^ 286 [Assembly 



We know that it is usual to attribute to purely political causes 

 those results which are most strikingly manifested in political 

 movements. We see that revolution and constitutional reforms 

 have attended the progress of that republican spirit which re- 

 ceived its first impulse and achieved its first triumph in Ameri- 

 ca. We are led to inquire what was the source of this spirit 

 that even in colonial days, pervaded every portion of our land. 

 It was the offspring of minds trained to think and act for them- 

 selves in the daily pursuits of life. It was the clear and direct 

 result of those habits of industry implanted by nature in the 

 Anglo-Saxon race, and strengthened by the necessities of the age. 

 Here then we have the secret of our success, and the source of 

 our political system. • 



The moral power of the United States is not solely the result 

 of her political organization, although so often evinced in the 

 revolutions of other countries. That a nation's influence should 

 develop itself in this way may be accounted for by the fact 

 that impressions produced upon the body of the people are felt 

 by the government before they show themselves in social life, in 

 the family, or the individual. The disposition which prevails 

 in despotic countries to attribute every result to the government 

 as a great first cause, leads the impoverished masses of Europe, 

 when they hear of our prosperity, to inquire only about our po- 

 litical system, and then to establish a republic by force of arms, 

 regardless of the secret which lies beyond, and can alone qualify 

 a nation for self-government — the industrious habits and widely 

 diffused intelligence of our people. This superficial study of 

 the theory of American progress is giving place to more careful 

 examination of our social system. The world is learning, at the 

 cost of fruitless revolutions, that it is not Charters or Constitu- 

 tions that can secure the prosperity of a nation — that to attain 

 the position which America holds, it is requisite not merely to 

 possess American principles, but to know something of Ameri- 

 can customs, to study our social life, and thereby to probe the 

 secret of success. 



The general ignorance upon ordinary subjects relating to Amer- 

 ica, which prevails abroad, has been often made the subject of 



