don their country, rather than submit to a tyranny that threatened to enslave their immortal minds, and made them seek in the New World the freedom of conscience that was denied to them in the Old. They have been justly accused, indeed, of not immediately carrying out their principles to their legitimate results, and of being intolerant to each other. Still, be it remembered to their honour, that both in theory and in practice, they were in these respects far in advance of all their contemporaries; still more, that their descendants have maintained this advanced position; so that the people of the United States of America now enjoy liberty of conscience to an extent unknown in any other country. Persecution led the Puritan colonists to examine the great subject of human rights, the nature and just extent of civil government, and the boundaries at which obedience ceases to be a duty. What Sir James Mackintosh has said of John Bunyan might be applied to them: "The severities to which he had been subjected had led him to revolve in his own mind the principles of religious freedom, until he had acquired the ability of baffling, in the conflict of argument, the most acute and learned among his persecutors." The clear convictions of their own minds on this subject they transmitted to their posterity, nor was the inheritance neglected or forgotten. kind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognised no title to superiority but His favour; and, confident of that, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands; their diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language; nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged; on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest; who had been destined, before the heavens and the earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events, which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been orThe political institutions of the Puritan dained on his account. For his sake emcolonies of New-England are to be traced pires had risen, and flourished, and decayto their religion, not their religion to their ed. For his sake the Almighty had propolitical institutions, and this remark ap- claimed his will, by the pen of the evangeplies to other colonies also. Now, if the list, and the harp of the prophet. He had reader would know what the religious been rescued by no common Deliverer character of those Puritans was, let him from the grasp of no common foe. peruse the following eloquent eulogy upon had been ransomed by the sweat of no them, from a source which will not be sus- vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly pected of partiality to their religion, what-sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had ever opinions may be attributed to it in relation to their political principles. "The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging in general terms an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with Him face to face. Hence originated their contempt of earthly distinctions. The difference between the greatest and meanest of manC He been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God."* A BRIEF NOTICE OF THE FORM OF GOVERN- SOME knowledge of the civil and political structure of the government is almost indispensable to a correct investigation of the religious economy of the United States; for although there is no longer a union there between Church and State, still the interests of religion come into contact, in many ways, with the political organizations of the General and State Governments. The Government of the United States must appear extremely complicated to a * Edinburgh Review, vol. xlii., 339. foreigner accustomed to the unity that distinguishes most monarchical polities, and complicated it is in fact. We will endeavour to describe its leading features as briefly as possible. The whole country, then, is subject to what is called the National or General Government, composed of three branches: 1. The Executive; II. The Legislative; III. The Judicial. hold circuit courts in different parts of the country. The whole country is divided, also, into districts, each having a judge appointed by the President, for the decision of causes that fall within the cognizance of the United States' courts, and from whose decisions an appeal lies to the Supreme Court. That court decides how far the laws passed by the National Congress, or by the legislatures of the different states, are consistent with the Constitution; also, all questions between individual states, or between the United States and an individual state, and questions arising between a foreigner and either the United States or any one state. The executive power is lodged in one man, the President; who is appointed for four years, by electors chosen for that purpose, each state being allowed as many as it has members of Congress. These are chosen differently in different states, but generally by districts, each district choosing one elector, and that for the sole purpose of electing the President and Vice-eration, the jurisdiction of each being conPresident. The latter presides over the Senate, but his office is almost nominal: I should the President die, the Vice-President immediately steps into his place. The President appoints the secretaries of state, or ministers of the various departments of the administration, such as the treasury, navy, war office, &c., and, directly or indirectly, he appoints to all offices in the National or General Government; in the case of the more important ones, however, only with the consent and appro bation of the Senate. The government of the states individually, closely resembles that of the Confed fined, of course, to its own territory. Each has its own governor and its own Legislature; the latter, in all cases but one, consists of a Senate and House of Representatives, besides a supreme law court, with subordinate district and county courts. The Legislature of each state embraces a vast variety of subjects, falling within the compass of its own internal interests. The different states vary materially on several points, such as the term during which the governor holds office, and the extent of his power; the terms for which the senators and representatives are elected, and for which the judges are appointed; the sala The legislation of the National Government is committed to the Congress, and that has two branches, the Senate and theries of those functionaries, and so forth. House of Representatives. The Senate is composed of two persons from each state in the Union, chosen by the legislatures of the states respectively, and for the period of six years. The House of Representatives is chosen by the people of the states, generally by districts, and for the period of two years.