Under these circumstances, the period was ripe for the germs of a
religious and political liberty to start into being or to be quickened
into fresh life, with a far better prospect of final development than
they could have had at an earlier epoch. Born thus anew in Europe, they
were transplanted to the shores of the new world. The results of their
comparatively unrestricted growth are seen in the establishment and
marvellous expansion of the republic.
Great, however, as these results have been, the fact is so plain that he
who runs may read, that they would have been vastly greater but for a
malignant influence which has met the elements of progress, even on
these shores. Disengaged from the opposing influences which surrounded
them in Europe--from the spirit of absolutism, of hereditary
aristocracy, of ecclesiastical despotism, from the habits, the customs,
the institutions of earlier times, more or less rigid, unyielding on
that account, and hard to change by the new forces, disengaged from
these hampering influences, and planted on the shores of America--these
elements of progress, so retarded even up to the present moment in
Europe, found themselves most unexpectedly side by side with an
outbirth of human selfishness in its pure and most undisguised form.
This was not the spirit of absolutism, or of hereditary aristocracy, nor
of ecclesiastical and priestly domination. All of these, which have so
conspicuously figured in Europe, have perhaps done more at certain
periods for the advancement of civilization, by their restraining,
educating influence, than they have done harm at others, when less
needed.
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