St. Clair and Wayne 355 



of the policy therein outlined has worked a com 

 plete revolution in the way of looking at new com 

 munities formed by colonization from the parent 

 country. Yet the very completeness of this revolu 

 tion to a certain extent veils from us its importance. 

 We can not realize the greatness of the change be 

 cause of the fact that the change was so great; for 

 we can not now put ourselves in the mental attitude 

 which regarded the old course as natural. The 

 Ordinance of 1787 decreed that the new States 

 should stand in every respect on an equal footing 

 with the old; and yet should be individually bound 

 together with them. This was something entirely 

 new in the history of colonization. Hitherto every 

 new colony had either been subject to the parent 

 State, or independent of it. England, Holland, 

 France, and Spain, when they founded colonies be 

 yond the sea, founded them for the good of the 

 parent State, and governed them as dependencies. 

 The home country might treat her colonies well or 

 ill, she might cherish and guard them, or oppress 

 them with harshness and severity, but she never 

 treated them as equals. Russia, in pushing her 

 obscure and barbarous conquest and colonization 

 of Siberia, a conquest destined to be of such last 

 ing importance in the history of Asia, pursued 

 precisely the same course. 



In fact, this had been the only kind of coloniza 

 tion known to modern Europe. In the ancient 

 world it had also been known, and it was only 

 through it that great empires grew. Each Roman 



