Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/22

Rh America, at Jamestown; in 1620 the Pilgrims began their far-famed experiment at Plymouth. What a change from 1608 to 1854! It is not in my power to determine the number of immigrants before the Revolution. There was a great variety of nationalities—Dutch in New York, Germans in Pennsylvania and Georgia, Swedes and Finns in Delaware, Scotch in New England and North Carolina, Swiss in Georgia; Acadians from Nova Scotia; and Huguenots from France.

America has now a stable form of government. Her pyramid is not yet high. It is only humble powers that she develops, no great creative spirit here as yet enchants men with the wonders of literature and art;—but her foundation is wide and deeply laid. It is now easy to see the conditions and the causes of her success. The conditions are, the new continent, a virgin soil to receive the seed of liberty; the causes were, first, the character of the tribe, and next, the liberal institutions founded thereby.

The rapid increase of America in most of the elements of national power, is a remarkable fact in the history of mankind.

Look at the increase of numbers. In 1689, the entire population of the English colonies, exclusive of the Indians, amounted to about 200,000. Twenty-five years later there were 434,000, now 24,000,000.