7325. REPUBLICANISM ( Governmental ), American.—
The light from our
West seems to have spread and illuminated
the very engines employed to extinguish it.
It has given them a glimmering of their rights
and their power. The idea of representative
government has taken root and growth among
them. Their masters feel it, and are saying
themselves by timely offers of this modification
of their powers. Belgium, Prussia, Poland,
Lombardy, &c., are now offered a representative
organization; illusive, probably, at
first, but it will grow into power in the end.
Opinion is power, and that opinion will come.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vi, 525.
(M.
1816)
