Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/423

Rh government. You have long known much better than I can describe it, that wonderful States'-government, which affords such a boundless field and so strong an impulse to free competition and development, not merely for individuals, but for society and states. This constitutional form of government seems to me, more than anything else, to prove that the destiny of a people is pre-ordained by the hand of Providence before they themselves comprehend it. They must accomplish His plans, and the question as regards them is merely the doing it well or ill.

It is evident that the founders of the American republic, Washington and his men, did not take a philosophical review of the work which they had accomplished in it; that they had no presentiment of the future of which they had laid the foundation; they followed the beckoning hand of necessity; they did that which they must do; but they did not know what it was which they had done: and for a long time the States grew, as the lilies of the field in God's sunshine, without knowing how or for what purpose!

It was not until long afterwards that a portion of them awoke to a consciousness of the sublime mission which they are called upon to perform,—the emancipation of humanity socially and politically.

The violent movement and rotation in public life, the perpetual appointment of officers to every department of government, and their deposition again in a short time, at most in four years, has made all Europe shake its head; and I suppose that all Asia would, if it could, shrug its shoulders in such a way as to cause the wall of China to quake. And it is not without reason that many wise men in this country have shaken their heads thoughtfully, at some application of the rotation-principle which has occurred here and there: thus, for example, I heard serious complaints made in the young Mississippi States,