ADDRESS

BEFORE THE

NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

1839.

LOOKING back, with the eye of historical observation, a little more than two centuries, and the country we now inhabit was but one vast wilderness. The stormy Atlantic rolled its billows upon a desolate coast, where a dense forest, coming down to the ocean, and unbroken, except by the rivers which drained. this great continent, bore witness to the complete triumph of uncultivated nature. This mighty wilderness of forest, prairie, and lake, extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific-its silence disturbed only by the water-fall, or the crash of some decaying monarch of the wood-affording shelter for the wild beast, or for the still wilder savage, who wandered through its mazes in search of food.

At the eastern line of the horizon, we may discover a vessel making for this solitary coast. It approaches, and, after a careful selection of a haven, a company of hardy men land upon the verge of this wilderness. They are not mere adventurers in search of gold; nor have they come to pay a hasty and temporary visit to this new world. The shores which they wistfully gaze upon are to be their permanent homes. These constitute the only country they now have. The habits of civilization they have brought with them, and the rudiments of civil and social institutions, are engrafted upon their minds. All around them is wilderness, and cultivated man is thus brought into direct

association with uncultivated nature.

The forest is to be sub

dued, and social, religious and political institutions are to be established, to control and influence the people, who are destined to subject it to the uses of civilized man.

This is a brief description of the condition of the founders of the American settlements, whether we look to the followers of the chivalric and adventurous Smith; the hardy Hollanders, who established themselves here; or the stern and enthusiastic Puritans who landed at Plymouth.

In order to form accurate notions of their peculiar position in the history of mankind, we must glance beyond the ocean to the civilized world, with which they have for a time almost entirely disconnected themselves.

Looking at the old continent, it is impossible not to perceive a marked difference between the Northern and the other European governments. The former seem to have been founded upon one comprehensive and uniform principle, and consequently have been less affected by the movements of modern society. The governments simple and more absolute : education confined to the nobility: and villienage still in full existence in the North,-all attest how comparatively small has been the advance of those governments, and that they owe their origin to a common source,-the customs and institutions of the Sclavonian or Northern tribes.

The social institutions of middle and Southern Europe, on the contrary, have been founded on the ruins of a pre-existent state of civilization, and they are to be elucidated by reference to their history and long established usage. In this particular they resemble, as has been most accurately observed, the edifices of Italy and Greece at the present day. Their materials have not been quarried out of the living rock; but collected from the scattered remains of the temples and dwellings of ancient days. While the sterner and harsher features of the political institutions of Northern Europe remind the observer of the primitive formations of their granite mountains.

Hence, in examining into the theory of the governments of Southern Europe, we are at once carried back to the era of the

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fall of the Imperial City; for in the crumbling frame of the Roman Empire, and in the fusion or amalgamation of the invading barbarians with its conquered inhabitants, we are to look for the elements of European civilization.

The policy of the imperial government was, to render the provinces tributary and entirely dependent upon the capital. Her servants and favourites were rewarded by provincial appointments, in much the same manner as England now provides for her decaying nobility, by giving to the younger scions of the aristocracy some office in the colonies. The rights of peace and war, of legislation, and of levying taxes, were taken from the provinces to be exercised at Rome, and nothing was left to them, but the powers of administering the laws of the emperor.

The Imperial Code, afterwards so celebrated as the civil law, was extended over the whole empire, and was administered by prefects and judges appointed at Rome, and generally citizens. of that city.

The maxim, that subjects had nothing to do with the government, was predominant in all parts of the system. They had only to obey; and the object of political institutions was not to protect the subject from the tyranny of the ruler, but to enforce justice, as between individual citizens, and to preserve order and tranquillity. For this, these laws were admirably adapted, but they provided no security for political rights. Regarding the emperor as the controlling mind, and requiring unqualified obedience from the subject, no provision was made for the improvement and advancement of the mass of the community; and from the necessity which man is under of advancing or retrograding, the Roman Empire had thus early implanted the principle of degeneracy, and of ultimate destruction.

This empire was broken up into various fragments, which, in the course of time, were united under different heads, and now form the existing kingdoms of Europe, by successive irruptions of the barbarous hordes from what historians call the northern hive of nations. From the earliest antiquity, this portion of the globe had periodically sent forth its swarms of hardy warriors, to invade the more favoured climes; and we

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learn from the classic historians of Rome, as well as from those who, in a degenerate style, recorded the events of her declining years, that the invaders were accompanied by their wives and children, and that they came with a determination to find a country or a grave.

The first inquiry then is, what influence did the political institutions of the empire exert in establishing the existing constitutions of Europe? and for a solution of that inquiry, we must ask, what was the political organization of the empire? It is hardly necessary to inform this audience, that this empire was composed by the successive conquest of cities. Rome itself was in the beginning merely a municipality; and she extended her sway over Italy and Greece, by overcoming rival cities, which after the conquest merely acknowledged the supremacy and authority of Rome, and were permitted to preserve their municipal organization. The whole shore of the Mediterranean, from Byzantium to Carthage, was studded with cities, and France and Spain were divided into small districts of country, which were dependencies upon some large town or city. It was by the conquest of these that the Imperial City established her authority throughout Europe; and when she sought to extend her empire over the thinly settled countries of Parthia, Scythia, and Germany, her political system proved unequal to accompany the march of her legions.

As these dependent provinces preserved their municipal organization, their connection was easily dissolved, as soon as the military supremacy of the capital was at an end; and during the fifth century, the ascendancy of the northern hordes being fully established, the western empire fell a victim to her barbarous invaders.

The customs of the conquerors, like those of all warlike savages, were simple, and their laws aimed chiefly to secure military discipline, and an equitable distribution of plunder. They brought with them, however, two principles of paramount importance; not only in giving them victory and power for the time being, but in impelling the communities with which they were about to unite into a new channel of exertion. The first