It is precisely from lack of this sympathy and of appreciation of the difficulties under which we have labored, that America has suffered in the opinion of the world. For the foreign view, looking upon us not as a new people, but as the offshoot of an old and cultivated race, has conceded to us little more than a certain mechanical ingenuity in fitting together the parts of an edifice built upon a foundation already laid for us away back in the ages--a carrying out of plans already perfected for us, and requiring little of originality for their development; forgetting that oftentimes the laying of the foundation is the easiest part of the work, while the erection and embellishment of the superstructure has taxed the efforts of the loftiest genius. In so far as regards the development of the national mind, the strengthening of the originating and energetic faculties, and the capability of profound and well directed thought arising therefrom, we are, as a race, deeply indebted to our progenitors of the Old World, and we have reaped therefrom a great advantage over other nationalities in their inception. But aside from these benefits, the cultivation of the race before the settlement of our country has been rather a hamper upon our progress. For here was to be inaugurated a new civilization, upon a different basis from and entirely incompatible with that of the Old World; here was to be established an idea antagonistic to those of the preexisting world, and evolving a new and more progressive social life, which needed not only a new sphere and new material, but also entire freedom from the restraints of the old-time civilization. And it is harder to unlearn an old lesson than to learn a new. The institutions and modes of thought of the Old World are to the last degree unfavorable to the progress of such a nationality as ours. Their tendency being toward the aggrandizement of the few and the centralization of power, renders them wholly incompatible with that freedom of thought and action, that opening up of large fields of exertion as well as of the road to distinction and eminence, with all their incentives to effort, which are the very life of a majestic republic stretching over a large portion of the earth's surface, embracing such mixed nationalities, and founded upon principles of progress both in its physical and mental relations which have rendered it in very truth a new experiment among the nations. We had first to forget the divine right of kings, and the invidious distinctions of class, with all their deep-seated and time-honored prejudices, and to start forward in a different and hitherto despised path toward which the iron hand of our necessity pointed, and in which all men should be considered equal in their rights, and the position of each should depend, not upon the distance to which he could trace a proud genealogy, but upon the energy with which he should grapple with