He went to Switzerland, the resort of the free spirits of that day, and was appointed Professor of Civil Law at the University of Basle. Here he continued, both in his lectures and through the press, to give utterance to his liberal opinions. Consequently, in August, 1824, the governments of Prussia, Austria, and Russia demanded of the government of Basle to deliver him up, with the other Professors of Law in their university. At first this demand was refused. But, being afterwards enforced by a threat of the serious displeasure of the allied powers, it was yielded to, and Dr. Follen was compelled to depart, with no reproach upon his character but that which was cast upon it by the enemies of freedom. Exiled from Germany as the dreaded foe of the oppressors of his country, hunted by the allied sovereigns out of Europe, as if their thrones were insecure while he dwelt on the same continent with themselves--surely the man who made himself such a terror to despots was entitled to a _carte-blanche_ on the confidence of freemen! Thus recommended, he came to our country in December, 1824, a few months after the arrival of Lafayette. The illustrious Frenchman came to feast his eyes and rejoice his heart with the sight of the astonishing growth and unexampled prosperity of the nation for whose deliverance from a foreign yoke he had in his early manhood lavished his fortune and exposed his life. The illustrious German came, as it proved, to assist in a great moral enterprise, the success of which was indispensably necessary to complete the American Revolution, and verify the truths which it declared to the world. Nearly a year after his arrival he spent in Philadelphia perfecting himself in the language of our country. But by the advice of Lafayette, who highly esteemed him, he came to Boston, and in December, 1825, was appointed teacher of the German language in Harvard College, where, in 1830, he was raised to a professorship of German literature. He had not been long in the United States before he was struck by the contrast between our institutions and our habits of thought and conversation. He was surprised that he so seldom met with a free mind, or saw an individual who acted independently. Most persons seemed to be in bonds to a political party or a religious sect, or both. “I perceive,” said he to an intimate friend, “that liberty in this country is a fact rather than a principle.”