charged by some of his neighbors, who are willing to exchange the results of their labors for the products of his, whereby he gets more for a less exertion. But both parties soon discover, that there are a great many objects which can be attained only by working in common. Accordingly, they lend a hand to each other in felling forests, erecting houses, and cutting roads. As the population multiplies, the occasions for their mutual assistance increase. They combine their judgments and energies for a greater variety and a more extensive range of purposes. They discuss plans of general usefulness; they lay out streets for their little town; they put up a church and a school-house; they club their funds for the purchase of a library; they organize societies for mutual improvement; they institute tribunals to decide disputes; or, in manifold other modes, they contribute to the general defence and security.
If, now, we suppose a similar town to have grown up not far off, we shall see the two establishing an intercourse between themselves, and combining to construct roads, endow colleges, and accomplish other undertakings convenient to the public good: their internal ties, as they spread, exhibit the same tendency to union which marked their previous internal arrangements. Other towns, again, spring up, which still further multiply and complicate their respective relations. From time to time, the union is rendered more definite and complete, a regular code of laws determines the relations of the respective communities and of their members respectively, and a constitutional government is finally instituted. Thus the single family of the squatter has grown first into a settlement, then into a village, then a township, then a county, next a state, and at last a federated republic. At each step, the relations of the people have extended, multiplied, and complicated. Their union has been strengthened; they have been brought nearer together; they have had more interests and more labors in common; isolation has given place to concentration; rude independence to regulated dependence; the centrifugal tendency of individuals restrained by the centripetal tendencies of society; and transient expedients and loose arrangements, one by one, have been supplanted
