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than as a permanent institution, and the Constitution was framed with reference to its gradual and final extinction.

Indeed, the political philosophy that underlay the American revolution, embraced not simply the freedom of this nation, but the rights of human nature. This was the animating spirit of the movement, as directly opposed to the evil we are considering as light is opposed to darkness.

Alexander Hamilton directed against the odious stamp act the authority of British law, as he found it written down by Blackstone.

"The law of nature, being coëval with God himself, is, of course, superior to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid derive all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original."

Then, as if disdaining to stand on any mere human authority, however high, the framer of the American Constitution declared:

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

Lafayette closed his review of the Revolution, when returning to France, with this beautiful and glowing apostrophe: