صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

in the chapter to which they belong, for their appropriate answers. Answers which cannot be found in the body of the chapters are inserted in immediate connection with the questions. It is not in such cases intended that the scholar should be required to commit the answer to memory in its exact words; if he can give the spirit of it, it is sufficient.

The Remarks, the scholar should be instructed to read carefully. To ascertain if he has done so, and if he understands them, the instructor should propose to him such questions as they suggest.

Most of the difficult terms which occur are explained. Should any still be found which the scholar does not understand, the instructor will of course see the necessity of explaining them.

The intelligent instructor will carry out at greater length from his own knowledge and ingenuity, many illustrations and examples of which only the first elements, or hints could here be given.

The book is designed for youth of some maturity of understanding. Such youth, if

they faithfully study it under the guidance of a competent and faithful teacher, will not only have the Constitution of their country firmly fixed in their memories, but understand it, learn to admire it as replete with wisdom, and to regard it as the preserver of the rights of the people, and the great fountain, under divine providence, of our national prosperity.

This Constitution derives its force from a formal expression of the will of the people. It is written in plain and definite terms. The people made it, and the people can, if they will, easily know what it is. They can determine whether the rulers of the nation obey or violate it, and they can act accordingly. They can see if it accomplishes the purposes for which it was made, and if it does not, they can alter it.

The people are its ultimate guardians and its only final preserver.

Every American citizen is as it were stationed upon a watch-tower, whence he ought to behold the rulers of the country administering the government under the Constitution, and to descry every deviation

from its rules. How will he be able to discharge the duties of such a trust, if he knows not WHAT THE CONSTITUTION IS ?

Every American citizen is a sentinel stationed on the outposts, not only of the liberties of his country, but of the great rights and liberties of the whole human family. The Constitution of the United States is the PALLADIUM of these rights and liberties. How shall he know when danger is approaching this sacred PALLAif he knows not WHAT IT IS? DIUM,

But should the watchman and the sentinel become corrupt, alas for the Constitution! It is founded in the virtue of the people. While this foundation remains broad and deep and uncorrupted, the edifice has nothing to fear. The angry winds of political controversy may blow upon it, the waves of political parties may dash against it, it will not fall. Should it be broken or suffer damage, a renovating efficacy resides in the bosoms of the people, and will surely be applied.

Let therefore, every parent and teacher inculcate upon his children and his pupils

the lesson, that morality, virtue, religion, or by whatever name it may be called, is the basis of all republican government, and the last and best hope of freemen. As one mode of doing this, let him show that every citizen is under a moral obligation to obey the laws of his country; that to defraud the government, is a sin just as really as to defraud an individual, that to evade the law, or to resist it, is a moral guilt for which the guilty must stand accountable.

We are so accustomed to the daily blessings which flow from the Constitution, that we are unmindful of their source. It too rarely enters our thoughts that this source may ever fail. We regard them permanent as the benefits which flow to us from the great fountain of light and heat.

That such may be the fact, let no effort be spared to instruct the youth of the country in the nature of these blessings, and to teach them the only mode by which they may be perpetuated.

CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN OF THE NORTH AMERICAN UNION.

THE United States of America were settled chiefly by colonies from England. These colonies either were in the beginning, or soon became, subject to the crown of Great Britain. They however had each its own local government, of which the precise character depended on the genius and circumstances of the colonists and upon the charter granted by the king. These governments, however imperfect, contained the first rudiments of the Constitutions which are now established in the different states of this Union.

The tree of liberty had long grown upon the English soil. Restricted, however, by numerous obstacles, it was unable to expand itself, and to put forth its precious

« السابقةمتابعة »