give to the world.

It is but a part of that great race spirit which the Conqueror could not
conquer; the lingering spirit of freedom which the iron heel of despotic
usurpation could not stamp out, the memory of a lost freedom ranking in
the hearts of men determined to restore in their island home those
ancient rights which no man dared to question in the days of the Saxon,
Edward the Confessor.

The condition of the early Saxon as it was raised by the wisdom and
benevolence of good King Alfred, and as it remained until the end of the
reign of the unfortunate Harold, was that of a freeman, a freeman not
merely in the sense of being his own master, but "he was a living unit
in the State." He held his lands in his own right. He attended the
courts, and entered in their deliberations. He bore arms and, by
authority of law, could use them in his own defense. The animating
principle of Anglo-Saxon government was local sovereignty. Matters from
the smallest to the greatest were vested in the local power.

* * * * *

The establishment, after the granting of the Magna Charta, thus firmly
of the liberties of England has been accomplished by bitter and fierce
struggles; the obstructive forces were strong, but yielded in the end to
the onward sweep of liberty directed by the aggressive spirit of
intelligence, manhood, and humanity. At the end of the sixteenth century
this much had been gained for freedom. The principles of liberty, which
had been constantly acknowledged in written documents or had been
established by precedents and examples (some of which were the remains
of their ancient liberties) had been embodied as a part of the
fundamental law of the land; those local institutions, which a while ago
we found among the free Saxons, and even now pregnant with the seeds of
liberty,--the jury, the right of holding public meetings, of bearing
arms, and finally the Parliament itself had become a part of the common
law of England.

Then came the Reformation and its demand for religious freedom. Against
the claim of a divinely ordained kingly power, the Cavalier was found
ready to revolt. The Puritans writhed under their religious restraint.
The Puritan and the Cavalier joined their cause; political liberty
invoked the aid of Faith, and Faith hallowed and strengthened the
crusade of human liberty. The struggle increased against absolute power,
spiritual and political, now concentrated in kingly hands. Giants they
were who too