* Their number is, from time to time, determined by law. The House of Representatives represents the people; the Senate represents the states. No act of Congress has the force of law without the President's signature, unless when two thirds of each House has voted in favour of an act which he refuses to sign. All matters falling within the legislative jurisdiction of the Congress are specified in the Constitution of the United States: such as are not specifically mentioned there, are reserved for the legislation of the individual states. The judicial power is vested in a Supreme Court, consisting at present of nine judges, appointed by the President, with the consent of the Senate. They can be removed only by impeachment before the Senate, and hold a yearly winter session at Washington, the capital of the United States. When not thus united there, they With the exception of South Corolina and Louisiana, in which the territorial divisions are called districts, all the states are subdivided into counties, having courts of justice attached to each, and officers, likewise, for a great many local objects, such as maintaining the roads, providing for the poor, &c., &c. These counties are subdivided into what are called townships, averaging six or eight miles square, in NewEngland, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, and most of the states in the Valley of the Mississippi; in Delaware they are called Hundreds, and in Louisiana Parishes, while in Maryland, Virginia,f the two Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, the counties form the smallest territorial divisions. In the Territories, the subdivision into townships has been adopted. These townships form important political and civil districts and corporations; the inhabitants meet once a year, or oftener, for local purposes, and for the appointment of local officers and committees. At these primary assemblies the people acquire habits of transacting public business, which are of the greatest importance in fit * Vermont has but one House in its Legislature. + In the eastern part of Virginia, and a great part of Maryland, the parochial subdivisions that existed previous to the Revolution are still retained for many local purposes, and are even recognised by the law. ting them for legislation and government CHAPTER XII. As for A brief geographICAL NOTICE OF the united STATES. the larger towns, they are incorporated as stitution. United States will be found useful to the reader. allels of 24° 27′ and 54° 40′ north latitude, The United States lie between the parand 66° 50′ and 125° west longitude from On the east, by the Atlantic and the BritGreenwich, and are bounded as follows: ish Province of New-Brunswick; on the south, by the Gulf of Mexico, Texas, and the Pacific Ocean; and on the north, by the Republic of Mexico; on the west, by the British possessions, from which they are separated partly by the River St. Lawrence and the great chain of lakes that flow into, or, rather, that form a series of expansions of that river, and partly by a conventional line west of the Oregon Mountains, which line has not been determined. The United States' government claims up to latitude 54° 40', but this is resisted by England. The 49° degree of north latitude will most probably be agreed to, that being those mountains to the Lake of the Woods, the latitude of the boundary eastward of The separation of the colonies from Great Britain, and the reorganization of their respective governments, produced changes less essential than at first view might be supposed. The King, Parliament, and Justiciary of England were superseded by the President, Congress, and Supreme Court of the United States, the nature of the government remaining essentially the same. For a hereditary sovereign, we have a President, chosen once in four years; for a hereditary House of Peers, a Senate, the members of which are chosen for six years; the powers of the President and Senate being almost identical in most things with those of the corresponding branches of the British ConAs for the several colonies, these the Revolution transformed into states, and the old royal charters were superseded by constitutions. Beyond this there was no essential change, and but little alteration even in forms. Instead of being appointed by the British crown, or by proprietary companies or individuals, the governors are chosen by the people them-after which it pursues a southeast direction selves. The legislative and judicial branches underwent very little modification. There are now in the American Union twenty-six organized states, three territories, and one district. The territories are under the government of the President and Congress of the United States, but will become states as soon as the amount of their population entitles them, in the opinion of Congress, to be represented in the National Legislature. They have a Legislature of their own, but their governors are appointed by the President. Two, namely, Wisconsin and Iowa, will soon have a sufficient population to entitle them to a place among the states. And when these are admitted, Florida will probably be so too. Under the impression that the National Government should be removed from the immediate influence of any one state, the District of Columbia, ten