CHAP. allegiance to the British crown, and that all political LXX. connection between them and the state of Great 1776. Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and July 4. that, as Free and Independent States, they have full

power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And, for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

This immortal state paper, which for its composer was the aurora of enduring fame, was "the genuine effusion of the soul of the country at that time," the revelation of its mind, when in its youth, its enthusiasm, its sublime confronting of danger, it rose to the highest creative powers of which man is capable. The bill of rights which it promulgates, is of rights that are older than human institutions, and spring from the eternal justice that is anterior to the state. Two political theories divided the world; one founded the commonwealth on the reason of state, the policy of expediency; the other on the immutable principles of morals: the new republic, as it took its place among the powers of the world, proclaimed its faith in the truth and reality and unchangeableness of freedom, virtue, and right. The heart of Jefferson in writing the declaration, and of congress in adopting it, beat for all humanity; the assertion of right was made for the entire world of mankind and all coming generations, without any exception whatever; for the proposition which admits of exceptions can never be self-evident. As it was

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put forth in the name of the ascendent people of that CHAP. time, it was sure to make the circuit of the world, passing everywhere through the despotic countries July of Europe; and the astonished nations as they read that all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiles from childhood, when they suddenly hear the dimly remembered accents of their mother tongue.

In the next place, the declaration, avoiding specious and vague generalities, grounds itself with anxious care upon the past, and reconciles right and fact. Of universal principles enough is repeated to prove that America chose for her own that system of politics which recognises the rule of eternal justice; and independence is vindicated by the application of that rule to the grievous instructions, laws, and acts, proceeding from the king, in the exercise of his prerogative, or in concurrence with the lords and commons of Great Britain. The colonies professed to drive back innovations; and not, with roving zeal, to overturn all traditional inequalities; they were no rebels against the past, of which they knew the present to be the child; with all the glad anticipations of greatness that broke forth from the prophetic soul of the youthful nation, they took their point of departure from the world as it was. They did not even declare against monarchy itself; they sought no general overthrow of all kings, no universal system of republics; nor did they cherish in their hearts a lurking hatred against princes. Loyalty to the house of Hanover had, for sixty years, been another name for the love of civil and religious liberty; the vast majority, till within a few years or months, believed the English constitution the best that had ever existed; neither

CHAP. Franklin, nor Washington, nor John Adams, nor JefferLXX. son, nor Jay, had ever expressed a preference for a reJuly public. The voices that rose for independence, spoke 4. also for alliances with kings. The sovereignty of

1776.

George the Third was renounced, not because he was a king, but because he was deemed to be "a tyrant."

The insurgents, as they took up self-government, manifested no impatience at the recollection of having been ruled by a royal line; no eagerness to blot out memorials of their former state; they sent forth no Hugh Peter to recommend to the mother country the abolition of monarchy, which no one seems to have proposed or to have wished; in the moment of revolution in America, they did not counsel the English to undertake a revolution. The republic was to America a godsend; it came, though unsought, because society contained the elements of no other organization. Here, and, in that century, here only, was a people, which, by its education and large and long experience, was prepared to act as the depository and carrier of all political power. America developed her choice from within herself; and therefore it is, that, conscious of following an inner law, she never made herself a spreader of her system, where the conditions of success were wanting.

Finally, the declaration was not only the announcement of the birth of a people, but the establishment of a national government; a most imperfect one, it is true, but still a government, in conformity with the limited constituent powers which each colony had conferred upon its delegates in congress. The war was no longer a civil war; Britain was become to the United States a foreign country. Every former subject of

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the British king in the thirteen colonies now owed CHAP. primary allegiance to the dynasty of the people, and became citizens of the new republic; except in this, 1776. every thing remained as before; every man retained his rights; the colonies did not dissolve into a state of nature; nor did the new people undertake a social revolution. The affairs of internal police and government were carefully retained by each separate state, which could, each for itself, enter upon the career of domestic reforms. But the states which were henceforth independent of Britain were not independent of one another; the United States of America assumed powers over war, peacc, foreign alliances, and commerce.

The declaration was not signed by the members of congress on the day on which it was agreed to, but it was duly authenticated by the president and secretary, and published to the world. The nation, when it made the choice of a day for its great anniversary, selected not the day of the resolution of independence, when it closed the past, but that of the declaration of the principles on which it opened its new career.

END OF VOL. VIII.