Page:The Civil War in America - an address read at the last meeting of the Manchester Union and Emancipation Society.djvu/33

Rh of wages, an almost unlimited command of drink and stimulants, habits of coarse indulgence are sure to be too common. This is naturally the case in an especial manner among the emigrants, unaccustomed to the command of such luxuries, and untrained to self-control. Popular effort, however, to reform popular vice is more common than it is with us. The Maine liquor-law may not have been wise or very effective, but it denotes a desire on the part of the masses to exert self-control; and I am inclined to think that we shall see this desire further displayed.

I have not said, in touching on each of these main features of American society, this is a Christian feature; but the remark would suggest itself spontaneously if what I have said on each point is true.

I speak of the political institutions last, not because they are the least important subject, but because this is the natural order. Political institutions are the expression of national character, though they re-act powerfully on the character, of which they are the expression. No community but one of diffused property and intelligence, socially united and sound in its morality, could support perfectly free institutions on so large a scale. Not the special form of the government, but the comparative absence of necessity for government, is the thing to be noted and admired, politically speaking, in the United States. The proper sphere of government is compulsion. The necessity for it in any given community is in inverse proportion to the social virtue and the intelligence of the people. The policeman, the executioner, the tax-gatherer, these are its proper ministers, and the representatives of what we call its majesty. It is destined to decrease as Christianity increases, and as force is superseded by social affection, and spontaneous