A iV^^ir FIELD OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 371 



Liberty of thought, long asserted and more and more displayed, is 

 about to be carried to the extent that no man shall be constrained to 

 support another man's creed. 



Evidently the arrival at this state completes that social differentia- 

 tion which began when the primitive chief first deputed his priestly 

 function. 



As implied in the last sentence, the changes above sketched out are 

 concomitants of the changes sketched out in the last chapter. The 

 prolonged conflict between Church and State accompanying their dif- 

 ferentiation, and ending in the subordination of the Church, has been 

 accompanied by these collateral minor conflicts between the Churcb 

 and recalcitrant portions of its members, ending in separation of them. 



There is a further implication. In common with the subjection of 

 the Church to the State, the spread of Nonconformity is an indirect 

 result of growing industrialism. The moral nature proper to a social 

 organization based on contract instead of status — the moral nature fos- 

 tered by a social life carried on under voluntary co-operation instead 

 of compulsory co-operation, is one which works out religious independ- 

 ence as it works out political freedom. And this conclusion, manifest 

 a priori, is verified a posteriori in sundry ways. We see that Non- 

 conformity, increasing as industrialism has developed, now character- 

 izes in the greatest degree those nations which are most characterized 

 by development of the industrial type — America and England. And 

 we also see that in England itself, the contrast between urban and 

 rural populations, as well as the contrast between populations in dif- 

 ferent parts of the kingdom, show that where the industrial type of 

 life and organization predominates, Nonconformity is the most pro- 

 nounced. 



A NEW FIELD OF AMEKICAN HISTORY. 



WE have hitherto been accustomed to treat the history of the 

 United States as consisting primarily of the history of the 

 Atlantic portion. When it has become necessary in the progress of the 

 review to advert to the history of other parts of the continent, the 

 subject has been considered as related to the histoiy of the Eastern 

 States, and subordinated to it. This may have been proper so long as 

 the historical nation lay east of the Mississippi River, but when Lou- 

 isiana was bought we took in a region with an independent history 

 of its own ; when the question of the title to Oregon was agitated, an 

 historical inquiry in a new direction became of great importance to 

 us ; and when California was acquired we came into possession of 

 still another history, antedating that of our original States by a hun- 

 dred years, and unexcelled in its fullness of romance and adventure. 



