I. _The political condition of the country has been essentially
changed._--General personal and family comfort, according to the ideas
now entertained, was not a feature of American society for one hundred
and seventy years from the settlement at Plymouth. Life was a continual
contest--a contest with the forest, with the climate, with the Indians,
and especially was it a continual contest with the mother country. The
colonists sought to maintain their own rights without infringement,
while they accorded to the sovereign his constitutional privileges.
Conflicts were frequent, and apprehensions of conflict yet more
frequent. Hence those who had the conduct of public affairs were
compelled to give some attention to English history, and to the
constitutional law of Great Britain. Moreover, it was always important
to secure and keep a strong public sentiment on the side of liberty; and
there were usually in every town men who thoroughly investigated
questions of public policy. There was one topic, more absorbing than any
other, that involved the study of the legal history and usage of Great
Britain, and a careful consideration of the general principles of
liberty; namely, the constitutional rights of a British subject. Here
was a broad field for inquiry, investigation, and study; and it was
faithfully cultivated and gleaned. There has never been a political
topic for public discussion in America more important in itself, or
better calculated to educate an American in a knowledge of his political
rights, than the examination of the political relations of the subject
to the crown and parliament of Great Britain previous to the Declaration
of Independence. It was not an abstraction. It had a practical value to
every man in the colonies, and it was the prominent feature of the
masterly exposition made by the Massachusetts House of Representatives,
to which I have already referred. And we can better estimate the
political education which the times furnished, when we consider that the
revolutionary war was made logical and necessary through a knowledge of
positions, facts, and arguments, scattered over the history of the
colonies. But, when our Independence had been established and
recognized, constitutions had been framed, and the governments of the
states and nation set in motion, the beauty and harmony of our political
system seemed to render continued attention to political principles and
the rights of individual men unnecessary. Hence, we may anticipate the
judgment of impartial history in the admission that public attention was
gradually given to contests for office which did not always involve the
maintenance of a fundamental principle of government, or the recognition
of an essential human right. It does not, however, follow, from this
admission, that we are indifferent to our political lot,--occasional
contests upon principle refute such a conjecture,--but that men are not
anxious concerning those things which appear to be secure. And the
differences of political parties of the last fifty years have not been
so much concerning the nature of human rights, as in regard to the
institutions by which those rights can be best protected. Therefore our
political questions have been questions of expediency rather than of
principle. And, if there is any foundation for the popular impression
that public offices are conferred on men less eminently qualified to
give dignity to public employments, the reason of this degeneracy--less
noteworthy than it is usually represented--is to be found in this
connection.
?p=132 