adapt them to the new situation and no
farther. The abolition of entails, of primogeniture, and of such few
manorial privileges as existed, were useful reforms of far less sweeping
character than similar changes would have been in England; and they were
accordingly effected with ease. Even the abolition of slavery in the
northern states, where negroes were few in number and chiefly employed
in domestic service, wrought nothing in the remotest degree resembling a
social revolution. But nowhere was this constitutionally cautious and
precedent-loving mode of proceeding more thoroughly exemplified than in
the measures just related, whereby the Episcopal and Methodist churches
were separated from the English establishment and placed upon an
independent footing in the new world. From another point of view it may
be observed that all these changes, except in the instance of slavery,
tended to assimilate the states to one another in their political and
social condition. So far as they went, these changes were favourable to
union, and this was perhaps especially true in the case of the
ecclesiastical bodies, which brought citizens of different states into
cooperation in pursuit of specific ends in common.

At the same time this survey most forcibly reminds us how completely
the legislation which immediately affected the daily domestic life of
the citizen was the legislation of the single state in which he lived.
In the various reforms just passed in review the United States
government took no part, and could not from the nature of the case. Even
to-day our national government has no power over such matters, and it is
to be hoped it never will have. But at the present day our national
government performs many important functions of common concern, which a
century ago were scarcely performed at all. The organization of the
single state was old in principle and well understood by everybody. It
therefore worked easily, and such changes as those above described were
brought about with little friction. On the other hand, the principles
upon which th