THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 167 



thy of notice, that no century of English histoiy, either earlier or later, 

 was so calculated to give character — and varied character, too — to the 

 colonies, as that century which was the century of colonization — the 

 seventeenth. It was an age in which the activity of the nation, there- 

 tofore busy in other directions, was turned to questions of government. 

 The thoughts of men were anxious and occupied — not with questions 

 respecting the succession of this or that branch of a royal family, but 

 with the principles that lie at the very foundation of government, the 

 limits of power, and the rights and duties of the subject. It was an 

 age — better than any other in the annals of the mother-countr}' — fitted 

 to send along with the sons who left her to seek a distant home the 

 dutiful spirit of loyalt\'', willing obedience to law, and the dutiful spirit 

 of freedom — the two great principles of constitutional government. 

 There was political variety, as well as social ; for the colonial govern- 

 ments, although all bearing a resemblance to the government oi the 

 mother-country, had those distinctive characteristics by which they are 

 classified into the Royal, the Proprietary, and the Charter governments. 



It seems strange that the colonial policy of one kingdom should ad- 

 mit of such a diversity, that in some the king's control was perpetually 

 present ; in others it was transferred to lords-proprietary, subjects to 

 whom was given the half-kingly power of palatines ; and in others so 

 free were the charters that the people, for a long time after the royal 

 authority was wholly abrogated by independence, asked no change in 

 them. (Strange as such colonial diversity appears, it was far more 

 favorable to the future results than any uniform system of colonial gov- 

 ejnment. 



I have endeavored to show that a principle, which may safely be 

 said to be a characteristic of our race, in all regions of the earth, has 

 been brought hither to become a great element in our national s^'stem ; 

 and, further, that throughout the whole period of discovery and colon 

 zation, whatever was adverse to that principle was checked or frus- 

 trated ; while, on the other hand, the tendency of events was to the 

 steady development of that principle — the creation of the materials for 

 Unio7i. 



In the next lecture I propose to consider the process by which those 

 materials were brought together, without the loss of their distinctive 

 character, as component parts of the Union. 



