[17] "The Reformation of Luther kindled up the minds of men afresh,
leading to new habits of thought and awakening in individuals energies
before unknown to themselves. The religious controversies of this
period changed society, as well as religion, and to a considerable
extent, where they did not change the religion of the state, they
changed man himself in his modes of thought, his consciousness of his
own powers, and his desire of intellectual attainment. The spirit of
commercial and foreign adventure on the one hand and, on the other the
assertion and maintenance of religious liberty, having their source in
the Reformation, and this love of religious liberty drawing after it
or bringing along with it, as it always does, an ardent devotion to
the principle of civil liberty also, were the powerful influences
under which character was formed and men trained for the great work of
introducing English civilization, English law, and, what is more than
all, Anglo-Saxon blood, into the wilderness of North America."--Daniel
Webster, _Works_, vol. i. p. 94.