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