254 HILLS AND LAKES. 



chose their best men as their rulers. They got to- 

 gether, and agreed who should be their governors, and 

 sheriffs, and justices of the peace, and constables. In 

 this way they came to the knowledge of yet another 

 great fact, that they could get along best by always 

 choosin' their own rulers. Now, Squire, it was a 

 nateral thing for men, who had swept away the old 

 primeval forests, and spread out broad farms, where 

 before they came, was a great wilderness, when they 

 looked upon the wonderful labor they had performed, 

 I say it was a nateral thing, that they should form a 

 pretty good opinion of themselves, and feel about 

 equal to any king on his throne, or any lazy lord in 

 his palace. When they thought of the savage Ingens 

 they had overcome, the dangers they had passed 

 through, without the aid of the country they came 

 from, it was a nateral thing that they should feel a 

 sturdy independence, that didn't ask any favors of 

 anybody. You see, Squire, how the people who of 

 old built up the government of this country, begun at 

 the bottom, away back at the beginnin'. They learned 

 the great lesson of self-government, of republicanism, 

 from its ABC. They warn't a people that had been 

 ground down by hard task-masters, till their ambition 



