The American Republic | Page 4

than a scientific treatise, and even good-natured critics will,
no doubt, pronounce it an article or a series of articles designed for a
review, rather than a book. It is hard to overcome the habits of a
lifetime. I have taken some pains to exchange the reviewer for the
author, but am fully conscious that I have not succeeded. My work can
lay claim to very little artistic merit. It is full of repetitions; the same
thought is frequently recurring,--the result, to some extent, no doubt, of
carelessness and the want of artistic skill; but to a greater extent, I fear,
of "malice aforethought." In composing my work I have followed,
rather than directed, the course of my thought, and, having very little
confidence in the memory or industry of readers, I have preferred,
when the completeness of the argument required it, to repeat myself to
encumbering my pages with perpetual references to what has gone
before.
That I attach some value to this work is evident from my consenting to
its publication; but how much or how little of it is really mine, I am

quite unable to say. I have, from my youth up, been reading, observing,
thinking, reflecting, talking, I had almost said writing, at least by fits
and starts, on political subjects, especially in their connection with
philosophy, theology, history, and social progress, and have assimilated
to my own mind what it would assimilate, without keeping any notes of
the sources whence the materials assimilated were derived. I have
written freely from my own mind as I find it now formed; but how it
has been so formed, or whence I have borrowed, my readers know as
well as I. All that is valuable in the thoughts set forth, it is safe to
assume has been appropriated from others. Where I have been
distinctly conscious of borrowing what has not become common
property, I have given credit, or, at least, mentioned the author's name,
with three important exceptions which I wish to note more formally.
I am principally indebted for the view of the American nationality and
the Federal Constitution I present, to hints and suggestions furnished by
the remarkable work of John C. Hurd, Esq., on The Law of Freedom
and Bondage in the United States, a work of rare learning and profound
philosophic views. I could not have written my work without the aid
derived from its suggestions, any more than I could without Plato,
Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Suarez, Pierre Leroux, and the
Abbate Gioberti. To these two last-named authors, one a humanitarian
sophist, the other a Catholic priest, and certainly one of the profoundest
philosophical writers of this century, I am much indebted, though I
have followed the political system of neither. I have taken from Leroux
the germs of the doctrine I set forth on the solidarity of the race, and
from Gioberti the doctrine I defend in relation to the creative act, which
is, after all, simply that of the Credo and the first verse of Genesis.
In treating the several questions which the preparation of this volume
has brought up, in their connection, and in the light of first principles, I
have changed or modified, on more than one important point, the views
I had expressed in my previous writings, especially on the distinction
between civilized and barbaric nations, the real basis of civilization
itself, and the value to the world of the Graeco-Roman civilization. I
have ranked feudalism under the head of barbarism, rejected every
species of political aristocracy, and represented the English constitution
as essentially antagonistic to the American, not as its type. I have
accepted universal suffrage in principle, and defended American

democracy, which I define to be territorial democracy, and carefully
distinguish from pure individualism on the one hand, and from pure
socialism or humanitarianism on the other.
I reject the doctrine of State sovereignty, which I held and defended
from 1828 to 1861, but still maintain that the sovereignty of the
American Republic vests in the States, though in the States collectively,
or united, not severally, and thus escape alike consolidation and
disintegration. I find, with Mr. Madison, our most philosophic
statesman, the originality of the American system in the division of
powers between a General government having sole charge of the
foreign and general, and particular or State governments having, within
their respective territories, sole charge of the particular relations and
interests of the American people; but I do not accept his concession that
this division is of conventional origin, and maintain that it enters into
the original Providential constitution of the American state, as I have
done in my Review for October, 1863, and January and October, 1864.
I maintain, after Mr. Senator Sumner, one of the most philosophic and
accomplished living American