The law under consideration is exemplified in the social, industrial, and political development of the United States. There is a manifest difference, however, between the history of our civilization and that of Europe, though not in the least affecting the integrity of the law. The people of our nation were not derived directly from a rude and primitive condition, as were those of the Old World. The history of our civilization is, in its origin, coordinate with European civilization in the seventeenth century, after modern intellect had been fairly aroused, and the national organizations had been quite fully developed. The chaos and barbarism which the history of European civilization presents, and the play of antagonizing forces through the long period of centuries, resulting in some degree of political order and unity, does not belong, except as an introduction, to the history of American civilization. Ours is a branch from the European, after it had been growing for several hundred years. During the period which intervened between the Declaration of American Independence and the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, there was no formal and permanent bond of union between the several States; it was provisional,--they were held together by outside pressure and a common interest in the cause of independence. The settlement of a general government for all the States was a crisis, not only in the affairs of this country, but of the whole civilized world, as we believe the future will most fully reveal. To the responsible statesmen of that day, this was a period of intense solicitude, such as we can realize only by an effort of mind to place ourselves in their situation, and bring before us the magnitude of the objects to be attained, and the difficulties to be overcome. There was then, as now, a diversity of interests to be harmonized; but there was one interest, which, in its political relations, requires to be characterized by a stronger term than that of 'diversity.' Between chattel slavery and free labor there is 'irrepressible' antagonism, and there could be no real union--no blending of the twain; but the gulf was bridged, under the pressure of necessity, as the wisdom of the times could best devise. It was, indeed, well done. Union was the great object to be accomplished--it was the highest, the most comprehensive principle that could enter into the motives of political action--it was even a necessity of the current civilization, and must needs subordinate all minor principles and interests; and we owe a debt of gratitude to those who so nobly wrought this glorious Union out of colonial chaos and isolation.