virtues, consigned them to inevitable destruction. The ruin of these
nations began from the day when Europeans landed on their shores; it has
proceeded ever since, and we are now witnessing the completion of it.
They seem to have been placed by Providence amidst the riches of the New
World to enjoy them for a season, and then surrender them. Those coasts,
so admirably adapted for commerce and industry; those wide and deep
rivers; that inexhaustible valley of the Mississippi; the whole
continent, in short, seemed prepared to be the abode of a great nation,
yet unborn.

In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized man, of
the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there, for
the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed impracticable,
were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not been prepared by
the history of the past.


Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans--Part I

Chapter Summary

Utility of knowing the origin of nations in order to understand their
social condition and their laws--America the only country in which the
starting-point of a great people has been clearly observable--In what
respects all who emigrated to British America were similar--In what they
differed--Remark applicable to all Europeans who established themselves
on the shores of the New World--Colonization of Virginia--Colonization
of New England--Original character of the first inhabitants of New
England--Their arrival--Their first laws--Their social contract--Penal
code borrowed from the Hebrew legislation--Religious fervor--Republican