As the same causes are continually in operation throughout the country, they ultimately impart an irresistible im- .pulse to the national character. The American, taken as a chance specimen of his country, must then be a man of singular warmth in his desires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and above all of innovation. The same bent is manifested in all that he does; he introduces it into his political laws, his religious doctrine, his theories of social economy, and his domestic

occupations; he bears it with him into the depth of the backwoods, as well as into the business of the city. It is this same passion, applied to maritime commerce, which makes him the cheapest and quickest trader in the world."

The inner life, the domestic history of any portion ! of a people which thus impressed the shrewdest and most philosophical of all European writers on America, ' requires and deserves a more detailed exiunination and j presentation than is possible to the historian writing the social and political history of a nation, or even of j one presenting the annals of a State. It is in the private life, in the principles that impress individual action, in the moral character of the men of business, I in the purity of social life and in the virtues which I embellish the home, that depend the value of our civilization and the permanency of our political institutions. Mr. Alison, in his "History of I'urope," prophesied that " democratic institutions will not and can- ! not exist permanently in North America. The frightful i anarchy which lias prevailed in the Southern States I since the great interests dependent on slave emancij pation were brought into jeopardy, the irresistible j sway of the majority, and the rapid tendency of 1 the majority to deeds of atrocity and blood, the ' increasing jealousy, on mercantile grounds, of the !