Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/10

 thus the surest bulwark for political liberty itself. Yes, local self-government, or home rule, is of the very warp and woof of our institutions.

These salutary political principles, these racial characteristics, were transplanted also to the kindly soil of the New World when a greater Britain was planted here.

It was in support of these principles that our Revolutionary sires protested against the unconstitutional stamp acts and similar taxation measures of England oppressive of the American minority, in the efforts of the mother country to recuperate for the expenses of the French and Indian war. At first, they sought a peaceable remedy in the form of remonstrances, resolutions and the like. When they found that these availed them not, they then reluctantly accepted the gauge of battle flung in their faces by their haughty oppressors across the seas. Even after actual war was raging, these American patriots of British stock still indulged the fatuous dream of an unbroken British union, and sought to wage their fight under the British crown and, as nearly as possible, under the British flag. (4) As himself afterward declared, George Washington, when he took command of the rebel forces under authority from the Continental Congress, "abhorred the idea of independence." (5)

But the logic of events soon brought forth the instrument officially entitled "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America." (6) (And, by the way, Declaration is written with a big D, united States with a little u and a capital S.) This immortal declaration laid down the fundamental doctrine that:

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

This, our first war for independence, was successful. About