s of the seventeenth century were begun by the king
and great nobles to suppress the rising power of the commons, and
continued till constitutional liberty was practically secured to all the
subjects of the British empire.

The French Revolution was the revolt of the people of France against one
of the most cruel and tyrannical aristocracies that ever reigned; and
continued, with brief interruptions, till the people of both France and
Italy had vindicated the right to choose their emperors by popular
suffrage.

During the half century between the years 1775 and 1825, every people in
North America had thrown off the power of a foreign aristocracy by war,
and established a republican form of government, except the Canadas,
which secured the same practical results by more peaceful methods.

The historian perceives that each of these great wars was an inevitable
condition of liberty for the people, and has exalted their condition. In
all these struggles there were the same kinds of opponents to the war:
the ignorant, who knew nothing about it; the morally indifferent, who
could not see why freemen and tyrants could not agree to live together
in amity; and the demagogues, who were willing to ruin the country to
exalt themselves. But we now understand that only through these red
gates of war could the peoples of the world have marched up to their
present enjoyment of liberty; that each naming portal is a triumphal
arch, on which is inscribed some great conquest for mankind.

The present civil war in the United States is the last frantic attempt
of this dying feudal aristocracy to save itself from inevitable
dissolution. The election of Mr. Lincoln as President of the United
States, in 1860, by the vote of every Free State, was the announcement
to the world that the people of the United States had finally and
decisively conquered the feudal aristocracy of the republic after a
civil contest of eighty years. With no weapons but those placed in their
hands by the Constitution of the United States, the freemen of the
republic had practically put this great slave aristocracy under their
feet forever. That portion of the Union which was controlled by the will
of the whole people had become so decidedly superior in every attribute
of power and civilization, that the slave aristocracy despaired of
further peaceful resistance to the march of liberty through the land.
Like every other aristocracy that has lived, it drew the sword on