miles square, was taken from Virginia and Maryland, and set apart as the seat of the National Government, and to it, that is, to the President, Congress, and Supreme Court, it is immediately subject. Experience has hardly approved of this measure as either wise or necessary. No part of the country is worse governed, Congress being too much occupied with other matters to pay much attention to so insignificant a territory. The preceding outline will suffice to give the reader some idea of the government of the United States, and prepare him for understanding many things which might otherwise be obscure in the farther course of this work. through some small lakes, and across an intervening portage to Lake Superior, which is the uppermost of the chain of lakes through which the St. Lawrence flows. A glance at the map will show that this vast territory consists of three grand sections, the Atlantic slope, the Pacific slope, and the intermediate Valley of the Mississippi. The whole is computed by Mr. Tanner, a distinguished American geographer, to contain 2,037,165 square miles. The outlines of the entire territory may be given as follows: On the north, from the mouth of the St. Ocean Along the Pacific, from lat. 54° 40' to lat. 42° from the Pacific to the mouth of the Sabine Along the Atlantic Ocean Making a total outline of Miles. 3000 600 865 2300 1100 1800 9665 also largely cultivated, cotton in the Carolinas and in Georgia; and on the rich bottom lands along the bays and streams of the sandy tract, rice and indigo. As we advance northward along this fertile tract intervening between the sand and the mountains, we gradually leave the region of transition and secondary rocks, and enter on that of granite, so that before reaching the State of Maine, primitive rocks abound everywhere, even on the surface of the ground. Upon a survey of the whole of this ter- and enlarging, as it advances southward, ritory, it will be found to possess physical from twenty to nearly a hundred miles advantages such as few other countries broad, the latter being its width in the state enjoy. While, with the exception of Flor- of North Carolina. Between this sandy ida, all parts of it comprise a large pro- tract and the Alleghany Mountains the land portion of excellent soil, many exhibit the is generally fertile, and produces various most astonishing fertility. It abounds in crops, according to the climate, such as fine the most valuable minerals. Iron is found wheat and the other cereal grains in Newin several states in great abundance. At Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virvarious points, but particularly in the Mid-gia; in which last two states tobacco is dle States, there are vast deposites of coal, which is easily conveyed by water carriage to other parts of the country. Even gold is found in considerable quantities in the western parts of North Carolina, and the adjacent parts of South Carolina and Georgia, and some in Virginia and Tennessee. The almost boundless forests of the interior furnish timber suited to all purposes. Navigable rivers everywhere present facilities for trade. On the Atlantic slope, beginning from the east and advancing southwest, we find in succession the Penobscot, the Kennebec, the Merrimac, the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Delaware, the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the James River, the Roanoke, the Neuse, the Fear, the Pedee, the Santee, the Savannah, the Altamaha, and the St. John's, without reckoning many smaller but important streams, navigable by common boats and small steamers. Many of these rivers, such as the Delaware, the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the James, and the Roanoke, expand into noble estuaries before they fall into the ocean; and the coast is indented, also, with many bays, unrivalled in point of extent and beauty. Beginning from the east, we have Portland or Casco Bay, Portsmouth Bay, Newburyport Bay, Massachusetts Bay, Buzzard's Bay, Narragansett Bay, New-York Bay, Amboy Bay, Delaware Bay, Chesapeake Bay, into which twelve wide-mouthed rivers fall, Wilmington Bay, Charleston Bay, &c., &c. With the exception of part of the eastern coast of Connecticut, a chain of islands, some inhabited, many not, runs parallel to the shore, beginning at Passamaquoddy Bay, and extending to the southern extremity of Florida, and thence round into the Gulf of Mexico, and along its coast, to beyond the western limit of the United States. Thus are formed some of the finest channels for an extensive coasting trade, such as Long Island Sound, Albemarle Sound, Pamlico Sound, and many others. To increase these facilities, canals and railroads have been extended along the coast from Portland in Maine, to Charleston in South Carolina, and even farther. Immediately on the seacoast of the western part of New-Jersey, there commences a belt of sand, which extends along the whole margin of the Southern States, covered with an almost uninterrupted forest of pines, But in point of fertility the Atlantic slope bears no comparison with the Valley of the Mississippi, embracing a territory about six times as large as that of France, and likely, ere long, to be the abode of many millions of the human race. Fifty years ago it contained little more than a hundred thousand inhabitants; the population of the settled part of it amounted, as we have seen, in 1840, to above six millions, and this, it is calculated from the data supplied in the last forty years, will have increased, in thirty-five years hence, to not much under thirty millions. By the end of the present century it will probably be not less than fifty or sixty millions. The tabular view on page 22 shows the immense size of the eleven states and two territories already organized in this vast valley; let us now look for a moment to their natural resources. Ohio, lying between the beautiful river of that name and Lake Erie, comprises 40,260 square miles, and a population of above a million and a half. As England and Wales have 