HISTORICAL SKETCH. 245 



To harmonize the constitutions and go- 

 vernments with the feelings, the habits, and 

 the prejudices of the mixed and different 

 races of the population, will indeed be a 

 task of no ordinary difficulty ; especially 

 in a country where freedom is a newly- 

 arrived stranger, with whom it requires a 

 considerable time to be on a footing of easy 

 intimacy. There is, perhaps, no greater 

 mistake, than that in order to be free, a 

 nation has only to will it. That it may 

 at once throw off a tyranny which oppressed 

 it, there is, of course, no doubt; but if the 

 principles of freedom are not understood 

 in their practical effect, the result may be 

 merely the substitution of one tyranny for 

 another. 



In order that those principles may be 

 rightly understood and justly appreciated 

 by a nation, the mere will of any body of 



men is as powerless as the paper upon 



