He was a member of that absolute democracy, the old-fashioned New England country town, where character and worth were the only titles to respect in the community, where the son of a President or the son of a Senator or of a Governor stood on an absolute and entire social equality with the son of the washerwoman.
This passage illustrates Hoar's belief in the egalitarian nature of New England towns, where social status was determined by character rather than lineage.
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More from George F. Hoar
We bring you a more costly and precious gift than any jewel or diadem, though it came from an Emperor's treasury.
This Treaty would make us a vulgar, common place empire, controlling subject races and vassal states, in which one class must forever rule and other classes forever obey.
The language Statius uses is more simple than mine; but this is substantially the picture he gives: and I know of nothing that so impresses on the imagination the thunder of the power of the Roman Empire as this creation in the wilderness…
It is not too much to say that most of the main roads in England are Roman; but the very continuity of their use has caused this to be overlooked.
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