PREFACE.

Had the children of the South been always educated in the same school of political and social thought as the children of the North, the civil war of 1861 could not have occurred.

Were the children of all citizens, whether native or foreign born, alike instructed in American principles, no apprehension for the integrity or perpetuity of the American system would disturb the reflections of the patriot.

But with the ballot in the hands of every man, and the destinies of the country committed to the control of the majority-be that majority native or foreign, educated or ignorant, liberal or prejudiced, black or white, Republican or Democratic-are we sure of either the integrity or perpetuity of our institutions, unless the principles which underlie them are brought home to the conscious knowledge of the masses of the people?

Yet, what have we hitherto accomplished in popular political education? Grant that Story, Kent, Lieber, DeTocqueville, Duer, Bancroft, and many other able minds, have exhausted research in their learned addresses to the educated; how many of all who wield the ballot have read their works, or are capable of understanding them? Grant that the newspaper, the court-room, the political convention, the public meeting, the stump speech, the fourth of July oration, are continually refracting some detached ray from the American system of thought; does the popular eye learn from these disconnected and often distorted glimpses, to take in the full blaze of light which streams from the constellation of American ideas? Does the limited reading of the con

densed history of our country, in the text books used in our public schools, give any adequate conception of the differences pervading our whole political and legal fabric as compared with those from which it was eliminated?

And how generally has the light of patriotism been dimmed or altogether hidden by the clouds of ignorance, prejudice, sectionalism, and above all, of party spirit! In the South, how slight must have been the popular appreciation of the fundamental principles of personal liberty, equality, free speech, free press, free assembly, free communication, free education, the dignity of labor, progress, and even loyalty, when all of these ideas were supplanted by theories suggested in the interests of a slave-holding aristocracy, and therefore utterly subversive of the whole American system! And in the North, how feeble the attachment to our "intellectual system of government among those multitudes who, appreciating perhaps the form but not the spirit of our institutions, opposed by every means in their power all measures intended for the suppression of that rebellion whose success would have sounded the knell of American ideas!

Reading but little of history, preoccupied by the cares of life, misled by a partisan and often vicious newspaper press, misinformed by designing demagogues, conscious of the ills they bear, but regardless of others they know not of, how often do large masses of our citizens exhibit their indifference to the vital ideas of our system, their exaltation of party above country, their preference of sectarian to national principles, their willingness in fact to barter their great inheritance for any mess of pottage commended to their temporary or fancied needs by the corrupt hands of traitors to American thought!

Such reflections as these, recurring at every election campaign during many years, have induced the following attempt so to collate and explain the salient points of our system, as to bring them within the comprehension of the youth of our public schools, and furnish the immigrant with a correct idea of what it means to become an American citizen. The plan of the book differs from that of all other works on the subject that I have been able to find. It differs in its object, which

is to explain the principles actuating the existing American order, rather than to state that order. It differs in its method, which is designed to interest the learner, not only by the use of a familiar and almost colloquial style, but by the arrangement and division of the topics on an original plan: by appeals to his own common sense, by reference to the laws of nature, and by quotations from the Bible. For the latter, I shall not insult the intelligent reader by offering an apology. I have sought to give "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." As a treatise on natural philosophy would be of little value should it omit to treat of the law of gravitation, so would a work on American ideas be radically defective if the Christianity which interpenetrates them were ignored. Europe unites the state with the externals of religion-America owes the state to its spirit.

By plain statements of propositions, of the arguments proving them, and of their counterparts in the old European principles of government, I have endeavored to pave the way for that examination of the forms of our constitution and laws, (so ably analyzed in Townsend's, Sullivan's, Sheppard's and Mansfield's text books) which will be a more appetizing study after American principles have been impressed on the understanding. And this work aims to rouse the mind, whether of the youth, the foreigner or the native voter, to an intelligent attachment to American ideas, and thereby-should it be so fortunate as to attain a reasonable circulation-to do something to forestall in the future such terrible conflicts of opinion, as in the past have so nearly wrecked the ship of state among the breakers of party warfare.

During the years whose few spare crumbs of time, fallen from the tables of business and family care, have been all I could devote to this labor, I have noticed in the daily press an occasional call for a school book that would instruct our youth in the elements of patriotism. Even in our higher seminaries, little or nothing is taught bearing upon the future status of the pupils as leaders of American opinion. Said Governor Haight, speaking as President of the Board of Regents of the University of California, in his Commencement Address for 1871 : lack in American colleges is the imperfect instruction imparted to

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