No; nor is this astonishing. In that country there was no struggle between Aristocracy and Democracy; between an ancient aristocratical society and a new democratic society: on the contrary, the leaders of society in the United States, the descendants of the first colonists, the majority of the principal planters in the country and the principal merchants in the towns, who constituted the natural aristocracy of the country, placed themselves at the head of the revolution and the republic. The devotion, energy, and constancy which they showed in the cause, were greater than those displayed by the people. The conquest of their independence, and the foundation of the republic, was not, then, the work and the victory of certain classes over certain other classes; it was the joint work of all, led by the highest, the wealthiest, and the most enlightened, who had often great difficulty in rallying the spirit and sustaining the courage of the mass of the population. Whenever officers were to be chosen for the bodies of troops formed in the several States, Washington gave this advice:--“Take none but gentlemen: they are the most trustworthy, as well as the ablest.” A republican government has more need than any other of the co-operation of every class of its citizens: if the mass of the population does not zealously adopt it, it has no root; if the higher classes are hostile or indifferent to it, it can enjoy no security. In either case, it is reduced to the necessity of oppressing. It is precisely because in a republic the authority of the government is weak and precarious, that it stands in need of great moral support from the society over which it presides. Which are the republics that have lived long and honourably, overcoming the defects and the storms incident to their institutions? Those only in which the republican spirit was sincere and general; which obtained, on the one side, the attachment and the confidence of the people, and on the other the decided support of the classes who, by their position, fortune, education, and habits, bring into public life the largest share of natural authority, tranquil independence, knowledge, and leisure. On these conditions only can a republic be established or maintained; for on these conditions only can it exist without troubling the peace of society, and without condemning its government to the deplorable alternative of the disorganization of anarchy, or the rigid tension of tyranny.