The class to which we refer, if it is
not now, will very shortly be, the governing element. The tendency is
irresistibly that way; the signs of its growing power are daily more and
more manifest. That it should be deeply interested in the perpetuity of
American institutions, as affecting its own position, is natural. In the
failure of man's self-governing capacity here, where every circumstance
has been favorable to its exercise, the rising spirit of a broader
liberty in England must foresee the death-blow to its own hopes. Our
failure will not be fatal to us alone; it will involve the fate of the
millions who are now seeking to plant themselves against the tremendous
force of kingly and patrician prestige. They have hitherto derived from
our example all the inspiration with which they have struggled upward.
They have been able to accomplish, step by step, important alterations
in the unwritten constitution, by the apt comparisons their leaders have
been able to make between American and British civilization. So that, in
considering the forces at work to influence those at the head of
affairs, it is necessary to consider that force which is imperceptibly,
but subtly, brought to bear upon them by the working-class.
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