From “Characteristics of the American Revolution.”

THE NAME of Republic is inscribed upon the most imperishable monuments of the species, and it is probable that it will continue to be associated, as it has been in all past ages, with whatever is heroic in character, and sublime in genius, and elegant and brilliant in the cultivation of arts and letters. It would not have been difficult to prove that the base hirelings who, in this age of legitimacy and downfall, have so industriously inculcated a contrary doctrine, have been compelled to falsify history and abuse reason. I might have “called up antiquity from the old schools of Greece” to show that these apostles of despotism would have passed at Athens for barbarians and slaves. I might have asked triumphantly, What land had even been visited with the influences of liberty, that did not flourish like the spring? What people had ever worshiped at her altars, without kindling with a loftier spirit and putting forth more noble energies? Where she had ever acted, that her deeds had not been heroic? Where she had ever spoken, that her eloquence had not been triumphant and sublime? It might have been demonstrated that a state of society in which nothing is obtained by patronage—nothing is yielded to the accidents of birth and fortune—where those who are already distinguished must exert themselves lest they be speedily eclipsed by their inferiors, and these inferiors are, by every motive, stimulated to exert themselves that they may become distinguished—and where, the lists being open to the whole world, without any partiality or exclusion, the champion who bears off the prize must have tasked his powers to the very uttermost, and proved himself the first of a thousand competitors—is necessarily more favorable to a bold, vigorous, and manly way of thinking and acting, than any other. I should have asked with Longinus, Who but a Republican could have spoken the Philippics of Demosthenes? and what has the patronage of despotism ever done to be compared with the spontaneous productions of the Attic, the Roman, and the Tuscan muse?

  With respect to ourselves, who have been so systematically vilified by British critics—if any answer were expected to be given to their shallow and vulgar sophistry, and there was not a sufficient practical refutation of it, in the undoubted success of some of the artists and writers that are springing up in our own times—we should be perfectly safe, in resting, upon the operation of general causes and the whole analogy of history, our anticipation of the proudest success, in all the pursuits of a high and honorable ambition. That living, as we do, in the midst of a forest, we have been principally engaged in felling and improving it; and that those arts, which suppose wealth and leisure and a crowded population, are not yet so flourishing amongst us as they will be in the course of a century or two, is so much a matter of course, that, instead of exciting wonder and disgust, one is only surprised how it should even have attracted notice; but the question whether we are destitute of genius and sensibility and loftiness of character, and all the aspirings that prompt to illustrious achievements, and all the elements of national greatness and glory, is quite a distinct thing, and we may appeal, with confidence, to what we have done and to what we are, to the Revolution we are this day celebrating, to the career we have since run, to our recent exploits upon the flood and in the field, to the skill of our diplomacy, to the comprehensive views and undoubted abilities of our statesmen, to the virtues and prosperity of our people, to the exhibition on every occasion of all the talents called for by its exigencies and admitted by its nature; nay, to the very hatred—the vehement and irrepressible hatred with which these revilers themselves have so abundantly honored us—to show that nothing can be more preposterous than the contempt with which they have sometimes affected to speak of us.

  And, were there no other argument, as there are many, to prove that the character of the nation is altogether worthy of its high destinies, would it not be enough to say that we live under a form of government and in a state of society to which the world has never yet exhibited a parallel? Is it then nothing to be free? How many nations, in the whole annals of human kind have proved themselves worthy of being so? Is it nothing that we are Republicans? Were all men as enlightened, as brave, as proud as they ought to be, would they suffer themselves to be insulted with any other title? Is it nothing that so many independent sovereignties should be held together in such a confederacy as ours? What does history teach us of the difficulty of instituting and maintaining such a polity, and of the glory that, of consequence, ought to be given to those who enjoy its advantages in so much perfection and on so grand a scale? For can anything be more striking and sublime than the idea of an imperial republic, spreading over an extent of territory more immense than the empire of the Cæsars, in the accumulated conquests of a thousand years—without prefects or proconsuls or publicans—founded in the maxims of common sense—employing within itself no arms but those of reason—and known to its subjects only by the blessings it bestows or perpetuates, yet capable of directing against a foreign foe all the energies of a military despotism—a Republic in which men are completely insignificant, and principles and laws exercise throughout its vast dominion a peaceful and irresistible sway, blending in one divine harmony such various habits and conflicting opinions, and mingling in our institutions the light of philosophy with all that is dazzling in the associations of heroic achievement and extended domination, and deep-seated and formidable power!