the soil they selected, and the commerce they found
within their reach, was readily attributed only to their more popular
constitutions; as, at this day, we find American prosperity held out
to our example, not as the result of local circumstances, but as the
creature of political institutions.

One principal cause of the republican forms of government that began
(as, after the Dorian migration, the different tribes became settled
in those seats by which they are historically known) to spread
throughout Greece, was, therefore, the establishment of colonies
retaining constant intercourse with the parent states. A second cause
is to be found in the elements of the previous constitutions of the
Grecian states themselves, and the political principles which existed
universally, even in the heroic ages: so that, in fact, the change
from monarchy to republicanism was much less violent than at the first
glance it would seem to our modern notions. The ancient kings, as
described by Homer, possessed but a limited authority, like that of
the Spartan kings--extensive in war, narrow in peace. It was
evidently considered that the source of their authority was in the
people. No notion seems to have been more universal among the Greeks
than that it was for the community that all power was to be exercised.
In Homer's time popular assemblies existed, and claimed the right of
conferring privileges on rank. The nobles were ever jealous of the
prerogative of the prince, and ever encroaching on his accidental
weakness. In his sickness, his age, or his absence, the power of the
state seems to have been wrested from his hands--the prey of the
chiefs, or the dispute of contending factions. Nor was there in
Greece that chivalric fealty to a person which characterizes the
North. From the earliest times it was not the MONARCH, that called
forth the virtue of devotion, and inspired the enthusiasm of loyalty.
Thus, in the limited prerogative of royalty, in the jealousy of the
chiefs, in the right of popular assemblies, and, above all, in the
silent and unconscious spirit of political theory, we may recognise in
the early monarchies of Greece the germes of their inevitable
dissolution. Another cause was in that singular separation of tribes,
speaking a common language, and belonging to a common race, which
characterized the Greeks. Instead of overrunning a territory in one
vast irruption, each section seized a small district, built a city,