THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 163 



final result, 1 do not know why we need fear to affirm that those 

 events were providentially controlled and guided to that result. This 

 conviction is further strengthened when we can perceive beyond such 

 result adequate consequences, can see how that result was in the future 

 to be productive of good. The evidence of such consequences is in the 

 knowledge that the form of government which alone renders popular 

 institutions compatible with extent of territory, is that form which has 

 its origin in this ancient element of Saxon local self-government. Who 

 can question that it is such a political system that has expanded this 

 republic from its primitive circumscription to its present extent, so that 

 that which at first reached not far beyond the sound of the Atlantic, 

 became enlarged beyond the mountains ; then beyond the Mississippi; 

 and now, having crossed the second great mountain range of the conti- 

 nent, has on its other border the sound of the earth's other great ocean. I 

 know of no grander traditional influence to be observed in history, than 

 this simple Saxon characteristic element and the mighty issues of it now 

 manifest around us, the connexion between this principle of local gov- 

 ernment obscurely recognised in the ancient fatherland of the Saxon, 

 carried thence to England to be combined with the central power of a 

 constitutional monarchy, and now a living principle here, helping, by the 

 harmony of state rights and federal energy, to extend and perpetuate 

 the republic. 



On an occasion like the present, I do not propose to attempt to enter 

 into the details of American colonization, or to dwell upon the familiar 

 story of our early history, but rather to use them only so far as it may 

 be necessary to illustrate the principle I have endeavored to set forth. 

 A rapid review of colonial events, brought into a new connexion and 

 concentered on one principle, will, I hope answer the purpose of main- 

 taining the historical argument which I desire to submit to you. There 

 is perhaps nothing in our early history which now appears more re- 

 markable to us than the long delay on the part of the English govern- 

 ment, or the English people, in making use of the title which the right 

 of discovery had given them to the soil of America. It presents a curi- 

 ous blank, near a century before any attempt was made to occupy or 

 to colonize the newly discovered land, and more than a century before 

 a permanent settlement was accomplished. 



It has been remarked, that the only immediate result of Cabot's voy- 

 age and discovery of the continent, was the importation into England 

 from America of the first turkeys that had ever been seen in Europe. 

 Such was the beginning of the immense commerce between England 

 and America. For a long time the right of discovery seemed a barren 

 title ; and it is a noticeable fact that while it was the first of the Tudor 

 kings whose commission authorized Cabot to set up the English banner 

 here, it was the last of the Tudor sovereigns who sought to make her 

 title here a reality by planting English homes ; and indeed the whole 

 dynasty passed away without anything permanent being achieved. 

 Doubtless, the delay was salutary, was propitious for the future ; and 

 perhaps we can conceive how it was so when we recall the character 

 of that Tudor dominion and the spirit of that age. It was not the tem- 

 per of that dynasty to give the colonial free-agency (it might almost be 

 called independence) which was to prove the germ of republican 



