rica, or Europe, to reform the political condition of man.
Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as
rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks,--and all
it wants,--is the liberty of appearing. The sun needs no inscription
to distinguish him from darkness; and no sooner did the American
governments display themselves to the world, than despotism felt a shock
and man began to contemplate redress.

The independence of America, considered merely as a separation from
England, would have been a matter but of little importance, had it
not been accompanied by a revolution in the principles and practice of
governments. She made a stand, not for herself only, but for the
world, and looked beyond the advantages herself could receive. Even
the Hessian, though hired to fight against her, may live to bless his
defeat; and England, condemning the viciousness of its government,
rejoice in its miscarriage.

As America was the only spot in the political world where the principle
of universal reformation could begin, so also was it the best in the
natural world. An assemblage of circumstances conspired, not only to
give birth, but to add gigantic maturity to its principles. The scene
which that country presents to the eye of a spectator, has something in
it which generates and encourages great ideas. Nature appears to him in
magnitude. The mighty objects he beholds, act upon his mind by enlarging
it, and he partakes of the greatness he contemplates.--Its first
settlers were emigrants from different European nations, and of
diversified professions of religion, retiring from the governmental
persecutions of the old world, and meeting in the new, not as enemies,
but as brothers. The wants which necessarily accompany the cultivation
of a wilderness produced among them a state of society, which countries
long harassed by the quarrels and intrigues of governments, had
neglected to cherish. In such a situation man becomes what he ought. He
sees his species, not with the inhuman idea of a natural enemy, but as
kindred; and the example shows to the artificial world, that man must go
back to Nature for information.

From the rapid progress which America makes in every species of
improvement, it is rational to conclude that, if the governments of
Asia, Africa, and Europe had begun on a principle similar to that of
America, or had not be