Looking back to the history of the migration of mankind from the cradle of the human race, we find that colonies, afterwards to become nations and the _nuclei_ of distinct families, thrown off from the centre, presented each a unity of language and affinity of which the originators of our country had not the advantage. Even Greece, the graceful daughter of dusky Egypt, soon ceased to be Hellenic, and became, notwithstanding her many subdivisions, thoroughly Greek, and her colonies in Europe and Asia, when they ceased their connection with the mother country, were quickly absorbed in the surrounding peoples. The Roman Empire had no nationality, being simply the creature of force, and no matter how widely its boundaries were spread, all authority was lodged in Rome, and its subjects outside the walls of that city were comparatively or positively slaves, without any voice in the management of their own affairs, or a nationality to which they could lay claim. As the legions were withdrawn to the capital, the empire crumbled, and the disintegrated parts gradually resumed their original character. So with the splendid but short-lived empire of Charlemagne, The Goths, Vandals, Huns, and other European and Asiatic conquerors who from time to time overran different parts of Europe and founded dynasties, were simply waves of conquest overcoming and enslaving the previous inhabitants, subjecting them to the yoke of their own crude customs and laws, and building upon the ruins of one nation the greatness of another. Far different was the origin of our republic. At the beginning, we had on our shores voluntary immigrants from the then four great maritime nations of Europe--Spain, France, Holland, and England. The colonists of each, from fortuitous circumstances, or led by peculiar predilections, selected for settlement certain portions of the continent, established themselves therein, and, while adhering to their parent country and following its laws, speaking its language, and practising its religion, early assumed a state of semi-independence.