George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition.

[355] spirit from allegiance to the past, and summon it to

Chap. XXXIV.} 1775. May. 10.

the creation of a state. But before this could be well done, the new directing intelligence must represent the sum of the intelligence of twelve or thirteen provinces, inhabited by men not of English ancestry only, but intermixt with French, still more with Swedes, and yet more with Dutch and Germans; a state of society where Quakers, who held it wickedness to fight, stood over against Calvinists, whose religious creed encouraged resistance to tyranny; where freeholders, whose pride in their liberties and confidence in their power to defend the fields which their own hands had subdued, were checked by merchants whose treasures were afloat, and who feared a war as the foreshadowing of their own bankruptcy. Massachusetts might have come to a result with a short time for reflection; but congress must respect masses of men, composed of planters and small manufacturers, of artisans and farmers; one-fifth of whom had for their mother tongue some other language than the English. Nor were they only of different nationalities. They were not exclusively Protestant; and those who were Protestants, professed the most different religious creeds. To all these congress must have regard; and wait for the just solution from a sentiment superior to race and language, planted by God in the heart of mankind. The American constitution came from the whole people, and expresses a community of its thought and will. The nation proceeded not after the manner of inventors of mechanisms, but like the divine architect; its work is self-made; and is neither a copy of any thing past, nor a product of external force, but an unfolding of its own internal nature.