First Sentence

"THE history of our country is in one way of looking at it the history of ourselves; it is the history of our mind and body-of our soul and spirit also-for it tells how our fathers before us became what they were, and how our ways depart from or resemble theirs-how they won the liberties in which we have grown to be what we are-how they received and modified and handed down to us the inheritance of the old times before them-how the true history of a people is the history of its laws and institutions, more especially of its manners: and manners, as we know, maketh man."