e
first verse of Genesis.

In treating the several questions which the preparation of this volume
has brought up, in their connection, and in the light of first
principles, I have changed or modified, on more than one important
point, the views I had expressed in my previous writings, especially on
the distinction between civilized and barbaric nations, the real basis
of civilization itself, and the value to the world of the Graeco-Roman
civilization. I have ranked feudalism under the head of barbarism,
rejected every species of political aristocracy, and represented the
English constitution as essentially antagonistic to the American, not
as its type. I have accepted universal suffrage in principle, and
defended American democracy, which I define to be territorial
democracy, and carefully distinguish from pure individualism on the one
hand, and from pure socialism or humanitarianism on the other.

I reject the doctrine of State sovereignty, which I held and defended
from 1828 to 1861, but still maintain that the sovereignty of the
American Republic vests in the States, though in the States
collectively, or united, not severally, and thus escape alike
consolidation and disintegration. I find, with Mr. Madison, our most
philosophic statesman, the originality of the American system in the
division of powers between a General government having sole charge of
the foreign and general, and particular or State governments having,
within their respective territories, sole charge of the particular
relations and interests of the American people; but I do not accept his
concession that this division is of conventional origin, and maintain
that it enters into the original Providential constitution of the
American state, as I have done in my Review for October, 1863, and
January and October, 1864.

I maintain, after Mr. Senator Sumner, one of the most philosophic and
accomplished living American statesmen, that "State secession is State
suicide," but modify the opinion I too hastily expressed that the
political death of a State dissolves civil society within its territory
and abrogates all rights held under it, and accept the doctrine that
the laws in force at the time of secession remain in force till
superseded or abrogated by competent authority, and also that, till the
State is revived and restored as a State in the Union, the only
authority, under the American system, competent to supersede or
abrogate them is the Unite