57,929 square miles, and 15,906,829 inhabitants, Ohio, at the same ratio, would have 11,055,066. With the exception of a part of it in the southeast, on the Hockhocking River, there is little poor land in the state. Vast forests cover the greater part of it to this day. Lake Erie on the north, the River Ohio on the south, and several navigable streams flowing from the interior, both to the north and south, give it great natural advantages for commerce; in addition to which, two important artificial lines of communication, made at great expense, traverse it from The exact population of the eleven states and two territories of the Valley of the Mississippi was, without including Western Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Flordia, in 1840, 6,376,972; in 1830 it was 3,342,680; in 1820 it was 2,237,454; in 1810 it was 1,099,180 in 1800 it was 385,647; in 1790 it was only 109,888. Lake Erie to the Ohio. Cincinnati, its commercial capital, has a population of not less than fifty thousand inhabitants. Indiana and Illinois are scarcely, if at all, inferior to Ohio in natural advantages; and considering its proportion of first-rate land, Michigan is, perhaps, the best state in the Union. Kentucky and Tennessee abound both in good land and in mineral resources. world. But besides these two great inlets from the north and south, communication with the Atlantic slope has been opened up at various points of the Alleghany chain, by means of substantial roads of the ordinary construction, and also by canals and railways. Thus a railway, above six hundred miles in length, unites the town of Buffalo on Lake Erie with Boston; a canal unites it with Albany, and from that Missouri, one of the largest states in the point the Hudson River connects it with Union, possesses a vast extent of excellent New-York. Buffalo communicates, again, land, besides rich mines of iron and of lead. with all the northern parts of Ohio, IndiThe two territories, Iowa and Wisconsin, ana, Michigan, and Illinois, and with the lying northward of Missouri and Illinois, eastern side of the Wisconsin Territory, the former on the west, and the latter on by fifty steamboats which ply between it the east of the Upper Mississippi, are large and the ports of those regions. To all and fertile districts of country, abounding these advantages we must ascribe the rapalso in lead mines. Both are evidently id appearance of so many large cities in destined to become great states. Arkan- this great Western Valley, such as Newsas having a great deal of inferior, as well Orleans, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, as of fertile land, is considered one of the and Pittsburgh, to say nothing of smaller poorest states on the Mississippi. The towns on spots which, with the exception large State of Alabama, with the exception of New-Orleans, may be said to have been of a small part in the south, about Mobile, covered by the forest only fifty years ago. and another part in the north, near the Ten- I conclude this chapter by remarking nessee River, was, in 1815, in the occupan- for a moment on the kind and wise Provicy of the Creek, Chocta, and Chickasa In-dence which kept the great Valley of the dians, chiefly the first of those tribes, but is now rapidly increasing in population. The State of Mississippi has also much land of the very best quality, and although its financial affairs are at present in a deplorable condition, from bad legislation, it may be expected, in a few years, to emerge from its embarrassments. Humanly speaking, it must be so, for its natural resources are great. And as for Louisiana, the rich alluvial soil of the banks of its rivers, and its advantages for commerce, derived from its position in the lowest part of the great Valley of the Mississippi, must eventually make it a rich and powerful state. But it would require the perseverance shown in similar circumstances by the people of Holland, to defend with dikes the southern portion of the Delta of the Mississippi, and to make the whole the valuable country into which it might be converted. An immense tract of almost unexplored country lies to the northwest of the State of Missouri and the Territories of Iowa and Wisconsin, much of which is believed to be fertile. What new states may yet be formed there, time alone will show. Nearly the whole of this vast valley is drained by one great river and its branches, of which no fewer than fifty-seven are navigable for steamboats. Indeed, the Missouri, the Arkansas, the Red River, and the White River, flowing from the west, and the Illinois, the Ohio, the Cumberland, and the Tennessee, from the north and east, are themselves great rivers. On the north the great lakes, and on the south the Gulf of Mexico, form openings into this vast region for the commerce of the Mississippi from the possession, and almost from the knowledge of the colonists of the United States, for more than one hundred and fifty years. By that time, they had so far occupied and reduced to cultivation the less fertile hills of the Atlantic slope, and there had acquired that hardy, industrious, and virtuous character, which better fitted them to carry civilization and religion into the vast plains of the West. So that, at this day, the New-England and other Atlantic States, while increasing in population themselves, serve, at the same time, as nurseries from which the West derives many of the best plants that are transferred to its noble soil. CHAPTER XIII. OBSTACLES WHICH THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM SOME persons in Europe entertain the idea, that if the "American plan" of supporting religion, by relying, under God's blessing, upon the efforts of the people, rather than upon the help of the government, has succeeded in that country, it has been owing, in a great measure, to the fact that the country presented an open field for the experiment; that everything was new there; that no old establishments had to be pulled down; no deep-rooted prejudices to be eradicated; no time-honoured |