82                   GOUVERNEUR MORRIS,
they feared its very use ; they were anxious to
assert their independence of all mankind, even
of each other. Stubborn, honest, and fearless,
they were taught with difficulty, and only by
the grinding logic of an imperious necessity,
that it "was no surrender of their freedom to
submit to rulers chosen by themselves, through
whom alone that freedom could be won. They
had not yet learned that right could be en-
forced only by might, that union was to the
full as important as liberty, because it was the
prerequisite condition for the establishment
and preservation of liberty.
But if the Americans of the Revolution were
not perfect, how their faults dwindle when we
stand them side by side with their European
compeers ! What European nation then brought
forth rulers as wise and pure as our statesmen,
or masses as free and self-respecting as our
people ? There was far more swindling, jobbing,
cheating, and stealing in the English army than
in ours; the British king and his ministers
need no criticism ; and the outcome of the war
proves that their nation as a whole was less
resolute than our own. As for the other Euro-
pean powers, the faults of our leaders sink out
of sight when matched against the ferocious
frivolity of the French noblesse, or the ignoble,
sordid, bloody baseness of those swinish German