But not wholly, because you, in your wisdom, decreed it: your origin and geography necessitated it.
Nor, in their germ, are all your blessings to be ascribed to the noble sires, who of yore fought in your behalf, sovereign-kings! Your nation enjoyed no little independence before your Declaration declared it.
Your ancient pilgrims fathered your liberty; and your wild woods harbored the nursling.

For the state that to-day is made up of slaves, can not to-morrow transmute her bond into free; though lawlessness may transform them into brutes.

Freedom is the name for a thing that is _not_ freedom; this, a lesson never learned in an hour or an age.

By some tribes it will never be learned.
"Yet, if it please you, there may be such a thing as being free under Caesar.

Ages ago, there were as many vital freemen, as breathe vital air to-day.
"Names make not distinctions; some despots rule without swaying scepters.