But with us the age of this mode and degree of reform is over; its work is done. The passage of the sea; the occupation and culture of a new world, the conquest of independence—these were our eras, these our agency of reform. In our jurisprudence of liberty, which guards our person from violence and our goods from plunder, and which forbids the whole power of the state itself to take the ewe lamb, or to trample on a blade of grass of the humblest citizen without adequate remuneration: which makes every dwelling large enough to shelter a human life its owner’s castle which winds and rain may enter, but which the government cannot,—in our written constitution, whereby the people, exercising an act of sublime self-restraint, have intended to put it out of their power forever to be passionate, tumultuous, unwise, unjust, whereby they have intended, by means of a system of representation, by means of the distribution of government into departments independent, coordinate for checks and balances; by a double chamber of legislation, by the establishment of a fundamental and permanent organic law; by the organization of a judiciary whose function, whose loftiest function it is to test the legislation of the day by the standard of all time,—constitutions, whereby all these means they have intended to secure a government of laws, not of men, of reason, not of will; of justice, not of fraud,—in that grand dogma of equality,—equality of right, of burthens, of duty, of privileges, and of chances, which is the very mystery of our social being—to the Jews a stumbling block; to the Greeks foolishness,—our strength, our glory,—in that liberty which we value not solely because it is a natural right of man; not solely because it is a principle of individual energy and a guaranty of national renown; not at all because it attracts a procession and lights a bonfire, but because, when blended with order, attended by law, tempered by virtue, graced by culture, it is a great practical good; because in her right hand are riches and honor and peace, because she has come down from her golden and purple cloud to walk in brightness by the weary ploughman’s side, and whisper in his ear as he casts his seed with tears, that the harvest which frost and mildew and cankerworm shall spare, the government shall spare also; in our distribution into separate and kindred states, not wholly independent, not quite identical, in “the wide arch of ranged empire” above—these are they in which the fruits of our age and our agency of reform are embodied; and these are they by which, if we are wise,—if we understand the things that belong to our peace—they may be perpetuated.[153]