allusion to it, that we ever had a Capitol. Certainly its cost of more 

 than fourteen millions has not imposed so large a tax per capita on the 

 citizens of this State that it would be always kept in remembrance 

 from that fact alone. And so it was no matter of surprise to the 

 historians of this early day to see a large meeting around a stone, 

 or on a plain or hill, or by the side of a running stream ; they made no 

 record of it, because every one knew they met in some such place; 

 there was nowhere else to meet. And when an Anglo-Saxon chron- 

 icle mentions specially that a meeting was held in the upper part 

 of a house, we may naturally infer that it was not usual to hold 

 meetings under the cover of a roof. We must look at these tilings, 

 as far as possible, with the eyes of those who saw them ; as a modern 

 writer has well observed, " Old records and strange customs that have 

 no meaning when judged from the usages of modern times, are seen in 

 altogether a different light when the student has placed himself, as it 

 were, in ages long before the events chronicled in the old records, or 

 the strange customs had passed away from ordinary life. He is then 

 looking down the stream of time, not back upon it, with a vision 

 dulled by the influences of civilized history and present surroundings." 



But if we have no positive record of the open air meeting in Britain 

 we can draw an example from the history of our own State, and very 

 properly assume that the customs of the primitive man were the same 

 and unchanged in all places. The Iroquois Indians were at one time 

 separate and hostile bands, and were drawn together in council to de- 

 liberate upon the place of a league, which a wise man of the Onondaga 

 nation had proposed. This council fire was kindled on the northern 

 shore of Onondaga lake, and the open air meeting was there held, 

 attended by the chiefs and wise men of the several nations combined 

 to form the league. The influence of this first council place was never 

 destroyed, and although the place of meeting was not always confined 

 to Onondaga lake, yet the custody of the "Council Brand" and also 

 of the '* Wampum," into which the laws of the league had been talked, 

 was given by an hereditary grant to the Onondagas ; and the council 

 fire in the Onondaga valley became in effect the seat of government 

 for the league. 



Such an assembly was not an assembly of a State as we understand 

 the term State ; it was only a primitive community, sovereign within 

 its own bounds, but it gave birth to a State by being aggregated with 

 other sovereign communities; nor as a popular assembly is it the same 

 as is now understood by this term ; the "people" then were not what 

 the "people "are now. The unit of society was not the individual 

 but the family ; and every fami!\ ; i <; a? u ; , - 



