The light of political science has occasionally penetrated the gloom of ignorance and absurdity, but the feeble glimmerings have been insufficient to dissolve the bonds of oppression, and mankind has remained, through a long succession of ages, enslaved under the dominion of error, and enchained in FLOYD. It is a reflection equally humiliating to the pride of man, and depressing to the hopes of the philanthropist, that among the numerous revolutions of states and empires recorded by history, few can be found which have been productive of any signal and permanent benefit to mankind. Despotisms the most intolerant, have given way to usurpations not less odious, and every effort at amelioration has yielded to that invincible propensity which leads to the veneration of abuses consecrated by time, and which embraces the errors of our ancestors as a valuable inheritance. The light of political science has occasionally penetrated the gloom of ignorance and absurdity, but the feeble glimmerings have been insufficient to dissolve the bonds of oppression, and mankind has remained, through a long succession of ages, enslaved under the dominion of error, and enchained in the fetters of inveterate custom. Little has been added to the stock of rational liberty, and small has been the advancement in the paths of political knowledge. From contemplations so painful, we revert with strong emotions of pleasure, to an event pregnant with hope and promise, and eminently propitious to the best interests of man. The American revolution forms a proud contrast to all those which have preceded it, and exhibits to the world the first bold stand in defence of abstract principles, which it has ever beheld. It is an inquiry as philosophical as it is interesting, and one which merits more attention than it has hitherto received, how far the establishment of a free government in America, was owing to the particular state of the world at that period, and to the general diffusion of intelligence, which was greater then than in any former age. Such an investigation, it is believed, would lead us to regard it rather as a step in the natural history of man, than as the result of adventitious circumstances: and, when taken in connexion with subsequent events, would induce a persuasion, that similar modifications of political institutions must eventually be coextensive with the causes from which it originated. If these inferences are correct, they afford a solid founda |