American Political Ideas Viewed from the Standpoint of Universal History | Page 2

suggestions can be expected; and I have not thought it worth while, for the present at least, to change or amplify the manner of treatment. The lectures are printed exactly as they were delivered at the Royal Institution, more than four years ago. On one point of detail some change will very likely by and by be called for. In the lecture on the Town-meeting I have adopted the views of Sir Henry Maine as to the common holding of the arable land in the ancient German mark, and as to the primitive character of the periodical redistribution of land in the Russian village community. It now seems highly probable that these views will have to undergo serious modification in consequence of the valuable evidence lately brought forward by my friend Mr. Denman Ross, in his learned and masterly treatise on "The Early History of Landholding among the Germans;" but as I am not yet quite clear as to how far this modification will go, and as it can in nowise affect the general drift of my argument, I have made no change in my incidental remarks on this difficult and disputed question.
In describing some of the characteristic features of country life in New England, I had especially in mind the beautiful mountain village in which this preface is written, and in which for nearly a quarter of a century I have felt myself more at home than in any other spot in the world.
In writing these lectures, designed as they were for a special occasion, no attempt was made to meet the ordinary requirements of popular audiences; yet they have been received in many places with unlooked-for favour. The lecture on "Manifest Destiny" was three times repeated in London, and once in Edinburgh; seven times in Boston; four times in New York; twice in Brooklyn, N.Y., Plainfield, N.J., and Madison, Wis.; once in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Milwaukee; in Appleton and Waukesha, Wis.; Portland, Lewiston, and Brunswick, Me.; Lowell, Concord, Newburyport, Peabody, Stoneham, Maiden, Newton Highlands, and Martha's Vineyard, Mass.; Middletown and Stamford, Conn.; Newburg and Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Orange, N.J.; and at Cornell University and Haverford College. In several of these places the course was given.
PETERSHAM, _September 13, 1884_.

CONTENTS
I.
_THE TOWN-MEETING._
Differences in outward aspect between a village in England and a village in Massachusetts. Life in a typical New England mountain village. Tenure of land, domestic service, absence of poverty and crime, universality of labour and of culture, freedom of thought, complete democracy. This state of things is to some extent passing away. Remarkable characteristics of the Puritan settlers of New England, and extent to which their characters and aims have influenced American history. Town governments in New England. Different meanings of the word "city" in England and America. Importance of local self-government in the political life of the United States. Origin of the town-meeting. Mr. Freeman on the cantonal assemblies of Switzerland. The old Teutonic "mark," or dwelling-place of a clan. Political union originally based, not on territorial contiguity, but on blood-relationship. Divisions of the mark. Origin of the village Common. The _mark-mote_. Village communities in Russia and Hindustan. Difference between the despotism of Russia and that of France under the Old R��gime. Elements of sound political life fostered by the Russian village. Traces of the mark in England. Feudalization of Europe, and partial metamorphosis of the mark or township into the manor. Parallel transformation of the township, in some of its features, into the parish. The court leet and the vestry-meeting. The New England town-meeting a revival of the ancient mark-mote.
Vicissitudes of local self-government in the various portions of the Aryan world illustrated in the contrasted cases of France and England. Significant contrast between the aristocracy of England and that of the Continent. Difference between the Teutonic conquests of Gaul and of Britain. Growth of centralization in France. Why the English have always been more successful than the French in founding colonies. Struggle between France and England for the possession of North America, and prodigious significance of the victory of England.
II.
THE FEDERAL UNION.
Wonderful greatness of ancient Athens. Causes of the political failure of Greek civilization. Early stages of political aggregation,--the hundred, the [Greek: _phratria_], the _curia_; the shire, the deme, and the pagus. Aggregation of clans into tribes. Differences in the mode of aggregation in Greece and Rome on the one hand, and in Teutonic countries on the other. The Ancient City. Origin of cities in Hindustan, Germany, England, and the United States. Religious character of the ancient city. Burghership not granted to strangers. Consequences of the political difference between the Graeco-Roman city and the Teutonic shire. The _folk-mote_, or primary assembly, and the witenagemote, or assembly of notables. Origin of representative government in the Teutonic shire. Representation unknown to the Greeks