gnise two distinct shades
corresponding to two distinct branches of the family, or to use the
expression consecrated by history, to two distinct races. One of
those races--that which I designate by the name of the
Gauls--presents in the most marked manner all the natural
dispositions, all the faults and all the virtues, of the family; to
it belong, in their purest state, the individual types of the Gaul.
The other, the Kimry, less active, less spiritual perhaps,
possesses in return more weight and stability: it is in its bosom
principally that we remark the institutions of classification and
order; it is there that the ideas of theocracy and monarchy longest
maintain their sway."--(I. iv. vi.)

How important and how little attended to is this character of the
different races of men! How perfectly is it preserved under all
situations and under all circumstances! No lapse of time can change, no
distance can efface it. Nowhere do we see this more distinctly than in
America: there how marked is the difference of the Spanish race in the
south and the Anglo-Saxon in the north! And from this we may draw a
deeply important practical lesson; viz. the danger of attempting to
force on one race institutions fitted to another. Under a free
government, the Anglo-Saxon in the north flourished and increased, and
became a mighty people. Under a despotic sway, the Spaniard in the south
was slowly but surely treading that path which would ultimately have led
to national greatness, when a revolution, nourished by English gold, and
rendered victorious by English arms, inflicted what was to him the curse
of free institutions. Under their influence, commerce has fled from the
shores of New Spain; the gold-mines of Peru lie unworked; population has
retrograded; the fertile land has returned to a state of nature; and
anarchy, usurping the place of government, has involved the country in
ruin and desolation. Nor is this the only instance of the effect of free
institutions on the Spanish race. In Old Spain the same experiment has
been tried, and has produced the same result. Under their withering
effect, the empire of Spain and the Indies has passed away; the mother
country, torn by internal dissensions, has fallen from her proud estate,
and can with difficulty drag on a precarious existence amidst all the
tumult and blood of incessant revolutions. How long will it be ere we
learn that free i