(Callender, Economic History of U.S., pp. 174-75. Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, II, p. 287)
All Europe is for us. Our Articles of Confederation, being by our means translated and published here, have given an appearance of consistence and firmness to the American States and Government that begins to make them considerable. The separate constitutions of the several States are also translating and publishing here, which afford abundance of speculation to the politicians of Europe, and it is a very general opinion that if we succeed in establishing our liberties, we shall, as soon as peace is restored, receive an immense addition of numbers and wealth from Europe, by the families who will come over to participate in our privileges, and bring their estates with them. Tyranny is so generally established in the rest of the world, that the prospect of an asylum in America, for those who love liberty, gives general joy, and our cause is esteemed the cause of all mankind. Slaves naturally become base, as well as wretched. We are fighting for the dignity and happiness of human nature. Glorious is it for the Americans to be called by Providence to this post of honour. Cursed and detested be everyone that deserts or betrays it.
POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS RESULTING, 1788
(Callender, Economic History of U.S., pp. 176-67. B. de Warville, The Commerce of America with Europe, p. 8)
... this war has occasioned discussions important to public happiness—the discussion of the social compact—of civil liberty, of the means which can render a people independent, of the circumstances which give sanction to its insurrection, and make it legal, and which give this people a place among the powers of the earth.
What good has not resulted from the repeated description of the English constitution, and of its effects? What good has not resulted from the codes of Massachusetts and New York, published and spread everywhere? And what benefits will they still produce? They will not be wholly taken for a model; but despotism will pay a greater respect, either from necessity or reason, to the rights of men, which are so well known and established.... This revolution, favourable to the people, which is preparing in the cabinets of Europe, will be undoubtedly accelerated, by that which its commerce will experience, and which we owe to the enfranchisement of America. The war which procured it for her, has made known the influence of commerce on power, the necessity of public credit, and consequently of public virtue, without which it cannot long subsist....
These are the advantages which France, the world and humanity, owe to the American Revolution....
INVENTORS OF MACHINERY
(Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, Vol. IV, p. 77)