e defenders and advocates of a federal and central power. An
entirely new political organization was gradually formed, resting
equally on such pillars as independent townships and independent States,
and these represented by delegates in a national centre.

So we believe America was discovered, not so much to furnish a field for
indefinite material expansion, with European arts and fashions,--which
would simply assimilate America to the Old World, with all its dangers
and vices and follies,--but to introduce new forms of government, new
social institutions, new customs and manners, new experiments in
liberty, new religious organizations, new modes to ameliorate the
necessary evils of life. It was discovered that men might labor and
enjoy the fruits of industry in a new mode, unfettered by the restraints
which the institutions of Europe imposed. America is a new field in
which to try experiments in government and social life, which cannot be
tried in the older nations without sweeping and dangerous revolutions;
and new institutions have arisen which are our pride and boast, and
which are the wonder and admiration of Europe. America is the only
country under the sun in which there is self-government,--a government
which purely represents the wishes of the people, where universal
suffrage is not a mockery. And if America has a destiny to fulfil for
other nations, she must give them something more valuable than reaping
machines, palace cars, and horse railroads. She must give, not only
machinery to abridge labor, but institutions and ideas to expand the
mind and elevate the soul,--something by which the poor can rise and
assert their rights. Unless something is developed here which cannot be
developed in other countries, in the way of new spiritual and
intellectual forces, which have a conservative influence, then I cannot
see how America can long continue to be the home and refuge of the poor
and miserable of other lands. A new and better spirit must vivify
schools and colleges and philanthropic enterprises than that which has
prevailed in older nations. Unless something new is born here which has
a peculiar power to save, wherein will America ultimately differ from
other parts of Christendom? We must have schools in which the heart as
well as the brain is educated, and newspapers which aspire to something
higher than to fan prejudices and appeal to perverted tastes. Our hope
is not in books which teach infidelity under the