persistent tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race
in the unswerving direction of personal liberty. The inhabitants of the
American Colonies revealed a tenacity and self-assertiveness in this
direction to a greater extent than had ever been shown in England. The
Jeffersonian idea has ever been that there shall be no king; that the
sovereign ruler should be placed on the same level and be judged by the
same principles as the humblest citizen; that the lords of the manors
are entitled to no more privileges than the poorest peasant; that these
rights are inalienable, and that any government which disregards them
must of necessity be tyrannical.

In his introduction to De Tocqueville's able "Democracy in America,"
Mr. John T. Morgan thus describes the formative period of the American
Republic, a period in which the name of Thomas Jefferson must, if
justice be meted out to him, appear in every chapter, and in every
important achievement that was then made:

"In the eleven years that separated the Declaration of the Independence
of the United States from the completion of that act in the ordination
of our written Constitution, the great minds of America were bent upon
the study of the principles of government that were essential to the
preservation of the liberties which had been won at great cost and with
heroic labors and sacrifices. Their studies were conducted in view of
the imperfections that experience had developed in the government of
the Confederation, and they were, therefore, practical and thorough.
When the Constitution was thus perfected and established, a new form of
government was created, but it was neither speculative nor experimental
as to the principles on which it was based. If they were true
principles, as they were, the government founded upon them was destined
to a life and an influence that would continue while the liberties it
was intended to preserve should be valued by the human family. Those
liberties had been wrung from reluctant monarchs in many contests, in
many countries, and were grouped into creeds and established in
ordinances sealed with blood, in many great struggles of the people.
They were not new to the people. They were consecrated theories, but no
government had been previously established for the great purpose of
their preservation and enforcement. That which was experimental in our
plan of government was the question whether democratic rule could be so
organized and conducted that it wou