upon another, not attributable, perhaps, to the will and leadership of any one individual, but produced by the united force of a great horde of individuals determined to enjoy the plunder which a superior civilization spread before them. Then, with regard to the phenomena of what are called constitutions of government, or the political systems of exercising public authority, I find numerous cases in which the force of an individual will and intelligence has been not only a great factor, but by far the largest factor in the production of particular institutions. The genius of Cæsar, and his extraordinary constructive faculties, molded the institutions of Rome in the most direct manner, and created an imperial system that lasted for a thousand years, and that even out of its ruins affected all subsequent European civilization. In such cases, more than once repeated in modern times, the particular circumstances of the age and the co-operation of many other individuals have helped on the result, but the conception, the plan, the purpose, and the execution, have had their origin in some one mind. But for the individual character, the ambition, the force, and the mental resources of the first Napoleon, can one believe that the first French Empire of modern times would have grown out of the condition of France? Suppose that Oliver Cromwell had never lived. The protectorate, the system of government which he gave to England, was the most absolute product of the will and intellect of one man that the world in that kind of product had ever seen; for, although the people of England were ready for and needed that system, and although the antecedent and the surrounding circumstances furnished to Cromwell many materials for a political structure that was not the old monarchy, and yet had while it lasted all the vigor, and more than the vigor, of the old monarchy, still, without his personal characteristics, his ambition to found a dynasty on the wants of his country, and his personal capacity to devise and execute such a system, one can not believe that England would have had what he gave her. What he could not give her was a son capable of wielding the scepter which he had fashioned. Here is this America of yours--a country in which, to a certain extent, the political institutions have been influenced by the circumstances that followed the separation of your colonies from the English crown. Undoubtedly, your ancestors of the Revolutionary epoch could not construct a monarchy for the group of thirteen newly existing States, each with its right and enjoyment of an actual autonomy. The habits and genius of the people forbade the experiment of monarchical or aristocratic institutions; no materials for either existed. But within the range of republican institutions there was a choice open, and the people exercised that choice. They made one system of confederated States, and found it would not answer. They then deliberately assembled