the Crown in any part of America before the Revolution, is as far from the truth as the zenith is from the nadir.”

OLD BELFRY, LEXINGTON MASSACHUSETTS

From this belfry was rung out the alarm on the morning of April 19, 1775, calling the minute men to assemble on the common.

PAUL REVERE’S HOME IN BOSTON

The tablet that may be seen between the second and third stories of the house was placed there by the Paul Revere Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

PAUL REVERE

From the painting by the famous American artist, Gilbert Stuart.

Then why revolt, especially when above a third of the thinking people in America were opposed to the Revolution, and had to be driven out or silenced? To the original grievances of the Revolution was added a stupid John Bull obstinacy, concentrated in George III, but shared by a good part of the British nation. These mistakes made by England are a fine example of what comes to a country that falls into the hands of what are called the “Interests”; for Parliament was really nothing but a combine of great titled families, who took in some representatives of the cities and the merchant class. One of the best results of the Revolution was that it shook up the British aristocracy; and the best proof that the Revolution was right is the admission of Lord North, when the war was all over, that it had been a great mistake, but that the nation had made it, and not simply the prime minister.

The Revolution was worth all the blood and treasure that it cost, because it lighted a new torch of popular government. There had been plenty of government of the people in ancient and medieval times; but at the epoch of the American Revolution the formerly democratic Swiss and Dutch, and the free citizens of the German and French and Spanish cities, had lost faith in themselves. It was fashionable to revere Demosthenes and Cato and Brutus and the Populus Romanus; but real republican government had about ceased on the earth when the new constellation of the United States appeared on the horizon.

The colonies had very tidy little governments, schools of politics, in which the speaker of the assembly was commonly the leader of a healthy opposition to the governor; and on that foundation they built tidy little state governments, which showed the prevalent belief that governors were dangerous creatures who ought to have as little power as possible; while legislatures were a reflection of the people’s will which could not err. The wheel of revolution has twirled backward in our day; for we make governors and presidents great political leaders, and set our legislators on a one-legged race against the initiative and referendum. In the midst of the confusion of the Revolution, when town after town was picked up by the British, and nobody knew whether the Revolution would win out, it is wonderful how well the state governments worked, and how successful they were in putting on record the great principle of the two kinds of law,—fundamental or constitutional law, and statute law.

PATRICK HENRY ADDRESSING THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY IN 1765.

He is famous for his speech supporting the resolutions to resist the Stamp Act. At one point he