with astonishment. On the Continent of Europe, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, absolute monarchy had everywhere triumphed over the
ruins of the oligarchical and feudal liberties of the Middle Ages. Never
were the notions of right more completely confounded than in the midst
of the splendor and literature of Europe; never was there less political
activity among the people; never were the principles of true freedom
less widely circulated; and at that very time those principles, which
were scorned or unknown by the nations of Europe, were proclaimed in
the deserts of the New World, and were accepted as the future creed of
a great people. The boldest theories of the human reason were put into
practice by a community so humble that not a statesman condescended to
attend to it; and a legislation without a precedent was produced
offhand by the imagination of the citizens. In the bosom of this
obscure democracy, which had as yet brought forth neither generals, nor
philosophers, nor authors, a man might stand up in the face of a free
people and pronounce the following fine definition of liberty. *l

[Footnote l: Mather's "Magnalia Christi Americana," vol. ii. p. 13.
This speech was made by Winthrop; he was accused of having committed
arbitrary actions during his magistracy, but after having made
the speech of which the above is a fragment, he was acquitted by
acclamation, and from that time forwards he was always re-elected
governor of the State. See Marshal, vol. i. p. 166.]

"Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty.
There is a liberty of a corrupt nature which is effected both by men
and beasts to do what they list, and this liberty is inconsistent with
authority, impatient of all restraint; by this liberty 'sumus omnes
deteriores': 'tis the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all the
ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, a moral, a