The science of freedom, which is destined to spread its irresistible empire over this continent, started its primary germ in the bosom of our antipodes. Long before the words people, law, equality, independence, and equitable legislation had found a place in refined languages, republicanism glowed in the mind of Moses, and was partially embodied in the Hebrew commonwealth. The safeguard of all races as they were propagated, and the ennobler of all thoughts as they were colonized, this blessing of blessings has ever migrated with advancing humanity from age to age, till at length a fitting field has been attained for its fullest and most fruitful development.
Heeren well observes that Greece may be considered as "a sample paper of free commonwealths." But even that renowned land never saw her people enjoy their just rights; nor was such an exalted privilege realized by the nations of continental Europe, until the great principle of popular consent was recognized as the foundation of righteous authority. The crusades broke down feudalism, and elective monarchies grew increasingly representative of the popular will, up to the transition period, when James II. was hurled from his tyrannical throne, and William of Orange became the people's king. All the best political science of the old world went with the latter, from the comparatively free Netherlands, to ameliorate England, and foster her colonies in America. The essence of the great revolution of 1688 was eminently pacific and progressive, occasioning no sacking of towns nor shedding of blood. According to Macaulay, it announced that the strife between the popular element and the despotic element in the government, which had lasted so long, and been so prolific in seditions, rebellions, plots, battles, sieges, impeachments, proscriptions, and judicial murders, was at an end; and that the former, having at length fairly triumphed over the latter, was thenceforth to be permitted freely to develop itself, and become predominant in the English polity.
In tracing kindred paths of human progress, we have constantly had occasion to note how the affairs of all consecutive ages, though produced immediately by the voluntary agency of diversified actors, have, nevertheless, been controlled by the divine counsel, and contributed to execute the perfected unity of the divine plan. How great and manifold were the purposes which Providence comprehended in the discovery of America, and the peculiar colonies planted on its shores, we need not attempt to portray. But it is impossible to doubt that prominent among these were improvements in the science of government, the evolution of new theories of civil polity, and a grander application of such principles as had already been made known.
As a new world was about to be civilized, and required the highest measure of free intelligence, Bacon, Harrington, Sidney, Milton, Locke, Grotius, Puffendorf, and Montesquieu, arose to pour successive shafts of light upon the new but sombre skies. Parental injustice and colonial strife for a while darkened earth and heaven; but in due time the sun of American freedom ascended with auspicious splendor, when the mists of prejudice were dispersed, and the fresh revelations of a new political science appeared like some glorious landscape amid clear shining after rain. All the brightest beamings of antecedent light fell concentrated in that ray which illumined the cabin of the Mayflower, and kindled the fairest beacon of freedom on the eastern extremity of our continent. It was an effulgence given to be thenceforth diffused westward evermore, often buffeted, indeed, by adverse elements, but never impeded in its predominating progress, and much less diminished or obscured.
Before the pilgrim fathers disembarked, on the 11th of November, 1620, off Cape Cod, they drew up and subscribed a formal social compact, from which is the following extract: "We, whose names are under-written * * * * do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, * * * * and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names." To this remarkable document were appended the names of all the male adults on board the ship; the whole number of both sexes being a hundred and one, who took possession of a desert island, where day now first dawns on the sublimest republic of earth.
According to an eastern fable, the world is a harp. Its strings are earth, air, fire, flood, life, death, and wind. At certain intervals, an angel, flying through the heavens, strikes the harp. Its vibrations are those mighty issues of good and evil, the great epochs which mark the destiny of our race. In allusion to this, E.C. Wines remarks: "The mystic harp was touched when the pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock. Its quivering strings discoursed their most eloquent music. The burden of the notes was, human freedom; human brotherhood; human rights; the sovereignty of the people; the supremacy of law over will; the divine right of man to govern himself. The strain is still prolonged in vibrations of ever-widening circuit. That was an era of eras. Its influence, vitalized by the American Union, is fast becoming paramount throughout the civilized world. Europe feels it at this very moment to her utmost extremities, in every sense, in every fibre, in every pulsation of her convulsed and struggling energies.
"The great birth of that era is practical liberty; liberty based on the principles of the Gospel; liberty fashioned into symmetry and beauty and strength by the molding power of Christianity; liberty which 'places sovereignty in the hands of the people, and then sends them to the Bible, that they may learn how to wear the crown.' And what a birth! Already is the infant grown into a giant. Liberty, as it exists among us, that is, secured by constitutional guaranties, impregnated with Gospel principles, and freed from alliance with royalty, has raised this country from colonial bondage and insignificance to the rank of a leading power among the governments of earth.
"The union of these States under one government, effected by our national Constitution, has given to America a career unparalleled, in all the annals of time, for rapidity and brilliancy. Her three millions of people have swelled, in little more than half a century, to twenty-five millions. Her one million square miles have expanded into nearly four millions. Her thirteen States have grown into thirty-one. Her navigation and commerce rival those of the oldest and most commercial nations. Her keels vex all waters. Her maritime means and maritime power are seen on all seas and oceans, lakes and rivers. Her inventive genius has given to the world the two greatest achievements of human ingenuity, in the steamboat and the electric telegraph. Two thousand steamers ply her waters; twenty thousand miles of magnetic wires form a net-work over her soil. The growth of her cities is more like magic than reality. New York has doubled its population in ten years. The man is yet living who felled the first tree, and reared the first log-cabin, on the site of Cincinnati. Now that city contains one hundred and fifty thousand souls. It is larger than the ancient and venerable city of Bristol, in England."
Thus the founders of our national compact have proved themselves the unsurpassed adepts in political science. They unquestionably belonged to that select number, of whom Bolingbroke said that it has pleased the author of nature to mingle them, from time to time, at distant intervals, among the societies of men, to maintain the moral system of the universe at an elevated point. Nor shall we find less variety of profound invention, or less popular advantages derived from practical applications in the realm of American mechanical science, than in the primary one of civic excellence just considered.
The labors of cotemporaries generally are in harmony with the epoch; and in America especially do they all tend to promote that ultimate destiny which promises to be much better as well as greater than the past sufferings, commotions, and hopes of mankind. The westering career of inventive genius reminds one of Milton's hero marching through the dark abyss to discover fairer realms beyond. Though assailed by feelings of discouragement, and fantastic apparitions rise before him, still he persistingly rises from the dark depths, to set his foot on the gigantic bridge that leads from gloom to brightness, and sees at length the pendant new world hanging in a golden chain, fast by the empyreal heaven, "with opal towers and battlements adorned of living sapphire."