government upon these shores, but that was as impossible as the continuance of English authority.
It is vain to search for the particular cause, or even occasion, of the Revolution. It is not contained in any act of Parliament, or declaration of rights, or assertion of authority. The truth is, the colonies had reached that point of conscious strength when they must become an integral part of the British Empire, or be separated entirely from it. If there ever had been, there was no longer a feeling of dependence; they were capable of self-support and protection. There could be no allegiance except upon principles of equality—and this England refused. The connection was unnatural and burdensome—the separation was natural and beneficial. It is not a declaration of the law alone which limits the control of the father over the son, but in the order of nature there is a time when the son is capable of self-judgment, and thereafter as regards rights they are upon terms of equality, and all civil and social arrangements proceed upon that theory.
But had Great Britain proposed union in 1775 to us, as in 1800 she did to Ireland, the obstacles were so serious that a separation must ultimately have taken place. One was the breadth of ocean between the two parts of the empire—then, and for sixty years, a more serious obstacle than at present. Another was the peerage—a part of the British system which could not have been abolished without the overthrow of the government, and yet incapable of introduction here. The proposition would have shocked the moral sentiment and the political principles of the whole people. And finally, our growing commerce, uneasy under monopolizing restraints and rival domination, demanded the freedom of the sea. Therefore it is evident that a union could not have been formed with any hope of permanence and power. Nor could the separation have taken place at a more fortunate time. The whole world
