irresistibly, and in which only his race can exist and all his faculties be fully developed. Such being the case, it follows that any-the worst-form of government is better than anarchy; and that individual liberty or freedom must be subordinate to whatever power may be necessary to protect society against anarchy within or destruction from without; for the safety and well-being of society are as paramount to individual liberty as the safety and well-being of the race is to that of individuals, and, in the same proportion, the power necessary for the safety of society is paramount to individual liberty. JOHN C. CALHOUN, It is the function of civil government to make it easy to do right and difficult to do wrong. WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE. The first object of a free people is the preservation of their liberty, and liberty is to be preserved only by maintaining constitutional restraints and just divisions of political power. Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights. In other words, they must be subject to rule and regulation. This is the very essence of free political institutions. DANIEL WEBSTER. Since the final end of life is the development of character, government is to be tested, not by the temporal and immediate advantages which it may afford, but by its power to promote the development of true men and women. No government accomplishes this end so effectively as democratic government. Since democratic government is self-government, it introduces every man into the school of experience-of all schools the one in which the training is most thorough and the progress most rapid. The gradual and increasing effect of democracy is to give to its pupils, in lieu of a faith in some unknown God, first faith in humanity and then in God, as witnessed in life and experience of humanity; in lieu of a reverence for a few elect superiors, respect for all men; in lieu of a lethargic counterfeit of contentment, a far-reaching and inspiring, though sometimes too eager, hopefulness; and in lieu of an often servile submission to accidental masters, a spirit of sturdy independence and mutual fellowship. So does democracy, though by very gradual and often conflicting processes, produce the liberty of a universal brotherhood, and possess the secret of public peace, the promise of public prosperity, the hope of social righteousness, and inspiration to illimitable progress. LYMAN ABBOTT. The American system is a complete one, reaching down to the foundations, and the foundations are its most important portions. At the bottom lies the township, which divides the whole North and West into an infinity of little republics, each managing its own local affairs. In the old states they differ in their area and machinery. In the new states of the West they are more regular in size, being generally six miles square. Each township elects its own local officers and manages its own local affairs. Annually a town meeting is held of all the voters, and suffrage is limited only by citizenship. At these meetings, not only are the local officers elected, such as supervisors, town clerks, justices of the peace, road-masters, and the like, but money is appropriated for bridges, schools, libraries, and other purposes of a local nature. Next above the township stands the county, an aggregate of a dozen or so of towns. Its officials—sheriffs, judge, clerks, registrars, and other officers to manage county affairs-are chosen at the general state election. It has also a local assembly, formed of the town supervisors. They audit accounts, supervise the county institutions, and legislate as to various county matters. Above the counties, again, stands the state government, with its legislature, which passes laws relating to state affairs; and finally, the Federal government, which deals only with national concerns. The whole forms a consistent and harmonious sys tem, which reminded Matthew Arnold of a well-fitting suit of clothes, loose where it should be loose, and tight where tightness is an advantage. DOUGLAS CAMPBELL. The President of the United States is nothing more than an elective trustee or agent, chosen by the people to administer certain well-defined and specific trusts for them and as their representative. Our fathers formulated that portion of the Constitution which concerned the presidential office under a realizing sense of the evils they had suffered while subject to the caprices of a royal ruler, and guarded well against any assumption of power or prerogative by the individual which could threaten or endanger the liberty of the people. Over one hundred years of experience have proven the wisdom and foresight of the statesmen of the Revolution. They "planned wisely and builded well." The President is still the servant of the people. His powers are great, but the fear of absolutism or of usurpation of supreme authority by him never disturbs us. The nation, even in time of war, rests secure in the consciousness of its power to confine within constitutional limits the exercise of executive authority. BENJAMIN F. TRACY. But outside, and above, and beyond all this, is the people— steady, industrious, self-possessed, caring little for abstractions, and less for abstractionists, but with one deep, common sentiment, and with the consciousness, calm but quite sure and earnest, that in the Constitution and the Union, as they received them from their fathers, and as they themselves have observed and maintained them, is the sheet-anchor of their hope, the pledge of their prosperity, the palladium of their liberty; and with this is that other consciousness, not less calm and not less earnest, that in their own keeping exclusively, and not in that of any party leaders, or party demogogues, or political hacks or speculators, is the integrity of that Union and that Constitution. It is in the strong arms and honest hearts of the great masses, who are not members of Congress, nor holders of office, nor spouters at town-meetings, that resides the safety of the state; and these masses, though slow to move, are irresistible, when the time and the occasion for moving come. CHARLES KING. I maintain that our democratic principle is not that the people are always right. It is this rather: that although the people may sometimes be wrong, yet that they are not so likely to be wrong and to do wrong, as irrepressible hereditary magistrates and legislators; that it is safer to trust the many with the keeping of their own interests, than it is to trust the few to keep those interests for them. ORVILLE DEWEY. IT The Nature and Development of T is the love of the people, it is their attachment to their government from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble and your navy nothing but rotten timber. EDMUND BURKE. That patriotism which, catching its inspiration from on high, and leaving at an immeasurable distance below all lesser, groveling, personal interests and feelings, animates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of death itself— that is public virtue; that is the noblest, the sublimest of all public virtues! Personal or private courage is totally distinct from that higher and nobler courage which prompts the patriot to offer himself a voluntary sacrifice to his country's good. HENRY CLAY. What is it to be an American? Putting aside all the outer shows of dress and manners, social customs and physical peculiarities, is it not to believe in America and in the American people? Is it not to have an abiding and moving faith in the |