ASSIMILATION OP INSTITUTIONS. o-Ll 



or desirableness of which men of different political 

 parties are, of course, very far from being agreed. But, 

 looking at the matter abstractedly, and apart from our 

 own individual wishes, it is not to be denied that the 

 moral influence of which I have spoken is daily recom 

 mending to us more strongly the kind of changes which 

 have been made in the States, in reference to the dispo 

 sition of political power and taxation, and to the religious 

 and educational interests of the people. The tendency 

 from common literature, language, and blood, is to an 

 assimilation of institutions. But to this is to be added 

 further, the influence upon us of that respect which we 

 feel for the large territory, growing power, and living 

 energy of the United States an energy we respect the 

 more, as it is an offshoot of our own. And although this 

 energy does not, in my opinion, anywhere in America 

 exceed what is every day displayed in a thousand 

 different spheres in our own more artificial society, in 

 the mutual elbowings of the men among us who are 

 struggling to elevate themselves, and in other forms 

 which are adapted to the more thoroughly developed 

 condition of our national resources 5 yet we respect it 

 the more, because, on comparing the United States 

 with all other countries, except our own, they stand out 

 as a fervid mass of moving mind, beside which other 

 nations seem cold and motionless. 



How far the present generation may live to see this 

 probable assimilation of the institutions of the two coun 

 tries brought, it is impossible to say. Much will depend 

 upon the moderation, steadiness, and political morality 

 displayed by the democratic population of the United 

 States. We possess what we esteem a happily balanced 

 constitutional Government, in which neither the popular, 

 the aristocratical, nor the monarchical element prevails 

 to a degree inconsistent with individual happiness or 

 with national welfare j and the example of our past 



