saw a new experiment tried,—­a government systematically built up from the foundation of the many,—­a government drawing its being from, and dependent for its continued existence on, the will and the intelligence of the governed.  The foundation had first been laid deep and strong, and on it a goodly superstructure of government was erected.  Yet, even to this day, the very subjects of that government itself do not realize that they, and not the government, are the sources of national prosperity.  In times of national emergency like the present,—­amid clamors of secession and of coercion,—­angry threats and angrier replies,—­wars and rumors of wars,—­what is more common than to hear sensible men—­men whom the people look to as leaders—­picturing forth a dire relapse into barbarism and anarchy as the necessary consequence of the threatened convulsions?  They forget, if they ever realized, that the people made this government, and not the government the people.  Destroy the intelligence of the people, and the government could not exist for a day;—­destroy this government, and the people would create another, and yet another, of no less perfect symmetry.  While the foundations are firm, there need be no fears of the superstructure, which may be renewed again and again; but touch the foundations, and the superstructure must crumble at once.  Those who still insist on believing that this government made the people are fond of triumphantly pointing to the condition of the States of Mexico, as telling the history of our own future, let our present government be once interrupted in its functions.  Are Mexicans Yankees?  Are Spaniards Anglo-Saxons?  Are Catholicism and religious freedom, the Inquisition and common schools, despotism and democracy, synonymous terms?  Could a successful republic, on our model, be at once instituted in Africa on the assassination of the King of Timbuctoo?  Have two centuries of education nothing to do with our success, or an eternity of ignorance with Mexican failure?  Was our government a lucky guess, and theirs an unfortunate speculation?  The one lesson that America is destined to teach the world, or to miss her destiny in failing to teach, has with us passed into a truism, and is yet continually lost sight of; it is the magnificent result of three thousand years of experiment:  the simple truth, that no government is so firm, so truly conservative, and so wholly indestructible, as a government founded and dependent for support upon the affections and good-will of a moral, intelligent, and educated community.  In our politics, we hear much of State-rights and centralization,—­of distribution of power,—­of checks and balances,—­of constitutions and their construction,—­of patronage and its distribution,—­of banks, of tariffs, and of trade,—­all of them subjects of moment in their sphere; but their sphere is limited.  Whether they be decided one way or the other is of comparatively little consequence:  for, however they are decided, if the people are educated and informed,