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have been dethroned, but the throne itself, would in all probability, have remained, and been occupied by another. Besides we should recollect that the people of the United States, the first to set the example of self government, had no monarchical neighbors, to interfere by arms, or otherwise, with their internal arrangements. Had such been the fact, as was the case with France, the first which attempted republican government in Europe, there is little doubt, that liberty would have been driven, perhaps for two centuries, from the American Continent, as it has been from the European.
But the chief cause of the failure of the prediction, a prediction in accordance with the expectations of many of the most distinguished men of the time, as well those who dreaded, as those who wished its consummation, is to be found in the general, nay, almost universal want of readers.
So much are mankind the creatures of habit, that wherever they happen to have their existence, they seem to be disposed to rest content in continuing to suffer from those evils, with which they have been familiar, from their earliest infancy, rather than to take the necessary measures to eradicate them. Nay it is not uncommon, that evil is not considered as such; and it frequently happens, that they do not discover its true character, till some aggravated act of tyranny, perpetrated by some capricious, or remorseless des
