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ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
de l' Angleterre ? Elle expulse ce roi, et met à sa place un roi d'une famille alliée sans doute, mais qui se trouve ainsi, non plus un fils de la royauté, confiant dans Ie droit de ses ancêtres, mais Ie fils des institutions natio- nales, tirant tous ses droits de cette seule origine. . . . Le gouvernement représentatif est encore bon à une chose que sa majesté a oubliée. II fait que des ministres essuient sans répliquer les épigrammes d'un roi qui cherche à se venger ainsi de son impuissance." Mr. Bryce's work has received a hearty welcome in its proper hemisphere, and I know not that any critic has doubted \vhether the pious founder, with the dogma of unbroken continuity, strikes the just note or covers all the ground. At another angle, the origin of the greatest power and the grandest polity in the annals of mankind emits a different ray. It was a favourite doctrine with Webster and Tocqueville that the beliefs of the pilgrims inspired the Revolution, which others deem a triumph of pelagianism; \vhile J. Q. Adams affirms that U not one of the motives which stimulated the puritans of 1643 had the slightest influence in actuating the confederacy of I 774." The Dutch statesman Hogendorp, returning from the United States in 1784, had the following dialogue with the stadtholder: "La religion, monseigneur, a moins d'influence que jamais sur les esprits. . . . II y a toute une province de quakers? . . . Depuis la révolution il semble que ces sortes de différences s'évanouissent. . . . Les Bostoniens ne sont-ils pas fort dévots? . . . lis l'étaient, monseigneur, mais à lire les descriptions faites il y a vingt ou même dix ans, on ne les reconnaît pas de ce côté-Ià." It is an old story that the federal constitution, unlike that of Hérault de Séchelles, makes no allusion to the Deity; that there is none in the president's oath; and that in 1796 it was stated officially that the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. No three men had more to do with the new order than Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson. Franklin's irreligious tone ,vas such that his manuscripts, like Bentham's, were
