EDITOR'S TABLE. 



269 



gave origin to a new nation. Yet the 

 revolt was against the freest consti- 

 tutional government in the world, and 

 the communities that rose against the 

 mother-country had been nurtured in 

 the spirit of independence under Brit- 

 ish influence and British institutions. 

 The justifying principle of the war 

 was simply that the people on the 

 spot, knowing their own circumstances 

 and wants, could govern themselves 

 better than they could be governed 

 through agents by a people three thou- 

 sand miles away. In reconstituting the 

 government, various things deemed use- 

 less or injurious hereditary monarchy, 

 hereditary aristocracy, and. a state 

 Church were lopped away as excres- 

 cences. But the constitution of the 

 English law-making body was imi- 

 tated, and the old common law of Eng- 

 land, witli its recognitions and guar- 

 antees of personal rights, and its ma- 

 chinery of justice, to which the people 

 were accustomed, remained in substan- 

 tial force. The bulwarks of civil liber- 

 ty were a heritage from the parent coun- 

 try. In the declaration of political inde- 

 pendence there was an affirmation of 

 the natural and equal rights of all men. 

 But it was little more than a " rhetor- 

 ical flourish," as its reduction to living 

 practice was scarcely thought of. There 

 was a servile class stripped of all rights 

 who sorely needed the benefit of this 

 pretentious declaration, but it did not 

 get it. In fact, the insurgent colonies 

 were nothing less than slave holding 

 and slave- trading communities, and, 

 when they deliberately proceeded to 

 form a Constitution, human slavery was 

 fortified in its provisions, and the for- 

 eign slave-trade was guaranteed for 

 twenty years. 



But if the Constitution of the new 

 government left a weak and defense- 

 less class a prey to its oppressors, was 

 nothing gained for the superior race? 

 Much, undoubtedly. There was a re- 

 lief from monarchical, aristocratic, and 

 hierarchical burdens, a simplification of 



political machinery, and an experiment 

 in the direction of popular self-govern- 

 ment. There was a transference of 

 power into the hands of the people 

 more complete than ever before. It 

 was the boldest venture in representa- 

 tive government that had ever been 

 made ; yet, if we are to trust the official 

 Yorktown orator, after the retrospect 

 of a century, the problem is not yet 

 solved, and we can not look forward to 

 the next hundred years without pro- 

 found solicitude. 



But there was one grand stroke for 

 the promotion of human liberty made 

 in organizing the republic, the far- 

 reaching consequences of which were 

 neither appreciated by those who made 

 it nor are they yet well comprehended 

 by our people. "We here refer to the 

 liberty of commercial transactions, to 

 the establishment of absolute free 

 trade between the citizens of all the 

 States of our political Union. An 

 immense step was here taken in the 

 progress of liberty. All the liberties 

 liberty of conscience, liberty of thought 

 and speech, and liberty of exchange 

 have been slow growths ; but no one 

 has grown so slowly or against such re- 

 sistance, or is still so immature, as that 

 full liberty of action that is involved 

 in the free exchange of property. It 

 is here, in oppressive exactions up- 

 on exchange, that the most grinding 

 tyranny takes effect ; upon this point 

 rapacious government is the first to 

 fasten and the last to let go. Men 

 may think and say what they like, and 

 go where they like, but, if they can not 

 dispose, unhindered, of the property 

 which they have produced, and which 

 is their own, their liberty is a delusion. 

 Great progress has unquestionably been 

 made in modern times in freeing ex- 

 change from its burdens, and all that 

 had been gained was secured by the or- 

 ganic law of the new republic. It was 

 decreed that Americans within the na- 

 tional limits shall be let alone shall 

 enjoy immunity from vexatious trade 



