Nobody but Americans could govern America. The people were too intelligent, too active, too various-minded, too full of native quality and genius to be ruled from abroad. If they were to fall under foreign subjection, they would become a dead weight in the world, instead of a source of life; as Adams said, every increase in population would be but an increase of slaves. And that they preferred death to slavery was every day becoming increasingly manifest. They felt that the future was in them, and that they must have space and freedom to bring it forth; and it is one of the paradoxes of history that England, to whom they stood in blood-relationship, from whom they derived the instinct for liberty, should have attempted to reduce them to the most absolute bondage anywhere known, except in the colonies of Spain. She was actuated partly by the pride of authority, centered in George III, and from him percolating into his creatures in the ministry and Parliament; and partly by the horde of office-seekers and holders whose aim was sheer pecuniary gain at any cost of honor and principle.

License information: nan
MPAA: PG
Go to source: http://www.online-literature.com/julian-hawthorne/us-history-vol1/