TWENTY-NINTH CONGKESS, 1845-47. 425 



their rights ; the Anglo-Saxon was inspired by piineiple, the 

 Gaul was instigated by iJassion. 



The principles of American liberty, which education and 

 habit have rendered so familiar to us, that we fancy them 

 intuitive or even instinctive, are in truth no more obvious 

 than the physical theory of the universe ; and the study of 

 \h.Q, philosophical and political history of the last three cen- 

 turies will convince every inquirer, that their development 

 from their germs, as involved in the fundamental doctrines 

 of the Reformation, has been the work not of unconscious 

 time only, but has required the labor of successive genera- 

 tions of philosophers and statesmen. 



I look upon a great and well selected library, composed 

 of the monuments of all knowledge, in all tongues, as the 

 most effective means of releasing us from the slavish defer- 

 ence, which, in spite of our loud and vaporing protestations 

 of independence, we habitually pay to English precedents 

 and authorities, in all matters of opinion. Our history and 

 our political experience are so brief, that, in the multitude 

 of new cases which are perpetually arising, we are often at a 

 loss for domestic parallels, and find it cheaper to cite an Eng- 

 lish dictum than to investigate a question upon more inde- 

 pendent grounds. Not only are our parliamentary law, our 

 legislative action, our judicial proceedings, to a great extent 

 fashioned after those of the mother country, but the funda- 

 mental principles of our Government, our theory of the 

 political rights of man, are often distorted, in order that 

 they may be accommodated to rules and definitions drawn 

 from English constitutional law. Even the most sacred of 

 political rights, the right of petition, I have heard both 

 attacked and defended upon this floor, by very suflicient 

 Democrats, entirely upon precedents drawn from the prac- 

 tice of the British Parliament, Our community of origin, 

 language, and law, exposes the younger nation to the con- 

 stant danger of being overshadowed by the authority of the 

 elder. It is a great evil to a young and growing people, as 

 well as to a youthful and aspiring spirit, to have its energies 

 cramped, and its originality smothered, b^' a servile spirit of 

 conformity to an}' one model, however excellent; and it is 

 quite time for us to learn, that there are other sources of 

 instruction than the counsels and example of our ancient 

 mother. 



Sir, I make these remarks in no narrow feeling of jealous 

 hostility to England ; still less at this crisis, when some are 

 seeking to raise a whirlwind of popular indignation asrainst 

 that countr}', uj^on which they may themselves float to 



