State and Church alike had frowned upon them; and their
strong reaction was a reaction of their entire nature, alike of the
spiritual and the secular man. All that was democratic in the policy of
England, and all that was Protestant in her religion, they carried with
them, in pronounced and exclusive forms, to a soil and a scene
singularly suited for their growth.
It is to the honor of the British Monarchy that, upon the whole, it
frankly recognized the facts, and did not pedantically endeavor to
constrain by artificial and alien limitations the growth of the infant
states. It is a thing to be remembered that the accusations of the
colonies in 1776 were entirely levelled at the king actually on the
throne, and that a general acquittal was thus given by them to every
preceding reign. Their infancy had been upon the whole what their
manhood was to be, self-governed and republican. Their Revolution, as we
call it, was like ours in the main, a vindication of liberties inherited
and possessed. It was a Conservative revolution; and the happy result
was that, notwithstanding the sharpness of the collision with the
mother-country, and with domestic loyalism, the Thirteen Colonies made
provision for their future in conformity, as to all that determined
life and manners with the recollections of their past.
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