ng, and may not
inaptly be termed national. The prediction was publicly uttered here,
two centuries ago, and printed, that a day would come when "those that
were branded before for Huguenots and Lollards and Hereticks, they
should be thought the only men to be fit to have crowns upon their
heads, and independent government committed to them"; and the crown that
shone with superior lustre was progress in things that elevate and adorn
humanity.

Such a government, so far as it regarded local affairs, the people
substantially enjoyed under the protecting wing of a proud nationality.
They loved the old flag. They claimed its history as their history, and
its glory as their glory. It gave security to their rights as men, as
Christians, and as Englishmen. It thus sheltered the precious body of
civil and religious liberties which they were in the habit of speaking
of as the rights of mankind. For this they were attached to the
English Constitution. For this they said, "Dear England!" Their strong
expressions in favor of the union with Great Britain were sincere. The
turn of the words showed the honest bent of the mind. No man respected
the English Constitution more than Samuel Adams, and his strong language
now (1768) was,--"I pray God that harmony may be cultivated between
Great Britain and the Colonies, and that they may long flourish in one
undivided empire." His resolution was no less strong to stand for
local self-government. As the idea began to be entertained that the
preservation of this right might require a new nationality, nothing legs
worthy for country was thought of than a union of all the Colonies in an
American commonwealth, with one constitution, which should be supreme
over all in questions common to country, and have one flag. The great
idea was expressed by New Jersey, that the continent must protect the
continent.

This idea of creating a new nationality was forced on the Colonies by
wanton aggressions on the local self-government. There was far from
unanimity of opinion as to the acts, much less as to the ascribed
purposes of the Ministry. Setting aside a class of no-party men in peace
and of non-combatants in war, the people of Boston, as of other places,
were divided into the friends and the opponents of the Administration,
Loyalists and Whigs. The Whigs held that the new policy was flat
aggression on the old republican way, hostile to their normal political
life,--in a word, unconstitutional: the Loy