If I needed any justification for addresses, which I was graciously
invited to deliver under the auspices of the University of London, an
honour which I also gratefully acknowledge, it would lie in the fact
that we are to consider one of the supremely great achievements of the
English-speaking race. It is in that aspect that I shall treat my theme;
for, as a philosophical or juristic discussion of the American
Constitution, my addresses will be neither as "deep as a well, nor as
wide as a church door."

My auditors will bear in mind that I must limit each address to the
duration of an hour, and that I cannot go deeply or exhaustively into a
subject that has challenged the admiring comment and profound
consideration of the intellectual world for nearly a century and a half.

If England and America are to act together in the coming time--and the
destinies of the world are, to a very large extent, in their keeping,
then they must know each other better, and, to this end, they must take
a greater interest in each other's history and political institutions.
My principal purpose in these lectures is to deepen the interest of this
great nation in one of the very greatest and far-reaching achievements
of our common race.

Americans have never lacked interest in English history; for however
broad the stream of our national life, how could we ignore its chief
source?

But is there in England an equal interest in the history of America,
whose origin and development constitute one of the most dramatic and
significant dramas ever played upon the stage of this "wide and
universal theatre of man"? It is true that Thackeray, in his