not then foresee it, were a generation later destined gently to subvert
the accepted fundamentals of religious and economical thought, literary
performance, and material existence. The work they had in hand to do was
for the next fifteen years to be subordinate, so far as this country was
concerned, to the solution of the terrible political problems which were
first insistent on settlement; yet, as is now apparent, an initial
movement was on foot which foreboded a revolution world-wide in its
nature, and one in comparison with which the issues of slavery and
American constitutionality became practically insignificant,--in a word,
local and passing incidents.

Finally, it remains to consider specifically the political theories
then in vogue in their relation to the individual. In this country, it
was the period of the equality of man and individuality in the
development of the type. It was generally believed that the world had
hitherto been governed too much,--that the day of caste, and even class,
was over and gone; and finally, that America was a species of vast
modern melting-pot of humanity, in which, within a comparatively short
period of time, the characteristics of all branches of Indo-Aryan origin
would resolve themselves. A new type would emerge,--the American. These
theories were also in their consequences far-reaching. Practically, 1853
antedates all our present industrial organizations so loudly in
evidence,--the multifarious trades-unions which now divide the
population of the United States into what are known as the "masses" and
the "classes." As recently as a century ago, it used to be said of the
French army under the Empire, that every soldier carried the baton of
the Field-Marshal in his knapsack. And this ideal of equality and
individuality was fixed in the American mind.

Not that I for a moment mean to imply that in my belief the middle of