Excerpt from A Statistical, Political, and Historical Account of the United States North America, Vol. 1: From the Period of Their First Colonization to the Present Day

Tm; people of the United States have not to seek their origin, like other civilized nations, in the obson rity of barbarous or fabulous ages. Their genealogy is too short and too well ascertained to admit of the embellishment of fiction. At a period comparatively recent, their ancestors, consisting of a few families, were detached from the great mass of the European population, and left to their own resources, in a vast wilderness, where they were surrounded by savage enemies, and had many disadvantages to struggle with. In the short space of two centuries, while some of the older states of Europe have scarcely made any per. Ceptible advances, these few families have increased to a great nation, which has taken its place among the most powerful and enlightened states in the world. The sources of national wealth, and the productive powers of man, which are obscurely traced in the slow progress of old and fully peopled communities, are de. Veloped here on a gigantic scale. Our knowledge is enlarged by viewing a society constituted on prin. Ciples to which the old world presents nothing precise. Vet. I. Bly similar, placed in new circumstances, and compris ing, within a short period, many of the changes and varieties of condition which other nations have passed through in a long series of ages. Every step in their progress announces some' new truth to the world, and their first appearance on the theatre of nations marks a new era in the political history of mankind. It is fortunate that the history of a people whose ca reer has been so singular and instructive is tolerably complete. All the leading events and circumstances which have influenced the fortunes or character of the North Americans, from the first settlement of a few forlorn emigrants, up to the present time, are within the reach of investigation and the steps of that asto-u nishing progress, by which a small nucleus of civilized population has expanded to a mighty empire, can be accurately traced.

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