Page:Democracy in America (Reeve, v. 1).djvu/64



ORIGIN OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS, AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN RELATION TO THEIR FUTURE CONDITION.

Utility of knowing the origin of nations in order to understand their social condition and their laws.—America the only country in which the starting-point of a great people has been clearly observable.—In what respects all who emigrated to British America were similar.—In what they differed.—Remark applicable to all the Europeans who established themselves on the shores of the New World.—Colonization of Virginia.—Colonization of New England.—Original character of the first inhabitants of New England.—Their arrival.—Their first laws.—Their social contract.—Penal code borrowed from the Hebrew legislation.—Religious fervour.—Republican spirit.—Intimate union of the spirit of religion with the spirit of liberty.

the birth of a human being his early years are obscurely spent in the toils or pleasures of childhood. As he grows up the world receives him, when his manhood begins, and he enters into contact with his fellows. He is then studied for the first time, and it is imagined that the germ of the vices and the virtues of his maturer years is then formed.

This, if I am not mistaken, is a great error. We must begin higher up; we must watch the infant in his mother's arms; we must see the first